Oscar Volley: Best International Film is a pundit's nightmare

With less than a week until nominations, Cláudio Alves and Elisa Giudici discuss Best International Feature…

Italy's THE HAND OF GOD

Cláudio Alves: Before we delve into the finalists for Oscar's Best International Feature Film competition, I must comment on the fact that we each come from a record-holding country in this category's history, albeit opposite ends of the success spectrum. As far as victories, Italy (your home) is the all-time champion, having won this prize 14 times. On the other hand, Portugal (mine) is still waiting for its first nomination, being the unnominated country with the most submissions. In fact, we've never even gotten as far as the shortlist stage (cries inconsolably)!

Anyway, since we're on the topic of our countries, I'm interested in knowing whether you think it's safe to predict Paolo Sorrentino's return to the Academy's favour with The Hand of God. I can't say I'm entirely convinced about the picture's merits...

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A closer look at the Oscar finalists for Best Live Action Short

By Abe Friedtanzer

This year, the Best Live Action Short category has fifteen films on its shortlist, up from ten. I was able to screen all of them and interview each film’s director, which helps to give some context and depth to what may end up being a very brief and otherwise fleeting experience. I’m happy to report that, even though the themes are mostly not uplifting, this is a very solid and strong category. Some brief descriptions and thoughts on the films below, where to watch the ones that are available online, and my predictions for which five will be nominated.

ALA KACHUU – TAKE AND RUN  (38 minutes, Kyrgyzstan)
A woman who is planning to continue her studies becomes the victim of bride kidnapping, a real phenomenon where shame is put upon any woman who tries to escape that fate...

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Oscar Volley: Should music be judged outside of the film for Best Original Score?

Continuing our Oscar Volley series at The Film Experience. Abe Friedtanzer and Timothy Lyons on Best Original Score

Abe Friedtanzer: The Best Original Score category is an interesting one since we have only fifteen films left in consideration, which in one way is great because it's a smaller field from which to predict but also means that some terrific soundtracks are no longer in contention. I like to take the opportunity to listen to as many of the scores as I can after I see the films, to see if there's anything I pick up on or enjoy more as I hear them in a different context. This year, that has been beneficial for a film I didn't love, Don't Look Up, since Nicholas Britell's orchestrations really are a marvel, and also for Being the Ricardos, which reminded me that Daniel Pemberton's music drove the rhythm of the story just as much as Aaron Sorkin's script. I'm also intrigued by the inclusion of Candyman on the finalist list. I generally avoid horror films but the score is quite haunting. There's no chance it shows up, but it's good to see that voters are at least listening to a variety of films! My main issue has been with The Harder They Fall, a film I liked a lot but where I have trouble differentiating between score and song. That's also true for Encanto.

Do you think songs are a disadvantage or actually more likely to get voters to give the music love?  

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Oscar Volley: Adapted Screenplay - a wealth of good choices, but will the Academy make the right ones?

The Oscar volleys continue. Today Lynn Lee, Mark Brinkerhoff, and Eurocheese sound off on this year’s Adapted Screenplay race.

a wealth of options for Oscar voters

Lynn: Gentlemen, I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, Adapted Screenplay is an embarrassment of riches this year. There are at least three contenders that tackle the incredibly difficult task of illuminating their characters’ inner lives and psychology (The Power of the Dog, Passing, and The Lost Daughter) with minimal to no voice-over narration and they all do it brilliantly. Then there are the play adaptations – everything from Shakespeare via Coen (The Tragedy of Macbeth) to Shakespeare / Sondheim / Laurents via Kushner (West Side Story) to Jonathan Larson via Lin-Manuel Miranda (tick, tick …BOOM!) to Stephen Karam doing Stephen Karam (The Humans) – where each manages to pull off a bold departure from previous iterations while retaining basic fidelity to the source text. And then there’s my personal favorite, Drive My Car, which manages to be at once an ambitious expansion of a Murakami short story and a spectacularly moving adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at once.

That said, we can’t realistically expect most Oscar voters to be familiar with the underlying material for these screenplays. It’s a safer bet the nominations will align pretty closely with the Best Picture nominees or almost-nominees that don’t have original screenplays...

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Oscar Volleys: Four locks, and the race for the fifth spot in Best Actor

Continuing our Oscar Volley series at The Film Experience. Tonight Gabriel Mayora and Ben Miller on Best Actor in a Leading Role

Ben Miller: My big question: is this a race only for the fifth slot? Will Smith, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Garfield, and Denzel Washington all feel locked in. Is there any vulnerability in that top four?

Gabriel Mayora: I am surprised by how excited this self-professed raging actressexual™ (thank you to Nathaniel for that genius term) is to discuss this year's Best Actor category. Most years I find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for this category, but maybe after seeing the race take some surprising shifts last year, I have a renewed interest. I  agree with you that Smith, Cumberbatch, Garfield, and --to a slightly lesser extent, maybe? -- Washington are all locks, there is little room for surprise come nomination morning.

And while my first instinct is to complain about the Academy's lack of originality, I can't say I blame them. Those four are all so good...

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