Who should present Glenn Close the Oscar?

by Cláudio Alves

Glenn Close and Deborah Kerr at the 66th Academy Awards. | © AMPAS

By this point, everyone and their mother has heard about the Honorary Oscar recipients for 2026. It’s been decided by the Academy to bestow these honors on Ridley Scott, Glenn Close, and pioneering Black American animator Floyd Norman. Producers Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon will also receive the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, with nobody getting a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for the first time since 2020. Much will be written about these artists, here and elsewhere, with plenty of time still to go until the 17th annual Governors Awards are held on November 15. However, to start things off, why not dispel some of the seriousness that comes as a package deal with such honorifics and enjoy a bit of silly speculation. Specifically, who should present Glenn Close with her long-awaited Oscar? 

Back in 1994, at the 66th Academy Awards, then five-time nominee Glenn Close had the privilege to deliver six-time nominee Deborah Kerr with the trophy she had earned since her Powell & Pressburger days. In actressexual and Oscar obsessive circles, this momentous occasion is seen with some irony, as it almost feels as if one perpetual Oscar loser passed her legacy to the next generation. Or should we call it a curse? If that’s the case, should Close keep with tradition and doom another thespian to a life without a competitive Oscar win? If that’s the case, the choice of presenter is clear…

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Cannes: "La Bola Negra (The Black Ball)"

by Elisa Giudici

The cast of LA BOLA NEGRA

By now, the Los Javis hardly need introduction at Cannes. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who just tied Pawel Pawlikowski to win Best Director at the Cannes closing ceremony, have spent the last decade becoming not just successful filmmakers and showrunners, but cultural architects for a new generation of Spanish storytelling: proudly queer, emotionally maximalist, deeply rooted in national history while fully conversant in pop melodrama and contemporary television language. If Veneno made them unavoidable and La Mesías confirmed their creative ambition, La Bola Negra (The Black Ball) arrives as the film where they attempt to canonize themselves.

The scale alone announces the shift. Produced under the banner of El Deseo (the Almodóvar brothers’ company, also in Competition this year with Pedro’s latest) La Bola Negra carries the unmistakable aura of succession mythology around it. Not a rejection of the Almodóvar lineage so much as a generational mutation of it...

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"You Might Know Her From" Alert!

by Nathaniel R

Heads up that yours truly did a guest stint on the wonderful actressexual podcast "You Might Know Her From" last week which is up just in time for the Oscars.  "You Might Know Her From" is hosted by queer comedians and best friends Anne Rodeman and Damian Bellino. For their main episodes they interview character actresses. Recent guests have included Tony winner Cherry Jones (The Handmaid's Tale, The Eyes of Tammy Faye), Oscar nominee June Squibb (Nebraska, Thelma, About Schmidt), and other fun guests like Dana Ivey (The Color Purple, Addams Family, The Help), and Wendi McLendon-Covey (Bridesmaids, Reno 911). But they also have sidebar "extra" episodes, with non-actresses like myself or to discuss tv shows or cultural happenings.

We talked about this year's Lead and Supporting Actress categories -- I shared why I think Amy Madigan should win for Weapons but it's obviously a tight race --  as well as sidebar chatting about Oscarless 80s and 90s giants like Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Annette Bening. I had so much fun talking to Damian & Anne. Here's an excerpt from the episode.

Oscar Volley: Best Supporting Actress has a lot of wiggle room

The Oscar Volleys are back! Today, Cláudio Alves and Nathaniel Rogers discuss Best Supporting Actress...

Teyana Taylor is Nathaniel's frontrunner for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER | © Warner Bros.

CLÁUDIO: It's that time of the year again, the beginning of the awards season proper, and all the punditry that comes with it. So, let's talk predictions. After all, it can't be reviews and festival coverage at The Film Experience all of the time. Because we're actressexuals at heart and lovers of actressing at the edges, it seems appropriate that the first of these volleys would be about Best Supporting Actress.

And let me tell you, having just returned from the London premiere of Wicked: For Good, still reeling from Diane Ladd's death, two thoughts are at the forefront of my mind. Ariana Grande is going to be a force to reckon with this season, as she sinks her teeth into an expanded and, in some ways, deepened version of Glinda. Nevertheless, it's hard to consider her case without thinking about what the late great Ladd was so adamant about fighting - CATEGORY FRAUD…

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TIFF 50: Benoit Blanc looks for grace in "Wake Up Dead Man"

by Cláudio Alves

If Wake Up Dead Man is the weakest Knives Out mystery yet, the blame lies at the feet of its outsized thematic ambition. In that regard, the new flick outdoes its predecessors and then some, touching on the same satirical points and terminally online observations of our socio-political present while stretching hands up, toward the heavens, in search of an ineffable grace. Rian Johnson thus tackles religion and belief and absolution with a Gothic twist and perverse glee, a complex proposal further complicated by the way he keeps playing with the whodunnit model in his usual deconstructionist manner. The director boldly adds Poe and Carr to the pantheon of authors he'll crib from in a metatextual game that reaches out an invitation to its audience. Share the pleasure of my mischief, it whispers in your ear…

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