So I ended up watching the Oscars cast (in rerun without ads and skipping some of the musical numbers and segments I was disinterested in — less than two hours long this way!). I definitely got choked up a few times, especially Quan’s and Yeoh’s wins.

But I think you’re right that having a third tier of acting could separate the nearly-leads from the walk-off cameos like Hirsch and Lynch in Fabelmans. I already have a hard enough time remembering worthy supporting performances. If I’m going to start doing this every year, I should probably keep a spreadsheet as the year goes.

Quan.

Besides ensemble, I also wonder if three acting tiers with Best Bit Player would be better, insofar as Best Supporting apparently encompasses everything from basically-leads like Ke Huy Kwan all the way down to one-scene performances like that lady in Network or Judd Hirsch.

It’s okay, I’m fully braced for you to like Pearl significantly less than I do. (Almost everyone does.) The promo shots don’t really capture the film’s colors, and it’s really only like 5 scenes that make use of it. A lot of the movie is set in a house that’s shabby and gray (at least partially for thematic reasons). And, yeah, the 1910’s setting clashing with Technicolor’s decades-later peak is not addressed and makes little sense. It doesn’t feel wrong to me, but maybe that’s, like you said, because Wizard of Oz makes this era seem OK in saturated colors.

The fine line between editing, directing, and writing is certainly one that I’m not an expert in teasing out and is definitely blurry. In some ways, more technically accomplished editing of action is best if it goes unnoticed because it keeps everything coherent and intuitive. (e.g. Top Gun Maverick)

Yeah, I’d guess it’s less than 10 years until the Oscars has to confront the gendered acting categories issue with some great performance not on the binary. I wonder if they’ll go the route of combining into some mega multi-honoree gender-neutral category.

It’s odd that our biggest overlap was editing, though I still think Tar is too guided by its screenplay to be particularly in awe of guy-that-edited-Tar. But if I’m very honest I don’t have the firmest grasp of what editors do these days, given the automation and digitization of the process, other than being like an assistant rather than a decisionmaker in their own right.

“It could be that one film is a more memorable and a better “crown jewel” for the year than another, but the latter is “better” in a strict sense. Am I overthinking this? Of course.” I understand what you mean, but yes.

I had forgotten best song was even a category. But, not that you’re following the Oscars strictly, it’s gratifying (sort of) that you forgot makeup/hairstyling too!

I do wish they’d pull the trigger on Best Ensemble as an Oscar category. It’s the least they could do given the somewhat narrow range of roles a Best Actor/Best Actress dyad is going to award. (Other suggestion: opening up the gendered acting categories to ten–I daresay a better use of space than ten best pictures–and giving two awards. Hazy on how to handle nonbinary performers given the “here’s your award for having a job, I guess” problem the smallness of the demographic presently poses, so flipping a coin or actor choice seems the best solution if chromosomal sex–this being the current solution, e.g. House of the Dragon–is noncongenial. Ideally, it’d just be some arbitary not-too-large number of Best Actors competing for one or two awards, irrespective of anything, but I’m not blind to the obvious problems that would attend that. Oops, didn’t mean to write a white paper.)