Nom Reactions Pt 1: Brilliant Acting, Good Surprises, Underperformers & "Snubs"

As is our habit we polled the team here plus some friends of the site about their Oscar nomination reactions and wanted to share those little blurbs with you! Would LOVE to hear you answer the same questions in the comments. Here's the first set of questions. 

Andrea Riseborough in "To Leslie"

1. Fav Acting Nomination?
2. What Shocked You the Most on Oscar Nom Morning (in a Gleeful Way?
3. Share your 'Ode to a Snub' 
4. Any Theories as to why ______ underperformed?

Would LOVE to hear you answer the same questions in the comments. But first here are our answers...

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Would you rather?

An excuse to share current Instagram photos from actors that we loved this past week or so. So, would you rather?

• Get a tarot reading with Dan Levy?
• Attend a Balenciaga dinner with Michelle Yeoh?
• Celebrate the rain with Drew Barrymore?
• Enjoy the full moon with Chris Lowell?
• Go putt-putt golfing with Brie Larson?
• Pull faces with Glenn Close?
• Carry Brad Pitt with Aaron Taylor Johnson & Bryan Tyree Henry?
• Have two cups of coffee with Beth Grant?
• Skinny dip in Spain with Lewis Tan?
• Dance with Kristen Schaal?

(All images from official instagram accounts) Pictures are after the jump to help you decide...

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In praise of Melissa McCarthy, puppet master

by Tim Brayton

The Academy Awards are meant to reward great acting, not provide examples of it, but for a couple minutes during Sunday's ceremony, I'm convinced I saw the best comic performance I'll see for the rest of 2019. When Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry arrived to present Best Costume Design in polyglot outfits designed to evoke all five of the nominees, the visual gag is already enough. In a different year or with a lazier duo it might have been all we got. But it's when McCarthy and Henry start to introduce the category that it went from silly to downright inspired.

I am obsessed with every bit of what McCarthy is up to in that clip – and it doesn't even include the best joke of the bit, when she has the bunny attack Henry's hand as he tries help her open the envelope. Part of it, of course, is that she's playing things so completely straight...

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