I remember people thinking Melissa Leo only won because the ads came out after most people had already voted.

There was lots of buzz that she was delusional thinking that she should be like Angelina Jolie or someone like that and be on the cover of Vogue. People saw her as ungrateful. Here she was a fifty something actress mostly known if at all…[Read more]

Probably Turman. When the play was revived on Broadway the actor playing that role got a Tony nomination (the only one that production received.)

Yes 1988 Best Actress was one of the most competitive ever. Three women who won major precursor awards didn’t even get nominated (Christine Lahti, Shirley MacLaine, Barbara Hershey.) Pfeiffer was great in Married to the Mob though.

I bet nowadays they would have tried to get Pfeiffer two nominations pushing her for lead in Love Field and…[Read more]

John Lithgow nominated for Terms of Endearment but should have been in for Twilight Zone-The Movie instead.

She also did Sunset Boulevard on Broadway 3 years ago when she was 70.

Michelle Pfeiffer nominated for Love Field should have been for Batman Returns.

I go along with Melissa Leo as the worst. She had an easy cakewalk to the Oscar. A sure thing. Then she took out those ads and started complaining about not being put on magazine covers and getting on top talk shows.

Suddenly she wasn’t a shoo in and she had to sweat out those last few weeks with people thinking that Helena Bonham Carter or even…[Read more]

Gorillas in the Mist’s campaign was supposed to have really annoyed people. The joke was you couldn’t open your mailbox without getting a photo of Sigourney with an ape.

Some of theorized that this turned people off to Weaver and cost her the Supporting Actress Oscar everyone thought she’d get.

Did anyone else ever get 4 in a row? I was always surprised that William Hurt got close to it with Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Children of a Lesser God, Broadcast News and then missed for The Accidental Tourist.

They clearly liked Accidental Tourist since it got in for Best Picture and Geena Davis won in one of the biggest Oscar upsets ever.

Jodie Foster is pretty great in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore too. Must have been a shock to see her as the foul mouthed kid post all those Disney films.

And she gets a great exit line in So long suckers!!!! as she leaves the police station.

I agree After Hours is filled with great performances: Dunne, Arquette plus Teri Garr, Linda…[Read more]

I’ve seen War and Remembrance but not Winds of War. Was Ali McGraw really that bad in the first one? I read they’d only let the sequel be made if they recast that part. I think they were told they had to have one of three actresses (Jane Seymour being one of them) star in it or else the network wouldn’t fund it. I forget the other two.

Natalie…[Read more]

I miss the days when BAFTA was an odd award that would pick their own nominees and not just try to be another precursor award.

I wrote this article detailing some of the odd wins. There were a lot more and sometimes they included great performances (Shirley MacLaine, Postcards from the Edge; Lily Tomlin, The Late Show) that were left out of…[Read more]

Just a note for when the ratings come out: Dish TV didn’t broadcast the awards. They are in a dispute with ABC. I had to watch on ABC.com.

That could lower the numbers a bit. (not sure how popular Dish TV is)

I never realized it is just an award for achievement in television, not necessarily in comedy.

I kind of assumed it was a comedy award because of the name and awarding it to Ellen.

Farrah Fawcett gave some good performances. She should have been included. I guess they thought she was too TV.

I think the theory that makes the most sense about Tomei’s win was that people were voting for Emma Thompson in Lead and Tomei was the sole American in Supporting so nationalism won out and they didn’t want to vote for two British women to win. (I know Davis is Australian but people seemed to confuse her as being British too. Jack Palance or…[Read more]

Do we know for a fact that Colman insisted on going lead? Would she have had that much power? I would assume Stone and Weisz probably got to pick their placement first since they were bigger stars. (or did the studio make the decisions?)

I wasn’t lying. I guess I misinterpreted what happened. On Watch What Happens Live she was asked about Sweet Dreams by a caller and said something like she was shocked to lose the role since Reisz was her friend. She made it sound like at one point she had assumed the role was coming her way. Maybe not an official offer but it sounded like at…[Read more]

I’m surprised no one has said Chadwick Boseman.

I never really like to predict when no one has seen the film but if in this case the film is good I think he could be a lock.

The tragedy of his death, the social climate of the times, his bravery in still working when he apparently was sick, and the fact that the role he has in the film was…[Read more]

She said on Graham Norton that when she hears it she doesn’t think it sounds right. I’m not sure if she meant the accents or just the performance in general. She really hates her performance in Still of the Night. Funny her best (Sophie’s Choice) and worst performances arguably came out within weeks of each other.