Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Film: Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Stars: Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, McKenna Grace, Annie Potts, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis

Director: Jason Reitman

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Few franchises have been through it quite like Ghostbusters.  The first film, from 1984, was a runaway success, making more money than any other film that year domestically (even more than Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), and when you have money like that, a sequel is demanded.  The sequel was also a monster success, but audiences didn't like it, and despite the ongoing success of an animated series (which was the introduction of many, including myself, to the franchise, and launched the "drink of many childhoods" Ecto Cooler Hi-C), a third film never materialized until 2016, when the series was totally upended to include all-female Ghostbusters (with cameos from a plethora of stars from the original franchise, including longtime third film holdout Bill Murray).  This did relatively well, but received a sexist backlash that eventually opened the door to not a sequel of the 2016 film, but instead yet another reboot, here once again looking at the characters from the first film...though you might not have known that from the movie's bizarre marketing campaign (more on that in a second-let's discuss the film).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Callie (Coon), a divorced mother of two whose daughter Phoebe (Grace) is a quirky science genius and her son Trevor (Wolfhard) a hormonal teenager who has a crush on a girl the second he gets to a new town.  They are living in the home of Callie's dead father whom we eventually learn is Egon Spengler (Ramis), the deceased ghostbuster who broke up the quartet years earlier because he discovered an evil force near where he lived, an evil force that will eventually destroy the planet. It begins to do just that, including bringing back Gozer the Gozerian (Olivia Wilde), one of the primary villains from the first film.  All of this happens with Phoebe learning about the original ghostbusters, and in the end getting Murray, Ackroyd, & Hudson to make appearances once again in their former glory, helping her to save the day.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife had one of the strangest marketing campaigns I've ever seen.  It's not unusual to have a trailer try to hide certain elements of the movie (it's clear, for example, that Disney has a few aces up its sleeve that are going to show up in the new Spider-Man that we won't know until the film premieres), or even to play a gotcha when you don't know what the film is about, but the movie tried everything within its power to not show its clear connection with Ghostbusters, as if it was almost ashamed that it was connected to the franchise at all.  Oscar nominee Jason Reitman doesn't usually take assignments like this (his father Ivan directed the first two movies), and I initially wondered if his off-beat humor might feel a fascinating fit for a franchise picture, and the studio just didn't know how to market it.

It turns out, they didn't know how to market it because it's a bore.  When you find a way to make Carrie Coon uninteresting and Paul Rudd charmless, you have truly hit new levels of banality.  The ending is great-seeing Murray, Ackroyd, & Hudson back on the big-screen is a joy, though I could've done without Harold Ramis making a posthumous appearance (why can't we as a society collectively agree that bringing actors back from the dead against their will is yucky?), but everything leading up to it is a mess, a boring mix of cliches & bad writing.  If this is all the franchise still has to offer, can we please give up the ghost?

OVP: The Village (2004)

Film: The Village (2004)
Actors: Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, Cherry Jones, Celia Weston, Judy Greer, Michael Pitt, Jesse Eisenberg (seriously-this cast list is nuts)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We're back to our reviews!  I took a week off to recuperate from some personal life things as well as to try and get my professional life in order, but we're back to our weekday reviews, and our (frequently Oscar-inspired) themes.  This week, the focus is going to be on music, specifically Oscar-nominated music.  All of this week's movies will have one thing (and pretty much that only thing in common)-they were nominated in one of the three Oscar music categories (either Song, Score, or Song Score...and in some cases a couple of those).  We're going to start off this category with a pretty recent nominee by our standards, The Village, which was during the period where M. Night Shyamalan was not only a bankable director, many were thinking he was about to rival Spielberg & Cameron in terms of becoming the rare director who could open a movie simply based on their own name.  While this film struggles in terms of quality years later, it didn't disprove that theory-The Village was a big hit, the final one before Shyamalan's epic fall-from-grace in the back half of the Aughts.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in a remote village in Pennsylvania, a 19th Century town where villagers live in fear of bizarre creatures in the woods who walk around in red cloaks.  The town is run by a group of elders, headed by Edward Walker (Hurt), whose blind daughter Ivy (Howard) is in love with a local boy named Lucius Hunt (Phoenix...btw, it is so weird to see Phoenix when he would still take romantic lead roles, and a bummer to remember he was so good in them).  After Lucius is stabbed by another young man in the village, Noah (Brody, playing a character with a developmental disability in a performance that would raise eyebrows today), Edward decides to let his daughter go out and find medicine from beyond the forest that surrounds their village, in hopes of saving Lucius' life.

