Paul Newman @ 100: "Sometimes a Great Notion"

By Ben Miller

Whatever your feelings of Paul Newman as an actor, movie star, matinee idol or philanthropist, his directorial achievements are never high up on the list. Who's to say why he only directed five feature films in his distinguished career? In the case of Sometimes a Great Notion, it was out of necessity.

While signing on as star and producer of the adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel, original director Richard A. Colla left due to the classic "artistic differences" clash. Whether it was Newman or someone higher up, Newman attempted to recruit longtime collaborator George Roy Hill, who declined. With no other options, Newman took on the job himself...

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Team Experience Oscar Prediction: Final Scores

by Cláudio Alves

No one predicted I'M STILL HERE in Best Picture. | © Sony Pictures Classics

We're still reeling from this morning's Oscar nominations announcement but it's time to check predictions and assess the numbers. Like last year, various members of the Team Experience put forward their best guesses. While the point of this exercise is to see how different folks see the race, it's also a little competition of sorts, with a pundit ranking at the end. Overall, our collection of writers did better than last year, averaging a 75% success rate when excluding those tricky short film categories. These predictions also help us grasp what the day's big surprises truly were, both in terms of shocking selections or notorious snubs. Without further ado, here's the final score…

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Some Positive Thoughts on Our Oscar Nominees...

by Eric Blume

EMILIA PÉREZ | © Netflix

Each Oscar nomination morning, there’s always that moment of sadness or anger over our favorites being left out of the race.  It’s part of the fun of the awards season really…righteous indignation feels damn good!  And I’m sure, for all of you, this year was no exception.  There’s always something to gripe about on how the Academy did someone dirty, or how they’re sheep about following the trends, etc.

BUT, let’s have some fun and look at some of the positive things about this year’s nominees…

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A few thoughts on the Oscar nominations...

by Nathaniel R

Nominations have been announced for the 97th Academy Awards and our worst fears are realized: we’ll now be forced to watch a movie about T**** just as he’s in the process of dismantling democracy. The Apprentice scored two acting nominations. Though Sebastian Stan hadn’t been winning awards for this movie but the other one (A Different Man, in which he is brilliant), never doubt the power of a famous actor playing a famous person. Unless that person is Angelina Jolie I guess? She famously missed the category in 2008 for a biopic despite doing well in the precursors and now she’s missed again for Maria. 

Our other worst nightmare for this season is also true: Problematic messy Emilia Perez has obliterated the record set by infinitely better movies Roma and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon to become the most nominated non-English language film of all time at the Oscars. In fact, with 13 nominations it’s one of the most nominated movies of any kind. We are living in wild times...

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Indie Spirits Revue: “The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed”

by Nick Taylor

It took me a while to get caught up in this one, lemme tell you. One can argue whether Joanna Arnow's droll tone, disposition towards cringe comedy, and restrictive palettes in color and emoting is a sneakily incisive feat or a weird student-film misfire. For a film about a woman's exploration of various BDSM relationships while navigating a dead-end job and a stilted relationship with her family, The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed possesses no titillation or temperature spikes to make the audience more engaged…

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