Hello, Gorgeous: Best Actress of 2017

A new series by Juan Carlos Ojano

This year’s slate of nominees showcase five performers strategically placed within the vision of their respective films right from their introductions. Whether introduced in a scene with actual spatial detail that immediately relates to the core of their characters or configured within the film’s style and tone in a more general sense, none of our first glimpses of them are deficient in meaning and purpose. It is probably not a coincidence that most of these performances appear in Best Picture nominees (and the one that didn’t probably came close too), a rarity in the Best Actress category.

Are you ready? The year is 2017...

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Last Minute FYCs from Team Experience

by Nathaniel R

Rachel McAdams in "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret."

Oscar nomination voting began yesterday morning and will continue through Tuesday, January 16th at 5 PM. Word has it that the bulk of Academy members vote early in the time frame. For those holdouts who are still thinking about their ballots and screening a couple more films just to be sure, we asked members of Team Experience to share what they hope will be considered...

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Who Will Be The Snub or Surprise at Oscars?

By: Christopher James

Can the entire trio of Killers of the Flower Moon get nominated after Leo's SAG snub?

Now that the SAG Awards have announced their nomination, we have a very clear picture of where the Oscar acting races are heading into Oscar voting. Every year features its snubs and surprises. The one thing you can rely on the Oscars for are some curveballs. However, there are ways we can systematically predict the lineup using the numbers of the past to inform the future.

Let’s apply some statistics to figure out the most likely nominees...

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On Gladstone and Scorsese's Mollie Kyle

by Cláudio Alves

Oscar voting opens today, and, for once, some of my favorites are poised to thrive on the nomination ballot. Because of that, it might seem overkill to write FYC pieces, those love letters by another name. Even so, as it's a time for advocacy, I shall articulate why some of the year's best cinematic achievements deserve to be recognized as such. Today, I find myself inspired to make the case for Lily Gladstone, a virtual lock for a Best Actress nomination who might win it all. And to think some said going lead would ruin her Oscar hopes. 

As Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, she breathes life into a dark chapter of American history. Gladstone illuminates the tragedy of a woman and people betrayed, forsaken by individuals who claimed to love them and systems who exploited them under the guise of protection, brutalized by greed and white supremacy…

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DGA Nominees: Gerwig, Lanthimos, Nolan, Payne, and Scorsese

Greta Gerwig on the set of "Barbie". Photo by Jaap Buitendijk for Warner Bros.

The Directors Guild of America has announced their nominations for the film year just passed. They are:

OUTSTANDING DIRECTING ACHIEVEMENT, THEATRICAL FEATURE FILM

• Greta Gerwig, Barbie (2nd DGA nod) 
• Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things (1st DGA nod) 
• Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer (5th DGA nod) 
• Alexander Payne, The Holdovers (3rd DGA nod) 
• Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon (13th DGA nods in various categories, 2 previous wins, + 1 Lifetime Achievement Award) 

In short, the Best Picture frontrunners! All five of these films are locked up now in Oscar's headline category. It reminds us of ye olden times when armchair pundits knew that the DGA choices were more predictive of the eventual Best Picture nominees (back then more nail-biting with only five choices) than Oscar's Best Director lineup. Old factoids like that have vanished in the modern era when every film with considerable buzz ends up in the Best Picture lineup. But it's fun to think back on, especially in light of these choices...

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