This is where the film's twist happens, but, well, it doesn't feel like a twist.  Perhaps because The Village (as I mentioned, a huge hit at the time) has become so influential, I kind of assumed that we weren't in 19th Century Pennsylvania but instead a modern day time period but a group of people who were living as if time hadn't passed.  As a result, I wasn't really thrown by the twist, which isn't a bad thing (this was the era when the "twist" became the most important aspect of story-telling in a movie, frequently to the chagrin of the actual plot), but it feels pretty anticlimactic, and the movie never really recovers.  Some of the emotional tears this might have aren't fully explored.  The village elders founded the town because of traumas in their own lives, that they could no longer handle, but the film's final moments aren't grand enough or precise enough to get across a sense of the sacrifice they made by escaping the world, and what it means that they are willing to let all of the other children in the village continue living as if the world around them hasn't changed (and that the monsters aren't real).  As a result, I feel like The Village is less a bad movie and more a failure, something that could have been terrific but gets lost in the execution.

The score to the film is actually quite good on its own.  James Newton Howard creates a rich, elegant sound and frequently uses violinist Hilary Hahn to great effect, having her create a signature almost wave-like chill over the movie itself.  The problem for Howard is that the music, while gorgeous, doesn't fit the movie and frequently feels like it's telling a story that the film doesn't know.  The music is always building to something, some great reveal, and since I didn't feel like the movie's "surprises" (it's so essential to the script that these read as surprises to you in order for the movie to work) really added to the narrative, his music feels off-balance in the movie.  It's not really Howard's fault (I'm certain he composed the way that Shyamalan pitched the movie & hoped the film would turn out), but it doesn't land properly on the ear while actually watching the picture.

OVP: Aliens (1986)

Film: Aliens (1986)
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton
Director: James Cameron
Oscar History: 7 nominations/2 wins (Best Actress-Sigourney Weaver, Art Direction, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound, Sound Effects Editing*, Visual Effects*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

This week we are randomly taking a look at Best Actress nominees from films I'd never seen before and am catching for the first time on quarantine (if you follow this blog more for politics, I'm aware we've been a little film heavy lately but know that I'm going to be restoring balance next week once my life settles down a bit more-the past two weeks have been a challenge and I'd already committed to this mini-project, and want to ensure I finish it but I'll be back in election analysis quite soon).  Today we go in a truly different direction entirely from our previous entries of a mother-daughter melodrama and a romantic Technicolor epic into a 1980's action blockbuster, one of the only films of this nature to actually secure a Best Actress nomination.  Women like Charlize Theron and Linda Hamilton have gotten some buzz for Oscar for action films, but it's extremely rare to get a citation like what Sigourney Weaver secured in 1986, and it was for her first round with Oscar (unlike someone like Sandra Bullock in Gravity, who was already AMPAS-blessed).  In order to get this kind of nomination, you have to be extraordinary, so I was pumped to finally catch this movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is a follow-up to the 1979 film Alien, which I had seen many years ago but re-watched in anticipation of this particular picture (are Weaver and Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's the only two women who have been nominated for Best Actress for a sequel?).  The film shows Ripley, 57 years later (but in some form of stasis), being rescued after being the only people to survive the last attack.  She is convinced to go back to the colony of the alien attacks under the condition that they kill the aliens.  Once they arrive, though, it turns out that one of the crew members, Burke (Reiser) has been instructed to bring back the aliens at all cost, even if that means killing or impregnating some of his crew (specifically Ripley).  The aliens, of course, have other ideas, and we witness multiple different standoffs between the depleting human population and the aliens, including a particularly amazing sequence between Ripley and the alien queen (which encompasses Weaver's legendary line reading of "Get away from her, you bitch!").

