Team Experience Oscar Predictions: Pre-Globe Jitters

by Cláudio Alves

Wake up, Ani. The Team Experience sees lots of gold in your near future!Mere hours before the Golden Globes kickstart the televised part of the season and crown the first big precursor winners, let's unveil the Team Experience Oscar predictions. As in years past, various members of The Film Experience's writing team were asked to deliver their Academy Award predictions, contributing to some collective punditry. This season, you can count on my best guesses and those of Eric Blume, baby Clyde, Eurocheese, Abe Friedtanzer, Christopher James, Ben Miller, Nick Taylor, plus the one and only Nathaniel Rogers. For this first set of team predictions, we've focused on the so-called "above the line" categories, plus Animated and International Film for good measure. In other words, the races that tonight's ceremony might shake up…

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Happy New Year from the Team Experience!

by Cláudio Alves

As the year draws to a close, here’s a final thank you for reading The Film Experience and engaging in this cinema-loving community. Have a wonderful time tonight and let’s all hope for a good 2025, even if the odds may feel against us.

Also, remember, you are one. Don’t make the same mistake as Miss Sparkle in The Substance. Then again, we should all enter the New Year with a Monstro Elisasue type of smile – broad, bloody, mad and maddening, bursting in ecstasy beyond reason and full of star power. Cheers!

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Goodbye, Maggie Smith (1934-2024)

by Cláudio Alves

DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA (2022) was one of Maggie Smith's last screen appearances.

We always knew the day would come, but it's still difficult to imagine life without the great Maggie Smith among us. Born to a secretary and a pathologist in the interim years between the Great World Wars, she became a respected star of the stage before a jump to cinema in the 1960s expanded her horizons. From temptress to bitter old lady, from romantic heroin to comic relief, dipsomaniac tragedienne, whodunit queen and deranged diva – she could do it all, despite what some might have said about her late-career range or lack thereof. To me, Dame Maggie Smith was a titan, one of my favorite screen presences, and a reliable workhorse who could elevate every project she was involved in, even those that didn't deserve her talents. The British star will be sorely missed and the arts are poorer without her. Nay, the world.

Over the years, multiple writers at The Film Experience have explored the career of the late great two-time Oscar winner. So, let's revisit those pieces and bask in the love for an actress of incomparable wit and unimpeachable craft…

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2023 Team Experience Awards - WINNERS

by Christopher James

Poor Things won the hearts of The Film Experience team, but it wasn't the only film the team loved this year.

The Film Experience team has spoken. Our nomination leader - Poor Things - won Best Picture from the group. However, it was not a sweep for Yorgos Lanthimos' ambitious film. The only other category Poor Things won was Best Costume Design. Instead, the team decided to spread the wealth across all categories, rewarding a total of 16 films. The most wins racked up by any film this year was three, which both Anatomy of a Fall and Barbie achieved. 

See what won each of the categories after the jump...

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2023 Team Experience Awards - NOMINEES

From the team...

Poor Things earned 12 nominations from the team, including Picture, Director, Actress and two Supporting Actor citations.

Poor Things led the nominations for the Team Experience Awards for the 2023 awards season. Yorgos Lanthimos' film earned 12 nominations, the most of any film this year. Despite the team falling for a movie loved by the Oscars, they were not afraid to deviate from the expected nominees. Only six out of ten Best Picture nominees overlapped with Oscars, while Lanthimos is the only director honored by the Film Experience team and the Oscars with a nomination. The selections for these nominees were determined through a collective voting process involving all the writers at The Film Experience, with the exception of Nathaniel, who will announce his personal Film Bitch Awards separately. Be sure to visit The Film Experience on Sunday, March 2nd when the winners will be announced.

See the full list of nominees after the jump...

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