Oscar Volley: High Quality / Low Suspense in "Best Director"

The Oscar Volleys continue with Ben Miller and Nathaniel R talking Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson will FINALLY win an Oscar... for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

BEN: Welp Nathaniel, this felt like the most boring category of the whole Oscars a month ago. Luckily, there seems to be a bit of flux in this race. Paul Thomas Anderson seemed poised to run away with the statue, but Ryan Coogler can't stop butting in.

Before we get to that, I wanted to know your thoughts on this lineup as a whole. This certainly wouldn't be my personal lineup, but there aren't any Todd Phillips or Adam McKay mucking up the group.  How do you feel about this Best Director lineup?

NATHANIEL: What a lede to entice the readers, Ben. "Most Boring" Ha ha. But true. What I really want to know is WHY do you find it boring?

Please click all that apply...

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One Award After Another

by Cláudio Alves

Jafar Panahi on the set of IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT | © Neon

In the blink of an eye, the awards season goes from a sleepy little non-starter into a breakneck race for gold. In the past few days, various organizations announced their prizes, so it's time to start doing more of these round-ups. Though, if things continue to go the way of these first few groups, you'll soon grow tired of reading One Battle After Another at the top of these things. PTA's critical darling won the top honor at the Gotham Film Awards, from the New York and Atlanta critics, as well as the NBR.

But that wasn't the only story of the past few days. Iranian dissident director Jafar Panahi has, again, been sentenced to prison, banned from travelling or making films. As the It Was Just An Accident auteur has been living outside Iran since his last travel ban was lifted in 2023, the proceedings were conducted in absentia, and Panahi remains free. However, he has said he'll return to Iran to complete his sentence after the season ends. May these awards and encompassing media circus provide a platform for the director to speak up before he is silenced once more…

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Pt 2: International Feature Race - Auteur Spotlight

by Nathaniel R

SOUTH KOREA's Park Chan Wook & Lee Byung Hun [image via Lee Byung hun's Instagram]

To broaden your appreciation of this year's Best International Feature Film Oscar race we already looked at some overall trivia. Before we get to the movie stars (the finale of this three-parter), let's look at some stats involving the artists behind the camera. It's auteur season! We're highlighting 8 directors due to their critical reputation, being a cinephile fetish object, or having previous Oscar history... or in some cases all three! We'll start with...

3 ICONS

• Park Chan-wook (South Korea's No Other Choice) 
Remarkably this 62 year-old auteur and Academy member has only been submitted twice by South Korea  despite a rich filmography...

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Oscar Volley: Best Director is an embarrassment of riches

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Cláudio Alves Eric Blume to discuss the Best Director race...

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, Paul Thomas Anderson | © Warner Bros.

CLÁUDIO: This early in the season, every race is somewhat volatile, prone to radical changes down the road to Oscar. However, I think that Best Director feels especially mercurial as far as nominations are concerned, though not for a lack of contenders - quite the opposite! Voters are spoiled for choice from a roster of strong candidates, all with mighty campaigns behind them, sterling reviews and eye-catching narratives. So much so that only PTA feels secure in his nomination bid, all but locked for the honor unless AMPAS pulls a 2012 on us.

Personally, I can't complain, even if he has been way more worthy of these plaudits in the past and should have already won a couple of Oscars - There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread come to mind. Of course, One Battle After Another is excellent, not some mediocrity destined to win apologies in the form of unwarranted trophies. The "River of Hills" chase sequence alone will surely be played in all tributes to PTA's career in a couple of decades. And yet, my mind can't help but wander to The Departed when pondering OBAA at the Oscars...

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The Film Fest Triple Crown: Who's Next?

by Cláudio Alves

Juliette Binoche's jury made history when they gave Jafar Panahi the Palme d'Or.

One month ago, Jafar Panahi took the Palme d'Or at Cannes for It Was Just an Accident and thus became the fourth director to win top honors from the Croisette, the Berlinale, and the Venice Film Festival. The Iranian master joins the ranks of Henri-Georges Clouzot, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Robert Altman. However. If you exclude ties and those cineastes who won two prizes for the same film, then Panahi and Antonioni are in an exclusive club of two. Inspired by Eric Blume's musings on the Triple Crown of Acting – Oscar, Tony, and Emmy – I started to ask myself what other filmmakers are close to achieving the same Palm, Golden Lion, and Bear combo. Who's next? The answers might surprise you…

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