'Belfast' and 'King Richard' win big at "Movies for Grownups" Awards

by Nathaniel R

Alan Cumming hosts the Movies For Grownups Award © PBS

The AARP 'Movies For Grownups' Awards aired as a special on PBS last night to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Alan Cumming hosted the audience-absent virtual awards with disturbing laugh and applause track.  You can watch it on the PBS site through April 15th. Belfast which had led their nominations won the top prize but they spread the wealth. The only film to win more than one prize was King Richard (Actor & Supporting Actress). You have to be 50+ to be eligible for their prizes which is why some of the biggest Oscar contenders are absent.

Winners and comments and a few pics from acceptance speeches are after the jump...

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"Introducing" The film debuts of your Best Supporting Actresses

by Nathaniel R

Aunjanue Ellis in her film debut, "Girls Town"

In the glitz and glamour of awards season it can be hard to remember that today's most celebrated performers were once just starry eyed hopefuls trying to land a movie role. For this four-part series, a look back at the films that launched each of our acting nominees, some more auspiciously than others. Because acting is a three medium art form (stage, tv, screen) we're sticking to their first feature film role to make it easier. Some of the nominees had acting gigs before landing their first film. We'll take them in chronological order of their debuts and share a screen shot of the very first credited moment on film.

We begin with Supporting Actress which we'll be discussing at length on the Smackdown this weekend. But first a look back at their very first roles...

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The Oscar Luncheon was a hit - everyone glad to be back in the room

by Nathaniel R

tick tick BOOM reunion at the Oscar luncheon

For those of you who are not "extremely online" as they say, we thought we'd share some photos and point you to some fine accounts of the Oscar luncheon since they'll be new to you. We are neither cool enough nor local enough to be invited to this Los Angeles event (TFE is a NYC site... though a couple of our contributors are in LA) but thankfully some journalists are! The event took place yesterday and the reports have been trickling in ever since...

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Best Supporting Actress - 'How'd she get nominated?'

The Best Supporting Actress Oscar Chart is fully updated with stats, trivia, a reader's poll, and "how'd they get nominated"? theorizing, so check it out. 

Oscar Volley: It's a Best Supporting Actress lovefest!

Our Oscar Volley series continues with Cláudio Alves and Nick Taylor doing a deep dive on a category near and dear to their hearts...

NICK: First, quick introductions! What drew us to this category, you ask? The Supporting Actress category was one of my favorite fields to rummage through when I was initially exploring the Oscars. Tilda Swinton, Lupita Nyong’o, Sandy Dennis, Thelma Ritter, Mo’Nique, Dianne Wiest, Agnes Moorehead - all led me to new ideas about film and performance I hadn’t dreamed of before then. Watching talented actresses carve out whole worlds from the corners of their films became one of my favorite things to search for in movies.

I have a very specific memory of discovering the Supporting Actress Smackdown after watching Kramer vs Kramer for the first time only a few weeks after the podcast on 1979 dropped and listening to the discussion with rapt attention. And then the 1948 episode came out like, the next day! Gave me wild misconceptions on how fast things updated, lemme tell you...

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