Oscar Volley Finale: Best Picture!

The Oscar Volley series concludes with Nathaniel R, Nick Taylor, and Abe Friedtanzer talking Best Picture...

Would the DGA 5 have been the Best Picture 5 if there weren't 10?

NICK TAYLOR: Hello hello! We convene here on the precipice of the 98th Academy Awards to discuss its most above-the-line category, Best Picture! Trade’s reporting says One Battle After Another is leading the pack with Sinners hot on its neck. Rather than starting with the frontrunners, let me ask a different question: who do we think would have made this lineup if Best Picture was still only five nominees?

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Support Me In the Love of All Things Supporting!

by Nathaniel R

Elle Fanning, Conan O'Brien, Youn Yu Jung, and Delroy Lindo did NOT make the nominee list but I loved all four performances just the same.

Dearest readers, I apologize at how long it takes me to do all this but now is the time to finish the Film Bitch Awards. Should be done in the next couple of days!  That's probably more exciting for me than for you but what of it?!?  Be my Supporting friends and DISCUSS. Before we get to the nominations a quick look at the dozen performances I cherished most in Supporting from men and women...

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Oscar Volley: Is "Best Actress" tied up with a bow for Jessie Buckley?

The Oscar Volleys continue. Today, LYNN LEE and NICK TAYLOR discuss the surprisingly stable Oscar race for Best Actress.

Jessie Buckley in HAMNET | © Focus Features

LYNN: At the risk of stating the obvious, Nick, Best Actress has been the most predictable stable of the four acting races by far. Is there a world in which Jessie Buckley doesn’t take this? And are we basically fine with that?

NICK: I mean, where else is there to start? Buckley’s the surest winner of the acting categories, and among a handful of artists (PTA, Ludwig Göransson) who have to know they’re winning the Oscar. I’m not complaining. Buckley’s been delivering ambitious, awards-worthy turns since she debuted with Beast in 2017, and her turn as Agnes is such an ideal use of her screen persona. The practical intelligence, the precise-yet-walloping emotions, the way her characters are so irreducibly themselves that their odd edges and peculiar beliefs doom them to black sheep status even when things are looking their way. She’s incredible, and just because the grieving mother is an easy type for awards groups to notice shouldn’t diminish how powerful her work is in Hamnet...

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Oscar Volley: Will “Best Cinematography” make history?

The Oscar Volleys continue. Today, ERIC BLUME and CLÁUDIO ALVES discuss the potentially historic race for Best Cinematography.

With SINNERS, Autumn Durald Arkapaw might become the first woman to win the Best Cinematography Oscar. | © Warner Bros.

ERIC: Hi Cláudio, I'm the lucky man who gets to talk to you about one of Oscar's most exciting categories, Best Cinematography.  Except, for me, it is not a very exciting category this year.  Usually, this branch has at least one or two truly inspired nominations that feel exclusive to their expertise.  This year, much like the Production Design category I just discussed with Ben, I feel like we broke more into the "default" films that popped up in every category. 

What's your initial impression of the five nominees:  Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Train Dreams?

CLÁUDIO: My initial reaction is that the cinematographers branch should collectively see an optometrist, while the Academy at large needs to watch more movies than the twelve or so titles left contending for a Best Picture nod at the end of December. Alas, that is not the world we live in…

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They've Got Character!

by Nathaniel R

Hedda, Ronaldo, Rumi, and Remmick were some of the most memorable characters this year

In my mad rush to complete the annual Film Bitch Awards before Oscar night, I have completed the "character" pages. Each year I eagerly await meeting new divas, heroes, sexpots, and villains in the movie theaters and then celebrating them this way.  Supersized or heightened characters tend to make more of a difference in genre pictures, but you'll sometimes find indelible characters that fit these rather broad labels in comedies and dramas, too...

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