Oscar Volley: Who will win Song & Score?

by Team Experience

NATHANIEL R: Hello Matt, Eurocheese, and our special guest Thomas Mizer, who has guest blogged here before and who is an Emmy-nominee as a lyricist for The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. We won't ask Tom to sound off on the Best Song nominees (too close to home) but we do need his input on Best Original Score. In fact, I personally need all of your input on Original Score. I recognize fully that Scores are way up there with Editing in how they can make or break a movie, but unlike with editing (which I am fairly well versed in), I am not particular adept at noticing what composers are doing or how they're doing it. I hate to admit this because I love Nicholas Britell's work (generally speaking) but I honestly didn't realize Don't Look Up had a score. I thought while watching it that it was mostly song cues and dialogue. So I need your collective help. Who are you rooting for and why and who do you think might win? 

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The Oscar Luncheon was a hit - everyone glad to be back in the room

by Nathaniel R

tick tick BOOM reunion at the Oscar luncheon

For those of you who are not "extremely online" as they say, we thought we'd share some photos and point you to some fine accounts of the Oscar luncheon since they'll be new to you. We are neither cool enough nor local enough to be invited to this Los Angeles event (TFE is a NYC site... though a couple of our contributors are in LA) but thankfully some journalists are! The event took place yesterday and the reports have been trickling in ever since...

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Maybe they should've just cancelled the Oscars?

by Nathaniel R

The news from behind-the-scenes for this year's Oscar ceremony just keeps getting worse. First came the news that they were demoting crucial artistic achievements like Film Editing and Production Design to a 'pre show'... to be edited into the live event (we know how badly that comes off from other awards shows who do it -- all of which have lower ratings than the Oscar). It was a telling sign that they don't get or love their own popular brand, a lethal combo for the future. When the filmmaking community naturally expressed concerns and even anger and threats of boycott, outgoing CEO Dawn Hudson and the outgoing Academy president attempted gaslighting... it was our problem. We just didn't understand what they were saying. Um, no. We hated it precisely because we understood!  

The fallout continues...

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Linkers Dozen

three must reads
• Blood Knife "Everyone is beautiful and no one is horny." Excellent article about the weird symmetry of the perfection of the body and the desexualization of cinema
• Thrillist Chris Feil suggests Oscars clips for this year's acting nominees
• The Ringer "Robert Pattinson has been lying to you for years" investigating the actors self-mythologizing interviews

Sam Elliott mouths off, the cast of Oppenheimer, a restoration of Alligator, Stephen King's next book, and more after the jump...

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Why can't the Oscars love themselves as much as we love the Oscars?

by Nathaniel R

"If you can't love yourself, how the hell you gonna love anybody else?" RuPaul's famous episode ending quote on RuPaul's Drag Race is profundity in silly soundbite form. "Amen!" How different might our current but lifelong Oscars obsession be if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took this fact to heart. How much more fun would the annual Oscar circus be if they just learned to love themselves again. For you see, the more they think poorly of themselves, the more we begin to question our own lifelong love for the event. Have we wasted decades of our lives obsessing over this annual holiday/event/ritual? If they no longer feel any love, perhaps we should consider a divorce?

As you may have heard the Oscars will not be airing 8 of their 23 categories LIVE this year, but instead do them an hour before the broadcast and then edit them into the evening...

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