Aliens doesn't really break a lot of new story ground.  Forgetting for a second that this is largely a retelling of the original movie, this is also a story that has been done repeatedly since the dawn of Science Fiction in movies.  But like most of James Cameron's films, it's not the story that you're coming for-it's the picture itself.  In a way that almost no other filmmaker can, Cameron can take the most basic of filmic readings and make them feel fresh, new, and inventive.  He does that with Aliens, better than its predecessor in virtually every way.

For starters, there's Weaver, who feels more confident in her Ripley.  She doesn't play her as an action hero (at least not until the very end), but instead as someone who wasn't intended for this life, but has learned from it.  So often with action-adventure sequels, they forget that the original person wasn't meant to be a superhero, and that one or two experiences isn't going to turn them into one (I'm not going to call out which franchise I'm subtweeting here, but I'm sure one came to mind).  As a result, this is still a performance, one that is well-felt and coming with some much-needed nuance.

The other Oscar categories were equally well-deserved (honestly, even though it gained a hefty 7 nominations, that feels a bit light from my perspective).  The Visual Effects are groundbreaking and game-changing, still impressive-looking some thirty years after-the-fact.  The sound work is marvelous; Cameron used the sound effects to keep us tense even when we shouldn't be, employing jump scares with caution & skill, but also genuine terror through the battles and alien cries.  The same can be said for the swiftness of the editing-the film doesn't feel rushed, but it also rarely skimps on the action.  The sets are so strong they became prototypical not just for the copycat films that would follow, but also what we'd see in movies like Gravity and Ad Astra decades in the future.  About the only nomination I might raise an eyebrow over is the score, but even there it's more James Horner being taken for granted (and using similar motifs to most of his other work) than it being bad.  All-in-all, Aliens is a terrific experience, and proof that Oscar should think outside-the-box more often, as it pays off with a classic performance being included in his annals.

OVP: The Year of Living Dangerously (1983)

Film: The Year of Living Dangerously (1983)
Stars: Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hunt
Director: Peter Weir
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Supporting Actress-Linda Hunt*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I recently decided to get a little more aggressive at the Oscar Viewing Project (I've been promising myself "this is the year that I get the 'films remaining' list below 2000 for so long I've decided I need to just rip the bandaid off and make it happen), and as part of that I've been checking out movies from my local library system.  I will admit with a great deal of shame that I don't think I've actually checked out materials at my library in at least five years, despite the fact that they're a great resource both for articles on this blog (expect me to do a bit more of that, especially with Saturdays with the Stars research in the future), and for movies if you want to see them-seriously, your local library almost certainly has a plethora of great film options, including movies that aren't even available for rental on Netflix DVD anymore, including 1983's Best Supporting Actress winner The Year of Living Dangerously.  I figured I'd start this renewed friendship off with a bang (watching this means that I have officially seen 80% of all Best Supporting Actress-winning films), and so I caught this long-alluded Oscar winner.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on Guy Hamilton (Gibson), an Australian journalist in 1960's Indonesia hunting for a "big story" (and with it, his big break).  He immediately meets Billy Kwan (Hunt), a Chinese-Australian dwarf (I googled, and based on what I found this is a politically correct term here-if this isn't the case, I mean no offense whatsoever and will take this as a learning moment, but just wanted to call that out so that I am being accurate in describing Hunt's character) who doubles as a photographer, and has multiple connections within the Indonesian government.  Billy takes a shine to Guy, and starts to elevate his work & credentials within the government, getting him closer to his big break.  He also introducers him to Jill Bryant (Weaver), a gorgeous assistant in the British Embassy whom it seems like Billy has a both friendship and an unrequited love thing for, and Guy starts an affair with her.  She gives him information that the Chinese government was arming the PKI, potentially putting in danger the lives of any foreign journalists in the country (read: Guy), but he is more concerned about getting the scoop than about saving his own life (and their romance).  He finally has an epiphany when Billy, who is the most moral character in the film, denounces Guy and tries to stop the Sukarno regime through protest, only to be murdered.  Guy eventually learns his lesson, fleeing the country after the failed coup attempt, not caring about the story but instead boarding the final plane out of the country with Jill.

