Year in Review Beauty Break: Thirst Traps of 2021

by Team Experience

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... as is thirst. When we polled Team Experience for the hottest actors of 2021, the voting was all over the place and thus fairly close. So we ended up with a dozen people (after the jump) that had at least two ardent fans among our team members in the preferential ballots.  Because the voting was so close they're presented in random rather than ranked order.

Other hotties that earned our lust, admiration, and aesthetic wonder included: Penelope Cruz in Parallel Mothers, Ruth Negga in Passing, Lady Gaga in House of Gucci, Idris Elba in Concrete Cowboy, Benedict Cumberbatch in Power of the Dog, and Rebecca Ferguson in Dune. And because thirst is not always singular, great pairings like Taylour Paige and Riley Keough (Zola), Melissa Barrera and Anthony Ramos (In the Heights), and Daniel Craig and Ana De Armas (No Time To Die) also showed up in the ballots. Speaking of the latter, why wasn't she the main Bond girl of the movie?!? WOW!

Okay, on to the gallery...

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Chart Updates: Film Editing, Production Design, Cinematography!

by Nathaniel R

All of the Visual categories in the Oscar charts have now been updated save Costume Design which we tend to give its own articles -- playing favourites, sorry! But looking over the charts and the possibilities, it does beg the question: are Dune and West Side Story just going to be nominated in every category? And will any other films core as many nominations?  The year isn't short on films that are visually remarkable of course. There's Power of the Dog, Nightmare Alley, Tragedy of Macbeth, The French Dispatch, The Green Knight, Passing, and more.

But the question is always what are voters actually watching and what are they liking? Being remarkable only gets you so far...

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Oscar Chart: Who gets the fifth slot in Best Supporting Actress?

by Nathaniel R

Will there be room for both Anitas in the Best Supporting Actress race?

Nothing much has changed in the Best Supporting Actress competition over the past month except the arrival of West Side Story but, provided you left a slot open for the new "Anita" (Ariana DeBose) sight unseen -- since that role is always an awards magnet --  chances are your predictions haven't changed much since seeing the film. Even all the critics prizes and the arrival of the bigger precursors like NBR, Globe, Spirits, Gothams, and Critics Choice nods did a grand total of not much to solve the question of the "fifth slot"... only to cement that we have four near-sure things: Ariana DeBose (West Side Story), Kirsten Dunst (Power of the Dog), Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard), and Caitriona Balfe (Belfast) who keep showing up in every list.

So who gets that fifth slot? That is the loaded multi-actress question...

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Almost There: Glenda Jackson in "Mary, Queen of Scots"

by Cláudio Alves

Eva Husson's Mothering Sunday arrives in American theaters in February. If you are in the UK, you can already stream or rent the movie online. This period drama marks the return of Glenda Jackson to the big-screen after years in Parliament and brief stints on stage. So it seems logical to celebrate this tremendous thespian now, who remains one of the strangest Oscar favorites in Academy history. I've written about her 1970 victory for Women in Love before, but Jackson's career is vaster than the fruitful collaboration with Ken Russell. For instance, on TV, she played the definitive dramatization of Elizabeth I in the BBC's 1971 miniseries Elizabeth R and won two Emmys for her efforts. Concurrently, the actress also played the 16th-century monarch on film.

Charles Jarrott's Mary, Queen of Scots saw her consider the role in a less historical context, performing the Virgin Queen in romanticized opposition to Vanessa Redgrave in the part of her doomed Scottish cousin…

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Visual Effects Shortlist - Scene Breakdown

By Ben Miller

The 10 finalists for the Best Visual Effects Oscar were announced last week.  Though once reserved for films that pushed the boundaries of what films could visualize, the Oscars have since gravitated towards spectacle and bombast.  Of the 10 films, none came from an independent studio or had a budget less than $100 million.  That isn't to say their effects should be discounted, but don't expect to see something like Ex Machina or shortlisted documentary Welcome to Chechnya from last year.  This category is usually reserved for outright spectacle, and these shortlisted films reflect that.

Let's focus on one specific setpiece per film that highlights the visual effects artists...

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