An Annette Bening Top Ten

by Cláudio Alves

Remember that week when Taylor Swift's concert film phenomenon and Martin Scorsese's elegiac latest dominated the conversation? It's hard to believe, but more pictures hit theaters along with those big titles. Indeed, some came full of Oscar hopes – look at NYAD. Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chain, the sports biopic enjoyed a qualifying theatrical run before hitting Netflix today, hoping to guarantee its entrance into the awards race. Above all other categories, Best Actress should be the primary objective, with Annette Bening vying for Hollywood's favorite golden trophy once more. Will she secure her fifth Academy Award nomination? Time will tell.

Let's recall some of her best work of yesteryear to celebrate a great actress's return to the race. Here are my top ten favorite Annette Bening performances…

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Showbiz History: Do the Right Thing's snub and American Beauty's big win

On this day, March 26th, in Oscar history only...

1938 Jezebel opens in movie theaters. We discussed it in the Smackdown of '38. The movie will win Bette Davis her second and sadly final Best Actress Oscar. 

1958 The 30th annual Academy Awards are held honoring the Best of 1957...

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1999 with Nick: Best Original Score

This week, in advance of the 2019 Oscars, Nick Davis is looking back at the Academy races of 20 years ago, spotlighting movies he’d never seen and what they teach us about those categories, then and now...

the surprise winner

Spotlight Movie: The Red Violin
One of the most exciting things that can happen on Oscar night is when a movie with no other nominations wins one of the “craft” or “technical” or “below-the-line” categories—three bad names for the races where very few contenders are celebrities. In a year like the current one, where the Best Picture nominees ran the table to a historic degree, and consuming most of the spots in every other race, we have even fewer prospects than usual to see this occur. I’d love to watch The Lighthouse win Cinematography or Ad Astra win Sound Mixing, both because they deserve these victories on merit and because it’s nice (but mostly false) to hope that Oscar voters make discerning judgments from category to category based on each discrete department of artistry.

The Red Violin’s Best Original Score trophy at the 1999 Oscars represented one of these glorious instances, and registered as a significant upset at the time...

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Is it (finally) Thomas Newman's time?

Just 15 days til Oscar. Here's Cláudio Alves on a 15 time nominee...

When we think of Hollywood royalty, our mind tends to go to those dynasties of movie stars or celebrity directors -- families like the Barrymores, the Hustons, the Fondas or the Coppolas. But not every tinsel town lineage is made up of those who sit on the director's chair or dazzle in front of the cameras.

The Newmans are a good example. With more than 90 collective nominations and many wins, they're the Academy Awards' most beloved family. Alfred Newman is the most Oscar-winning composer of all-time with a total of 43 nods and 9 victories. His son David Newman is a one time nominee and his brother, Lionel Newman, won the Oscar for adapting the score of Hello Dolly! and received 10 additional nominations. Emil Newman, another brother, was nominated for the score of 1941's Sun Valley Serenade. Their nephew, Randy Newman, has amassed 22 nods and 2 statuettes. 

And then there's Alfred's other Oscar-beloved son, Thomas Newman…

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Showbiz History: Sophia's Proxy Wedding, Emma's "Easy A"

7 random things that happened on this day, September 17th, in showbiz history...

1931 Anna Maria Louisa Italiano born in The Bronx. She's goes on to become Anne Bancroft, one of the all time greats of stage and screen.

← 1957 Here's a truly odd bit of trivia. Sophia Loren was married by proxy on this day. Two male attorneys stood in for her and producer Carlo Ponti (who gave her stage name and groomed her public image -- they first met in 1950 when Sophia was only 16). Ponti was not legally divorced from his previous wife so the marriage was annulled to escape bigamy charges and then they married again in 1966, but legally this time; they remained married for the rest of his life! But how crazy, right?

1963 The Fugitive premieres on ABC...

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