Oscar Volley: Oscar's Choice for "Best Cinematography" (and more)

The team is pairing off to discuss each Oscar race. Here's Glenn Dunks and Eric Blume...

ELVIS Cinematography by Mandy Walker OSCAR NOMINATED

GLENN: Hi Eric, let's talk all things camera and light—it's Best Cinematography. Can I just start by asking one big question regarding this particular category. What happened to Top Gun: Maverick here? Claudio Miranda, previous Oscar winner for Life of Pi, was supposed to be our runaway favorite and yet on nomination morning, Lydia Tár claimed one final scalp amid her reign of terror. And a second question, I suppose. Did that Top Gun miss just hand this trophy to All Quiet on the Western Front? As much as I am craving a win for Mandy Walker (for many reasons including how historic it would be), I just can't see anything but the German war movie coming out on top here.

ERIC:  Glenn, two excellent questions.  Let's tackle the first...

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Oscar Volley: Is ‘Best International Film’ a done deal?

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Cláudio Alves and Nick Taylor discussing the Best International Feature Film race.

CLÁUDIO: Since the last batch of Oscar volleys in a pre-nomination world, few categories have been as shaken up as Best International Film. Back then, you could still wonder if All Quiet on the Western Front had been seen by enough people in the industry. Now, after its slew of Oscar nods and smashing BAFTA performance, it's competitive in multiple categories and expected to nab an easy victory in this one. I've already elaborated on my distaste for Edward Berger's war picture and find myself rather delighted to have been paired up with you, dear Nick, for this volley. You see, dear reader, here's someone who might dislike the movie even more than my nitpicky ass.

NICK: But I’ve softened on All Quiet a bit…

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SAG Acceptance Speeches, Ranked

by Nathaniel R

SAG Awards are often a good swift night. There's no dawdling around with filler, there's not much in the way of montages, but there are clips, acceptance speeches, and a parade of celebrities. In short, we're into it. The most sublime inspired combo in terms of presenter pairings was the evil twinnage of Jenna Ortega and Aubrey Plaza. (Whoever thought of that deserves a 20% raise.)  But what SAG is all about is the acceptance speeches.

They come one after the other, a veritable parade of gushing. This ranking was done on the fly from memory so... I do not stand by it should you want to fight in the comments. Nevertheless why not share the acceptance speeches? (the ones we could embed at least). Let's look at the speeches  from least best to best best...

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Can Jamie Lee Curtis win the Oscar?

by Nathaniel R

We'll discuss the full list of SAG winners in the next post but first the big surprise. Tonight's major curveball in the film categories was Jamie Lee Curtis' win for Everything Everywhere All At Once. But perhaps this win shouldn't have felt like a shock at all...

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Best Ensemble, Casting, Stunts, and More...

by Nathaniel R

EEAAO an easy choice for "Best Ensemble" discussions.

With the SAG Awards airing tonight -- we expect to see encore speeches from Blanchett, Fraser, Bassett, and Quan since the acting winners tend to get set in stone once televised ceremonies begin -- let's talk acting categories that Oscar doesn't have. Here are my personal favourites for Casting, Ensemble, Stunts, and Juvenile Performances, a couple of prizes which SAG has and two that they don't...

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