Saturday, February 20, 2016 at 7:06PM 
Murtada here. Love for the Meryl and C/Kates of the world can skewer perceptions. It's rare for actors to receive multiple Oscar nods. Most first nominations are also last nominations. Less than 180 actors in Oscars 88 years have managed 3 or more. And this year Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight joined that list. (The rest is after the jump due to extreme gif'ing).
Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 9:15AM 10 DAY UNTIL OSCAR! Random Oscar Trivia This Morning...
Today is the 91st birthday of George Kennedy. In addition to getting to spend a lot of shirtless sweaty hours with Paul Newman (mmm) in Cool Hand Luke, he's the oldest living Best Supporting Actor winner. But who, you ask, are the others? (Just humor me and ask okay?)
Okay, okay. I'll tell you!
The Five Oldest Living Best Supporting Actor Oscar Winners
after the jump...
Monday, February 1, 2016 at 2:20PM Mark Rylance’s best supporting actor nomination for Bridge of Spies marks the 13th time a performance in a Steven Spielberg movie has been nominated for an Oscar. Which of course calls for a list, so without any further ado here's Murtada's ranking.
Oscar Nominated Performances in Spielberg Films Ranked
13- Anthony Hopkins - Amistad (1997)
Other Nominees: Robert Forster – Jackie Brown, Greg Kinnear – As Good as It Gets, Burt Reynolds – Boogie Nights, Robin Williams – Good Will Hunting.
Winner: Williams
Did Hopkins have a big righteous courtroom speech? Must be, because why else was this performance nominated. The only thing I remember about it is that Hopkins robbed Rupert Everett of his nomination for My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Twelve more after the jump...
Tuesday, January 26, 2016 at 11:11AM In the war of scene-stealing antagonists this year, Oscar Isaac's Nathan (Ex Machina) > Tom Hardy's Fitzgerald (The Revenant). We love both actors here at TFE and loved them before the rest of the web did (brag brag) but when it comes down to awards season you have to make tough choices.
That's just a handy way of saying Oscar and I go our separate ways more often than not in the acting categories but now both lists are available for your (hopeful) entertainment...
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
On the subject of category placement antagonists are often tricky. They definitely move the plot -- neither The Revenant or Ex Machina can function without these devious men, but often you can see either argument for lead or supporting. While Ex Machina arguably has three leads being such a chamber drama I occasionally relax the soapbox for performances that straddle the divide. A recent rewatch of Ex Machina confirmed that Oscar Isaac would make whichever shortlist we put him in (and I'd switched him back and forth during the year in drafts). It's such an inventive approach to a thoroughly imagined character so I tossed the dice and supporting he went. Now watch him tear up this fucking dance floor...
Only one of Oscar's men makes my own personal ballot (just posted) with apologies to Mark Rylance who I thought would place but he fell in the dread sixth spot! It happens. I've completed the Oscar chart as well and included trivia for this golden sausage party. Speaking of sausage parties... I think this is the first male Oscar lineup ever in which ALL the men have gone full frontal in other movies. Weird, right? It's an exhibitionist group this year. This only occurred to me to check because I was a big fan of Intimacy (2001) back in the day which starred Mark Rylance and everyone knows that Sly starred in a porno before Rocky (1976)
The charts also include our "How'd they get nominated" fun. So here's a sample -- the Tom Hardy in The Revenant edition:
25% Leo's bro power pulls his main men in w/ him
21% Spicy Bait: Villains prioritized in this category
20% Timing. 'The Revenant' was the shiniest new toy
15% Everyone wishes they could have punched Iñárritu in the face
10% Performance - they like 'em BIG to shake up slow epics (see also: The Zeéeeee in 'Cold Mountain')
9% 'Mad Max Fury Rd'
P.S. I should not that though Hardy didn't make my top 12 in supporting I appreciate his go for broke attempts to save The Revenant from its own grandiose self-importance with a little cured ham.
