Queering the Oscars: Bruce Davison in "Longtime Companion"

by Cláudio Alves

As nominees, presenters, and other attendees arrived on the red carpet for the 63rd Academy Awards, they were met with righteous commotion. ACT-UP members picketed the ceremony, holding banners decrying universal inaction when over 102,000 people had already died by the modern plague of AIDS. During the festivities proper, activist David Lacaillade, who had found his way to the audience, stood up and shouted invective against the proceedings, demanding action and calling those who do nothing hypocrites. AIDS Action Now! Sadly, there seemed to be very little in the way of open solidarity inside the Shrine Auditorium.

Earlier, protestors offered button pins emblazoned with "SILENCE = DEATH" to the folk walking the red carpet. Most people declined to wear them, but Bruce Davison was one of the few to don the message. He was also the rare example to wear it all ceremony – some people took them down before the opening monologue was through. Davison was present as the sole nominee from Longtime Companion, the first mainstream feature to depict the effects of AIDS in the gay community. Walking into the Oscars, he felt a heavy responsibility pressing down on his shoulders. In his own words, the actor was "carrying the torch for the people represented in this film"... 

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Queering the Oscars: Chris Sarandon in "Dog Day Afternoon"

For Pride Month Team Experience is looking at queer & queer-adjacent moments in Oscar history.

by Nick Taylor

“I wish I had an abusive boyfriend who was willing to rob a bank to pay for my sex change operation.” sighed my friend Jude after we finished watching Dog Day Afternoon (1975). Pride is always an ideal excuse to make all my cool queer friends watch cool queer films (I do this all the time, mind you), and our Queering the Oscars series has created the perfect opportunity to revisit old favorites with good friends.

In the context of queer cinema, Dog Day Afternoon is a fantastic surprise to put in front of a crowd, since it doesn’t announce itself as such from the outset...

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Oscar Completism: Best & Worst of Supporting Actor

by Baby Clyde

Walter Brennan in "The Westerner". The last of his three wins was the most deserving.

After spending most of my life cataloguing all these Oscar winning performances, I feel uniquely qualified to bore you all with my rankings. We’ll cover my favourite winners before handing out some booby prizes to the all-time worst recipients in each acting category. 

Let’s start with the category that nobody cares about, Best Supporting Actor...

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Oscar Stat Fun - No Sweeps in the Modern Era but can "EEAAO" change that?

by Nathaniel R

That complete sweep at the Spirits and SAG has us wondering now whether or not Everything Everywhere All At Once will win Best Picture but how many statues in total can actually win. We haven't seen a sweeper at the Oscars in a long long time. Yes some films have won all their categories but they aren't true "sweepers" i.e. thoroughly dominant movies. It would be technically accurate, for example, to say that CODA performed a clean sweep last season. It did win all of its categories but it wasn't a sweeper in any meaningful sense since it was only up for 3 Oscars.

In fact, a big sweep hasn't yet happened in the expanded Best Picture era!  Can Everything Everywhere All At Once change that? Let's look at the history and stats after the jump...

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Oscar Volley: When did Best Supporting Actor stop being a contest?

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Ben Miller, Elisa Guidici, and Nick Taylor discussing Best Supporting Actor.

NICK TAYLOR: Hi there, Elisa and Ben! Boy do I feel like we have the easiest acting category to evaluate for this year’s ceremony. Eric Blume and Chris James went over this category over two months ago and though their predictions didn't exactly match they both foresaw 4/5ths of Oscar’s lineup. My predictions were rubber-stamping the SAG list, so seeing Judd Hirsch and especially Brian Tyree Henry get in at the last minute felt like a real surprise to me. Ke Huy Quan, Brendan Gleeson, and Barry Keoghan made it as they were expected to, and even with Keoghan scoring a win with BAFTA, I think Quan’s looking like the most secure acting winner going into Oscar night.

With that being said, and before we get too far into the race, would y’all like to quickly share your favorite supporting actors who didn’t get nominated?

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