Cate Blanchett at Cannes

by Elisa Giudici

Cate Blanchett. Photo © Elisa Giudici

Cate Blanchett came to Cannes ostensibly to spotlight the Displacement Film Fund, the initiative she co-founded with the UNHCR to support displaced filmmakers and stories about forced migration. But the conversation quickly expanded into something broader: a sharp, funny, deeply thoughtful reflection on acting, authorship, AI, artistic risk, and the changing state of cinema itself...

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Best Picture in Black-and-White: 2022 Edition

by Cláudio Alves

Remember when Bong Joon-ho and NEON did a special re-release of Parasite in black-and-white? Since then, it's been an awards season tradition to imagine what the Academy's Best Picture nominees would look like devoid of color. This exercise is based chiefly on silly fun since there's more to black-and-white cinema than just turning the saturation dials down. However, it sometimes reveals exciting things about the films at hand. Whose cinematography relies the most on chromatic contrast? What picture would survive the best in monochrome, mayhap even excel? Last year, The Power of the Dog proved a silvery revelation, calling to mind midcentury revisionist westerns. Let's see if this batch of nominees includes a similar success…

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Oscar Volley: Best Original Screenplay...the "alternative Best Picture" award?

Team Experience is teaming up to discuss each Oscar category. Here's Mark Brinkerhoff and Elisa Giudici...

TÁR in the act of creation

MARK: Hello, hello! Get a look at the Best Original Screenplay nominees this year—all five are also Best Picture Oscar nominees. Now of course this isn’t unprecedented, namely in the modern era of (up to) 10 Best Picture nominees, but it *is* unusual. (2020 was the other year this complete overlap occurred.) Typically we’ll get at least one inspired, left-field choice in Best Original Screenplay (think Bridesmaids, The Lobster, Nightcrawler, etc.). Not this year, unfortunately.

So where does this leave us? With a pretty sterling lineup of nominees overall! Among the five—The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Triangle of Sadness—which strike you as the real deal this year?

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"Everything Everywhere..." wins every Spirit Award it's up for

by Nathaniel R

"Everything Everywhere All At Once" was a sweeper

Everything Everywhere All At Once has turned into a steamroller late in awards season, winning guild prizes, recently snatching up all available Dorian Awards, taking all of the SAG awards it was eligible for, and now sweeping again at the Spirits. The Spirits are traditionally the final prize before Oscar (they used to even be held the day before Oscar!) though they don't always align with Hollywood's big night given their more indie-focused love. This time though there will surely be some overlap. The Daniels sci-fi-comedy-action-queer-family drama has won every single one of its seven categories at the annual Film Independent Spirit Awards and that's getting to be a habit, poor BAFTA showing as the exception. Given its dominance at the Spirits, no other film was able to win more than one prize. Despite an impressive showing in the nominations, for example, TÁR only took Best Cinematography since EEAAO wasn't nominated.

After the jump the winners and all the acceptance speeches...

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Oscar Volley: Let's dig into that Best Director field... who should win?

Team Experience is discussing the various Oscar categories. Here's Eric Blume and Nick Taylor discussing Best Director.

Portrait of a young director via THE FABELMANS

ERIC BLUME: Hi Nick! I'm excited to talk Best Director with you.  This year's line-up, while I'd swap out a name or two in there personally, is extraordinarily strong, perhaps one of our best ever?  Before we get to each one, who were personal favorites of yours that didn't make the ballot?

NICK TAYLOR: It’s a very strong lineup! Only one of the names Oscar picked would be close to my own ballot, but I see plenty of strengths in the work the Academy nominated, and the competitiveness of this field leading up to nomination morning means nobody coasted to their slots...

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