Hello, Gorgeous: Best Actress of 2022

A new series by Juan Carlos Ojano

“WHO IS SHE?”, a philosopher named RuPaul once asked.

As with that question, character introductions are vital in storytelling. First impressions are usually given importance right from the page, as those will establish our relationship with said characters. Screenwriters strategize on how they describe a character when they enter the story. Likewise, directors pay attention to how characters enter the story for the first time. Whether those entrances become consistent with the rest of the character or are ultimately subverted as the narrative unfolds even further, they matter a lot. 

Since it is a truth universally acknowledged that Best Actress is perhaps the single most important category in the long history of the Academy Awards, particularly in the lives of its (mostly gay) fans who worship actresses to the ends of the earth, this new series will be focusing on how each of the five Best Actress-nominated performances were introduced in their respective films. Narrative functions, filmmaking decisions, emotional implications, and stray observations included...

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Gotham Awards 2023: De Niro Censored and Gladstone Crowned

by Cláudio Alves

With the Gotham Awards ceremony, the season is officially underway. It was a night marked by studio intrusions into a space heretofore reserved for indie filmmaking, a "spread the wealth" attitude, and one controversy. When introducing a prize to Killers of the Flower Moon, Robert De Niro found his speech censored – presumably by Apple – but that didn't stop him from saying everything he had in mind. As soon as the video package wrapped, De Niro made sure to read his original text, complete with anti-Trump sentiment and John Wayne shade.

Some surprising results included a victory for A.V. Rockwell's A Thousand and One over Past Lives in the Breakthrough Director category, though the Celine Song film still took home the night's biggest prize. On the acting front, Charles Melton won Outstanding Supporting Performance for May December and charmed the whole room, while Lily Gladstone took the Lead Performance prize for The Unknown Country. Even when she's not representing Martin Scorsese's latest, voters are eager to recognize the actress…

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Golden Horse Awards 2023

by Nathaniel R

Ang Lee congratulates the Best Actor winner at the Golden Horse Awards. Image via Golden Horse instagram.

While Stonewalling, a drama about a pregnant flight attendant had the least amount of nominations of the "Best Narrative Feature" contenders (just 3), it emerged with the big win this past weekend in Taipei. (You can stream the film on Criterion Channel in the US). Curiously the big winner in terms of number of prizes was Old Fox, which wasn't nominated for Best Feature though it took Best Director and three other prizes. Another curiousity: none of the acting winners were from Best Feature nominees. The winners and a few of their trailers are after the jump...

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Gotham Awards 2023: Getting a grip on "Past Lives"

By Nick Taylor

With the Gotham Awards dropping tomorrow, I decided to cap off this little series with a rewatch, one of the year’s most popular independent films that, to my surprise, did not have a full review at The Film Experience . . . . until NOW!! That’s right folks, we’re talking about Celine Song’s Past Lives. Nominated in Best Feature, Breakthrough Director, and Lead Performance for Greta Lee, this sleeper hit has made about as strong of an impact as an early-year release could hope to achieve. I was fully seduced by it reputation in the weeks leading up to its release, and though I was completely besotted with Past Lives on first watch (to the point of showering it with attention across my own halfway-through-the-year ballot), I’ve never quite shaken the concern I succumbed to hype rather than fully engaging with it. This was an ideal opportunity to give the film another shot, and seeing it again helped to further solidify my feelings on this tricky flick . . . .

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A Quick Hello + Updated Oscar Charts

by Nathaniel R

As the long holiday weekend comes to a close I wanted to come in and surprise you with a quick hello. I've been very absent. I'm fully aware. I've even written about the existential crisis but opted not to publish (for now, he said ominously? playfully?). Anyway, since it's gratitude season and a long holiday weekend I have to thank Cláudio for holding down the fort so beautifully. And thanks also to Nick, Juan Carlos, Eric, Glenn, Abe, and Chris for their November articles!  I thought briefly about writing a big sequel to Cláudio's "thankful for" post, but I will still be doing the Film Bitch Awards even if I do nothing else (hopefully I'll do something else) so don't want to give everything away just yet as to what excited me most this year's movie haul. So instead I opted to spend the spare hours inbetween holiday commitments to update the Oscar charts.

PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTRESS | ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SCREENPLAYS | VISUALS | SOUND | INTERNATIONAL FEATURE | ANIMATED & DOCUMENTARY FEATURES

Awards season is about to hit full throttle. So it was long past time and there's quite a bit of movement on each chart. The big festival surprise was of course American Fiction so that has disrupted several charts. Overall it feels like a messy volatile year, punditry wise, which is my favourite kind of year. So many movies feel like they could get a lot of nominations... or come up much shorter than people were expecting.  I have things to say about Ferrari, Maestro, The Holdovers, The Taste of Things and Killers of the Flower Moon but I keep trying to learn my lesson about over-promising. Wish me luck. xoxo