Random Question For Anyone Who Lived Through the 1980s

How hard would you have laughed at someone who  told you in 1988 that scary seductress Glenn Close (of Fatal...Liaisons fame) and firestarter Sinéad O'Connor of "The Lion and the Cobra" fame would one day be nominated for a Golden Globe for penning an end credits lullaby to a quaint little movie about a gender bending waiter by the name of Albert Nobbs?

Glenn Close and Sinéad O'Connor at the Albert Nobbs premiere

Funny how things change. Makes you wonder how tame today's provocateurs will be in 2034.

poll by twiigs.com

Which of the Golden Globe "Song" nominees will repeat with an Oscar nomination? Or here's a better question for you: why do the Golden Globes even have this category when they don't have on air musical performances by which to jusity it? 

Naked Gold Man: The Pitiable Tradition of The Backlash

Yesterday I was asked by a fellow writer to be quoted on a "who will win?" Oscar piece at another site. I said yes without hesistation but why are we always jumping ahead? We don't even know the nominee list yet! One particular way in which I find it hard to relate to my fellow Oscar pundits and even a lot of kindred spirit movie fans is this: Year after year there seems to be a enthusiasm for and a willingness to concede the race to a presumed frontrunner before nominations are even announced.

This "it's over before it's begun" atmosphere enables, no, encourages hostility and backlash against popular films and performances. The annual Oscar carnival, meant to be a celebration of Hollywood's perception of their own best work, becomes decidedly less magical and fun once the atmosphere turns hostile. It's both more fun and more accurate to view the Academy Awards as a two phase celebration which has numerous winners. In the first phase dozens upon dozens of films and talented individuals compete to find placement in traditionally five-wide shortlists. Several people emerge as winners, drawing attention to films and performances that are sometimes really worth the moviegoer's time. In the second phase the nominees go all Highlander with their golden swords. There can be only one. 

But why rush to the decapitations? 

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) in "The Artist", a silent film superstar threatened by the "talkie" revolution in Hollywood

The film that has been labelled the winner before its secured a nomination this year is The Artist. Many have already said it's a done deal though nomination ballots don't go out for another 9 days. So the backlash has begun. It's an inevitable fact of frontrunner status as any year teaches us.

On backlashes, nostalgia and scarce originals after the jump

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Burning Questions: Can You Skip the Precursors?

Michael C here to take stock of the performers left in the dust by the recent rush of precursors. 

With the announcement of the Golden Globes and SAG nominations behind us the first round of the elaborate Kabuki dance known as Precursor Season is concluded. A week ago we could let our imaginations run wild with the possibilities of our favorite performances making good. Now if an actor hasn’t heard his or her name called by either group? Well, as George C. Scott once said to Peter Sellers, their chances have been quickly reduced to a very low order of probability.

So how low is low? What are the chances of a performance getting nominated without a Globe or SAG nomination? 

Approximately 1 in 20. That's what my remarkably un-scientific research tells me. For this I took a look at the last 10 years. If you go back too far the stats become less relevant. Plus, 10 is a nice round number and if I wanted to do complicated math I wouldn’t be a movie blogger. So, 10 years = 200 nominated performances. and out of those only 12 failed to receive either a SAG or GG nod first. They are:

Nominated Without Precursor LoveLead Actor

• Javier Bardem – Biutiful
• Tommy Lee Jones – In the Valley of Elah
• Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby 

Lead Actress

• Laura Linney – The Savages
• Samantha Morton – In America

Supporting Actor

• Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road
• Alan Alda – The Aviator
• Djimon Hounsou – In America 
• William Hurt - A History of Violence 

Supporting Actress

• Maggie Gyllenhaal – Crazy Heart
• Marcia Gay Harden – Mystic River
• Shohreh Aghdashloo – House of Sand and Fog

12 out of 200 is 6% meaning roughly 1 in 20, or about one a year on average. So contenders have their work cut out for them, or at least their publicists do, if they want to get a ninth inning rally going. 

