FYC: "Flee" in Best Sound

by Chris James

Sound can be more visceral than sight when recalling painful moments from the past.Flee is a unicorn of a film, a hybrid of so many styles of storytelling. In the most basic of terms, it’s a first person documentary feature as Amin recounts his journey from Afghanistan to Denmark. The use of animation in telling Amin’s story serves a few different purposes. On a social responsibility level, animating the entire film helps protect the subject and their family. From a stylistic perspective, the animation draws us into Amin’s crisp memories, only to have the traumatic flight from Afghanistan be painted with broader, more dramatic strokes. It’s as if Amin’s memory is protecting him from the details. Come the time of Oscar nominations, it could be the first film nominated for International Feature, Documentary Feature and Animated Feature. Matt St. Clair has already done a great job lobbying for it in Best Picture, which would be richly deserved. 

There is one other category that the Academy should make sure to consider Flee in - Best Sound. 

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What films are we underestimating for tech nominations?

By Ben Miller

With the film year winding down, the higher-profile films are packing the predictions of Oscar pundits everywhere.  As easy as it is to predict Dune and Nightmare Alley to have plenty of technical nominations, what films are we underestimating?

For the last 18 years, at least one film has received a single Oscar nomination in a below-the-line category.  While it is not unusual for a film to receive a single nomination in Best Original Song, Original Score or Cinematography but these are the categories awards pundits and the Oscars themselves don't tend to pay as much attention to...

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Oscar Predictions: Visuals, Score, Animation, and Sound

by Nathaniel R

The Oscar charts are finally going up. Best Animated Feature was the first a month ago but it's been tweaked to reflect Belle, rising, post its special Cannes screening, as well as Disney's stingy release of Luca. We're saving Cinematography and Costume Design for their own posts tomorrow but for now the rest of the Visual charts as well as Score and Sound are up. Yes, we're predicting a strong showing for House of Gucci, Dune, and Eternals in craft categories. Take a look and sound off in the comments. 

9 days until Oscar. This year's 9-time nominees

by Nathaniel R

9 time Academy Award nominee Ren Klyce at work

While the 93rd Annual Academy Awards are largely a very exciting 'fresh voices!' kind of competition, all Oscar years barring the very first couple (haha) have some regular nominees show up. In the absence of a Streep or a Williams this year the only people in the double digits are songwriter Diane Warren and a couple of sound guys (more on sound in a minute). But we wanted to highlight count three men with 9 nominations today. Only one of them, has previously won. They are...

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