Oscar Volley: Split predictions in Adapted and Original Screenplay!

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Matt St. Clair, Christopher James, Lynn Lee and Josh Bierman discussing the screenplays.

MATT ST. CLAIR: Hello all. So, in Best Adapted Screenplay, I think that it remains Jane Campion's to lose but Maggie Gyllenhaal could be The Lost Daughter's sole win here instead, given the clear passion it has. What do you guys think?

CHRISTOPHER JAMES: Thanks for kicking us off, Matt! As in Best Picture, The Power of the Dog is the one to beat. I still think it will ultimately be the big winner of the night, but it is vulnerable...

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Oscar Volley: Best Cinematography could make History

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Cláudio Alves, Nick Davis, Ben Miller, and Eurocheese discussing the Best Cinematography race.

CLÁUDIO ALVES: From an aged future that looks like the ancient past to a black-and-white nightmare of Expressionistic Shakespeare, from digital polish to a rainbow of 35mm lens flares, the Best Cinematography Oscar race presents a cornucopia of varied visual strategies. However, to celebrate this category for variety feels somewhat disingenuous this year. For the first time since the color and black-and-white categories merged in 1967, the Cinematography ballot looks identical to the Production Design one. Even though voted on by separate branches, these lineups' sameness speaks to a broader problem – how the Academy feels increasingly resistant to expand its interest beyond a select group of pictures each season…

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Review: The 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films

By: Christopher James

Yes, we agree that this should be known as the 2021 Oscars (film year). However, Shorts TV has a different stance on their naming convention.Anyone who has filled out an Oscar office pool knows that the shorts can make or break your chances at winning. Often, the short films nominated are little seen, unless they play before a Pixar film. Thanks to Shorts TV, the nominees for Documentary (Short Subject), Animated Short Film and Live Action Short Film play in theaters and are available for rental ahead of the Oscars. Watching the short film can not only help you win your Oscar pool, but it can also introduce you to new and exciting filmmakers.

This year’s nominees break some conventions, while also keeping to some of the tropes one expects. The live action short films, once again, are aggressively depressing. Meanwhile, the animated short films are decidedly not kid friendly (adhere to the warning label, most of the shorts are firmly R-rated). Still, the fifteen nominated films were on the whole enjoyable.

So what were the best shorts of the bunch? Which will win the Oscar? Read to find out...

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Best Picture, Black-and-White Edition

by Cláudio Alves

Ever since NEON released a black-and-white version of Parasite during the awards season's peak, we've begun a tradition here at The Film Experience of looking the Best Picture nominees each year, and trying to imagine what they'd look like devoid of color. Naturally, we'll never know that since making a black-and-white movie is much more complex than simply turning the saturation to zero. Matters of design and lighting are involved, as are other elements of pre and post-production. Still, it's fun to peruse movies in search of striking imagery. But of course, beyond personal amusement, there's another component to this exercise…

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Best Film Editing Oscar Volley

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's a particularly volatile race given that BAFTA, CCA, and ACE Eddie Awards all chose different winners.

ERIC BLUME: Tim and Carlos, we're the lucky gang to discuss the Oscar nominees in the Best Film Editing category.  This year our five nominated films are: 

• Don't Look Up
• Dune
• King Richard
• The Power of the Dog
• tick, tick...Boom!

Last year's win for The Sound of Metal was uniquely exciting as it was an out-of-the-box winner in terms of its smallness (this award often goes to "big" movies). Maybe that means people are thinking a bit more carefully about this category?  I bring this up in hopes there might be some genuine support for my  favorite pick of this bunch, which is the editing duo for tick, tick...Boom...

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