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If next January comes around and brings no Oscar nominations for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 then it will have the unenviable tally of zero nominations from four films. Only The Twilight Saga, Mission: Impossible and Fast and the Furious franchises can claim such a strike rate. There was a time when every film that made over $200 at the American box-office could claim at least one nomination - even Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me! But since Mission: Impossible II in 2000, that has no longer been the case. Still, for Lionsgate’s hugely successful Hunger Games to bow out with nary a single nomination to its name is genuinely surprising.
What’s more, these films are hardly wanting for acclaim and nomination-worthy elements. Salute (or click) for more!
We'll have to wait a little while for the full video, which is more fun than the cover but it's always exciting to see THR's roundtable covers nonetheless. Like Vanity Fair's "Hollywood Issue" -- less thrilling than it once was for a myriad of reasons -- it's a tradition that is both great fun for its glamour and personality and highly aggravating for its exclusions and repetitions and limited world view... just like, HEYYYY, the Oscars themselves!
By now you know the drill. First an image. Then the thoughts that come to mind without self-censorhip after the jump...
Saoirse Ronan, who does such a beautiful job carrying Brooklyn, the film about falling in love with and in a new world, is only 21 years old. Should she be Oscar-nominated in two months time she'll be among the 10 youngest ever so honored in that category. She's the same age now as Marlee Matlin was when she competed for Children of a Lesser God; Matlin won and still holds the title of Youngest Best Actress Winner of all time.
Most 21 year-old Oscar nominees are newbies but not Saoirse. She was nominated at 13 for her role as the tattle-tale sister in Atonement. "I saw it with my own eyes!" But should Saoirse be nominated again, she won't break a record of first to two nominations. That record has belonged to Angela Lansbury for over 70 years when she accomplished it by the age of 20.
For fun and movie-history purposes let's look at the...
YOUNGEST BEST ACTRESS NOMINEES OF ALL TIME
The immediate reveal of note is that 70% of the top ten have emerged in just the past twenty years. How much younger can this list get?
01 Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) was 9 (though years younger than that when she filmed it)
02 Keisha Castle Hughes, Whale Rider (2003) was 13.
Film Comment Nick Davis interviews Todd Haynes on movies that inspired something in his movies Interview Mag talks to Regina King about her big year, an Emmy win and The Leftovers Kenneth in the (212) looks back on the revolutionary TV movie An Early Frost (starring Aidan Quinn & Gena Rowlands) for its 30th anniversary The Film Stage a prologue comic for The Hateful Eight written by Quentin Tarantino himself
The Envelope Jacob Tremblay on how Room should have ended filmmixtape suggests 10 films that should have made WGA's "Funniest" List Pajiba mourns the passing of Hayley Atwell... from social media. She was a master at it. *sniffle* This is Not Porn Marlon Brando on the set of Julius Caesar Gurus of Gold new charts and which films and performance need a bigger campaign push to be a nomination threat Screen Daily Adele in talks to join the cast of the next Xavier Dolan movie. Guess she liked her experience on "Hello" /Film Rooney Mara still up for a Dragon Tattoo sequel Variety the first image from the new season of Penny Dreadful - Patti Lupone returns Vogue gets a huge juicy house tour and talk with Jennifer Lawrence who is her typical bawdy self. On her current love life...
Cheers to my hymen growing back!”
Music Video of the Year? Missy Elliott hasn't released an album in 10 years. 10 YEARS. She proves she's still got it in spades with this track WTF (Where They From).It's got everything: Hot dancing, inspired hair and makeup, best supporting visual fx, Charlie Kaufman like puppets, and boxes of people wrapped in plastic. I've watched this video a scary amount of times this week. Join me in obsessiveness.
Oscar Movements The Oscar charts were updated before yours truly headed to Los Angeles for the AFI, the last festival stop that can significantly change things (the next festivals like Santa Barbara for example are just glorified campaigning & warm up acceptance speeches for actors who are already real contenders). But, in a minor twist, AFI didn't change things - no Selma or American Sniper bows to be seen. There were a few players getting little boosts: Will Smith has an outside shot at Best Actor if they a) don't like their current options and b) Concussion is a big hit at Christmas; The Big Shortcould be a Globe Comedy contender (given that meager field); and quite a few Foreign Oscar Submissions attracted more devout fans since AFI is the single best festival at which to see them. Why you may ask? Well, it plays a lot of the titles each year and it's also the only big festival that takes place between when the official submission list is announced and when the Academy members start voting towards the finalist list of nine, so it's ideally positioned to make a difference. Mustang (France's submission) won the Audience Award but several other notable contenders, Denmark's A War among them, also had filmmakers and/or actors in town for promotional (hint: Oscar courting) purposes.
And in news that you know warmed Nathaniel's heart, The HFPA has vetoed Category Fraud attempts by Rooney Mara and Alicia Vikander in supporting. They'll have to compete in Lead Actress, Drama where they both 100% belong. This doesn't necessarily mean anything to the Oscar race where they've been pushed supporting thus far -- Oscar voters have never been required to vote in a specific way for a performance they like (unlike SAG & The Globes where the specific categories are decided for the voters before they nominate) and we've seen in the past that the media and (most shamefully) critics groups generally support / encourage Oscar to accept the fraudulent placement by the studios. But hopefully this is a bellwether for the future. Category Fraud has reached critical mass in the past dozen years and it's time to break it down.
Nine year-old Jacob Tremblay (Room), fourteen year-old Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation), and 21 year-old Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn) are the youngest actors who appear to be in the mix for possible Oscar nominations this year. But none of them will be breaking any records if they are as younger actors have been nominated in their categories. It's actually Jennifer Lawrence, an old lady at 25 (Kidding, but she sure does like playing older women) who is the one to watch for trivia's sake. She is likely to break a record that is currently held by another Jennifer.
Jennifer in Duel in the Sun (1946) / Jennifer in Joy (2015)
Do you think Jennifer Lawrence will take Jennifer Jones Oscar record?
Should Lawrence be nominated for Joy (talk about the new trailer here), she will have amassed an incredible four acting nominations by the age of 25. I assumed that record was held by Elizabeth Taylor but the record is actually held by one of the more forgotten superstars of the 1940s, Jennifer Jones.
Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 3:15PM 
If next January comes around and brings no Oscar nominations for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 then it will have the unenviable tally of zero nominations from four films. Only The Twilight Saga, Mission: Impossible and Fast and the Furious franchises can claim such a strike rate. There was a time when every film that made over $200 at the American box-office could claim at least one nomination - even Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me! But since Mission: Impossible II in 2000, that has no longer been the case. Still, for Lionsgate’s hugely successful Hunger Games to bow out with nary a single nomination to its name is genuinely surprising.
