Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 1:46PM by Nathaniel R
One of our recent traditions here at TFE is to guess which of the season's most celebrated actors will be the quickets to be enmeshed in Oscar battles again before you know it? VOTE DAILY (for the next week) on who you think it will be:
Some history of how well your votes have fared over the last two seasons follow...
Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 10:00PM 
Apart from Call Me By Your Name, awards voters rarely see anything worth celebrating in Luca Guadagnino's cinema. In some ways, this season seemed to be a change of pace on that front, with Challengers and Queer going into Oscar nomination morning with some hopes. Sadly, they both got blanked. And while the tennis melodrama was mostly vying for "below the line" honors, Queer had its sight set on a Best Actor nomination, the first piece of Academy Award recognition for the erstwhile Bond, Daniel Craig. Ultimately, the William S. Burroughs adaptation was probably too weird for AMPAS' tastes, but we're here to recognize a performance that's nothing if not Oscar-worthy…
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at 6:00PM The Oscar Volleys are back for some post-nomination talks. Today, Eric Blume and Eurocheese discuss the Best Actor race...
SING SING | © A24
ERIC: Hi Euro, I'm thrilled for this one-on-one with you to discuss our five Best Actor candidates. While I'm eager to discuss the actual race, because I think we have a real race here with several possible outcomes...what are your thoughts on the nominees themselves? How do you feel about the five? I think one is a little weaker than the rest (and that's Colman Domingo, more to come), but all in all a wonderful quintet full of talented actors doing very fine work. What is your take?
EUROCHEESE: That's funny - of the five here, Colman Domingo would actually have my vote…
Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 12:30PM In the Split Decision series, two of our writers face off on an Oscar-nominated movie one loves and the other doesn't. Today, for the last convo of the season, Abe Friedtanzer and Cláudio Alves tackle Conclave...
CLÁUDIO: As the Academy congregates to elect a new Best Picture winner, here, at The Film Experience, we continue our Split Decision convos. However, this debate won't finish with the white smoke of agreement - we never seem to come to such conclusions around these parts. And yet, we persevere in arguing because it's fun. Oh, how I wish Conclave were as fun to watch as it is to reflect upon and talk about. I've fallen in love with the movie those Yaoi girlies saw and keep promoting online, but that's not the movie I watched at TIFF. Edward Berger's too self-serious for such levity, even if this adaptation would have significantly benefited from a surrender to its gossipy pleasures. Give us RuPaul's Drag Race: Vatican with a matching Untucked, not this mirthless drudgery that only elicits laughs because it treats its characters as fodder for shock rather than people. I guess that's enough for an introduction. So let me do like Cardinal Lawrence and wrap up this homily. Or should I emulate Bellini and declare war? Whatever the case, let's go, Abe. Come defend your Catholic fave.
ABE: We're off to a good start with this bevy of puns and references, which should make for a great conversation…
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 5:30PM In the Split Decision series, two of our writers face off on an Oscar-nominated movie one loves and the other doesn't. Today, Eric Blume and Ben Miller discuss A Complete Unknown...
ERIC: Hey Ben! It's cool to be able to discuss A Complete Unknown with you. I didn't love the movie, but I did find it very entertaining until its final reel, and it kind of felt like the kind of sturdy Hollywood films they don't make very often nowadays. I have lots of thoughts about it, but where do you stand on the movie overall?
BEN: This is where we diverge, because outside of some of the supporting performances, I found it dreadful. I wasn't even entertained. The entire film felt like an anti-musical biopic, but the more it tried to get away from the formula, the more it leaned into it...
