Monday, March 13, 2023 at 2:16PM by Eric Blume
How can you sit through the Oscars, see each of your favorites lose in essentially every category, but still come away thinking it’s one of the best Oscars in history? That was the miracle of last night’s show.
Last year, the 94th Academy Awards, was Oscar’s nadir...
Monday, March 13, 2023 at 9:51AM by Nathaniel R
Everything Everywhere All At Once swept the Oscars last night, winning 7 of its 10 categories (and 11 nominations). While it wasn't a "clean" sweep, it's the only sweep and the biggest haul for a Best Picture winner since the expansion of the Best Picture field changed the Oscar stats story in so many ways back in 2009. (The only other film to win that many Oscars in the current era was 2013's Gravity, which lost Best Picture). The most shocking element of EEAAO's big win in terms of the history books (if not the temperature of awards season) was the fact that it won 3 of the 4 acting Oscars. This has only happened twice before in Oscar's 95 years via A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), and Network (1976).
We'll talk about the ceremony later today but first the prizes and some stats / observations...
Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 12:36PM by Nathaniel R
Multiverses were the hot trend in mainstream cinema this year with the MCU banking its whole future on the appeal of mirror dimensions and alternate timelines. If you take the trend less franchise-literal, it was even more omnipresent. Multiple films asked us to consider alternate realities, ahistorical timelines, and the multiplicity of identity through the power of both storytelling and our own imagination. It's through this broad prism that I present my take on the year's best films.
I hope you enjoy though it always bears repeating that "Best" is necessarily subjective; We each occupy our own universes when it comes to these matters. Before the top ten, a bakers dozen of honorable mentions...
Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 1:19AM ;)
Remember when Bong Joon-ho and NEON did a special re-release of Parasite in black-and-white? Since then, it's been an awards season tradition to imagine what the Academy's Best Picture nominees would look like devoid of color. This exercise is based chiefly on silly fun since there's more to black-and-white cinema than just turning the saturation dials down. However, it sometimes reveals exciting things about the films at hand. Whose cinematography relies the most on chromatic contrast? What picture would survive the best in monochrome, mayhap even excel? Last year, The Power of the Dog proved a silvery revelation, calling to mind midcentury revisionist westerns. Let's see if this batch of nominees includes a similar success…
Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 9:00PM Team Experience has been pairing or tripling up to discuss the Oscar categories. Here's the (presumed) final award of Sunday night with Elisa Giudici, Nathaniel R, and Eric Blume...
NATHANIEL: Hello team. The final category. Best Picture is such a big big topic, 1434 minutes big. Or 24 and a half hours big if you wanted to watch all the films back to back... though, really, why would you? That's a lot of movie and it's also a lot of Movie-Movie since these mostly aren't shy and self-effacing films. With the exception of Women Talking, if all of these movies were at a party together they'd each try to be the life of it. Or at least life-adjacent. Banshees of Inisherin might just gab away in a corner and The Fabelmans might just watch everyone / everything... but quite enthusiastically!
I picture Avatar The Way of Water arriving first, because it can't be bothered with a schedule and eager to scope out the scene and really become the vibe. TAR will arrive last with a big flourish and bold gestures expecting the party to shape-shift around it. I'm starting with a party-theme because I am willing myself to stay positive...
And also because I confess I really love a full half of these movies (which is rare). I think we all know who is leaving the festivities with the most party favors from that naked gold host but we don't have to start there.
Please enter this party festively and tell me what you think of the room...
