The 25 Youngest Women Ever Nominated for Best Actress

by Nathaniel R

Saoirse Ronan hosting SNLTimothée Chalamet (about to turn 22) and Saoirse Ronan (23) are only a year apart in age and both are looking like major Oscar contenders in Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. In other words, it MIGHT be a really young Oscar year. Despite their close ages they're miles apart in terms of Oscar statistics. If Timothée is nominated he'll be a first time nominee and become the 3rd youngest man ever up for Best Actor while Saoirse, if nominated, would be on nomination #3 and would just barely crack the youngest 20 contenders in her category. 

So, who are the youngest female leads ever nominated?  We're about to tell you but one thing is for sure: this list is MUCH younger than the corresponding leading man list.

DISCLAIMER: The male list was comparatively easier to order as there were significant gaps in ages. With so many women roughly the same age on this list it's possible the order is not entirely accurate (given that Oscar dates are not the same each year) but we did the best we could.

I'm just a human girl person and I ain't always perfect."

JUST MISSED THE LIST: Laura Dern was 24 when Rambling Rose came out but by the time Oscar season hit she had just turned 25. When Audrey Hepburn won on her first nomination Roman Holiday (1953) and Shirley Maclaine lost for her first nomination for Some Came Running (1958) they were both about to turn 25. Jeanne Crain was another 24 year old who just missed this list with Pinky (1949). They were the closest all rans...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: The Shape of Lady Bird

Nathaniel and Nick talk two Best Picture hopefuls, the generous funny adorable Greta Gerwig movie Lady Bird and the overstuffed visually creative Guillermo Del Toro fantasy The Shape of Water. 

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Lois Smith & Lucas Hedges and lingering moments
06:00 Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Tracy Letts are all brilliant
16:00 More Lady Bird gushing
23:00 The Shape of Water -wanted to love it more
27:00 Guillermo del Toro problems and monsters
32:00 The performances in the movie
37:40 The Best Picture field, Hollywood sexism, and the atypical versus typical within the contenders

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Shape of Water & Lady Bird

Will this year's Best Director Oscar race be the most diverse ever?

by Nathaniel R

from left to right: del Toro, Guadagnino, Wright, Peele, Jenkins, Rees, Nolan, McDonagh, Aronofsky, Baker, Spielberg, Gerwig, Scott, Bigelow, Coppola, Villeneuve

While I was updating the Oscar charts for Picture and Director it occurred to me that the Academy's directing branch could well come up with their most diverse shortlist ever. Generally speaking when the Best Director lineup has had some variations from its usual five middle aged white American directors it's been with older white European auteurs. But in the past twelve years things have been shifting for that category quite a lot despite frequent complaints that they aren't changing at all. Or at least that they're not changing fast enough.

Consider that the following things have all happened in the past twelve Oscar races:

Click to read more ...

Interview: Director Petra Volpe on Swiss Oscar Submission 'The Divine Order'

By Jose Solís

I don’t remember exactly what horrible thing the new US administration had announced it wanted to do the day I found myself walking into The Divine Order at the Tribeca Film Festival. I knew nothing about the movie and decided I’d give it ten minutes to capture my attention and help me escape whatever ghastly reality was shaping outside. I didn’t want to watch anything about war, genocide etcetera.

All I wanted was hope, and boy did Petra Volpe’s lovely film deliver...

Click to read more ...

Link Therapy

• Criterion Close Isabelle Huppert makes her picks! 
• i09 Netflix odd email phishing scam promotion of The Punisher (I received this too and was like hmmmm... clever but gross and no thank you)
• Gr8ter Days Ann Wedgeworth, a favorite of the National Society of Film Critics prizes in the late 70s and early 80s (Handle with Care, Sweet Dreams) and a Tony winner for a Chapter Two (which later became a film albeit without Wedgeworth) and a TV regular has died
• Boy Culture It only took 50+ years but the Star Trek franchise just got its first gay kiss via Star Trek: Discovery thanks and out actors Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz
• Playbill Broadway hit Come From Away, which is about passengers stranded in a small Newfoundland town during 9/11, is going to get a film version with the Broadway director and writers transferring over
• Tracking Board Mahershala Ali and Carmen Ejogo (YAS! She's so undervalued) will headline the third season of True Detective for HBO

Our Ongoing Collective Trauma
• HuffPost a fine piece by Matt Jacobs on loving Hollywood and the pop-culture machine but realizing how rotten its been since its inception when it comes to abuses of power and the treatment of women
• Deadline Marti Nixon on the recent allegations against Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner 
• Variety Matthew Weiner denies the allegations but admits to being angry on set a lot of the time and wishes he had behaved differently
• AV Club Lena Dunham defends a Girls writer accused of assault
• Nylon a personal essay from Evan Rachel Wood about what the psychotic hurricane of these past two years and what she's learned about herself and others during this awful decline in time. 
• Film School Rejects on the way film sites have been reacting (or not) to the growing list of accusations

Two Videos
On Hela's hello cool antler headpiece in Thor Ragnarok and the short teaser for Incredibles 2 (basically Jack Jack giggling and causing havoc with his laser beam eyes) 

Off Screen for Fun
• New Yorker Disney princes reimagined as allies

Prince Eric is extremely committed to female equality in his kingdom. He has so much to tell Ariel about the plight and oppression of women that he fails to notice that she doesn’t have a voice.