Saturday, February 23, 2013 at 10:01PM Look how happy I was guaranteeing Ralitsa that Michael Haneke is going to win an Oscar tomorrow on CNN International's World Report!
I will always discuss Best Foreign Film if people will listen. Also, I desperately had to pee.
Monday, February 18, 2013 at 5:44PM 
Running a niche blog is tough business. It doesn't pay the bills. Traffic peaked in 2011 (I was unemployed and had more time to write) and though we held steady in 2012, more or less, no growth *sniffle*. Is the plateau a sign that I should close up shop? More corporate blogs emerge with big paid teams devoted to Oscar coverage each year.
The existental and practical question: how to compete?
But after a decade of writing for the internet, it's actually my life so I have no desire to quit. I fear becoming the boy who cried wolf since I've freaked out publicly before a few times about quitting but always kept writing. "People" tell me that traffic is noteworthy but ads are still had to come by so I have to beg for donations / subscriptions (see righthand sidebar - if everyone who read gave a nickel a day I could do this full time!). I'll be brainstorming about how to make this work in 2013 and by June, I'll make decisions. So don't go anywhere post Oscar - Give me hope for the future. I'll sing for my supper. What would keep you coming back post-Oscar?
I may even try a weekly Podcast though that would surely have to involve a rotating panel of guests instead of the regulars. ANYWAY. There's more to come before a possible summer hiatus (we'll see how the next two months go)...
Reader Appreciation Month
Quentin Tarantino Week (March 25-30)
April Showers
Spring-Long Pedro Almódovar Retrospective
Meanwhile if you can contribute in any way (maybe you're a personal publicist? an interactive web designer? a brilliant emerging writer who doesn't want to run his/her own blog? a movie star or connected character actor who reads silently? a massage therapist? a personal trainer? a life coach?) towards boosting the site's profile let me know with a private email or with a comment.
Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 4:51PM you should like The Film Experience's facebook page which went up very recently...
Since you're always on facebook anyway!
Thursday, January 10, 2013 at 10:24AM 
Though I feared a complete and utter breakdown of my predictive skills this year, as it turns out I did about the same as usual which is quite wonderful given how difficult those fifth spots were this year and how much you had to chuck statistical expectations to get it right (Riva and Haneke and Amour had so little precursor support but I had a feeling from way back that they'd find their way in, that they'd be "sticky" enough as it were in the memory)
The Big Eight in the high profile categories Picture, Director, Acting and Screenplays I had an 81% degree of accuracy with 36/44 nominees guessed correctly.
All Categories Absent the Shorts 77% (83/107)
All Categories Including The Shorts 74% (91/122)
Last Minute Mistakes - I had a perfect predicted set in Production Design until I swapped out Life of Pi at the last second, thinking that Django Unchained might win a farewell honor for J Michael Riva who died during production. And last last night I stated on Twitter my regret that I didn't predict Waltz over Redmayne in Supporting Actor (a no guts no glory call that gave me no glory...). I would've been 100% there too though I remain confused that Waltz won more attention than DiCaprio or Jackson whose work in tandem is the best the highly uneven Django has to offer.
Categories I'm Most Proud Of - It was a cinch to predict Adapted Screenplay this year -- interview coming up with one of the nominees -- so my 100% guesswork there is no biggie and nothing to shout about. But I'm pleasantly surprised that I went 9 for 9 in Best Picture for two reasons. The first is that since I had placed them in if 7... if 8... if 9... order and all 9 lined up that I was spot on and the second and even better reason is that apart from about ½ of Silver Linings Playbook and about ¼ of Django Unchained I think they're all really good movies and six of them are on my own top ten list (which has been delayed due to all this Oscar madness)
I knew Colleen Atwood's death-fetish royalty porn wouldn't fail in the Costume category
I'm also pleased that I went 4 for 5 in so many categories (13 in all!) but particularly the difficult cases of Actress and Costume Design (missing only Mirror Mirror - I had predicted A Royal Affair instead since they often like royalty porn and one foreign film in that shortlist), and Foreign Film (I missed only "No" but I'm THRILLED about the nomination since it's such a great movie) arguably my 3 top interests as categories go. I am not nearly as well versed in Documentaries and Sound Editing so I was stunned to call 4 of those 5 correctly too.
Silver LInings Playbook is the first film since 1981 to receive nominations in ALL acting categoriesMy Worst Categories This Year - Like everyone else the shocking Best Director lineup threw me (3/5) but at least I got the Hooper snub / Haneke in mix right but where I made the biggest judgement call errors was Supporting Actress where I let my Nicole Kidman mania persuade me that they'd preserve her wild genius abandon (the Globe & SAG nods are wondrous though) and I confess that I didn't consider Jacki Weaver to be in the running at all. I am a huge Jacki Weaver fan -- she offered to adopt me during the Animal Kingdom campaign, maybe my fondest memory of that awards year -- but I didn't think that Silver Linings Playbook gave her enough to do to win #1 placements.
But my absolute worst prediction field this year was Animated Short. Many people don't predict this category but I predict all categories and the shorts can be really tough. I only corrected guessed 2 of the 5 and am saddened that the eye-popping fascinating Eagleman Stag and the hilariously rauncy Tram didn't make the cut.
Where were you most mistaken and which categories do you feel proudly totes psychic about?
Tuesday, December 25, 2012 at 10:14AM Happy Holidays
Merry Christmahanakkwanzukkah to all of you out there who make up The Film Experience's sexy, smart, diverse, magical, actress-loving, Oscar-obsessed cinephiliac community of readers. The site literally wouldn't still exist without you, whether that's through your blogging-fuel comments, e-mails of gratitude, cup o' joe donations (see right hand sidebar), and just general sharing and retweeting and emailing and the engaged fandom that has increased TFE's profile over the years enough to snag us the occassional ad buy, festival gig, BFCA membership, and audiences with and greetings from various goddesses.
Thanks for being there over the years and thanks for still being there. If I had a magical sleigh and flying reindeers I'd drop gifts down each of your chimneys, but I only have this blog to give. More interviews, final Oscar nomination predictions, and Year-End goodies to come in the final two weeks before Oscar Nominations.
May your holiday week be filled with...
Randy celebrations with regulation hotties...
Singing...
and dancing...
Renewed faith and life-affirming friendships...
Unforgettably festive surprises...
And, above all else for our purposes... Wonderful wonderful movies.
Now, go open your prezzies and see Les Miz and Django.
XOXOXO
-Nathaniel R
