Oscar Chart Updates - Everything!

The Oscar Charts are all freshly updated (but for the second two pages of foreign film submissions which will go up very soon). It's an exciting time because before the fall festivals hit and while we're still contemplating the highlights of the year's first seven months, it seems like anything's possible. That feeling will soon dissipate of course but for now, (almost) anything goes. Biggest gains this update go to The Papers, mother!, The Big Sick, and Wonder Wheel. Meanwhile Wonder Woman enters several charts, though not with much in the way of current predictions as it gears up for a campaign. Dunkirk solidifies pre-release Oscar faith now that people have layed eyes on it en masse. Taking the biggest hit this time is Detroit tas it gears up for wide release but is proving divisive and controversial. Our initial hunch/faith in The Snowman (due primarily to the director) dissipates with its somewhat generic thriller trailer.

And here's the wonderfully opaque teaser for mother! which might be exactly the kind of thing that works in acting categories (where psychological horror is sometimes popular if the film is a hit) so I've had to boost Jennifer Lawrence up in the Best Actress chart... not sure what I was thinking to so undervalue her previously...

Check out the charts and report back, won'cha?

• INDEX • PICTURE • DIRECTOR • ACTRESS • ACTOR • SUPPORTING ACTRESS • SUPPORTING ACTOR • VISUAL CATEGORIES • SOUND CATEGORIES • SCREENPLAYS • ANIMATED FEATURES • FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS PT 1

Actress Chart Updates: Kate Winslet is Buzzing

Wonder Wheel continues to gather quite a lot of pre-release hype. It's opening quite late for a Woody Allen picture on December 1st. If you look at the history of his releases they've been summer counter-programming for a very long time now. Midnight in Paris (2011) and Blue Jasmine (2013) have been his biggest Oscar and commercial successes since the 1990s and they both opened in the summer. You have to go all the way back to Match Point (2005) to find a successful December release for the annual Woody Allens and that one came up short of expectations on Oscar nomination morning (1 nomination) despite a lot of pre-release critical buzz.

But Amazon Studios, who plan to distribute Wonder Wheel themselves (a first for them), seem to have an eye on Oscar. Perhaps they've bought into the common (and very wrong) belief that you have to be a December release to catch Oscar's eye? Good luck to them and we hope the movie is as good as we're hearing!

Consider this high praise from Kent Jones who selected the movie to close the New York Film Festival in October:

I’m not quite sure what I expected when I sat down to watch Wonder Wheel, but when the lights came up I was speechless. There are elements in the film that will certainly be familiar to anyone who knows Woody Allen’s work, but here he holds them up to a completely new light. I mean that literally and figuratively, because Allen and Vittorio Storaro use light and color in a way that is stunning in and of itself but also integral to the mounting emotional power of the film. And at the center of it all is Kate Winslet’s absolutely remarkable performance—precious few actors are that talented, or fearless.

Now, it's important to note that Kent Jones is the Festival Director and thus has an obligation to promote his festival but still... wouldn't it be wondrous to see Kate rise again after the delicious hint of her full throttle starpower returning via The Dressmaker last year?

UPDATED OSCAR CHARTS
Best Actress - Kate, Emma, and Meryl on the rise
Best Supporting Actress - Holly Hunter securely up top... for now
Foreign Film Chart 1 - Afghanistan to Ethiopia speculation

C O N S I D E R - Favorites of 2017, 2nd Qtr

THE YEAR'S FIRST HALF IS OVER! But rather than wait for this "halfway mark" for year in review listicles we started at the end of the 1st quarter so you'll have to combine those lists (movies / actresses / actors) with the highlights from your host's April through June screenings for a complete "halfway mark" take. Got it? Unlike many critics orgs and the Oscars, The Film Experience believes that moviegoing is a 12 month long activity and each month can hold worthy efforts.  Here are 4 or 5 highlights of what we've seen the past three months per Oscar category in alpha order. How will they measure up to what's still to come?

Key movies I regret missing this quarter: Beatriz at Dinner, Hero, Gifted, Manifesto, and Their Finest

PICTURE and/or DIRECTOR and/or SCREENPLAY
(i couldn't decide which to cut so this first grouped selection is 6 wide)

BABY DRIVER (Edgar Wright)
THE BIG SICK (Michael Showalter)
THE LOVERS (Azazel Jacobs)
LOST CITY OF Z (James Gray)
THE WEDDING PLAN (Rama Burshtein)
WONDER WOMAN (Patty Jenkins)

Lots more after the jump...

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Moonlight"

by Nathaniel R

Little and Juan framed by nature

A truth: No matter how much you love a movie on first viewing, what makes it become a classic, a masterpiece even, is less predictable. That's in how it endures and oft times whether it can keep giving you new information. Aging, even for non-living things like a movie which is already "complete," before it begins that process, is tricky. But after a handful of screenings of Moonlight over the past nine months, it's quite obvious that the film (not to mention its surprise Best Picture win) will age spectacularly well. A prediction: We're just barely getting to know its marvel.

The Hit Me With Your Best Shot series initially started as an idea to honor Cinematography but film is so collaborative and complex that that's not how it turned out. It's ended up being more of a mise-en-scène appreciation ... sometimes the images that grab you are lighting based, other times it's the perfect marriage of a sound and picture, and then there are performances so indelible that they even become the primary iconic visual. Because Moonlight is rich in all of its moving parts, I opted to just look at the first act (for now). And I did something I never do: I watched it with the sound turned off... 

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Today's 5: Tilda's miraculous Julia, Drew's dangerous Lolita, and more

It's a brand new week. Ready to get this one started with some pizazz? 

Five showbiz anniversaries for May 8th as mood boosters

2009 Julia opens in limited release in the US. It's arguably Tilda Swinton's greatest performance and also as against-type as it comes for the actress who was surprised Erick Zonca thought of her for the motor-mouthed titular sociopath. If you haven't seen it, what in the universe are you waiting for?

In its honor today: Do something totally atypical today, surprise yourself!

1992 Poison Ivy opens in theaters, serving as Drew Barrymore's buzzy "comeback"... yet she was only 17 years old. Child stars grow up fast, y'all...

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