Interview: Directors Sam & David Cutler-Kruetz Talk Their Oscar-Nominated Short Film "A Lien"

By Ben Miller

Directors Sam and David Cutler-Kruetz are newly minted Oscar-nominees with their short film A Lien. Recently, I spoke with the pair about their film, the timeliness of the narrative, the collaborative effort between the brothers, and how all this attention just makes them exited to make more films.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ben Miller:  For starters, congratulations! You can now you can now put the title [Academy Award Nominee] on every business card you have from now on. Obviously, you guys shot this film pre-election and now immigration is such at the very forefront of the news cycle. And specifically all over the place these last couple days. These things happening right now are not a positive, but do you view the timeliness of this story, kind of the reason you guys are kind of in the conversation?...

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Interview: "Clodagh" Director Portia A. Buckley

By Ben Miller

Director Portia A. Buckley is in the middle of a whirlwind experience. Not only has her short film Clodagh been listed on the BAFTA longlist for Best Short Film, it was also announced as a finalist for the Best Live Action Short Oscar. I recently spoke to her about the chaos of awards season, her relationship with cinematographer Jomo Fray, prepping her for bad interview questions, and keeping her film lighter in tone...

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The Oscar Shortlists for the 97th Academy Awards

by Nathaniel R

EMILIA PÉREZ © Shanna Besson

Today the Academy released the shortlists for the 10 categories that use this system, wherein a large number of eligible movies or narrowed down to a more manageable size for the voters in those categories. You can be sure we will be updating the Oscar charts as a result (and you'll find we already have for the other categories!) The lists are usually revealing, fun, disappointing, surprising, and energizing in roughly equal measure. This year though they skipped the "surprising" factor altogether, unless you count the variety in Best Original Score. Emilia Perez led the pack with six citations, but that wasn't surprising since the Spanish language trans cartel drama musical was eligible in most of the categories whereas most of its best picture competitors were not.  

Okay let's look at what they selected in each of those categories...

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Final Oscar Predictions!

by Nathaniel R

It's that time again. The Oscars are Sunday night so it's time to make those final calls. Oppenheimer is poised to win big but HOW big exactly? Clean sweeps have gone out of fashion in the past 25 years. The only "clean sweep" this century -- aka a movie nominated for a lot of Oscars that won ALL of them on Hollywood's High Holy night -- was 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Even more interesting than Hollywood's turn away from sweeps is that it's become common the Best Picture winner to NOT win the most Oscars. We like it when they spread the wealth but the overperformance last year of Everything Everywhere All At Once suggests that Hollywood may be entering sweep-mindset again.

We expect that Chris Nolan's atomic biopic Oppenheimer will have the biggest Oscar haul since Return of the King on Sunday though it won't break any records...

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Animated Short Finalists, Ranked

by Nathaniel R

"Once Upon a Studio" brings decades of Disney together

We love animation but we know we give it short shrift here at the site. So let’s rectify that, at least in miniature during this final quiet moment before the official Oscar nominations. I've recently seen all but one of the finalists for Animated Shorts (the missing piece: I'm Hip by two-time Oscar nominee John Musker). Though no one asked, I've ranked them in ascending order of preference after the jump. It's worth mentioning that to get to the finals you've already bested nearly 100 other contenders so the overall quality is high. I say that so you aren't offended if #14 is your favourite, which it very well might be! Each person's personal rank would surely vary.

Okay, now on to the nostalgia exercizes, sentimental messages, surreal head trips, disturbing images, and slapstick antics...

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