Best Actress Volley: It's On!

Nick, Nathaniel, and Eric engage in a discussion about everybody's favorite Oscar category:  Best Actress. For the record this conversation started the day of the Globes nominations so watch things narrow down as we speak! 

 

Will a surprise SAG nomination rescue any underperformers?

ERIC:  Nick and Nathaniel, I'm really excited about this volley because the Best Actress category is as always stacked, this year featuring at least a dozen ladies who stand a fairly legitimate shot at a nomination at this point.  I thought it might be fun, before we get to the current leading contenders, to take a look at that back half of the possibilities to gauge your thoughts.  Of the actresses that seem slightly less likely to nab a nomination this year...Kate Winslet, Pamela Anderson, Amy Adams, Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan...do you see the winds changing in the weeks to come where any of them could gather enough momentum to move to the front of the pack?

I'm considering Jolie, Madison, Gascon, Moore, Kidman, Erivo, Torres, and Jean-Baptiste more ahead at this point, but comment as you may.

NATHANIEL:  It does feel like quite a crowded, anything-could-happen* year. Take for example one from your column B: Saoirse Ronan and one from your column A: Angelina Jolie...

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Oscar Volley: Best Actor - locked and loaded?

Lynn Lee and Ben Miller discuss the Best Actor race.

Ralph Fiennes in CONCLAVE. Will it *finally* be his time?

LYNN: First, a double disclaimer: 1. I haven’t yet seen some of the likely Oscar contenders this year, including in this category.  2. I’m also generally pretty meh on this year’s contenders (and movies) as a whole, especially compared with last year’s embarrassment of riches.  This also extends to the best actor category, which was overflowing with worthy candidates last year, whereas this year I’m not sure I could even pick a top five I have strong feelings about, at least based on what I've seen so far.  

All that said, my one bright hope for this season is that Ralph Fiennes finally gets his Oscar...

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Oscar Volley: Best Original Screenplay is the Battle of the Auteurs

In this Oscar Volley, Eric Blume and Cláudio Alves discuss the Best Original Screenplay race…

HARD TRUTHS, Mike Leigh

ERIC BLUME: Hi Cláudio, I put us together on this one because I love arguing with you.  Hope that's okay.  Plus, I am curious to get your takes on some of these films and scripts.

Best Original Screenplay has a lot of strong contenders this year.  What I find particularly interesting is that eight of these feature scripts written by their directors - Seed of the Sacred Fig, A Real Pain, The Substance, September 5, Anora, The Brutalist, All We Imagine as Light, and Hard Truths.  That has to be some kind of record? 

CLÁUDIO ALVES: With the growing connection between the big European film festivals and the awards season, auteur cinema is on the rise as an Oscar gold magnet. And many of those selections favor director-forward productions, often where the folks in the director's chair also penned the script. Indeed, from the octet you mention, only A Real Pain and Hard Truths premiered outside Cannes or Venice. And with Mike Leigh's latest, it wasn't for a lack of trying on his part…

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Oscar Volley: Best Supporting Actress Isn't Supporting Anything

The Oscar Volleys, in which various TFE members discuss specific categories, begin... now

Rossellini & Gomez are two of only four supporting actresses who MIGHT show up in the five-wide Supporting category... if they can get around about seven leading ladies.

BABY CLYDE: The Academy can be a stuffy and old fashioned institution. Adverse to change and reluctant to move with the times, it’s taken decades of pressure to finally get a casting prize added. The poor stunt performers are still without a statue in their honor, so it’s come as a great surprise that a new award has been instituted this year a without any prior announcement or fanfare at all.

They’ve done away with Best Supporting Actress and introduced the ‘Best Lead Actress in a ‘Supporting’ Role’ category. To secure spots for all of those poor unappreciated A List, millionaire, billed above the title, Leading Lady Stars, they’ve been given their very own spill over category. This will ensure the ceremony has as many big names as possible and isn’t encumbered by character actors, theatre performers or anyone over the age of 50 that Tik Tokers won’t recognize...

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Oscar Volley: Best Supporting Actor

It's the final pre-nomination Oscar volley. Here's Eric and Chris to discuss Best Supporting Actor

A win for Ryan Gosling in "Barbie" would age so well. But Oscar rarely goes comedic.

CHRIS:  Hey Eric! It's Barbenheimer 2.0 in the Best Supporting Actor race. In my mind, the two most secured nominees in the bunch are from the pair of box office summer behemoths - Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer and Ryan Gosling in Barbie. It'll be interesting race to see if Gosling can overtake Downey Jr. to win for a comedic performance, but that's a post-nomination conversation. It's not just that both of these men starred in the hottest movies of the year, they gave indelible performances that are cemented in the conversation this year (well, I would say Gosling did, but I'll hold space for the Downey lovers). 

May December was gaining momentum and critical acclaim at just the right time to be a major awards player (at least around the time the Globe nods were announced), which made me ecstatic...

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