How to best spot those contenders that are flying under the radar? I admit this might be a Beautiful Mind-like exercise in finding patterns where none exist, but here are the lessons I can draw from recent history, plus the 2011 contenders who may benefit:

Coattails
5 out of 7 of the surprise supporting nominations were for films that also landed nominations in the lead categories, and one of them - Michael Shannon - came close. Only Tommy Lee Jones represented his film’s sole nomination so you need the film to do some of the work for you.
Advantage: Carey Mulligan, Ezra Miller, Judy Greer

Playing Favorites
None of the surprise names in the lead categories were receiving their first nomination. In the big categories don't underestimate the proven vote-getters.
Advantage: Woody Harrelson, Ryan Gosling, Michael Shannon

Category Confusion
A few of these unexpected names were the result of a slot opening up when supporting contenders like Kate Winslet jumped to lead.
Advantage: Nobody. Category placement seems pretty solid this year, no? 

December
Of the 12 curveball nominations listed above only 3 (Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt and Tommy Lee Jones) were from films released prior to Thanksgiving, and none were released prior to September.  Once voters get to the bottom of those screeners currently piling up next to the TV there is bound to be a late-breaking favorite or two.
Advantage: Gary Oldman, Max Von Sydow, Patton Oswalt

Nail It
Of course, when all is said and done it doesn’t hurt to deliver a performance that absolutely tears the house down. I can recall the impact in the theater when Michael Shannon tore through his brief screen time in Revolutionary Road like a wild animal. When that kind of electricity is coming off the screen prognosticators can be forgiven for keeping that person in their predictions no matter what the odds.
Advantage: Vanessa Redgrave, Oliva Colman, Andy Serkis

So if you want to keep rooting for your favorite underdog, there's your sliver of hope. And personally, I think I will keep on clinging to my hopes of a groundswell for Bruce Greenwood's performance in Meek's Cutoff regardless of any logic to the contrary.

Is there an important angle on this I missed? Let me know in the comments. You can follow Michael C. on Twitter at @SeriousFilm or read his blog Serious Film

FYC Booklets: Shame

Ever since we shared that Harry Potter "Consider..." book, I've been meaning open to crack open the other FYC ads that have arrived. So let's do that starting with Shame.

Shame... Why didn't this one come in a black plastic or brown paper wrapping like porn? The cover blurb courtesy of New York magazine says

Michael Fassbender has arrived."

Where? We'll be right over!

We get the meaning but that happened with Hunger, thank you, and was immediately confirmed over and over again for the next year and change with the consecutive openings of Inglourious Basterds, Jane Eyre and X-Men First Class and so on. He's not only arrived, he's moved in.

More Shame and modest FYC proposals after the jump

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Natty the Link Slayer

24 Frames Why is Harvey Weinstein the ultimate campaigner?
Art Info meet the sexy subway rider from Shame, actress Lucy Walters.
Mother Nature six things you probably didn't know about It's a Wonderful Life 
Super Punch Robot Chicken makes an Alien funny: the dangers of acid blood.  
Whedonesque Huh. Did not know this. Willow on Buffy was only a coincidental redhead. T'wasn't planned at all though it's impossible to think of Willow as anything but.
Alyson Hannigan is pregnant again. Congratulations to Mommy Willow! 

In Contention Kris Tapley's "superlatives" of the year. He's on #TeamMargaret and Team Tilda.
Sum Up Film the Desperate Women of the Best Actress Race
My New Plaid Pants Man crotch, the hot new movie poster trend
Empire Robert Redford back to work eh? He'll team with Margin Call's breakout writer/director J.C. Chandor on All is Lost, a man vs nature drama.
Cinema Blend Leonardo DiCaprio has two villain roles coming up and The Devil in the White City just hired its screenwriter Graham Moore
The Carpetbagger This is a "hearing about your nomination" story that isn't 100% generic. Angelina Jolie was at the dentist office. Hee. 
The Playlist Jessica Chastain to star in The Darling... which is about 4 or 5 movies from now on her schedule. At some point girlfriend's going to have to come up for air! Maybe she'll take a break in 2015?

For what its worth The Academy has disqualified The Smurfs from the Animated Feature race. No one expected it to be nominated but it's still important to note. 18 films were submitted and the category requires 16 qualifying entries for five-wise "Best" category. If more are disqualified before the nomination ballots go out, the shortlist may get, well, shorter. It's a curious and quite competitive category this year given the rarity of a Pixar fumble and a frontrunner (Rango) that is not quite beloved. That said, Pixar's Cars 2 could still well be nominated from force of habit. The Golden Globes went there despite several more acclaimed option and so did the Annies though they select ten nominees so it was practically a gimme. It's kind of a nail biter, isn't it? Do you think Pixar will manage a nod?