The 2nd Annual Team Experience Award Goes To...

Amir here, to bring you the results of the 2nd annual Team Experience Awards, a poll of the year’s best in film by the international group of writers who contribute regularly to this website. In our inaugural edition, Leos Carax’s off-kilter French fantasy, Holy Motors, won the top prize. This year, our 14 voters are more in synch with the American awards season tune. I think it’s fair to say we all like 12 Years a Slave. Like, really, really like 12 Years a Slave. If Steve McQueen’s film were Sally Field, we’d be the Academy circa 1985.

BEST PICTURE
12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
Runner-up: Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach) 

BEST DIRECTOR
Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave)
Runner-up: Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) 

However, the consensus and the number of categories topped by Slave don’t quite reflect the intense competition behind the scenes. In fact, only two categories were landslides: Best Picture and Best Visual Effects. Elsewhere, the competition was intense and never really took shape until the last ballot was in. In the best supporting actress category, for example, five women were within an inch of each other, and Emma Watson (The Bling Ring) and Kristin Scott Thomas (Only God Forgives) missed out on the runner-up spot by a hair. The nitty-gritty of our votes further down but now the winners of the 2nd Team Experience Awards...

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Red Carpet Globe Lineups

I'm frantically trying to prep my final Oscar predictions (so difficult this year. Wheeee) and realizing with great sadness that I don't have anymore time to talk about the Golden Globes. Oh, that they'd space things out a little. So herewith some hastily assembled photos and super brief gawking at Globe looks. 

Starting with a gallery I've dubbed "Trying Too Hard / Barely Trying" -- guess who's doing which? -- and moving on to best & worst after the jump...

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Say What? Cate and Jessica

Glenn here. The Golden Globes are an endless source of "what is happening there?" fun. We already asked what you thought was going on with Meryl, Emma and Harvey and now Jessica Chastain's endlessly entertaining Facebook page posted this photo of the two-time Oscar nominee laughing hysterically a "naughty" Cate Blanchett joke on the Globes' red carpet. But what did Cate say?

As I watched the Golden Globes with Nathaniel and The Boyfriend, the topic of Cate's Australianness came up. In that, she doesn't sound Australian anymore. She never really did. However, watching her at the awards on Sunday night - and this entire year back to the interview trail for Blue Jasmine - and the way she just has no time for anybody's bull is the most Australian thing of all. Her comment about Ryan "I hated every second of that" Seacrest swept across Twitter like a wildfire, as did her back-handed compliment to U2: "Your first album was really great." And let us not forget her oughta-be-famous appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman earlier this year. So what could she have possibly said to make Jessica react that way?

I Dream of Arendelle

Last night, surely prompted by Frozen's Golden Globe win and upcoming Oscar run, I dreamt that I discovered a magical threat to Arendelle. I helped Queen Elsa find enemy spies who were watching her every move through carefully planted glittery baubles placed around the kingdom. Since Disney princesses veritable sweat glittery knickknacks, you can imagine how difficult the foreign objects were to discover and destroy. [more...]

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Curio: Just Keep Livin'

Alexa here. My personal highlight of the Golden Globes this year, and of my Sunday night, was Matthew McConaughey.  I'm glad that all the prognostication over the last few years finally payed off with a win for him. And I loved/found it hilarious how "on brand" he was with his speech (opening it with "alright alright alright" and closing with a variation of "just keep livin").

Right after the show I threw "True Detective" on, and it couldn't have lived up to the hype more, with McConaughey delivering yet another career-high performance in the first episode.  Since the chances of a Wooderson-esque speech at the Oscars are probably still low, let's celebrate this moment with some curios in the Texan's honor.

More after the jump including bongos...

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