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91st Oscars. Oscar Contenders of 2018 (for the 2019 Ceremony) - For prediction, discussion, entertainment purposes only
AND THE NOMINEES ARE...
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Mahershala Ali GREEN BOOK Role: Dr Don Shirley, a black gay classical musician touring the dangerous deep south |
Adam Driver BLACK KLANSMAN Role: Flip Zimmerman, an undercover Jewish cop, infiltrating the KKK whlle posing as his fellow detective Ron Stallworth Review | Podcast |
Sam Elliott A STAR IS BORN Role: Bobby Maine, the half brother, former performing partner, and road manager of a troubled rock star. |
61 yrs old | 55 films | 1st nomination! CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? Role: Jack Hock, a gay alcoholic and wily survivor who befriends the unemployed writer Lee Israel and becomes her accomplice in crime. INTERVIEW | |
Sam Rockwell VICE Role: President George W Bush, a good ole boy looking to make his father proud and willing to shove off a ton of the governing to his ambitious running mate. |
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HOW'D HE GET NOMINATED? |
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| 31% Role. Oscar LOVES real life musicians as characters. Oscar also loves straights playing gay. 30% Best Picture heat. An easy way to award a movie they love. 21% Performance. 12% Leading roles give you an advantage at nabbing supporting nominations especially when the precursors sign on which they did big time. 6% Currently a hot commodity: see Moonlight Hidden Figures, True Detective (S3) |
30% Best Picture heat. 28% Performance. Subtle but affecting with a very well delineated arc. 25% Significant career momentum as one of the best of his generation -- it was "time". 11% Role. Might have been flat in lesser hands but the movie was sly to have a proxy character for white voters -- they can wake up to the enormity of systemic injustice right along with him! 6% Chemistry with John David Washington |
60% Role/Star Persona Fusion. Cooper handed him such a gift. A role that directly addresses the Sam Elliottness of him, the underappreciated legacy of someone who's been in the biz forever, the tender masculinity, that unforgettable voice. 17% And he nails it. (Performance) 13% Not insignificant Best Picture heat. 10% That scene in the driveway. Ouch our hearts. Also gets the last soulful (spoken) word. |
40% Performance. Witty but there's also depth of feeling and an undertow 25% Role. Oscar loves a drunk and straight actors playing gay. He's also gifted with a killer intro scene to snap you to attention "Jack Hock, Big Cock" 14% Underappreciated career + super charming actor = easy campaign strategy 12% Lockstep precursor support which he needed without Best Picture heat 9% Chemistry with Melissa McCarthy. |
56% Best Picture heat + recency bias and significant campaign luck. His supporting competition was mostly in non-Best Picture films and the critics failed to rally for any one of them beyond Richard E Grant. 20% Precursors. That Globe nod definitely helped 12% Role / Performance. Fun George W Bush impersonation. And Oscar LOOOOOOVES mimicry. 10% Afterglow. He just won. Fresh in their hearts 2% Christian Bale & Amy Adams coattails on acting ballots |
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POLL
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WHO WILL WIN? |
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| Mahershala Ali has, so far, a steamroll style lead. Will this hold or will people finally wake up to the fact that they gave him the Oscar just two years ago for a better performance and their other nominated options are pretty great choices. | ||||
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WHO SHOULD WIN? |
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| It's pretty clear, at least to these eyes, that the best performance nominated is Richard E Grant's career topping work in Can You Ever Forgive Me? but we wouldn't bitch about a career style award for the awesome Sam Elliott, after 50 fine years in the business, either. | ||||
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WHO WAS LEFT OUT? |
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| Timothée Chalamet (Beautiful Boy) is the obvious drop from the precursor rounds though we're fine with that since it's a leading role and this supporting category already has one of those in Mahershala Ali! Otherwise, it was probably only genre bias that prevented Michael B Jordan from scoring here for Black Panther. We have no explanation other than bad taste and lack of AMPAS members watching more than 12 movies a year before voting as to why there was never any traction for other amazing talent like Alessandro Nivola (Disobedience), Russell Hornsby (The Hate U Give), Colman Domingo (If Beale Street Could Talk), Steven Yeun (Burning), Hugh Grant (Paddington 2) Raul Castillo (We the Animals) and several others. Honestly this could be one of the best categories each year but it's regularly the least imaginative. We don't know how to help Oscar with this. It's like they rarely even try in this category! | ||||
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TRIVIA ON THESE NOMINEES |
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• Zodiac sign: Aquarius • If he wins his second supporting actor Oscar within three ceremonies he'll join an exclusive club. The only people who've accomplished it that quick before are Walter Brennan (36/38/40) and Jason Robards (76/77) the only man to win supporting actor in two consecutive years. Christoph Waltz and Peter Ustinov were also pretty quick about it BUT NOT THAT QUICK. • One of 7 of 20 nominations for gay characters this year. All are played by straight actors. We're not sticklers about that (actors should be able to play people they aren't. It's called acting!) but SOME of these roles going to gay actors would be awesome, Hollywood. • Has acted in 4 best picture nominees already: Benjamin Button (FILM DEBUT), Hidden Figures, Moonlight, and Green Book |
• Zodiac sign: Scorpio • At 6' 2" and a half he's just barely the tallest of this groups. But it's an almost entirely tall group! • He's only the fourth Star Wars franchise alum who wasn't already an Oscar nominee before he joined the series to be Oscar nominated for acting after a Star Wars gig. The first was Harrison Ford (Witness) so father & son both made it to the Oscars. Haha. (The other actors are Natalie Portman & Keira Knightley who were nominated a few years after appearing in Phantom Menace) • Has acted in 2 Best Picture nominees: BlacKkKlansman and Lincoln |
• Zodiac Sign: Leo • This first time Supporting Actor nominee is married to a one time Supporting Actress nominee: Katharine Ross (The Graduate). They've been married for 34 years! He's the only acting nominee married to another Oscar nominee (Rachel Weisz's husband Daniel Craig still hasn't been nominated) • After 50 years as a professional actor, he finally nabs his first nod! • If he wins the Oscar he'll be the fourth member of the The Big Lebowski cast to do so after Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and Phliip Seymour Hoffman • He's the oldest nominee this year, not just in this category (he's one month older than Caleb Deschanel, nominated in Best Cinematography) • Has acted in e Best Picture nominees: Up in the Air, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (FILM DEBUT), and A Star is Born |
• Zodiac sign: Taurus • He's the only nominee in this category that was born outside of California!. He was born in Swaziland ... which is now named Eswatini. • His breakout role was Withnail and I (1987) in which he played a drunk living in a squalid flat. three decades years later his first nomination, he's also playing a drunk living in a squalid flat, or at least a previously squalid flat that he helps clean up before crashing on the couch. • The only actor nominated who is also a publishd author. I suggest reading his book "With Nails and I: The Film Diaries of Richard E Grant" - I PROMISE YOU WILL LOVE IT. |
• Zodiac sign: Scorpio • By far the shortest of this year's supporting actor nominees. He's 5'8" and everyone else here is either 6'1" or 6'2" • He's one of only two actors winning a consecutive nomination after last year's race. The other is his Florida Project competition Willem Dafoe in Best Actor for At Eternity's Gate. • Only one actor has ever won the Oscar playing a real life US president (Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln) though several have been nominated and that number now includes Rockwell's George W Bush • Has acted in 4 best picture nominees: The Green Mile, Three Billboards, Frost/Nixon, and Vice |