Polling You

Oscar Ballots are due extremely soon (today) at their final destination but YOU can still vote. The Oscar pages are fully updated and ready for the big night, save for your votes in the categories. We like to include a readers choice to go along with Nathaniel's votes (the film bitch awards) and the Oscars themselves. Some years they line up, some they don't. Vote! PIC, DIR, ACTOR, ACTRESS, SUPP ACTOR, SUPP ACTRESS. Polling ends Saturday. Enlists your friends and read all the silliness. Did you know that Mark Ruffalo has both the most fertile character and is the most fertile Supporting Actor with 3 kids? Did you know that Helena Bonham Carter (Supporting Actress) and Tim Burton are both Oscarless? Can you name two pairs of living director/actress lovematches that both have Oscars before reading them on the page? Did you know that Best Actress Michelle Williams helped launch a yoga for single moms program? For some reason, I can't picture Michelle doing yoga, there's something about her physical screen presence that's too compressed for stretching. And my imagination is usually so fierce with the actresses.

(Oscar madness will end soon and we'll pick back up some long awaited blog threads. Stay tuned.)

Curio: Oscar Minimalism

Alexa here.  In the weeks since the Oscar nominees were announced, graphic artists have been busy designing alternative posters for the best picture contenders, and I've been busy bookmarking.  But this week, with all the competing films floating in my head, I'm especially fond of designs that manage to strip a film down to a single, representative image. David Lopez took it upon himself to design a poster for each of the nominated films by doing just that.  His poster for The Fighter is especially effective, but I do wish he could have included the full title in more of his designs.

More Minimalist Beauties after the jump

Click to read more ...

Supporting Actress (and Mothers & Sons)

It occurred to me when completing the Best Supporting Actress page -- now with "How'd they get nominated?" theorizing, Polls and Trivia -- that "The Wisdom of Crowds" might be in order for this category in terms of predictions. It's the only category that seems ripe for an upset, given both the nature of the category (the most frequently upsettable as it were) and the unfortunate turning of the tide against Melissa Leo. I say unfortunate because I think that Melissa Leo is absolute aces in The Fighter and far less deserving performances win Oscars every year! She'd be my personal winner in a year that didn't contain something as untoppable as Jacki Weaver's "Smurf" my first pencilled in candidate for Best of the Decade in 2020 when we pretend that the Oscars are only held once a decade.

So humor me by voting on this poll and explain yourself in the comments. Who IS going to win? Also make sure to vote on each of the categories for your "should win" on the Oscar pages

poll by twiigs.com

You know you want to.

It feels like a nailbiter as we just discussed on the podcast. I'm still leaning towards thinking that Leo is going to pull off the win, given that I think her competitors are probably too strong across the board to steal all the NOT LEO votes for themselves.

But while researching this category, I realized that if Bale and Leo both win for The Fighter, it'll be the first time since Holly Hunter & Anna Paquin in The Piano (1993) that actors playing immediate blood relatives have both won. But what of Mothers & Sons? It turns out there aren't very many of them that are ever nominated.

Ordinary People (1980) and My Left Foot (1989)

Past 50 Years of Mother & Son Oscar Combos - wins?
Melissa Leo and Christian Bale in The Fighter (2010) -we shall see
Julianne Moore and Ed Harris in The Hours (2002) -neither won
Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense (1999) - neither won
Kate Nelligan & Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides (1991) - neither won
Brenda Ficker and Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot (1989) -WINNERS!
Jessica Tandy and Dan Ackroyd in Driving Miss Daisy (1989) - only the mom
Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People (1980) -only the son
Meryl Streep and Justin Henry in Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979) -only the mom
Gladys Cooper and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady (1964) - only the son
Thelma Ritter and Burt Lancaster in The Bird Man of Alcatraz (1962) -neither won

I think I've accounted for all of them. Are you fond of these pairings? Do you think we'll have another (fictional) mother & son set on Sunday night?

p.s. the SUPPORTING ACTOR Page is also updated

Lypsinka Linka

Fandor a preview of a conversation between Nick and I. This is Nick's brilliant observation that 2009 and 2010's best picture lineups have more than a little in common.
Cinematical Did you hear about this shooting at a Black Swan screening. I'm still confused about what actually happened given the way these posts are written and updated.
Scott Feinberg "Deep Vote" reveals his final Oscar ballot
Black Voices 20 Questions for Anika Noni Rose. Turns out she's really fond of the movie Mother & Child. And really glad to have been Disney's first black princess and loves the fan response.

I actually got a video from a little boy. He was three and he was bouncing on his bed singing 'All The Stars Up There' and telling his mommy, "She is my favorite princess. I'm going to marry her."

Let's wrap up.

I am a huge fan of Lypsinka and I kept meaning to mention her in connection with Black Swan. So it was really fun to read The Daily Beast's interview with John Epperson (aka Lypsinka's "hideous maid") who plays "Jaded Piano Player" in Darren Aronofsky's Best Picture nominee. Seeing Lypsinka live is SO incredible. If you ever see an advertisement for a Lypsinka show in your city you'd be wise to buy tickets. The amount of sheer mnemonic and physical skill required for her act is unreal. Imagine memorizing hours worth of dialogue that's totally unconnected to context and schizophrenically shoved together. Here's a sampling of her inimitable way with Old Hollywood sound clips.

One of my many dreams in life is to host fabulous A list Oscar parties in which I could enlist true Divas to perform. Imagine Lypsinka doing a delicious glamour-fit mix of all the diva lines (and there are lots of them this year) from Black Swan, Animal Kingdom and The Fighter! "You've done some bad things Sweetie!"

The Hard Sell

Was this really necessary?

I mean they're already going to win a slew of Oscars. (see final predictions and vote on reader polls). Honestly I thought this was a parody of a hard sell Oscar campaign / movie commercial for the first few seconds. My favorite part is either the woman with long hair who actually cries while participating in a movie commercial or the guy in St Louis with the yellow shirt.

The King's Speech reminds us that we're all human.

Uh, I hadn't actually forgotten but... thanks?

Thanks to Glenn for pointing this out. And I know it's splitting hairs but isn't a smidgeon dishonest to claim you're THE most acclaimed movie of the year when another movie has won more prizes than any movie usually ever does and yet another is actually the best reviewed of the year?