Tuesday, February 19, 2013

CLOTHED IN IMMENSE POWER! YOU WILL PROCURE ME THESE VOTES:  Oscar trivia that's news to me—if he wins for Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis would become the first actor/actress ever to win an Oscar for a performance in a Spielberg film.

The obvious question is who, if anyone, should've been first: I'll submit Ralph Fiennes for Schindler's List (lost to Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive), but that's about it -- I considered Tom Hanks for SPR, but while Benigni won there (and not undeservedly), Edward Norton's superior American History X performance was also in the category. I've never actually seen The Color Purple, so ... has the Academy gotten this right so far?

16 comments:

  1. 3 not even nominated who I wouldn't have been upset by:

    Djimon Hounsou for Amistad (tough year when Robin Williams won)

    Eric Bana for Munich (tough year with Brokeback Mountain and Capote in play)

    Leonardo DiCaprio for Catch Me If You Can (Adrien Brody won, but Nicholson/About Schmidt, Cage/Adaptation, and Day-Lews/Gangs of New York tough to beat)

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  2. Slowlylu4:42 PM

    So I am going to take umbrage with the Benigni winning over Hanks or worse McKellen (in Gods and Monsters).

    Angelica Houston won over Oprah and Margaret Avery in 1985 for Prizzi's Honor which is fair. I wish I could comment on Whoopi Goldberg losing to Geraldine Page for The Trip to Bountiful but haven't seen it and we should note that was an insanely competitive pool that year with Bancroft, Lange and Streep all submitting career defining performances.

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  3. Slowlylu4:43 PM

    Yeah Bana for Munich is a real travesty.

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  4. Adam B.5:37 PM

    An obvious one (for not-nominated, at least): Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Lost Ark. That the movie is fun doesn't mean he's not acting; dude created an icon, after all.

    Still would've lost to Henry Fonda for On Golden Pond (his only win), plus you had Paul Newman (Absence of Malice), Warren Beatty (Reds), Burt Lancaster (Atlantic City) and Dudley Moore (Arthur) in the category.

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  5. Watts5:49 PM

    Yeah, but Goldberg was transcendent. And given how she's come across as a person later in life, there is no doubt that Celie was a fully realized character, and not one bit Goldberg playing herself.

    Danny Glover was pretty damn good in The Color Purple too.

    I'd give them both Oscars just for the shaving scene (which I was pleased Tarantino nodded too obliquely in Django Unchained.)

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  6. Joseph Finn6:00 PM

    Wow. No one's brought up Robert Shaw in Jaws yet? Not even nominated. Best Supporting Actor winner, 1976? George Burns for Sunshine Boys (honestly, not a great category that year; I'd have gone with Chris Sarandon in Dog Day Afternoon).

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  7. Joseph Finn6:03 PM

    Page is top of her game in Bountiful, so I have no problem with Goldberg, great as her performance is (and it IS great) losing there. And geez, looking at that year you're not wrong on the list. The only one I've never seen is Sweet Dreams with Jessica Lange as Patsy Cline.

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  8. Randy6:04 PM

    Whoa. Seems strange to say it like that, but when you look closely, it's less surprising. (Like the fact that Mad Men has no acting Emmys.)

    That's not to say that there aren't great performances in Spielberg movies, just that they're either not Oscar-type of performances (like Cruise in Minority Report), or they were up against something obvious (like Bana against PSH's Capote).

    Off the top of my head, the performances in Spielberg movies that should have won: Robert Shaw in Jaws, Jude Law in AI, Fiennes in Schindler's List, Jeremy Davies in Saving Private Ryan. And I'm sure there are others for categories other than Supporting Actor.

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  9. See the Color Purple. What the what? Adam. See the Color Purple.

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  10. The Pathetic Earthling6:46 PM

    I think Robert Shaw deserved the Academy Award for Jaws.


    "Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.

    Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

    Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces.

    You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

    At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

    Anyway, we delivered the bomb."

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  11. Dave S6:47 PM

    Wait, he'd be the first male actor, right? Whoopi won for The Color Purple.

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  12. Dave S6:51 PM

    Oh, it was for Ghost. Forgot that.

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  13. Tosy and Cosh9:58 AM

    The slate he was not part of (Burns won):

    George Burns – The Sunshine Boys

    Brad Dourif – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

    Burgess Meredith – The Day of the Locust

    Chris Sarandon – Dog Day Afternoon

    Jack Warden – Shampoo

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  14. Dourif was pretty damn good in Cuckoo's and it was Cuckoo's year that year.

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  15. safewow11:53 PM

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