His & Hers Oscars? Happy 10th to June & Johnny

Ten years ago right about now Reese & Joaquin took the stage in movie theaters with a full sung duet as June and Johnny Cash. Both were Oscar-nominated for their ringed fire as tempestuous country superstar marrieds with Reese going on to win in a strangely non competitive Best Actress year. His & Hers Oscar nominations for lively onscreen marriages aren't anything new of course but they also aren't dependable since one of the partners is often foregrounded while the other is window dressing or is equally brilliant but just not nominated.

But of the ten double nominees who did it best in the intervening years? (I included the divorced couples just to up the numbers). You decide. To make this more exciting, judge the performances FUSED. Who wins your vote then? These are your ten options

Lead unless otherwise noted
2005 Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon*, Walk the Line
2005 Heath Ledger & Michelle Williams (supporting), Brokeback Mountain
2010 Helen Mirren & Christopher Plummer (supporting), The Last Station 
2011 Colin Firth* & Helena Bonham Carter (supporting), The King's Speech  
2012 Daniel Day Lewis* & Sally Field (supporting), Lincoln 
2012 Amy Adams & Phillip Seymour Hoffman (both supporting), The Master 
2013 Bruce Dern & June Squibb (supporting), Nebraska 
2013 Christian Bale & Jennifer Lawrence (supporting), American Hustle 
2014 Eddie Redmayne* & Felicity Jones, Theory of Everything 
2014 Patricia Arquette* & Ethan Hawke (both supporting), Boyhood 

*won the Oscar

What of 2015?

The "His & Hers" teams of married possibilities this year are Eddie Redmayne & Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl (Hers & Hers in that case, though she's pretending to be supporting), and Charlotte Rampling with Tom Courtenay in 45 Years. Neither of those pairs are locked up for nominations just yet. As befits this year with blessed multiple female-centric films, Vikander and Rampling both have more nomination heat than their male actor screen spouses.

6 Questions. Best Actress / Supporting Actress Races

With the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress (or "Best Actress Pt 2" if the category fraud forces have their way!) charts updated, all Oscar charts are now up to date. Next update is...? Well, we'll see. But October tends to be instructive. Here are question prompts for the comments after you've checked out the charts.

1. Will it help to be the first FYC screeners out?
Blythe Danner (72) who carries I'll See You in My Dreams and Lily Tomlin (76) who drives Grandma already have screeners out. I can't wait to watch both again. I'd hold them in my hands to prove my eagerness for you but then how could I type? As previously expressed in "either/or" paranoia (The Martian vs. Mad Max or Truth vs. Spotlight situations) "either/or" is often a false lose-lose game. But it will be interesting to see how much room the Academy has for stellar older women nonetheless. Speaking of...

2. Older Titans or Fresh Excitements?
For the senior set, there's also Charlotte Rampling (69) in 45 Years but she's risking being the last person out of the gate, as Marion Cotillard tried (successfully) in a much thinner field last year.  Even if Oscar decides it wants all fresh young things this year -- and there are plenty of them with Saoirse Ronan and Alicia Vikander leading that particular pack -- and none of the enduring thespians end up nominated how refreshing is it that we have three senior women in the running this year whose names are not Mirren or Streep or Dench?  Answer: very! 

3. How can we ever stop Category Fraud?
Alicia Vikander is The Danish Girl (but, yes, so is Eddie Redmayne so it's a perfect title) UPDATE: But the studio has confimed to us that she's running in supporting. The same is true for Rooney Mara who is 100% definitively absolutely totally inarguably a lead in Carol (there should be no doubt as to how we feel) no matter what the campaign strategists claim. I firmly believe both Mara & Blanchett could be nominated if pushed as a box set in Carol, a la Thelma & Louise... if Thelma & Louise had been excited about bedding each other on their road trips instead of, say, Brad Pitt.  Romantic dramas, requited or unrequited, usually require two leads... it's the nature of the beast. Pretending Mara is supporting in Carol is like pretending that Kate Winslet supported Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine or Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic (or vice versa) or like pretending Blanchett supported Dench in Notes on a--- oh ah. DAMNIT!

