Best Actor - trivia, polls, and "how'd he get nominated?" thoughts

by Nathaniel R

Will Will Smith hear his name called on March 27th?

You know the drill by now. As we're working on trivia and "how'd they get nominated?" theorizing, we love to imagine an avatar for each category melding all the nominees together. In the case of this year's Best Actor race that's a 51 year old bi-racial American movie star, who is married with multiple kids and who spends a lot of time in action franchises. Wait a minute this sounds suspiciously like The Rock! Oh, wait. Never mind. This fictional amalgam of our Leading Men is also an Oscar favourite with four nominations under his belt, usually for playing real life people. In all seriousness though...

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New Oscar Trivia via the new set of nominations

Add to this list in the comments if you'd like. Refresh your screen for updates as we find more trivia...

Bradley Cooper scored his 9th nomination, this time for producing Nightmare Alley

PICTURE

-With Nightmare Alley Bradley Cooper received his fourth nomination for producing, tying his Oscar nomination stats for acting. You know who else has four nominations for producing and four for acting? Warren Beatty! Of course Warren Beatty also has multiple writing and directing nods and an actual statue so he's still ahead of Cooper in the stats book.

- With his nomination for producing and writing Belfast, Kenneth Branagh now holds an Oscar record...

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Oscar Volleys: Four locks, and the race for the fifth spot in Best Actor

Continuing our Oscar Volley series at The Film Experience. Tonight Gabriel Mayora and Ben Miller on Best Actor in a Leading Role

Ben Miller: My big question: is this a race only for the fifth slot? Will Smith, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Garfield, and Denzel Washington all feel locked in. Is there any vulnerability in that top four?

Gabriel Mayora: I am surprised by how excited this self-professed raging actressexual™ (thank you to Nathaniel for that genius term) is to discuss this year's Best Actor category. Most years I find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for this category, but maybe after seeing the race take some surprising shifts last year, I have a renewed interest. I  agree with you that Smith, Cumberbatch, Garfield, and --to a slightly lesser extent, maybe? -- Washington are all locks, there is little room for surprise come nomination morning.

And while my first instinct is to complain about the Academy's lack of originality, I can't say I blame them. Those four are all so good...

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NYFF: The visual wonder of "The Tragedy of Macbeth"

By Nathaniel R

“When” is the first word of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, uttered by one of three witches. Though the word precedes a question it sounds more like a definitive statement in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth; the writer/director even grants the word its own solo title card. Later the word “Tomorrow” will also grace the screen alone. Time, we immediately understand, is at the heart of the latest big screen Shakespeare. And it’s running out. Coen’s adaptation casts two older-than-usual actors as the titular Lord (Denzel Washington) and Lady (Frances McDormand). As a result their infamous power grab plays like a violently desperate game of “last chance”…

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Links

• Bloody Disgusting design for a new steelcase edition of American Psycho
• Screen Crush Sonny Chiba, legendary martial arts star, has passed away at 82 from COVID related pneumonia
• IndieWire Cinematographers speaking out about unsafe working conditions
• Deadline turns out Disney released that petty victim blaming statement against Scarlett Johansson when she was in labor delivering her new baby
• AV Club ...and perhaps to prevent another lawsuit, Emma Stone obviously got a *very* sweet deal for Cruella 2 aka... um, a second live-action 101 Dalmatians remake.

Julianne Moore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Eternals, Anthony Mackie, Billy Eichner, Manny Jacinto, Gloria Swanson, Denzel Washington, and The White Lotus after the jump...

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