The movie is...dated.  That's the best way to put it, quite frankly.  This is a problem for a lot of issue pictures of the late 1970's and into the 1980's, when you frequently cast impossibly gorgeous movie stars (Weaver has never looked more ravishing & while Gibson was pretty much sex-on-a-stick at the time, it's still absurd to see him in this kind of prime) as ordinary people, and inundate your audience with a lot of very specific cultural references.  This isn't entirely Weir or the screenwriter's fault-it's likely that in 1983 people would have been more aware of the Indonesian government's recent history, but coupled with antiquated ideas about career, it's harder to understand why, say, Guy going after a major story was such a betrayal to Jill & Billy.  After all, don't we want to value the truth?  Wouldn't caring about the lives of people in this country and bringing the truth about what is happening to them to the world stage be pretty noble?  Yes, Guy's also in it to advance his career, but this back-half thought that you need to prioritize your romance over your civic duty feels weirdly against type for either Classic Hollywood or Modern Hollywood, and the film's politics are muddied as a result.

The movie's sole Oscar nomination (and win) was for Linda Hunt's Billy Kwan (to date, the only nomination Hunt has received, though she still works regularly, currently one of the stars of NCIS: Los Angeles).  Hunt's nomination was historic at the time for being the first-time ever that the Oscars gave a trophy to an actor playing a different gender than they identified with in real life (John Lithgow had been nominated for playing a woman just the year before, but lost to Louis Gossett, Jr.).  What's more outrageous about it is that there's no wink to Hunt being a woman in the performance; at the time this was only her second movie, and so she wasn't at risk of being recognized, and it's entirely possible that audience members didn't know that she was in fact a woman until the end credits.

The performance is strong and measured, much like a lot of Hunt's work, informed by intelligence and inarguably the movie's acting highlight.  There are times, though, that Hunt's performance hedges into over-sentimalizing Billy or trying to understate him to make his complicated relationships with Guy and Jill (does he find them both attractive-is he in love with both of them?) as well as his career aspirations less complex to not steal focus from the leads.  It also has to be said that Hunt's nomination is as a Chinese-Australian man, but Hunt is white in real life.  The film's use of yellow face reads as problematic now, but honestly...it should have read as problematic then.  While we have seen in the past year (with incidents involving politicians like Ralph Northam & Kay Ivey) that blackface was still done in the 1980's, it's hard not to imagine that the team didn't know better in 1983.  Celebrating Hunt's sensitive work is more difficult to do knowing that it's still part of a history of discrimination against Asian people, and the fact that it doesn't appear any Asian actors (male or female) were on the shortlist for the role (white actors David Atkins, Wallace Shawn, & Bob Balaban were all considered for the part instead) makes it all the more insulting.  Still, this is a fine performance even if it's a problematic one, and I'll try to judge it as such when we eventually get to the 1983 OVP write-ups.

Oscar's Long-Suffering Bridesmaids

Glenn Close-will she go 0/7?

We are in the heat of precursor season, and while these awards are relatively pointless if all they're doing is trying to predict the Academy Awards, let's be honest-that seems to be what most of them are doing.  If that's the case, we could be looking at yet another year where Glenn Close & Amy Adams are trying to secure their long-awaited Oscars, and I thought "wait, Oscar trivia...there must be some way that I can turn that into a list!" and lo-and-behold, I was right.