With Mara & Vikander both in high rising star demand and Oscar's history of LOVING to crown young beautiful actresses near the beginning of big careers, Supporting Actress could well be Best Actress 2 with these two leads battling it out for that win. IF Oscar is okay with the fraud that is... which they usually are, yes. (sigh)

4. Among the actual supporting players/characters this year who could win traction? 
Category Fraud tends to be a bigger problem in years when memorable actual supporting characters show up late in the year. And 2015 is definitely having that problem. Usually I have a full list by this point that I'm eager to hold on to but it's been a weak year for female parts in the ensemble. Case in point: It's exciting to think of Elisabeth Moss squaring off with Blanchett in Truth, but she only has a few lines here and there. And Sarah Paulson is as wonderful as everyone has come to expect in Carol but as with 12 Years a Slave, other much more famous or less famous actresses have much larger roles in her movies. When will a filmmaker give her THE key female role, supporting or otherwise, in a movie? She's earned it.

Jane Fonda has just one scene in Youth (and a flash cut from another scene) but boy is it a doozy. Half of the movie points right at this scene.

I'm currently predicting Jane Fonda in Youth, Julie Walters in Brooklyn, and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Hateful Eight for the more traditional type of strong candidates, making big marks in well liked movies either by way of the script blazingly focusing on them or by way of scene stealing or by way of being the key woman in a man's movie. All three of these are risky bets for different reasons (Leigh mostly because people haven't yet seen the film ... and because she has historically proven easy for the Academy to ignore even when she had juicy big roles) but the supporting actress race is looking like the last of the four acting competitions that will come into proper focus.

5. Who do you think we're underestimating and which chart position do you think is spot on?
Sound off. 

6. Remember that New Best Actress Hierarchy we published in February?
Jane Fonda (#6), Cate Blanchett (#11), Maggie Smith (#12) and Kate Winslet (#18) could all move up a rung or two this year if Oscar voters embrace their latest roles.  

7 Bullet Points: Fall Festival Fallout & Oscar Chart Updates

Before we begin, please to note: the four Oscar category acting charts are not yet updated. Everything else is for the purposes of this discussion.  

• That was exciting. Now... breathe!
With the fall film festival trifecta (Telluride, Venice, TIFF) behind us, the fourth and noisiest early rung in the climb to Oscar (the first being Sundance, the second being Cannes, the third being anything else that happened from January through August (i.e. summer box office, media &  audience response to early offerings), we are well on the way towards Oscar nominations. It's important to note that while many over-eager pundits begin to declare winners in all sorts of categories at this stage, that's silliness. We should be focusing on the battle for nominations (still days away) until they're announced. Many things can still happen and do regularly happen in October through January which alter that who might win landscape each year. And, a crucial reminder: you can't win if you aren't nominated!

six more topics to discuss after the jump

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An IndieWire TIFF Poll

We'll wrap up our TIFF coverage tomorrow with the full index of reviews for now I wanted to point you to IndieWire where they've published their "best of TIFF" critics survey and the results are interesting but also disheartening since they remind us that US critics rush to films that are about to open rather than to films without distributors when they hit festivals. (I'll never understand this really.) They also don't seem to care about foreign language films - only one picture from their entire top collective top ten is in a foreign language (Hungary's Son of Saul) and you have to go down into the #13 before you see them crop up with regularity.

The already wildly overrated Charlie Kaufman joint Anomalisa is #1 just barely in a photofinish with the only marginally overrated Spotlight. Hee. Lots more on the actors and a distinct Oscar possibility after the jump...

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Best Actress Happenings at TIFF

To quiet my nerves that you've all vanished -- you know how Tinkerbell dies if you don't clap for her and believe in fairies. That ! only with comments -- a topic that always gets you talking: BEST ACTRESS. I'll say more about these movies soon but for now, an Oscar checklist.

