Oscar Trivia: Who has had the most consecutive acting nominations?

by Nathaniel R

Given that this year brought us only one repeat acting nominee from last season (Olivia Colman, from The Father to The Lost Daughter)  we thought it would be a fun detour to look back at thespians that Oscar was obsessed with for a relatively intense stretch of time. Which of the 20 actors nominated this year will be back again next year and start a run towards this rarefied list?Care to make a guess? Maybe it'll be Olivia Colman a third consecutive time. We could see it if Empire of Light opens in time.

Now, it's pretty easy to return again and again at The Emmys given that one series can last for several years (and the TV Academy falls out of love slowly), but for the Oscars, where it's new projects and characters every year, it's very dificult to hold interest for years on end...

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When Thelma Ritter should have won

by Cláudio Alves

Before "Noirvember" ends, it's imperative to explore some examples of the shadowy underbelly of Classic Hollywood. The Criterion Channel has programmed a vast array of film noir offerings, from Robert Mitchum's early successes to a cornucopia of Twentieth Century-Fox delights. You will find many a classic within the latter, including the Samuel Fuller masterpiece that should have earned one of the industry's hardest-working character actresses an overdue Academy Award. Throughout her career, Thelma Ritter was Oscar-nominated six times, always in the Best Supporting Actress category (an all time record), but always lost. 1953's perfect Pickup On South Street should have been her time to win…

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Monty @ 100: “The Misfits” and the Specter of Death

by Cláudio Alves

The late-career of Montgomery Clift was laden with tragedy, shaped by the doom that was happening both behind and in front of the camera. While nothing can compare to the cataclysm that was the shooting of Raintree County, The Misfits is another film of Clift that's haunted and haunting. The Angel of Death looms over the picture which unwittingly became the last screen appearances of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe before their untimely ends. Clift would hold on for a few more years, surviving his co-stars.

However, as legend has it, the movie was showing on TV the night the actor died. His secretary, Lorenzo James, asked the actor if he wanted to watch it to which he answered: "Absolutely not!". Those were the last words he ever spoke to anyone, enshrining the movie in even more cursed memory. It's a pity these morbid curiosities define the legacy of The Misfits. In many regards, it's one of Clift's best and most fascinating pictures…

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1965: The Golden Globes' Alternate Choices

Each month before the Supporting Actress Smackdown Nick Taylor selects performances for an alternate ballot...

Of the Golden Globes’ Supporting Actress nominees in 1965, three of their five were transplanted to Oscar’s lineup. Globe winner Ruth Gordon in Inside Daisy Clover, Joyce Redman in Othello, and Peggy Wood in The Sound of Music (who we all basically agree was not the best option from her movie) all made the cut, while Redman’s co-star Maggie Smith was imported from the Globes' Lead Actress-Drama category. Only Shelley Winters, who wound up winning the damn Oscar for A Patch of Blue, failed to show up anywhere at the Globes. The two Globe nominees left out to pasture come Oscar nomination morning were NBR winner Joan Blondell in The Cincinnati Kid and never-winning Academy regular Thelma Ritter in Boeing Boeing. Both of the unlucky actresses co-starred in films that were blanked by the Academy completely. But should they have made the cut? Let’s find out...

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How had I never seen... "Rear Window"?

by Chris Feil

Rear Window has to be one of the more embarrassing blind spots to have among the entirety of Alfred Hitchcock’s repertoire or as a Jimmy Stewart lover, but alas I had it. I know, I know.

Maybe the best thing I can chalk it up to is something that’s been in the ether of my lifelong Hitchcock consumption that’s kept me from the Happy Ending Hitchcocks. Things like To Catch A Thief stayed out of my orbit until adulthood without the veneer of morbidity to entice them to a young horrorhound. And rest assured that Rear Window ends as quaintly, if subversively sly, as any of his films. But like me telling myself I’ll eventually catch up to the film, Rear Window is itself about things we put off and avoid. It’s a movie about a man trying so hard to avoid commitment that he gets himself invested in a murder.

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