Almost There: Oskar Werner in "The Spy Who Came In from the Cold"

by Cláudio Alves

To be nominated in both Leading and Supporting categories at the same Oscar ceremony is a rare feat some actors have been lucky enough to achieve. Most often, though, AMPAS will pick a role to celebrate and only bless the performer with one nomination. Actors that came close to the elusive double nomination include people like Meryl Streep in 2002, Al Pacino in 1990, Jane Fonda in 1978, and today's Almost There case study, Oskar Werner in 1965.

This Austrian performer, famous for films like Truffaut's Jules and Jim, was nominated in the Best Actor category for his work in Ship of Fools. That same year, he was probably close to a Supporting Actor nod for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold…

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Showbiz history: Glynis Johns, Dr. No, Taylour Paige, Pitch Perfect

10 random things that happened on this day (October 5th) in showbiz history...

1923 The great Oscar nominated and Tony-winning actress Glynis Johns (Miranda, Mary Poppins, The Court Jester, The Sundowners, The Ref) born in South Africa. The picture to the left is at the Tony Awards in 1974.  She turns 97 years old today. Happy birthday, Sister Suffragette! Glynis is currently the fifth oldest living Oscar nominee. 

1945 A strike by set decorators turns into a riot "Blood Friday" at Warner Brothers studios. Aren't you glad Daniel's series "The Furniture" on the work of production designers and set decorators is back? I missed it so much when it went on hiatus.

1946 The very first Cannes film festival wraps up...

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The genius of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" ending

by Cláudio Alves

Back in the 1960s, unlike now, a film could be recognized in the Best Foreign Language Film category one year and still compete for the other Oscars the next. Such a strange fate befell Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, an intoxicating love letter to the classic Hollywood musical by one of the most inventive auteurs of the Nouvelle Vague. In 1964, the picture was a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and would go on to conquer four other nods in 1965, the year of our next Supporting Actress Smackdown.

While it's easy to resent the Academy for not fully embracing the flick (it won nothing), the citations it received, for Demy's script and Michel Legrand's music, were fully deserved...

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Monty @ 100: "The Big Lift" Or, what Monty did instead of "Sunset Blvd"

We're watching ALL 17 of Montgomery Clift's films for his Centennial. Here's returning contributor David Upton with episode 4.

Just two years after his debut in The Search, Montgomery Clift returned to post-war Europe. The Big Lift, released in 1950, was just two years removed from the true story it centres on, the Berlin airlift of 1948. One of the first major crises of the Cold War, the airlift was needed thanks to the Soviet blockade of the part of the city under the control of Western allies. Berlin is a city in ruin, populated by a people torn apart and living amongst rubble. Into this, director George Seaton’s film casts a watchful Monty and the exuberant Paul Douglas as a pair of Air Force sergeants, Danny MacCullough and Hank Kowalski.

Future AMPAS president Seaton, best known for 1947’s whimsical Christmas fantasy Miracle on 34th Street, goes hard on the verité factor, casting all supporting military characters with real Air Force personnel...

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Oscar Prediction Updates: Picture, Director, Score, Song, Sound

Just as we'd given up on Minari being released for this year's awards season, a trailer shows up (albeit without a release date attached) and just as we'd decided that No Time to Die was going to be a hit in the craft categories -- especially given the dearth of big studio event films -- it gets delayed until Easter 2021. But we soldier on, happily, with the Oscar charts.

It's looking like a great year for black cinema (multiple films in play), a great year for Netflix (which didn't have the movie theaters closing problem), a good year for Nomadland, but otherwise things are still very uncertain. 

The following charts are all updated... 

• Index
• Picture 
• Director 
• Supporting Actor 

• Costumes & Makeup 
• Sound & Score 
• Screenplays 

• International Feature Overview 
• International Submissions Pt 1: Albania through Greece
• International Submissions Pt 2: Germany through Norway
• International Submissions Pt 3: Pakistan through Vietnam

What'cha think? Know of any original song contenders? (It's always so difficult to track them)...