Yeoh with the good timing

by Nathaniel R

Michelle Yeoh in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"

How's this for campaign timing? While Oscar nominations are announced January 24th (next Tuesday - final predictions right here tomorrow)  Voting on the actual winners doesn't take place until the first week of March (Oscar night is March 12th). In that crucial month inbetween the nominations and the ceremony, look what's coming back to theaters -- CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) in a 4K restoration! That's right. Michelle Yeoh's other Oscar-worthy Lead Actress performance will be back in theaters on February 17th. Cate Blanchett (TAR) will be hard to beat in Best Actress this time around but this can't exactly hurt the cause to make history in voting for Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once); awards races never happen in vacuums and feelings about whole careers and historical precedent also often enter the room. No Asian actress has ever been nominated for Best Actress and thus no Asian actress has won*... 

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Interview: Stephanie Hsu. The year's breakout star on her insane year, stage history, and working with legends.

by Nathaniel R

Stephanie Hsu as "Jobu Tupaki" in Everything Everywhere All At Once2022's wildest film was also it's most unlikely mainstream success. For sheer invention it Everything Everywhere All At Once, outdid the animated Spider-Verse and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the suddenly flourishing subgenre of multi-verse hopping. At the center of its chaotic maelstorm, is Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), the nihilistic variant of depressed Joy Wang, a young queer woman with a tense relationship to her overly critical mother Evelyn(Michelle Yeoh). Stephanie Hsu, 32, is not an overnight sensation but she is a sensation. 2022 essentially served as a mainstream coming out party for the gifted actress after years treading the boards in experimental theater and musical comedy, as well as season-long or guest episode TV gigs.

Back in October I had the change to moderate a Q&A for Everything Everywhere All At Once at which Hsu received a "Rising Star Award". Over the course of the day we met three times and talked Broadway theater, being dramaturgy nerds, forgetting your lines, wild costumes, and various movies that are competing with hers at awards shows (off the record of course!). What follows is the conversation we had as we met, shortly before we went on stage [edited for length and clarity]...

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Best of the 80th Golden Globes. Plus: Complete Winners List

by Nathaniel R

Colman Domingo presenting "Best DIrector" to Steven Spielberg

An awards shows on a Tuesday night? Chaos. But we kinda liked it. As the 80th Golden Globes evening began on the red carpet we learned (among other things) that red was the color of the moment, Jenna Ortega choreographed her own (viral) dance for Wednesday, Letitia Wright's favourite movie is I Tonya (of all things!) and Margot Robbie can cry on cue as precisely as Nelly does in Babylon. The night that followed was hit and miss. The hits were familiar: the palpable joy that so many stars expressed at being back in rooms together, the sight of very enthusiastic and possibly drunk tables (Abbott Elementary, Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans and Everything Everywhere All At Once showcased most prominently), and as ever moving speeches, and even a few stellar presenter “bits”.

There were misses, too, including at least four absent winners (Zendaya, Costner, Seyfried, Blanchett) which always brings the mood down...

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Split Decision: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

No two people feel the same exact way about any film. Thus, Team Experience is pairing up to debate the merits of each of the big awards season movies this year. Here’s Abe Friedtanzer and Baby Clyde talking about Everything Everywhere All at Once.

ABE: Baby Clyde, I hope all is well! I'm eager to start talking about a film that I absolutely loved, Everything Everywhere All at Once. I actually am very late to the party on this one. I wasn't seeing films in theaters yet back when it was originally released. I finally caught it about two months ago in early November and was impressed that it more than lived up to the hype. The performances are all phenomenal, and it's just drowning in creativity in a way that so few films are these days. But, if I'm to understand correctly, you don't agree. Before I get in to what else I loved about it, can you tell me what you didn't?

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Oscar Volley: Who will take the fifth slot in Best Actress?

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

NICK: We’ve arrived at the most crowded acting category of year, which doesn’t necessarily mean this category will be difficult to predict. If you look at the fifteen women in Nathaniel’s Best Actress predictions -- I think Lesley Manville should be higher for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris -- you can see that the fifth slot is going to be a bloodbath. It makes it even harder to narrow things down when so many of the turns are fantastic. The sheer amount of chaos offered from the this category in the past couple years makes it hard for me to feel comfortable with setting anything in stone even as we reach the end of the year. 

I wanna honor the messiness of the category, from year to year, and spice up how we order this volley. Euro, of all the leading actresses from 2022 with minimal-to-no Oscar buzz, who would you rank among the very best?

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