Nathaniel's Best Actress & Supporting Actress Ballots

by Nathaniel R

How is it Friday before the Oscars already? So much to do before then including Final Predictions, my own top ten list, two more Oscar volleys, and ten more categories at the annual film bitch awards (my own long-running party of "best" this & that). Sorry to rush through the duet of the categories we live for: Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. But they're up. Among the 10 selected actresses there are six current Oscar nominees but only five overlaps; Hong Chau is stronger in The Menu than in The Whale. In both cases, and as always in her career, she's totally elevating her material. "These are tortillas" is among the very best line-readings of the year. Somehow she's calm, polite, and dripping with condescension at the same time. She's just a magical actress and it's so satisfying to see her finally get her mainstream due via that Oscar nod.

And you surely foresaw that I couldn't have a Best Actress list this year without the great Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You Leo Grande (doing her most revelatory work in two decades) and Danielle Deadwyler, so operatically moving in Till. 

P.S. Though we can't do the medal ceremony until all categories are posted, I think I've made it clear over and over again that Dolly de Leon will be my gold medalist for Best Supporting Actress. While it's abundantly clear that she was an 'almost there' in 6th place for Oscar's shortlist, given how well Triangle of Sadness did overall, it's still a damn shame she was passed over. I'd boot any of the current nominees -- even the ones I myself nominated -- just to have her in that lineup.

Team Experience Predictions Chart - FINAL PREDICTIONS

Final Oscar predictions from the team...

The time has come! The Film Experience writers have made their predictions in all 23 Oscar categories. While many categories are incredibly contentious, one in particular seems pretty easy.

BEST PICTURE

After a staggering precursor run, every member of the Team Experience is predicting Everything Everywhere All At Once to win Best Picture. We don’t want to get overconfident, but the Daniels’ multiverse epic will likely take a healthy chunk of hardware home on Oscar night. The question at hand is how many awards it will win...

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Oscar Volley: Biopic Breakout or Heartfelt Comeback in "Best Actor"?

Team Experience has been teaming up to discuss the various Oscar races. Here's Christopher James, Abe Friedtanzer and Nathaniel R...

CHRIS: It's been a while since Best Actor was the most exciting and unpredictable race of the evening. Heading into last weekend, it was truly a three man race between Austin Butler (Elvis), Brendan Fraser (The Whale) and Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin). Now that both BAFTA and SAG have made like Brendan Gleeson and passed over Farrell, I sadly feel like he has dropped out of contention for the win. Of the nominated five, he was my personal vote. He knows how to dramatize Pádraic's hurt, while also finding the comedy in his tragedy. With just the crinkle of an eyebrow, he communicates such emotional vulnerability, a level to which we don't often see men rewarded for showing.

The race is now a photo finish with BAFTA/Globes winner Austin Butler and SAG/Critics Choice winner Brendan Fraser. This mirrors the 2011 Best Actress showdown, where Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) had both BAFTA and Golden Globes wins and Viola Davis (The Help) took home SAG and Critics Choice prizes. In the end, Streep won, which is hopeful for Butler. However, the SAG/Critics Choice combo was a successful path to victory for Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) last year, so Fraser is certainly not out of the running...

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Presenters set for Oscar night. (But who else would you love to see?)

By Nathaniel R

The complete list of presenters is in for the 95th Academy Awards. They are… Riz Ahmed (best live action short 2021), Halle Bailey (the new Little Mermaid), Halle Berry (best actress 2001), Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain (best actress 2021), John Cho, Glenn Close (perennial bridesmaid and future Honorary Oscar recipient obviously you don't need to be psychic to know that), Jennifer Connelly (best supporting actress 2001), Paul Dano, Ariana DeBose (best supporting actress 2021), Cara Delevingne, and Harrison Ford. And that's not all...

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Oscar Volley: Best Documentary Feature captures the real world

Team Experience is teaming up to discuss each Oscar category. Here's Glenn Dunks and Baby Clyde...

GLENN: Hi Baby Clyde, are you ready to talk documentaries? I just published my best documentaries of the year feature here at The Film Experience so I am ready to tie this year's world on non-fiction in a bow.

Will Laura Poitras win a second Oscar to go with her Golden Lion?

First things first, what do you think of this year's batch of nominees for Best Documentary Feature? As is pretty common for this category as of late, I don't think there's a bad film in the bunch, with a good coverage of American and international fare. It's a line-up that even has the added bonus of featuring the best documentary of the year in its ranks (that would be Laura Poitras' All the Beauty and the Bloodshed). Last time that happened was just two years back with Collective so the category, for me, continues to remain strong and getting stronger as the number of contenders rises and rises...

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