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Entries in Punditry (446)

Sunday
Apr252021

93rd Academy Awards. The Winners List.

We'll have a few days of post-mortems here at TFE to discuss everything about the 93rd Oscar ceremony, but due to second vaccine sickness (we barely made it through the ceremony and not finishing it would have been a first since like 1989 so barrelled through in bathrobe with tylenol and a jug of water close by). How'd you fare on your predictions? I've marked what we got wrong and right below. Nomadland was the big winner but it won just 3 Oscars (Picture, Director, Actress). Trial of the Chicago 7 was the only Best Picture nominee to go home emptyhanded so the mistakes you see in the results are mostly due to pessimistic predictions that it would win two Oscars.

REVIEW OF THE SHOW | NEW RECORDS SET

The winners are after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Apr232021

Final Oscar Predictions. What a thrillingly confused year! 

This article was originally published in a slightly altered version at Towleroad.

by Nathaniel R

The 93rd annual Academy Awards, happening this Sunday night, will not be business as usual. Yes, there are still message movies, biopics, expertly acted dramas, and various movie stars milling about dreaming of golden statues, but otherwise things are different. We’re already in late April for one when the Oscar season is usually a distant memory. The COVID-19 pandemic has made all awards shows into Zoom meetings with breakaway rooms, considerably lowering their appeal (and ratings). It’s been ages since we’ve been able to see celebrities on red carpets, interacting with each other, and holding their trophies. Frivolous as these pleasures may be, they are missed! Nevertheless the show must go on. This year’s ceremony is doing things a bit differently — how differently we won’t know until Sunday night — including a pre-show “Oscars: Into the Spotlight” where all five Original Song contenders will be performed.

So who is going to win this year? It’s anyone’s guess. Oscar pundits agree that this is the most confusing Oscar race ever in quite a few categories. That’s exciting and potentially embarrassing for anyone who loves the guesswork. Let’s get right to the possibly terribly misguided assumptions…

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Wednesday
Apr212021

4 days til Oscar. With 4 nominations let's talk "News of the World"

by Nathaniel R

News of the World is the only movie with exactly four Oscar nominations this year. That quartet of nods for Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Original Score, places the movie squarely in the greatly admired but not-quite-loved camp we see each year. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom met a similar fate with five nominations; both movies stood a reasonable chance in a few other categories but missed suggesting solid support but perhaps not passion. We'd argue that Paul Greengrass' western is easily the least discussed of the dozen most nominated movies this year (that would be the 8 Best Picture nominees plus News, One Night in Miami, Ma Rainey and Soul). That's true even here despite the film landing in my personal top 20. Why was that exactly?

We'd guess there are probably three reasons...

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Wednesday
Apr142021

93rd Academy Awards: The Women of Best Actress

By Abe Friedtanzer

When I requested to cover this category just one week after Oscar nominations were announced, I didn’t realize quite how competitive it was going to be, putting us in a scenario where anyone could win. Day won the Golden Globe, Mulligan scored with the Critics Choice Association, Davis won the SAG, and McDormand won the BAFTA! Fortunately, this is a truly fantastic slate, and as a result, I’m not going to rank them in any order of quality. Let’s dive into a remarkable list of some of this year’s best female performances…

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Saturday
Apr102021

BAFTA predictions? Why not!

by Nathaniel R

Rather famously the BAFTAs did a gigantic overhaul of their nomination process to insure gender parity and diversity in their nominations. Many of the individual category nominations were decided by tiny juries. But for the winners the whole voting body will vote. Given that the nominations themselves were impossible to foresee perhaps the winners will be too? So lets just try our hand at divining what might come to pass.

FILM

  • The Father
  • The Mauritanian
  • Nomadland
  • Promising Young Woman
  • The Trial of the Chicago 7

WILL WIN: This is actually a tough call. BAFTA has disagreed with Oscar more than we commonly think for the top category...

Click to read more ...