Matt Damon a nominee at both the Oscars & the Film Bitch AwardsBEST LEADING ACTOR
Given the weirdly unanimous "meh" factor that Oscar's shortlist has produced in audiences, at least on the web, it's hard to imagine it coming to be at all. But then you remember the media complicity in producing these sorts of safe groupings of all-stars whether or not people were actually hugely impressed with their work. Oscar produced a list of five major players who unfortunately could have been nominated based on the roles themselves before anyone saw the work (always a problem!). You've got your reigning Best Actor (Eddie Redmayne), your mega stars (Leonardo DiCaprio & Matt Damon), and your highly-revered thespians (Bryan Cranston & Michael Fassbender) with all but one of them (Damon) playing real life people. That's the baitiest of bait to awards types -- not just Oscar! -- though after 15 years of covering movies and awards seasons I still can't fathom why playing someone who really exists/existed is so much more likely to be lauded than creating a character from scratch with only the screenplay, director and your imagination to guide you.
But anyway that's Oscar's list. Only two of them survive to make my personal ballot and I had to correct some category campaign problems too to put Jacob Tremblay (Room) and Paul Dano (Love & Mercy) where they belonged. Since DiCaprio's fans can be quite touchy I should note that he's solid, as ever, in The Revenant. He's locked up to win the Oscar finally but sadly the film just isn't asking very much of him, emotionally, beyond grief and anguish which he's been playing with minor variations for at a dozen years now. Sorry Oscar campaign narrative but tough physical working conditions and weird diets ≠ acting triumph.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 2:03PM 
Recently Scott Feinberg added Jacob Tremblay to his actual predictions for Best Actor nominations. Yes, Best Actor. While Tremblay is obviously the leading man of Room (he co-leads the first half and essentially takes over in the second) he's been campaigned as supporting because he is a kid and that's how kids are campaigned invariably -- remember when they tried to pretend that Keisha Castle Hughes (Whale Rider) was supporting even though her movie had no other leads. LOL. Not so good times.
Tremblay in Best Actor would be a surprise but it maybe isn't a bad call given the seemingly passion-free zone that is the presumed leaders in that particular race. Though I think we'll only see that "promotion" happening if Room is strong enough to nab a Best Picture nomination (I think it is --see the updated Best Picture chart). On the other hand the actors branch, like most organizations, is subject to the whims of the patriachy and as such little boys have a much harder time nabbing Oscar nominations than little girls probably because no one feels comfortable, subconciously that is, making grown accomplished men step aside for children (but accomplished grown women? "Get out of the way for that little cutie, you old hag!"). The most recent valid comparison point in terms of acclaim and size of role might be Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense (1999) who co-led that picture with Bruce Willis and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. In that case though the co-lead was of the same gender and Oscar is generally pretty forgiving of category fraud in those cases. At least since 1991's Thelma & Louise, the last film to be nominated for two leading players of the same gender.)
If Jacob Tremblay were to be nominated in Best Actor (and we hope he is) he'd be the second youngest of all time. His exact age is the subject of question; Wikipedia says he was born in October 5th, 2006, which would make him 9 years old right now but IMDb has no birthdate and recent reporting at Entertainment Weekly refers to him as an 11 year old boy. But regardless of where he is between 9 and 11, if he is nominated tomorrow he will not become the youngest Oscar nominee in either male acting category. The record in Best Actor will continue to be held by Jackie Cooper who was nominated for Skippy (1931) when he had just barely turned 9 and he enjoyed a very lengthy showbiz career thereafter (he passed away in 2011). The record in Supporting Actor will continue to be held by Justin Henry from Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) who was nominated at 8 years of age. Unlike Cooper, though, he did not become a showbiz fixture.
Anyway remember that time in December that Oscar Isaac was talking about his face on Yoplait "go-gurt" and people went crazy for it? So that popped up again on Jimmy Kimmel with Jacob Tremblay as a guest and the child star handled the crowd with future leading man charm offensive... this is all very Dakota Fanning territory if you ask me. Definitely a kid but a kid with hyper-developed confidence who has eery instincts for sitting at the grown up table like he already belongs there and plans to stay.
Well, I do have a delicious face."
Let's hope Tremblay has great grounding at home and people on his professional team who care more about him than his earning potential. The child star path can be treacherous. Historically speaking child stars take one of these four roads after their first burst of fame
So best wishes to Tremblay and his team if they choose to pursue the long game of outcomes #3 or #4 or if they take a healthy #2 out if he doesn't stay interested in a few years time.
OSCAR PREDICTIONS: ACTOR & SUPPORTING ACTOR (Supporting Actor is particularly difficult this year. It's possible to imagine virtually any combination of the top ten as long as Mark Rylance and Sylvester Stallone are accounted for)
NATHANIEL'S BALLOT: My votes in these two categories coming up shortly