A couple of things can be true about the Oscars at once-it's very hard to be nominated for an Oscar and if you're nominated once, it's likely going to be your only nomination.  However, if you can get in a couple of times, it's probable that you're also going to get a trophy.  There's almost certainly a mathematical explanation here (you can only have so many years where you've got a "20% shot of winning" and not actually win), but it's rarer, especially for living actors, for you to be nominated 3+ times and not have an actual trophy.  For women, there are currently only fifteen actresses to hold this distinction, two of them being Close & Adams.  Were they to die without having ever won, they would join a small group of actresses ranging from Irene Dunne to Thelma Ritter to Deborah Kerr, but it's a short list.  Only 11 women have ever been nominated for at least three competitive Oscars and died without winning one, so it's very probable that most of the women on this list eventually take home a trophy.  Let's take a look and guess how many will actually win, and see who has come the closest to Oscar, shall we?

Note: These are ranked first by how many nominations an actress made, and then by who most-recently got her latest nomination.

15. Saoirse Ronan (1994-Present)

Nominations: Atonement (Supporting Actress in 2007), Brooklyn (Actress in 2015), & Lady Bird (Actress in 2017)
She Lost To: Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson, & Frances McDormand
Closest to the Win: Maybe Atonement?  Brooklyn is more likely that she got second place, but Larson was so far-out-in-front that year that 2007, which was a genuine question mark headed into Oscar night, might have actually been her closest.
Well, She Still Won...: Ronan lost the Oscar for Lady Bird, but she still won the Golden Globe that year (and let's be honest, should have won the Oscar).
Is This Happening Someday?: She's 24 and already a three-time nominee who appears almost constantly in Oscar BAIT-y projects (just this year she's playing a queen who spends most of the film giving passionate speeches).  This is the easiest call of the bunch-she's probably going to win, likely in the next 4-5 years.

14. Laura Linney (1964-Present)

Nominations: You Can Count on Me (Actress in 2000), Kinsey (Supporting Actress in 2004), & The Savages (Actress in 2007)
She Lost to: Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett & Marion Cotillard
Closest to the Win: None of these were particularly close.  The Savages was a shock nomination, and no one could beat Julia in 2000, so it's probably 2004, though she would have had to get through Natalie Portman & Virginia Madsen to even have a shot at Blanchett.
Well, She Still Won...: Linney wins Emmys, not Oscars.  Linney has been nominated for five Emmys, and taken home four of them (her only loss came to Melissa McCarthy in 2011, where she famously stood on the stage in a mock-beauty-pageant), and she's also picked up two Golden Globes, though again for her TV work, not film.
Is This Happening Someday?: Probably not.  Linney isn't as famous as Adams or Julianne Moore, where she could launch a campaign out-of-nowhere and suddenly she'd be on a stampede to Oscar, and she doesn't really make the sorts of movies that get this kind of attention, particularly with TV being considerably kinder in terms of fame than movies ever have been (she's currently starring on the acclaimed Ozark for Netflix).  Never say never for a 3+ nominee, but I don't see this happening.

13. Joan Allen (1956-Present)

Nominations: Nixon (Supporting Actress in 1995), The Crucible (Supporting Actress in 1996), & The Contender (Actress in 2000)
She Lost to: Mira Sorvino, Juliette Binoche & Julia Roberts
Closest to the Win: Surely it was Nixon, where a win was actually very much in the cards (that year was a threeway heat between Sorvino, Allen, and Kate Winslet for Sense & Sensibility).
Well, She Still Won...: While her long list of screen credits have gotten her a lot of nominations, the only major award that Allen has ever won was for her years on Broadway, taking the Tony for Best Actress in 1988's Burn This.
Is This Happening Someday?: Amy Adams, take note, as Joan Allen could very easily be your future.  From 1995-2005, Allen regularly appeared in major contenders (in addition to her three nominations, she plausibly could have been cited for The Ice Storm, Pleasantville, and The Upside of Anger), but the roles dried up as did the Academy's love of her, and she couldn't even get a surprise nomination in 2015 for playing a struggling mother in a Best Picture nominee (which would have been a gimme back in her heyday).  I don't think she is a priority for Oscar anymore.

