Will John Lithgow Triple Crown?

by Nathaniel R

John Lithgow to play Roger Ailes

I used to suspect that John Lithgow, who is quite an awards magnet, would join our growing Triple Crown Actors list. But then the big screen portion of his triple threaded career seemed to peter out, with less prominent roles and less frequent movies. This just in: he's been cast in that increasingly starry Fox News Scandal movie alongside Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie. He'll be playing the repulsive Roger Aisle, the main antagonist of the film. And you know how Oscar LOVES respected actors playing despicable men in the Supporting category. Perhaps he'll Triple Crown yet?

Lithgow was nominated for two consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscars in the 1980s (The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment). Aside from that short round of movie hoopla he's mostly concentrated on racking up Emmys (12 noms, 5 wins to date) and Tonys (6 nominations, 2 wins to date).

What's your favorite performance from this 72 year-old showbiz giant?

Oscar Myth-Busting: The Academy Doesn't Like Popular Films

by Nathaniel R

The 10 biggest hits of all time when adjusted for inflation. All but one of them was nominated for Best Picture and three of them won.

We hear it every year: "The Oscars only nominate films that no one has heard of!" Every year this untruth is spread by people who a) don't pay attention to movies and are thus not the target audience of the Oscars anyway and b) don't think things through before proclaiming them and c) haven't worked out that in our increasingly niche world MANY people haven't heard of tv shows, albums, movies, or plays that are of utmost importance to a whole other group of people.

Somehow this myth of "obscure taste" has sunk deep into the Academy's own mindset and they've bought in to it. This week's catastrophic announcement suggests that they've bought into this myth that they don't like popular things to the point of self-loathing. So, here's a quick bit of factual history to bust this myth once again. Our work is never done!

Box office history is harder to suss out prior to 1980 when box office reporting became a more regular occurrence. But most historical indications suggest that the nominees for Best Picture before then were often sizeable hits. Part of the divide that's happened in the past 38 years, which people are never honest about when they complain about Oscar's "relevancy," is that audiences became progressively less interested in human drama (Oscar's bread and butter from 1928 onward), which they mostly sought out on TV, and more interested in visual effects spectacle, cartoons, and mega-sequels. The former is an Oscar interest, the second one has its own category so they mostly ignore it, and the third is not an Oscar interest for which we are grateful because if you want the same things to win prizes every year, look to the Emmys!

So is there any kind of truth to the notion that Oscar doesn't like popular films and only embraces obscure ones? Let's look at the evidence from 1980 onwards...

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Showbiz History: Dutch Men, Dark Knights, and Queen Bitches

We need escapism now more than ever so on this July 18th let's looks back into history for easier things to think about then the here and now.

Verhoeven on the set of "Showgirls"

10 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history...

1938 Infamous Dutch auteur Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Showgirls) born on this day. Elle, his most recent feature, might be hard to top as late career provocations go but the 80 year-old master will certainly try with his next, Benedetta, a 17th century lesbian nuns drama starring Charlotte Rampling. The film is due in 2019.

1967 Mark Vincent Sinclair born in New York City. He later becomes Vin Diesel... 

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The Furniture: Theatrical Magic in "Fanny and Alexander"

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, our weekly series on Production Design returns for Season 3! Kicking off with an episode of our Ingmar Bergman Centennial Mini-Series.

There is so much to say about Fanny and Alexander. It has the visual density of The Age of Innocence, the spiritual ascent of Berlin Alexanderplatz, and Ingmar Bergman’s remarkable way with character. These elements gather together to form a benevolent and mystical dome, one which will define the young Alexander’s relationship to his family and his world. The film is built with a free sense of reality, leaping across time but lingering in resonant moments. Bergman casts the Ekdahl family as practitioners of a magical humanism, which which whisks the audience through these many hours as if in a dream.

Much of this atmosphere depends upon the film’s Oscar-winning production design. 

Its furniture magic takes center stage in the first act, late into the early morning hours of Christmas. Oscar Ekdahl (Allan Edwall), Fanny and Alexander’s father, spins a fantastical yarn about an otherwise unremarkable wooden chair. Its long history and hidden power, he says, make it the most valuable in the entire world. Between the flickering gas lights, the holiday atmosphere and the mood of childlike wonder, we are all taken in...

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Random Oscar Trivia: Earliest years with all living nominees

This is a weird potentially morbid trivia list for you coming for no reason whatsoever -or perhaps my birthday? Uff getting older is thumbs down -- but we follow our trivia instincts wherever they take us. Here are the oldest years in each category wherein all the nominees are still living (excluding categories where generally multiple people are nominated for each film, like say Best Picture or Best Makeup)

Earliest Best Actress Race Where All Women Are Still With Us

1971
Julie Christie, McCabe & Mrs Miller
Jane Fonda, Klute ★
Glenda Jackson, Sunday Bloody Sunday
Vanessa Redgrave, Mary Queen of Scots
Janet Suzman, Nicholas and Alexandra

Janet Suzman and Julie Christie appear to have retired now... but both within the past handful of years so maybe it won't stick. The others are still very active of course with Glenda Jackson just finishing the Triple Crown resorting in a big trivia update on our part. 

Earliest Best Supporting Actress Race Where all the Women Are Still Us

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