Oscar Chart Updates: Costume Design

by Nathaniel R

The costume design branch loves Michael O'Connor's film work. Could Ammonite bring him his fourth nomination?

Let us know ask our crystal ball about the robust possibilities in the Costume Design race at the Oscar. This contest don't feel quite as wide open as Best Supporting Actor or as Best-Picture-related-simple as Adapted Screenplay or as 'what the hell will they choose?' unusual as Visual Effects and Makeup. But it does present several interesting options for a nominated quintet.

Oscar's three favourite living costume designers (Atwood, Canonero, Powell) aren't around this year -- well, Sandy Powell is but does anyone think the Academy will watch The Glorias? -- so where will the Academy's costume branch look?

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Year in Review: The 20 Greatest Stocking Stuffers of 2020

Our year in review lists begin!  We'll try to bring you one each day for the next couple of weeks. We polled the team for this one and haphazardly tallied the results. At least two members had to vote for them or they had to score really high on one person's list. It's so not scientific but it was fun to think about: Which movie or television prop did you most covet this year? Here are the items Team Experience craved.

Just imagine pulling any of these things out of your stocking this holiday...

20 A BOTTLE OF SECONAL from Mank
If the pandemic has reeked havoc on your sleeping schedule, and what timetable hasn't it disrupted this year, you can take back control with one of these babies if someone is kind of enough to throw it in your stocking. No wrapping necessary. Maybe don't down a whole travelling case full of them like a boozy screenwriter, though.  - Nathaniel

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Showbiz History: Bob Hope, Ava Gardner, and Herbie the Love Bug

7 random things that happened on this day, December 24th, in showbiz history

1936 The Jungle Princess starring Dorothy Lamour and Ray Milland opens in movie theaters. How about that tagline?

"You savage, untamed she-devil -- I adore you!"

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Three Golden Globe "controversies" that shouldn't surprise anyone

Apologies for not addressing this earlier today but of the three Golden Globe rulings that have the internet's collective tongue wagging, only one of them surprised us and only in a very mild kind of way. Perhaps this is why we didn't jump to discuss figuring that people would respond with a shrug. How wrong we were! If you're like 'what the hell are you discussing, Nathaniel?' here's a quick survey.

The three controversial rulings:

1. Minari will not be eligible for Best Picture at the Globes but instead compete for Best Foreign Language Film. Our surprise level: 0%. The Globes have never allowed pictures that weren't in the English language to compete in Best Picture and we just assumed everyone knew this but we were quite wrong. The same exact thing happened as recently as last year (The Farewell, 2019) and as recently, before that, as the year before (Roma, 2018)...

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Oscar Chart Updates: Are the critical leaders in "Supporting" Oscar bound or not?

by Nathaniel R

Is there a stranger 'big eight' Oscar category situation this year than the Supporting categories? Both of them appear to have a weird dearth of mainstream contenders. Meanwhile the critics awards or "precursors" have (thus far) been laser-focused on upping the Oscar viability of just two (or three if we're being generous) arguably non-traditional options in those categories: Maria Bakalova's comic improv genius in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Paul Raci's weary mentor in the hard-edged indie Sound of Metal, and Youn Yuh-Jung's spirited grandmother in Minari. 

Which brings up the natural but loaded question of what part critics do or don't / should or shouldn't play in the televised awards races. There are no doubt complicated reasons why critics all across the nation vote so uniformly in some years but we'd argue that it's never from a lack of good options as hundreds of movies starring plentiful gifted actors come out each year...

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