BEST ACTRESS, ALREADY CROWNED
Cate Blanchett is a wonder in Truth. Again. As I said on twitter I used to think she was all technique with no soul but lately she's on fire with both. In the film's first scene she chatters away about downing a xanax which immediately brings Blue Jasmine to mind but Mary Mapes's righteous fury, smug pride, and sense of humor quickly register her as an entirely different character, love of booze and xanax notwithstanding. 

BEST ACTRESS CANDIDATE THAT I'D ALREADY SEEN
I feel as warmly toward Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn as the sun does in that first beautiful teaser poster for the movie. There are some who feel the movie is too "soft" for Oscar play or too romantic and old fashioned but I am keeping the faith because it has cumulative power and the end credits are out of focus... what's that? No? Well they appeared that way through my wet eyeballs!

BEST ACTRESS - NORWEGIAN OSCARS DIVISION
They're called the "Amandas" and this year the top prize went to Ine Marie Wilmann who stars in an incest drama called Homesick. (More on that one soon including a film she's got lined up that sounds very promising.)

BEST ACTRESS CANDIDATES PLAYING AT TIFF THAT I SKIPPED
It's true I passed on seeing Emily Blunt in Sicario,  Sandra Bullock in Our Brand is Crisis and Julianne Moore and Ellen Page in Freeheld here in Toronto but there are hundreds of movies playing here that one might never see again and those three movies all have release dates coming up very soon! I only allow myself a few of those each festival and those were not the few.

The Danish Girl(s). Emphasis on the plural.

BEST ACTRESS WHO THEY'RE SAYING WILL PRETEND TO BE A BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
I'll be sharing more thoughts on The Danish Girl  soon but it hasn't yet fully settled. For now this tidbit: For the first 15 minutes or so Alicia Vikander appears to be playing her character Gerte as far too modern and manic. Yet as the story develops you begin to see her more clearly as a woman ahead of her time and, in turn, she becomes our surrogate window to Lili, too (Eddie Redmayne) since her trans husband can't see herself so clearly at first. Vikander is marvelous at upping the emotional ante and registering Gerte's arc while also dovetailing it with her unchangeable steel as a life partner. The Supporting Campaign, if it comes to pass, is entirely obnoxious and unfortunate. She has as much and possibly more screentime than Eddie and the film is just as much the portrait of their unconventional marriage as it is about transitioning. Since there is, as of yet, no clear frontrunner for Best Actress she could actually be a threat to win. Whichever category she ends up campaigning in late this year, she will be be nominated given a) the year she's having, b) her youth and beauty (remember how they cherish crowning the new girls), c) the juiciness of this role, and d) being in a film that will undoubtedly rack up the nominations.  

BEST ACTRESS CANDIDATE I'M ABOUT TO SEE
"About to" being relative to when you're actually dropping by the site to read this: Brie Larson in Room. 

BEST ACTRESS, CAREER TRIBUTE POTENTIAL
I'll end with a personal favorite. It's early still and we should all weigh these things until the last moments before declaring our definitive top fives on any ballot but this much is obvious: 45 Years gets a tremendous amount of its weirdly chill power from Charlotte Rampling's complex work. She plays a woman who begins to question the foundation of her nearly half-century marriage when a bizarre message arrives from Switzerland. Two time Oscar nominee Tom Courtenay (Doctor Zhivago, The Dresser) as the husband is also terrific but it's really Rampling's film. She hasn't had this fine a showcase since Under the Sand (for which she should have been nominated). The British legend is still waiting on her first Oscar nomination but she's had the kind of enduring expansive international career (80+ films for multiple countries, including France, Italy, the UK, and the US) and consistently high quality work that really ought to make her an attractive proposition on ballots.

Will AMPAS make it happen or is the race just too thick with contestants?