Beauty vs Beast: Blessed Are The Forgetful

"Random thoughts for Valentine's day... Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap."

Jason from MNPP here, wishing everybody a happy Valentines (even if I do lean towards the incredulous sentiment expressed above). When you ask yourselves what the great romantic films of our times are, what answers do you come up with? Because I asked myself that question in order to choose this week's holiday-themed edition of "Beauty vs Beast" and it was Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (from whence that quote came) that was the very first movie I thought of...

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13 Days Until Oscar. Three Questions

OSCAR VOTING HAS NOW OFFICIALLY BEGUN! The Academy now has just eight days to make the tough choices like Denzel vs Casey, La La Land versus everything else for the craft prizes, The Salesman vs Toni Erdmann (all of which were just discussed on the podcast), Mahershala vs Dev, and so on. 

I am not a superstitious person. It annoys me that 13th floors do not exist in buildings. I have walked under ladders if it was the quicket path to get somewhere. I welcome black cats crossing my path because I love cats of all colors. But let's play along with the #13 being unlucky for the purposes of today's Oscar countdown.

Answer me these questions three...

• What is the worst possible outcome for Oscar night that you actually fear?
• Who do you think has been unluckiest with Oscar over the years?
• If one of the nominees accidentally breaks a mirror on Oscar night and gets seven years of bad luck who would you have it be? 

The Furniture: Lost in Space and Time with "Passengers" and "Arrival"

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. This is the second of two columns discussing this year's Oscar nominees. Here's Daniel Walber...

On the surface, Arrival and Passengers appear to be the most similar of this year’s Best Production Design nominees. They’re both science fiction films set in the near future. Yet the similarities end there. Passengers is set entirely on an extravagant, colorful spaceship. Arrival splits its scenes between the interior of a minimalist UFO and densely packed military tents.

There is also one more essential difference...

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"Here" and "There" with The Bening

Why doesn't Annette Bening have every award that was ever invented including the Pulitzer, the Heisman, and an Emmy from 1993 Sesame Street... 

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BAFTA Winners: La La Land, Daniel Blake, and... Lion's Dev Patel!

Dev Patel struggles to find "words words words" when he wins the BAFTA.

Confession: Despite The Film Experience's devout love of awards season, your host does not actually watch the BAFTAs. I gave up years ago when it was clear that they were never going to change their announce-the- winners and then tape-delay-broadcast-highlights-of-show. It's just not pure enough for my spiritual devotion to the holy act of passing out trophies. I can't stomach it.

The winners with commentary (and videos once they're available) follow...

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