93rd Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor (aka Best Lead Actor Overfill)

by Christopher James

(from left, clockwise) Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Paul Raci, Leslie Odom Jr. and Sacha Baron Cohen make up the 2020 Supporting Actor race.Category fraud has been talked about extensively at The Film Experience. Yet, year after year the supporting categories are filled with leading performances. This year, one could argue that four-fifths of the Supporting Actor field is made up of leading performances. How is a true supporting actor supposed to compete with a lead performance that has been strategically "demoted."

Bad blood aside, the field is filled with many interesting performances from a diverse group of nominees. Even better, four of the five nominees are celebrating their first acting nomination this year. The Oscars can often be accused of repeatedly nominating their favorite actors, whether or not they deserve it, so it's nice to see fresh blood...

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What's the worst case of "category fraud"?

by Cláudio Alves

Some people don't care about "category fraud" and that's understandable. I'm a big proponent of just being happy that great artists are honored, ignoring the categorization of their work, especially when it's all so subjective. However, when it comes to the Oscar acting prizes, it does feel wrong that awards specifically created to honor character actors are now regularly dominated by stars in leading roles. Instead of opening avenues to highlight those performers with less narratively-prominent parts, the Supporting categories have become a way for leading actors that couldn't crack the leading prizes to still win gold. This game of fraudulent campaigning may have just hit its apex with this year's slew of Best "Supporting" Actor and Actress nominees.

To organize my thoughts and hopefully make the arguments clearer, here's a ranking of the "category fraud" cases of the year from least to most egregious. This is all subjective, though I'd side-eye anyone who tried to argue for the legitimacy of that top choice... 

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One Actor, One Character, Many Globes

by Cláudio Alves

This next Sunday, Sacha Baron Cohen is probably going to win at least one Golden Globe, whether for his Oscar-aiming turn in Trial of the Chicago 7 or his second go-around as Borat. I'm especially interested in that last potential victory since it would put him in a pretty exclusive club. To my knowledge, only one actor has managed to win more than one Globe for film by playing the same character multiple times. While franchises and sequels tend to dominate the box office, they don't generally score a lot of gold for their actors so it's notable when someone manages to buck the trend. Did they all deserve to? That's another story altogether.

By my count, 15 thespians have managed multiple nominations for the same character. Come discover who they are and what double victor Sacha Baron Cohen will join if he wins for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm… 

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Are you there Link? It's me, Nathaniel

• US Dish is hosting a viewing party contest for romcom lovers. You can enter until the 26th and the winner has to be wiling to host an online viewing party with their friends and vlog about it afterwards. The prize is $2000
• MCN Gurus of Gold weigh in on the Best Picture and Best Director races
• Guardian excellent and rare interview with Sacha Baron Cohen as himself rather than in character about Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Trial of the Chicago 7, and his activism
• Slate really interesting piece about the way Hallmark has tried to avoid politics and their babysteps towards the modern world via their very popular Christmas movies

More after the jump including Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Zhao, Sound of Metal, new biopics, and new adaptations of old best-sellers...

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Borat's return in "Subsequent Moviefilm"

by Eric Blume

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the sequel to Sacha Baron Cohen's 2006 smash hit, has arrived on Amazon, and just within the first days of its arrival, the film has the country buzzing on whether or not Rudy Guiliani thought he was going to get laid by a teenager, plus registered a hateful tweet from Trump (and a hilarious comeback from Cohen to Trump).  When is the last time a movie provoked that kind of high-level anxiety?

The original Borat movie was revelatory at the time, an extension of the mockumentary style we'd seen since the Spinal Tap days, but roping in the clueless general populace to create a brutal takedown on American stupidity, racism, and sexism.  But the approach from the Borat creative team felt fresh...

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