Oscar Volleys: How Many Pop Hits in Best Original Song?

Team Experience will be discussing each Oscar category as we head into the precursors. Here's Eurocheese and Baby Clyde...  

"Ciao Papa" in GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO

EUROCHEESE: Well Baby, It's Cold Outside and you know what that means - we're Falling Slowly into awards season, and it's time to name the songs seeking Glory in the City of Stars. There are a few big hits that Take My Breath Away: Rihanna's "Lift Me Up," which seems to be everywhere at the moment; Lady Gaga's "Hold My Hand" in the year's biggest hit that just won't slow down; and the standout song from Del Toro's Pinocchio, "Ciao Papa," which I expect will make the cut. Do you agree these three are solid initial nominees, or do you have High Hopes that rest elsewhere? Any Secret Love that you see near the top of your list?

BABY CLYDE: Hey Mr Cheese, I Just Called To Say I Love You. The Academy must be salivating at the prospect of this year’s nominees. Am I correct in thinking that Rihanna, Gaga, Taylor and Billie Eilish are all legit contenders in this category...

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What did you see over the weekend?

By Ben Miller

Unsurprisingly, horror films released in October rule the box office.  Smile was able to snag the top spot behind a viral marketing campaign and a better-than-average critical recepiton (77% on Rotten Tomatoes).  Unfortunately, the big story of the box office week was the failure of Bros.  The Billy Eichner-starring film earned less than $5 million despite an A CinemaScore and critical praise (91% on RT).  Plenty of people on Twitter have their opinions on the failure, but maybe we should let the film continue it's run before deeming it a failure.  Regardless of the opening weekend, this doesn't bode well for the viability of LGBTQ+ studio content going forward.

Weekend Box Office  September 30th-October 2nd 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
SMILE	PONNIYIN SELVAN

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Podcast Guesting: On 'Bros' and Fantasy Oscar Drafts

by Nathaniel R

I recently had the pleasure of guesting on two podcasts. The first was the annual fantasy draft episode of Oscar Wild wherein various pundits/Oscar fans chose our horses for the Oscar season. You'll recognize a lot of the lovely voices. It was fun which was expected but also extremely tense which was a surprise -- I drew the shortest straw so I was the last to choose a contender but the draft was in a snake order so thankfully it all sort of evened out. The episode was recorded BEFORE the festival premieres so some of the choices are already ouchies given the mixed/negative reception of a few of the films. I'm pretty happy about betting on Top Gun Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, and Elvis among others. The rest, we shall see. 

Then this weekend in a change of pace I was the guest for a bonus episode of Hallmarkies, a podcast about romantic comedies with a focus on Hallmark movies. Since frequent Hallmark leading man Luke Macfarlane is the romantic co-lead of Billy Eichner's Bros, it was a natural topic for them to hit.

I really really loved Bros (even more than Baby Clyde did) and, though I wish I'd been a bit more eloquent in singing its praises, I hope you enjoy both the movie and this podcast. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I would suggest waiting until you do to listen to this since we talk about the plot in full and you'll want to save the surprises and great laugh lines for the moviegoing experience! 

Baby Clyde's TIFF Diary #1: "Bros" First!

Editor's Note: We will have some reviews at TIFF from Abe and Matt. Meanwhile Baby Clyde will be offering daily diaries. Hope you enjoy!

En route to TIFF!It’s a long-accepted fact in my office that for the first two weeks of September I will be away. No phone calls. No emails. No invoices. I’ll be travelling to Canada to spend 10 days in dark theatres watching the newest Oscar Bait all by myself and doing my very best to avoid speaking to anyone else whilst I’m there. Only this time I'm skipping the last bit as I'll be taking directly to you beloved readers. Nathanial has persuaded me to keep a TIFF diary to keep you abreast of all my festival adventures; He may regret it. 

So here I am back for the first time since 2019. It was of course Covid-19 that kept me away for the last couple of years, but it was only on planning this trip that I remembered the Coronavirus was nothing compared to the travails of the TIFF ticketing system...

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"Bros" and Colman Domingo at the 35th annual Out on Film festival

by Nathaniel R

Shout out to any of our readers in Atlanta or thereabouts! Atlanta's premiere LGBTQ film festival Out on Film is kicking off its 35th anniversary edition on September 22nd with the Bily Eichner romantic comedy Bros as its opening night film. The festival closes on October 2nd with a movie about a double drag queen act Chrissy Judy. The festival's longtime director Jim Farmer has built it up for years into a must attend for LGBTQ films, a chance to showcase local filmmaking talent, AND an Oscar qualifying event...

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