An "Evita" Reunion

by Camila Henriques

One thing I love to do each award season is to scan through the connections between the films and nominees.  That sighting of Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix at the Golden Globes  transported me immediately back to 2005's Walk the Line. Amongst this year’s Oscar nominees, though, the connection that has me most nostalgic is one between two category mates: Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce, competing with each other in Best Actor, are finally Academy Award nominees.

They have a past together in Argentina, the same country that gave us Pope Francis, played so delightfully by Pryce. More than two decades ago, Pryce played another famous Argentinian, former president Juan Peron in the Alan Parker/Andrew Lloyd Webber/Madonna extravaganza that was Evita. That movie also featured Spanish heartthrob Banderas, fresh off a successful transition from being the quintessential Almodóvar man to Hollywood player, with talked about turns in Philadelphia and Desperado. He'd become an even bigger international star with Evita... 

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Did Scorsese actually score five nominations?

by Cláudio Alves

Officially, Martin Scorsese received two nominations for this year's Oscars. He's a contender for Best Picture, as a producer, and the Best Director statuette for his long-gestating epic The Irishman. However, there's a fellow nominee whose movie is noticeably indebted to the old master's filmography. So much so, that some would go as far as to say that these other project's nominations are due to nostalgia for the Scorsese of yore as much as they are to this new movie's actual quality.

We're talking about Todd Phillips and his triple nomination for the Joker…

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Soundtracking: The 2019 Original Song Nominees

by Chris Feil

Right on schedule, the "why do we still have Best Original Song?" responses have arrived. While this year doesn't rank high among the greats in terms of quality, I, your resident Best Original Song obsessive, would argue that this year's crop of nominees is far from the worst. The most expected (or at least predicted) nominee left off the list was The Lion King's "Spirit", though we can all rest on the certainty that Beyoncé will one day be a nominee here. And then there is many folks saddest omission, Wild Rose's "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)", sadly from a small film that couldn't ultimately battle against bigger names and titles.

Let's break down the nominees and their potential to win...

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Is Black-and-White the Path to Gold?

by Cláudio Alves

Lately, it seems every time a film shot in black-and-white is even tangentially associated with Oscar buzz, it becomes an immediate contender for the Best Cinematography trophy. Even if many were skeptical (not Nathaniel, who predicted it), The Lighthouse proved this once again when it conquered a nomination for the work of DP Jarin Blaschke. In this case, at least, the nomination is amply justifiable with The Lighthouse looking like a series of haunted daguerreotypes, full of shiny fluids and battered bodies, ominous tempests and the enticing flame of the titular lighthouse.

Still, that's not always the case. Here are all the black-and-white Best Cinematography nominees of the 21st century…

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Team Experience reactions #2: Final questions from today's nominations

We've polled Team Experience one last time today to answer the following three questions to complete our Oscar Nomination Day reactions (apart from the podcast which is going up soon). We hope you'll chime in too.

1. Which nomination are you happiest about?
   
   
2. Which is the strongest category and which is the weakest? 
   
   
3. Nominees always release totally generic statemetns about being "truly honored". But which nominee would you most like to have been a fly on the wall to watch their totally authentic reactions/conversations this morning. 

Ready? You'll hear their answers after the jump...

WHICH NOMINATION MADE YOU HAPPIEST?

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