Questions we're asking ourselves about Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor

All Oscar charts are being updated over the next four days but we started with Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor because there are so many questions haunting us. So go ahead and answer the following quandaries if you can...?

1. Can Tom Hanks finally break his strange Oscar curse?
Before anyone had seen A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood he was a lock "on paper" in Best Actor. But the movie turned out to not be a biopic at all but something far more creative and we'd argue more successful than a biopic would have been, in which Mr. Rogers is more of a symbol and catalyst for another man's journey. It's a gorgeous movie but the switcheroo from expectations to reality will likely throw some Oscar voters as well as general moviegoers. Hanks has been delivering better performances of late than the kind he used to win Oscars for but AMPAS hasn't nominated him in 19 years. Should we expect that they'll continue that "you already got yours" cold shoulder rather than be predicting him? 

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Best of the "Whodunnit?" Genre (Part One)

by Eurocheese

Rian Johnson’s upcoming Knives Out is a thrill ride of a whodunnit, toying with one of the most enjoyable film genres. To celebrate, I'm sharing my all time list of favorite murder mysteries. Feel free to add your own in the comments – we could all use some good discoveries from any era or country.

Before we begin some whodunnit qualifiers to narrow down this list. The films must have: 

1. A set group of suspects, who we get to know through the film (disqualifies movies like Se7en)
2. An unknown culprit (knocks out most of Hitchcock)
3. Evidence, so the audience has some chance of guessing the final answer
4. ...And the identity of the culprit being revealed late in the film, either by a detective or the movie itself.

This should go without saying, but a whodunnit isn’t as fun when the answer is spoiled, so no spoilers in the comments (about any of these or Knives Out)!

TEN FAVOURITE WHODUNNITS...

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Banderas, a 'singular sensation'

by Nathaniel R

Campaigns for hotly competitive Oscar categories require a good deal of presence on the circuit. Which makes Antonio Banderas's journey to a first Oscar nomination a bit of a question mark at this writing. After a Best Actor win at Cannes for his indelible turn as a famous Almodóvar-proxy director named Salvador Mallo in Pain & Glory, an Oscar nomination was clearly a target worth investing in and aiming for. In fact, it was arguably the stuff of a slam dunk barring the subtitles: aging gorgeous actor (everyone knows they make the pretty men wait), long uncelebrated-by-Oscar career meets meaty role with intertwining "narratives" (a triumph with the director who discovered him nearly 40 years ago and his own recent heartattack dovetail superbly with the role). It's a potential nomination that the media, industry, and fans could all get excited about. But as the season began to heat up all sorts of viable options for the Best Actor shortlist have emerged. This coveted nomination feels like a 'will he or won't he' coin toss now.

If you've been wondering why Antonio hasn't been quite as ubiquitous on the campaign trail as you'd expect given the heavy competition, look no further than his hometown of Málaga, Spain where he's in the process of playing another iconic director...

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Answer me these questions three

Yours truly is sick-sick-sick today so please inspire me right out of this cold by answering questions. First Which movie cures illness? What makes you feel so good that you leap right out of the metaphoric bed with the ability to run a maraton. This is the time when we really wish A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood had already arrived in screener form. 

Been thinking about the greatness of Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment. In all the the years since, I have never heard an audience sobbing its heart out like they did over her last scene with her boys. pic.twitter.com/CoMLUa7wxZ

— Farran Nehme (@selfstyledsiren) November 14, 2019

On Twitter today there was a brief shout-out to Debra Winger's Terms of Endearment performance... and it reminded that one of the very first time I heard someone discuss the art of acting in passionate detail was a Siskel & Ebert special 'if we picked the Oscars' or some such. They were split on Shirley or Debra in Terms. What's the first time you were ever enthralled listening to people talk about acting? 

Finally I promise to write about this year's Oscar race in the morning. Which category do you most want to discuss?

Oscar Trivia: Which films received the most nominations yet missed Best Picture?

by Nathaniel R

We love to throw random Oscar trivia at you. We love you for not even trying to dodge it! So here's a top ten for you. Here's something we were pondering the other day quite randomly: pictures that Oscar voters obviously loved but somehow skipped in the Best Picture race. This trivia is now a different game entirely given that there are so many Best Picture nominees each year. Unless Oscar returns to the days of 5 nominees, we aren't likely to see this list change ever again. But do you think any film this year might see a lot of nominations without a Best Picture bit. Anyway here is the all-timers list of such things...

The "Most-Nominated" Films That Missed Best Picture

01. Nine nominations
THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY (1969)
Director Sydney Pollack would make multiple classics in his career, among which The Way We Were (1973) and Tootsie (1982) are arguably the best loved today, and win two Oscars for Out of Africa (1985). His fifth, which preceeded those "greatest hits" catapulted him into greatness. This bleak masterpiece about a Depression-era dance marathon is still an intense watch a full half century after its debut. The performances by Jane Fonda, Susannah York, and Gig Young are sensational and the film is never less than riveting. It was nominated for 9 Oscars, more than any of the Best Picture nominees that year save Anne of a Thousand Days, but won only supporting actor for Gig Young. Perhaps it was too bleak... or those Academy members with a taste for grit and edge were all already in Midnight Cowboy's pocket that year?

02. [TIE] Eight nominations plus a non-competitive special achievement Oscar

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