Oscar race: Supporting Actress Chaos & Supporting Actor Lock-up

by Nathaniel R

don't despair ladies, you're the only two locks in "Best Supporting Actress"

We saw a tweet yesterday that implied that the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress is now between Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy) and Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian) which felt a bit insane to us. That's a Globe induced fever. Nevertheless the shock of Foster's win for a movie people have barely noticed does maybe tell us that the Supporting Actress competition is more fluid than assumed. So who is leading and who is going to be left out on the 15th when the nominations are announced? The way we see it there are 9 women left standing for various reasons (which is a lot going into voting since it's usually only 6 or 7 by now). Only two of them (Glenn Close and Olivia Colman) feel locked up for honors. Curiously despite the sure-thing feel of Colman's soon to be second nomination, it's unlikely she has ANY shot at a win. Her Oscar win is very recent and The Father isn't quite the contender it should be (qualitatively speaking) given its quiet campaign. But the nomination battle is always different than the battle to win.

Who gets the other three spots?

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National Board of Review names 'Da 5 Bloods" da best.

by Nathaniel R

Big awards day, huh?!

Spike Lee's latest joint Da 5 Bloods has won both Best Film and Best Director (as well as Best Ensemble) from the National Board of Review. We must quickly point out that this does not mean that Chloe Zhao's remarkable critics-award complete sweep is broken. As I always have to remind everyone each year -- even those who should know better -- the NBR is not a "critics award". The National Board of Review, founded in 1909, is an anonymous collection of film enthusiasts, industry professionals, academics, students, and presumably a few critics though they never release the names of their organization. So they would be more accurately called an "industry honor" or a "juried prize" rather than lumped in with the 'what do film critics like?' discussion.

Minari and Sound of Metal were the only other films with multiple prizes. The NBR wins and top ten lists AND LOADS OF TRIVIA/STATS are after the jump...

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