Oscar Volley: Beyond the locks, Best Picture is hard to predict

Team Experience is discussing each Oscar category in the lead up to the nominations. Here's Nathaniel Rogers, Cláudio Alves and Nick Taylor to talk Best Picture...

EDITORS - NOTE. THIS DISCUSSION WAS HELD OVER A TWO+ WEEK STRETCH WHERE A LOT OF THINGS HAPPENED. SO THINGS SHIFT WHILE WE'RE TALKING...

 NATHANIEL: Hello teammates. I thought I'd throw you a little unexpected curveball in our last volley. Rather than starting with frontrunners or longshots, let's talk philosophies of selection for a brief moment. When the AFI selects their list annually (depressingly reading like Oscar predictions) the guiding principle is. film that are "culturally and artistically representative of this year’s most significant achievements in the art of the moving image. When the Library of Congress does their annual retroactive National Film Registry list they choose based on "cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage."

That cultural / aesthetic double-side strikes me a LOT like the very first year of the Oscars when there were two separate Best Picture categories " Outstanding Picture (which went to Wings) and Unique and Artistic Picture (which went to Sunrise) .If we want to get really reductive about it -- which we should so that this conversation doesn't go 10,000 words -- it also strikes me a lot like Commerce vs. ART which has always been the tension of Hollywood itself and by extension, the Oscars…

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Yeoh with the good timing

by Nathaniel R

Michelle Yeoh in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"

How's this for campaign timing? While Oscar nominations are announced January 24th (next Tuesday - final predictions right here tomorrow)  Voting on the actual winners doesn't take place until the first week of March (Oscar night is March 12th). In that crucial month inbetween the nominations and the ceremony, look what's coming back to theaters -- CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) in a 4K restoration! That's right. Michelle Yeoh's other Oscar-worthy Lead Actress performance will be back in theaters on February 17th. Cate Blanchett (TAR) will be hard to beat in Best Actress this time around but this can't exactly hurt the cause to make history in voting for Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once); awards races never happen in vacuums and feelings about whole careers and historical precedent also often enter the room. No Asian actress has ever been nominated for Best Actress and thus no Asian actress has won*... 

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Doc Corner: A to Z of the Longlist (Part 4)

By Glenn Dunks

As we carry forth alphabetically along our merry way through the Academy's 144-title long-list (yes, we'll still be going both after the shortlist as well as after the nominations next week—click here for A through J) we have coincidentally found two consecutive titles about the city of New Orleans. Bost missed the shortlist, which isn't surprising although they each have their virtues. Following these, however, is one film that did make the Oscar shortlist and that doesn't make quite such convenient bedfellows, but rules are rules and we're dealing with what the alphabet gives us.

The strongest of the pair from Louisiana is Katrina Babies, Edward Buckles’ partly autobiographical account of life in the city post Hurricane Katrina. Buckles uses a mixture of interviews, archival news footage and colourful animation to tell the story of how this natural event destroyed the way of life of so many, but in particular a group of children who knew no other life and were quickly forced to grow up.

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The BAFTA nominations are here!

by Cláudio Alves

Despite four nominations, this was a sad day for "Aftersun" | © A24

In the last two years, BAFTA managed to distance itself from the precursor norm, asserting an individual identity separated from the affairs of predicting the Oscars. Well, it seems such idiosyncrasies were a short-lived fad if this year's nominations are to be trusted. The weirdest thing about their latest slew of nominees is how much they align with expectations and repudiate the very possibility of weirdness. All Quiet on the Western Front leads the pack with 14 nominations, having been recognized in all possible categories apart from Best Actor. Next, we find The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All At Once, with ten each. Those are the only titles whose bounty amounts to double-digit nods.

Come discover the complete list of nominees, after the jump…

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Split Decision: "All Quiet on the Western Front"

No two people feel the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the awards movies this year. Here’s Eric Blume and Cláudio Alves on Germany's Oscar contender.

ERIC:  Claudio, let's get down and dirty on Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front.  I'm in camp "love" and I think you're in camp "don't love"?  The only real dissent I've heard from folks is that "it says nothing new about war" (which I look forward to addressing).  But let's start with overall impressions of the film.

CLÁUDIO:  Well, it's adapting a seminal anti-war novel – maybe THE anti-war novel pre-WWII – already made into a Best Picture Oscar winner before. So it's not like it had much hope of saying something new about its subject. Nevertheless, Edward Berger and company bring plenty of "new things" to the narrative presented in the literary work and its previous adaptations, so there's that...

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