Oscar race: Supporting Actress Chaos & Supporting Actor Lock-up

by Nathaniel R

don't despair ladies, you're the only two locks in "Best Supporting Actress"

We saw a tweet yesterday that implied that the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress is now between Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy) and Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian) which felt a bit insane to us. That's a Globe induced fever. Nevertheless the shock of Foster's win for a movie people have barely noticed does maybe tell us that the Supporting Actress competition is more fluid than assumed. So who is leading and who is going to be left out on the 15th when the nominations are announced? The way we see it there are 9 women left standing for various reasons (which is a lot going into voting since it's usually only 6 or 7 by now). Only two of them (Glenn Close and Olivia Colman) feel locked up for honors. Curiously despite the sure-thing feel of Colman's soon to be second nomination, it's unlikely she has ANY shot at a win. Her Oscar win is very recent and The Father isn't quite the contender it should be (qualitatively speaking) given its quiet campaign. But the nomination battle is always different than the battle to win.

Who gets the other three spots?

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Showbiz History: Streisand makes history and Elijah Wood turns 40

6 random things that happened on this day, January 28th, in showbiz history...

1973 The 30th Golden Globes with The Godfather and Cabaret both winning Best Picture setting up their nail-biting historic Oscar night. Also on this night Diana Ross won the "New Star of the Year" award for playing Billie Holliday in Lady Sings the Blues for which she'd also be Oscar-nominated. Will Andra Day be as awards-lucky in the forthcoming United States vs. Billie Holliday?

1978 The 35th Golden Globes with The Turning Point and The Goodbye Girl winning the Best Picture prizes...

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"The Mauritanian" for the Oscar Race?

by Eric Blume

Yesterday, Variety leaked word that STX will provide a late-entry film into the Oscar race.  The Mauritanian, which was formerly titled Prisoner 760 (going from one bad title to another), is The Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald's latest film.  It stars A Prophet's leading man Tahir Rahim as a tortured captive in Guatanamo Bay and Jodie Foster as his lawyer. Variety critic Clayton Davis claims that Rahim and Foster deliver electrifying performances, and that they could find themselves in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress races, respectively.

Macdonald has had a bit of an erratic career since he directed Forest Whittaker to an Oscar back in 2006.  His last film, the documentary Whitney, profiled the singer with limited depth but curiosity and sympathy.  It'll be good to see him return to the arena of global politics, which seems to be his strength...

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Showbiz History: Brooke's jeans, Cuckoo's statues, Aishwarya's crown

8 random things that happened on this day, November 19th, in showbiz history...

1916 Goldwyn Pictures Corporations was established in Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn. It's actually here and not with MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) that the 'Leo the Lion' trademark began... though of course in the silent films you didn't hear the lion's roar. The company was defunct by 1924 but it has lived on in many formed, merging with Metro to become MGM and the Goldwyn family is still in business with Samuel Goldwyn Films. They're next releases are the Andrea Riseborough indie Luxor and Denmark's Oscar submission Another Round starring Mads Mikkelsen. 

1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is released. The following March it becomes only the second film in history to win the "Big Five" Oscar categories...

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25th Anniversary: "Home for the Holidays"

by Mark Brinkherhoff

In high school, I managed to hoodwink my journalism advisor into letting me review movies for our semi-regular school paper. In some cases, these were movies my parents certainly did not approve of (Se7en, Showgirls, etc.); in other cases, there were movies I would have seen anyway but was able to write off as a “class expense.” Home for the Holidays, Jodie Foster’s sophomore directorial effort, fell into the latter camp.  

Arriving on a post-Oscar blitz of new films starring Holly Hunter (e.g. Copycat, Crash—no, not that one), Home for the Holidays got lost in the shuffle of both 1995’s crop of holiday fare and its stars own filmography...

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