92 Days til Oscar. Some Living Trivia For Ya!

Did you know the earliest Oscar year which boasts 20 acting nominees who are still with us is 1992? It's the 25th anniversary of that year and that's the furthest back in time you can go from which all the acting nominees are still walking this earth. With the very noticeable exception of long retired Gene Hackman (no one has been able to convince him to come back to the movies -- and directors have tried!) most of them are still working, too. The lesson is simple: cherish your favorite actors while they're with us because no one lasts forever... except through their art!

The nominees that year were:

Leading ACTRESS	Leading ACTOR	Supporting ACTRESS	Supporting ACTOR
Deneuve Indochine	Downey Jr Chaplin	Davis Husbands & Wives	Davidson Crying Game
McDonnell Passion Fish	Eastwood Unforgiven	Plowright Enchanted April	Hackman Unforgiven ★
Pfeiffer Love Field	Rea Crying Game	Redgrave Howards End	Nicholson A Few Good Men
Sarandon Lorenzo's Oil	Pacino Scent of a... ★	Richardson Damage	Pacino Glengarry...
Thompson Howards End ★	Washington Malcolm X	Tomei My Cousin Vinny ★	Paymer Mr Saturday Night

If you'd like a breakdown of the earliest years for the individual categories, it won't surprise you to hear two things. First, that we're offering that list since we're trivia overachievers here at TFE . Second, those categories line up exactly like average age statistics for those races i.e. lead Actress skews youngest, then Supporting Actress, then Actor, and in last place is Supporting Actor because that's the category that's most frequently enamored of veterans. Those details are after the jump...

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Bonnie & Clyde's 50th Anniversary

by Eric Blume

It’s difficult to believe that it’s fifty years this month that Arthur Penn’s 1967 classic Bonnie & Clyde debuted in theaters.  On one hand, it’s been part of the American film imagination for so long, that it’s been colossally influential on many other movies.  Yet every time you watch it, it feels as fresh, vital, and new as if it were just shot.

Surprisingly, the movie starts with Faye Dunaway’s Bonnie behind bars… holding onto the bars of the headboard of her bed...

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There's a link in my soup

This is Just My Face is on sale nowNPR Gabourey Sidibe has a book out, now "This is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare" (great title). It's about her rise to fame, body image, and being confused with her fame-making character in Precious which she finds both frustrating and powerful
Time Out New York publishes its own TONY* nominations. Get it, their initials are TONY. Not to be confused with the actual Tony Award nominations which are due tomorrow to honor the best of Broadway. Consider this their "should be nominated" article
The Retro Set looks at the new documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai, narrated by Keanu Reeves, and now available to stream on Netflix. Can't wait to watch this. 

Deadline republished an interesting history of the making of Silence of the Lambs. I didn't know that the project started with Gene Hackman who was going to direct and star. 
Variety shared a really good interview with Geena Davis. I love what she says about the gender neutral movement with some awards bodies, combining male and female actors into the same category. It's a terrible idea and Geena eloquently explains why
Playbill Chita Rivera flashes back to her West Side Story audition in the 1950s, the show that put her on the map
Awards Daily looks at the prospects for Limited Series Actor... a far more shallow field than its Actress counterpart this year but at least that means its looking good for Riz Ahmed and Ewan McGregor
Playbill Come From Away, a new Broadway musical that's expected to do very well in tomorrow's Tony nominations, is getting its own documentary feature called Come From Away: From Gander to Broadway. It's the true story of a group of strangers diverted into a small town after the 9/11 terrorist attacks grounded airplanes.

Finally...
Interview has Kate Hudson interview her mom Goldie Hawn. It starts enjoyably silly and familial but gets deep into "mindfulness." Goldie is almost back onscreen (Snatched) after a 15 year retirement (that they're somehow calling a "hiatus"). Love this bit about how therapy (which she started around the time of Laugh-In) helped her keep sane despite becoming a household name in her early 20s:

I realized that the way people see me, as a star, has nothing to do with me. It's like a Rorschach test, like I am something they can identify with, learn to love, learn to hate, learn to resent ... but I gave it back to them. So if somebody said to me, "Oh, I love you!"—that makes me happy to see them happy, but I wouldn't take it in as something that builds my ego. And that's how I stabilized myself. 

Have a lovely Monday, everyone. How do you plan to "stabilize" yourself this week?

The Wisdom of "Postcards"

We've been name dropping Postcards from the Edge a lot this past week, for obvious reasons. I caught the last half hour on accident on television tonight and every split second of it remains marvelous. By the time we get to Suzanne (Streep) reconciling with the director (Gene Hackman) whose film she nearly sabotaged, I am a mess of emotions. It's literally one of my single favorite scenes in all of cinema - so simply staged, so unfussily played by two of the best screen actors of all time, and deeply resonant every time.

Postcards is known for its endless wit but here's something that's less often discussed: even when it's not trying to be funny, it's a total winner. It's a wise compassionate movie, constantly reminding us to go a little easier on ourselves and each other.

Lowell: Growing up isn't like in a movie where you have a realization and life changes. In life, you have a realization and your life changes a month or so later.

Suzanne:  So I just have to wait a month?

Lowell: It depends on the realization. Some of them you only wait a couple weeks.

Now Streaming: Luke Cage's Day Off - A True Story

The following titles are now streaming for your pleasure. We've freeze framed them at entirely random places and shared the first thing that came up as is our whimsical practice. Do you have any desire to see (or revisit) these based on this evidence? 

NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
LOL. Totally forgot about this sly partners in crime shopping scene. Have you seen this recently? It's so great but for every cutaway to Mickey Rooney (sigh). Nominated for five Oscars including Best Actress. (It's actually kind of a surprise that this hasn't been remade since it was originally envisioned for Marilyn Monroe and could have obviously been an entirely different sort of movie.)

seven more after the jump including Marvel's Luke Cage and a 1940s Best Picture winner...

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