Oscar Volley: Can the world's biggest movie star win the Best Actor race? Surely not!

The Oscar Volleys are back! Tonight, it's time for Eric Blume and Nathaniel Rogers to discuss the Best Actor race...

Leonardo DiCaprio in ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER | © Warner Bros.

ERIC: Nathaniel, I feel so lucky getting you all to myself to discuss this year's Best Actor race. There are probably several candidates we have yet to see this season, but let's dive in.  

It seems to me that the one actor most guaranteed a nomination also has zero chance of actually winning: Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another. The film will have a big nomination haul, and because his performance seems to be universally beloved (as opposed to his work in Killers of the Flower Moon, where he was may be objectively bad?), I think he's in. But there's no way he's winning. Too many other candidates with overdue narratives or even flashier parts…

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Review: P.T. Anderson's Glorious "One Battle After Another"

by Eric Blume

If you’re a regular site reader, you’ve probably been following all the film blogs discussing the new Paul Thomas Anderson epic, One Battle After Another.  So we don’t need to discuss plot or beat around the bush…the question is:  Does it really deliver like everyone has been saying? I remember being so excited before seeing Licorice Pizza -- it too was heralded by early viewers -- only to find it contrived and uninvolving in the cinema. My vote, this time, is an unqualified yes!  PTA is a great filmmaker:  ideologically ambitious, profoundly humanistic, and daringly assured technically.  Anderson delivers with depth and panache here in this new contemporary, highly political film... 

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Happy 50, Leonardo DiCaprio!

by Cláudio Alves

ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD earned DiCaprio his seventh and, to this day, final Oscar nomination. Do you think he’ll be back in the race anytime soon?

Former teenage heartthrob turned Academy Award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio just hit the half-century mark. Happy birthday to the superstar who has been entertaining audiences since his youth and has, in recent years, expanded his work to producing movies and fighting the good fight in the name of our crumbling environment. Over time, many of his performances and most iconic movies have been explored at The Film Experience by various team members. It seems logical to revisit some of those posts, like we did to celebrate Jessica Lange's 75th birthday and Maggie Smith's passing. It's time to go down the blogging rabbit hole and share some love for the man immortalized on screen through roles like Shakespeare's Romeo, Jack Dawson, a handful of Scorsese leads, and more – the list goes on and on…

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Split Decision: "Killers of the Flower Moon"

No two people feel the exact same way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of this year’s Oscar movies. Here's Juan Carlos Ojano and Nathaniel Rogers on Killers of the Flower Moon...

CARLOS: Hi, Nathaniel! So excited to talk to you about this film. Confession time: this is the first time I've seen a Martin Scorsese film on the big screen, even though his works (Taxi Driver, Casino, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, The Irishman) usually end up in my favorite films of their respective years. Maybe he is one of my favorite directors? But my respect for him goes beyond 'favorite'. This is also my first time seeing Leonardo DiCaprio (one of my favorite actors) on the big screen, with my "relationship" with him now spanning from Titanic to this. And my gosh, after months of buzz after its Cannes premiere, I can say I was floored and destroyed. Just in awe. I think it is one of the most powerful films I've seen from last year… 

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On Gladstone and Scorsese's Mollie Kyle

by Cláudio Alves

Oscar voting opens today, and, for once, some of my favorites are poised to thrive on the nomination ballot. Because of that, it might seem overkill to write FYC pieces, those love letters by another name. Even so, as it's a time for advocacy, I shall articulate why some of the year's best cinematic achievements deserve to be recognized as such. Today, I find myself inspired to make the case for Lily Gladstone, a virtual lock for a Best Actress nomination who might win it all. And to think some said going lead would ruin her Oscar hopes. 

As Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, she breathes life into a dark chapter of American history. Gladstone illuminates the tragedy of a woman and people betrayed, forsaken by individuals who claimed to love them and systems who exploited them under the guise of protection, brutalized by greed and white supremacy…

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