ICYMI - Eligibility for the 95th Oscars (and two noticeable absences)

We usually share the official "reminder" list for Academy voters but it's been so busy we forgot. Apologies. If you'd like to look it up it's here. 301 films are eligible for Best Picture this year. This list is a handy guide each year to clear up any doubts that remain about what actually got released in theaters, and in which calendar year (given that many films don't "qualify" until the year after their festival bows, this year that's the case for Benediction, The Cursed, and Pleasure, among others, which all first premiered in 2021). All of this becomes harder and harder to track each year with theatrical releases barely advertised and in theaters for increasingly short durations.

The biggest area of curiousity for us, is seeing which of the annual submissions for Best International Feature Film are eligible outside of that race and which were released but didn't submit for general eligibility...

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International Feature Race - Part 1. The Numbers, Genres, and Trivia

by Nathaniel R

Can "Decision to Leave" become the second nominee from South Korea?

We can no longer wait around twiddling our thumbs for the Academy's official press releases. AMPAS used to be so prompt with the Best International Feature Film category. In the past few years they've dropped the ball. The deadline for submission was six weeks ago and though Academy members have already been screening the films for a month there's still no press release from AMPAS about the "official list". If they continue this unfortunate new habit that means that nearly a hundred films each year will fail to get two months of media attention that they fully deserve before most of them are eliminated. The Academy will narrow down this year's 92 accepted submissions to just 15 on December 21st (barely a month away). And from those 15 they'll announce the 5 nominees on January 24th. You can see the current predictions here and the full charts detailing all 92 contenders. We assume that Malta's entry, Carmen, was not accepted due to too much English language since it's the only submission from our research that's not on their screening list. 

Anyway, if you smoosh all 92 films together into one imaginary film you'd get something like the following:

A family drama, with a political angle (and probably involving immigration of some kind), which comes from a early to mid-career director who is still rising. The film will be trilingual with dialogue in Arabic, French, and Spanish. It will be 107 minutes long. 

We'll adjust the following stats and trivia IF Oscar's official press release begs to differ by a film or two (which sometimes happens) whenever it arrives. Or maybe they just won't release it this year? So Let's talk stats, trivia, genres, and themes...

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Which young male actors will factor into awards season?

by Nathaniel R

Gabriel Labelle in "The Fabelmans"

While rising stars are a semi-annual event in the female acting categories, Oscar voters have long been resistant to young male actors. The statistics bear this out. For whatever reason (cough *the patriarchy*) voters prefer their women young / full of potential and their men older / with lots of achievements already under their belt. Yes, those stats are beginning to change. For example, Oscar voters have been much kinder to 40something to 60something actresses in the past couple of decades than they previously were. With the men, though, things have stayed much the same. 

Once men enter their 30s, awards bodies tend to take them seriously but before the 30something years it definitely takes a very special combination of the right role in the right film in the right year and with the right co-stars. Do you think any of these men will make it this year? Here are eight actors, thirty or younger, that are in the conversation or adjacent to it this season...

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Dorothy Dandridge @ 100: "Carmen Jones"

Team Experience is revisiting a few Dorothy Dandridge movies for her centennial

by Baby Clyde

Groucho Marks famously described Grace Kelly’s Best Actress win at the 1954 Oscars as ‘The greatest robbery since Brinks’. I think we can all agree that a terrible crime was committed, but Judy Garland wasn’t the only victim on the night of March 30th, 1955. Dorothy Dandridge was a sensation in Carmen Jones becoming the first Black woman to receive a Best Actress nomination. In any other year, her loss would be seen as a huge scandal but because of Judy’s legendary star turn in A Star Is Born the fact that Ms Dandridge was also deserving has been almost entirely overshadowed...

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Tennessee Williams @ the Oscars

by Cláudio Alves

Vivien Leigh accepts her second Oscar in 1952.

The Supporting Actress Smackdown of 1951 is coming at the end of the month, bringing with it a revisit to the first Tennessee Williams adaptation to catch the Academy's eye. Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire marked the start of a period when Hollywood couldn't get enough of the American playwright, bringing most of his celebrated texts to the screen in big studio productions that attracted the cream of the talent crop of filmmakers and actors. These projects were incredibly captivating for the latter, with their guarantee of juicy roles prone to critical acclaim. Over just fourteen years, 19 performances were Oscar-nominated, and five won. 

Let's explore the list of AMPAS-approved Williams adaptations, find out where one can watch them, and share some Oscar trivia along the way... 

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