Pt 2 - Looking at Netflix's contenders in all Oscar categories

by Juan Carlos Ojano

As explained in Part One we're looking at Netflix's deep slate this year and pinpointing how they might be competitive in each of the 23 Oscar categories (it used to be 24 categories but Sound Editing and Sound Mixing have now become one category). In part two, which follows after the jump, we're discussing the "big eight" marquee categories, plus animated feature...

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Pt 1 - Sizing up Netflix's contenders in all 23 Oscar categories

by Juan Carlos Ojano

It is already November and the pandemic rages on.  With moviegoing risky or unavailable movielovers have turned to streamers for their film consumption. The Academy has even acknowledged this shift in how we consume films by allowing films to qualify for the Oscars even if they only went streaming.  While the past few years have seen the rise of streaming wars (Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Apple TV+, and Disney+, etcetera), nobody has been able to match the sheer quantity of content that Netflix has been producing or acquiring. Netflix could well dominate this awards season. But by how much?

Important Caveat: Do note that Netflix has not announced the entirety of its slate through February 28, 2021, the final day of eligibility for this Oscars; pieces are still moving and more films will probably show up. With that, here are Netflix’s contenders in all 23 Oscar categories...

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A Different Take on "The Trial of the Chicago 7"

by Eric Blume

We embrace respectful differences of opinion here at TFE, so with all due respect to my fellow staff writer Tony, who just gave Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 a rave review, I offer a dissenting opinion.  Fortunately thanks to Tony’s great synopsis, I can cut right to the chase.  I love Aaron Sorkin as much as the next guy, thinking his scripts for both The Social Network and Steve Jobs are essentially masterpieces, and even thinking more favorably upon Molly’s Game than most:  it had its own mini-sweep of energy and he tapped into all the things that make Jessica Chastain special. 

But there’s not a frame of Sorkin’s new movie that felt authentic or assured to me...

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New on Netflix: Trial of the Chicago 7

by Tony Ruggio

We weren't arrested. We were chosen.

The older you get, the more you realize how true the adage “history repeats itself” is. You realize it’s no longer just a pithy catchphrase but a reality of life as we know it. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 was clearly intended, to some extent, to echo the trials and tribulations of the present. Little did Sorkin and co. know just how relevant their 1960’s period drama would turn out to be. Chicago 7 is both a classical Sorkin courtroom drama, focused on the thrilling broad strokes of such a monumental case, and a protest film designed to show us the moving chess pieces of an ongoing, decades-long culture war between the conservative right and two factions of the left: the progressive revolutionaries like Abbey Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), focused on change through disruption, and the pragmatic Democrats like Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), focused on change through winning elections. 

Revolving around a clash between protestors and police that took place outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the trial was the result of blatant entrapment by local authorities and represented a circumvention of free speech laws by the newly appointed Nixon administration...

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Yes No Maybe So: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

by Nathaniel R

Chadwick heading for a posthumous Oscar nod?

How about them songs I give you?

Netflix is trying the shotgun approach this year by releasing one buzzy potential Oscar contender after another. Perhaps they felt emboldened by landing two (The Irishman, Marriage Story) of the nine Best Picture nods last year and coming close to a third with The Two Popes.  Of course no studio ever has only hits but they've already released Da 5 Bloods, i'm Thinking of Ending Things, The Boys in the Band, and Da 5 Bloods and still to come are The Prom, The Life Ahead, Pieces of a Woman, The Midnight Sky, Hillbilly Elegy, and tonight's topic: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom so they'll probably do well this year with an overall nomination tally. How many actual Best Picture contenders is a more difficult question.

About Ma Rainey...

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