Category Confusion '24: LEAD or SUPPORTING – Part Two

by Cláudio Alves

As promised, the debate about category placement shall continue to encompass new releases as we all head into the awards season proper. This year seems especially ripe with category fraud, so there's a lot for us to discuss – there's a world of possibility where no supporting performance gets nominated at the 97th Academy Awards. In any case, let's think back to the first round of voting. Last time, when deciding if a given performance was lead or supporting, you deliberated on various titles that have become more widely available since. So, feel free to go back and cast your vote if you have just now seen such pictures as Emilia Pérez, Blitz, and A Real Pain. I also have some campaign updates from my purview as a Golden Globe voter. It turns out that at least one of these category fraud cases changed to lead…

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April Foolish Predictions: Best Supporting Actor

by Nathaniel R

Samuel L Jackson was Tony-nominated for The Piano Lesson on Broadway. Will the transfer result in another Oscar nomination?

It's the last four days of April Foolish Predcitions and, thus, time for the acting categories. A year out nobody knows anything, particularly in regards to the supporting categories since they're less dependent on juicy obvious-from-a-distance leading roles and far more dependent on things you can't really know in advance like who will "steal" the movie, how large their supporting roles will be, and whether they'll film will have enough heat to ignite their campaigns. This is when it's most fun, especially in the supporting categories where you can imagine almost anything happen. By the time the televised awards roll around each year there is zero drama in Best Supporting Actor (though we infrequenely see some in Best Supporting Actress).

Last year's lopsided contest was the Robert vs Ryan showdown with two full blown movie stars competing for the supporting gold, one leaning into a career achievement narrative while the other was content to ride his film's pink zeitgeist wave rather than worry about the gold...

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The Piano Lesson - Let's keep this August Wilson ball rolling!

by Nathaniel R

Netflix announced yesterday that the next adaptation from August Wilson's Century Cycle will be his second Pulitzer winner The Piano Lesson. For those who thought Ma Rainey was way too stagey... well, you're not in luck! It's way too early to know how this will pan out given the pandemic and Broadway having been closed so long but this one is sticking even closer to the stage in a sense. The current plan is for Samuel L Jackson,  Danielle Brooks (yay!!!) and John David Washington to play the central roles (and uncle and his niece and nephew) in the Broadway revival in 2022 and then go directly into filming the movie version when they're done. Having seen Danielle Brooks on stage in The Color Purple trust that Orange is the New Black barely scratched the surface of what she can do so this is exciting news for her fans.

The play, which centers on the theme of family legacies, is about a brother and sister in conflict over what to do about a family heirloom which has been connected to the family since the days when their great grandparents were slaves...

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