A Few Thoughts on the Golden Globes

by Nathaniel R

Screenshot from the Golden Globes 

Did you watch the Golden Globes Sunday night? The show was (mostly) bereft of the kind of shocks we got in the pre-reform era but in a year where crystal Oscar balls are still foggy with possibility -- seriously, which film is going to win Best Picture? -- there was still inherent drama in the opening of envelopes. At least on the film side; the TV prizes were a complete snooze fest, merely rubber-stamping September's Emmy wins! Spreading the wealth should not be such a difficult concept for awards voters but we live in an age of monopolies and oligarchs so maybe abundance it's just not a vibe for the entertainment industry these days. 

Emilia Perez (4 wins) and The Brutalist (3 wins) were all the rage with Globes voters. But did anyone else get a boost heading toward Oscar nominations?

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Weekend Awards Wrap-Up: New Year, New Winners

by Cláudio Alves

Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin are keeping HARD TRUTHS in the awards conversation.

It's been a while since our last Weekend Awards Wrap-Up. So long that the year changed, as we all bid adieu to 2024 and welcome 2025 with open arms. Mayhap inspired by a sense of annual renewal, critics groups varied up their game a tad. Colman Domingo is now leading in the number of wins, trumping Adrien Brody in Best Actor, while Margaret Qualley is pulling ahead of her other co-leads masquerading as supporting actresses. Yet, the week's biggest story is Marianne Jean-Baptiste securing the critical trifecta of the NYFCC, LAFCA, and NSFC. This feat has never before been achieved by a woman of color and has only once been given to an actress who AMPAS didn't then herald with an Oscar nomination of their own…

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Golden Globe Predictions, Anyone?

by Nathaniel R

The Globes often zig when people say they'll zag and true shockers are peppered all throughout their history. But times have changed. Since the HFPA have been shamed and named and restructured in the past five or so years, the voting body is quite different. They're likely to play things much much safer then they once did in an attempt to be respectable and predict the Oscars. But that's the cynical view. Any rounding off of their edges won't really even be conscious. When voting bodies become large (and their voting body is much larger now) they tend to default to whatever the 'buzz' is and lose the kind of personality that you can get with smaller organizations. It's why some festival juries and regional critics groups (a few of them at least) still exhibit something in the way of personality. Anyway, let's have fun guessing the Globes which start at 8:00 pm tonight after the jump...

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

• THE BRUTALIST, A24
• A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, Searchlight Pictures
• CONCLAVE, Focus Features
• DUNE: PART TWO, Warner Bros. Pictures
• NICKEL BOYS, Orion Pictures / Amazon MGM Studios
• SEPTEMBER 5 Paramount Pictures

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Team Experience Oscar Predictions: Pre-Globe Jitters

by Cláudio Alves

Wake up, Ani. The Team Experience sees lots of gold in your near future!Mere hours before the Golden Globes kickstart the televised part of the season and crown the first big precursor winners, let's unveil the Team Experience Oscar predictions. As in years past, various members of The Film Experience's writing team were asked to deliver their Academy Award predictions, contributing to some collective punditry. This season, you can count on my best guesses and those of Eric Blume, baby Clyde, Eurocheese, Abe Friedtanzer, Christopher James, Ben Miller, Nick Taylor, plus the one and only Nathaniel Rogers. For this first set of team predictions, we've focused on the so-called "above the line" categories, plus Animated and International Film for good measure. In other words, the races that tonight's ceremony might shake up…

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Oscar Volleys: Best Picture is all about Narratives

Here’s Cláudio Alves and Ben Miller on the Best Picture race...

THE BRUTALIST, Brady Corbet | © A24

CLÁUDIO: Hello Ben, it's time to discuss the biggest category of them all - Best Picture.

This year, I'm sad to say I'm not especially passionate about the top contenders. Indeed, taking a glance at my rankings, it's likely that not a single nominee even cracks my top 25. Then again, miracles do happen once in a while, even when all seems said and done. Even so, imagining an AMPAS lineup without Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Pérez, or Wicked seems increasingly difficult. In those times before the category's re-expansion to ten nominees, these would be the five I figure most folks would be predicting. Do you concur? 

BEN: I am really enjoying the variance in this year's race…

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