"Crouching Tiger" and the Foreign Language Films of 2000

In preparation for the next Smackdown Team Experience is traveling back to 2000. 

Juliette Binoche and Jack Valenti announcing Best Foreign Language Film.

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Coming into the 73rd Academy Awards, the results of the Foreign Language Film category must have felt like the biggest lock of the night (this writer can only assume based on hindsight since he was only a five-year old bébé at the time). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the perfect storm when it hit American audiences. The film came from an established filmmaker, Ang Lee, who had made several critical and commercial hits in English and otherwise, the storytelling was tailored to better suit Western sensibilities, it featured international stars known to the English-speaking film market, it received rave reviews and enormous box office returns, and it was both partially funded and widely distributed by a major American studio...

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Does Having a Co-Star Nominated in the Same Category Help or Hurt a Frontrunner?

by Christopher James

"Judas and the Black Messiah" became the 19th film to earn two nominations in Best Supporting Actor. Both Lakeith Stanfield (left) and Daniel Kaluuya (right) were nominated.Daniel Kaluuya has won all the major televised awards of the season so far for his tour-de-force performance as Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah. This should clear an easy path for him in Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. The one difference: he faces off against co-star Lakeith Stanfield in the same category for the first time this season at the Oscars. Is this a show of confidence in the film, further solidifying his imminent win? Or does this open up the possibility for vote-splitting?

Theoretically, having multiple nominees from a film in a single category should double a film’s chances at winning...

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93rd Academy Awards: Best Film Editing

by Juan Carlos Ojano

Best Film Editing is noteworthy as an Oscar categoryfor its strong connection with the Best Picture race. With the exception of 2014’s Birdman (which prided itself for being a one-take film even if it actually isn’t), we have to go back to 1980 to find a Best Picture winner without a corresponding Film Editing nomination. However, the expanded ballot changed the Editing race. Since 2009, only four non-Best Picture nominees have gone on to be nominated in this category, with only one winning. This lends a preordained quality to the contenders.

This year is no exception, with all five nominees coming from Best Picture contenders. However, the predictability of the crop does not equate to the predictability of the race; this is one of those categories where one can see any of the five nominees realistically taking the award based on presumed strength in the awards season...

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Best Picture Nominees - Who's Up? Who's Down?

by Christopher James

Is Nomadland still looking like the clear winner for Best Picture?

Oscar nomination morning changes everything. What it takes to be nominated for an Oscar and win an Oscar are very different. As we enter this new phase for the Oscars, who is best set up for success on April 25th? The eight Best Picture nominees were all the most nominated movies of the year. Mank led with ten nominations. The rest of the nominees all had relatively good days, each earning six nominations except for Promising Young Woman, which received five nominations. Among non-Best Picture nominees, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom led with five nominations and News of the World with four nominations.

With the Oscar mainly coalescing around the eight Best Picture movies, which of them benefitted? Were any movies disappointments, despite a Best Picture nomination? Can anything beat current frontrunner Nomadland?

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How Do Stage-To-Screen Adaptations Fare At The Oscars?

Will Viola Davis be able to win Best Actress at the Oscars?The first step to Oscar success is appearing like a frontrunner. This is why adaptations always are at the top of people’s year in advance predictions. Yet, sustaining that early buzz (often sight unseen) can be a dicey proposition.

Both Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and One Night in Miami are play adaptations that are towards the top of many Oscar predictions right now. Now that both are available on streaming (Netflix and Prime Video, respectively), audiences are finally seeing and enjoying both films. While critics have been giving out their awards recently, the major precursors for the Oscars (guilds, Golden Globes, Critics Choice) still have not been announced. Can we look to the awards run of their source material as a signal for how they will perform at the Oscars?

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