The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Laura Dern became the first person in her highly acclaimed family to win the Oscar and is now (3/1) in her nomination/win stats. Her mother Diane Ladd (3/0) and father Bruce Dern (2/0), who she name checked as her heroes in her speech have never won.
Parasite became the first South Korean film to win ANY Oscars and it won 4 of them. The individual wins from Bong Joon Ho, Kwak Sin-ae, and Han Jin Won are the first times any Asian has won Best Picture or a writing category...
It's about time for High Holy Night, and as most of you reading this are serious cinephiles, we all know that HOW you watch the Oscar show is crucial. Everyone has their own individual idea of what makes the show the most fun to watch.
Personally, I can't watch the show with too many people in the room. I like to hear the show and don't need twenty opinions at every moment. I've found the magic number for the gathering is somewhere around six or so: people who are passionate and committed filmgoers, but also really smart, funny people who know just when to say that special bon mot that makes the watching so much better...
Remember the Oscar ceremony in February 2009. Hugh Jackman was the host, he brought the house down with his charming opening number. Then it was time for the first award of the evening, best supporting actress. Five former winners came out and what transpired was without doubt the best Oscar presentation in the history of the Academy.
The gasps. How? What? Who? They repeated the same scenario 3 more times that night with the other acting awards. Nothing beat the surprise of that first one though. As someone who loves acting and actors, it was valhalla. A long stretch of time spent on celebrating each nominated performance by previous Oscar winners. No one was in a rush, the jokes were minimal, it was sincerne, it was earnest, it worked.
The winner from the year before Tilda Swinton talked about Marisa Tomei. Whoopi Goldberg got Amy Adams, Goldie Hawn waxed poetic about Taraji P Henson. Eva Marie Saint paid tribute to Viola Davis and the eventual winner Penelope Cruz was congratulated in Spanish by Anjelica Huston. Bring this back Academy. I don't care how long it is or how too earnest it could get, this is why we tune to the ceremony and why we talk about it all year.
What is your favorite Oscar presentation of all time?
The presentation of the Costume Design category at the Oscars has always perplexed whoever is chosen to produce the show. It feels like there’s something inherently visual about the costumes that calls for doing more with that presentation than other categories. Yet they rarely get it right! Last year’s was actually one of the times it worked because of the brilliant comic timing of Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry. Plus they wore ALL the costumes and that was such a funny visual gag...
Today the Academy and the show's producers Lynette Howell Taylor and Stephanie Allain announced the latest batch of presenters: Jane Fonda, Josh Gad, Tom Hanks, Oscar Isaac, Sandra Oh, Natalie Portman, Chris Rock and Taika Waititi.
Monday, February 10, 2020 at 11:05AM 