12. Debra Winger (1955-Present)

Nominations: An Officer and a Gentleman (Actress in 1982), Terms of Endearment (Actress in 1983), and Shadowlands (Actress in 1993)
She Lost to: Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, & Holly Hunter
Closest to the Win: Probably none of these.  In a different world where Sophie's Choice didn't exist I could make an argument that she could take it for Officer and a Gentleman (her career was sort of inching to an Oscar at that point, and Lange didn't need two), but she had three really impossible-to-beat actresses she had to go toe-to-toe with during her three AMPAS competitions.
Well, She Still Won...: Winger is perhaps the only actress on this list to never win a major award of any kind.  She's picked up a couple of critics prizes, but despite Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Emmy nominations, she's never won any of them.
Is This Happening Someday?: No.  Winger famously quit acting in the 1990's, inspiring the film Searching for Debra Winger, and she still has the goods to deliver a role (she was superb in 2008's Rachel Getting Married), but there's no momentum for her to win again, and she was famous for too brief of a period in the 1980's to have a "she needs an Oscar!" movement from the public.

11. Michelle Pfeiffer (1958-Present)

Nominations: Dangerous Liaisons (Supporting Actress in 1988), The Fabulous Baker Boys (Actress in 1989), & Love Field (Actress in 1992)
She Lost to: Geena Davis, Jessica Tandy & Emma Thompson
Closest to the Win: I'd assume it would be Fabulous Baker Boys, where she was the only real competition for Tandy, and had won a host of precursors that year, likely meriting the win over Tandy, who was the sentimental favorite.
Well, She Still Won...: Pfeiffer took the Golden Globe for Baker Boys as well as a BAFTA Awards for Dangerous Liaisons, so she's hardly lacking in hardware.
Is This Happening Someday?: Unlike some of our previous actresses, Pfeiffer still has a great deal of pop culture cache, and is the sort of person who is famous enough to launch a Still Alice-style campaign and actually pull it off.  One has to assume that if mother! hadn't divided critics so last year that she could have snuck in for a fourth nomination (and with Russia House, The Age of Innocence, and White Oleander as near misses, a fourth nomination has been in the cards for a while).  She's notoriously press shy & doesn't make a lot of movies, but the fame is still there if she wanted to make a run for this, and quite honestly she's the level-of-famous that she could someday take an Honorary Oscar.

10. Diane Ladd (1935-Present)

Nominations: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Supporting Actress in 1974), Wild at Heart (Supporting Actress in 1990), and Rambling Rose (Supporting Actress in 1991)
She Lost to: Ingrid Bergman, Whoopi Goldberg, & Mercedes Ruehl
Closest to the Win: Bergman's win in 1974 seems to have been something of a surprise, with the precursors all-over-the-map, but they do somewhat hint that Ladd was a probable favorite here along with Valentina Cortese, so I think her first outing was her best option.
Well, She Still Won...: Ladd won the BAFTA Award for Alice..., and then took a Golden Globe Award for the TV series based on Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, called Alice.
Is This Happening Someday?: I'd say no considering her age and her stature as a character actress, but if her daughter Laura Dern can get a revival for her father, why couldn't she get one last hurrah for mom?  Ladd clearly has wanted this for a while (her campaign to get a nomination for Wild at Heart is the stuff of Oscar legend).

9. Sigourney Weaver (1949-Present)

Nominations: Aliens (Actress in 1986), Gorillas in the Mist (Actress in 1988), & Working Girl (Supporting Actress in 1988)
She Lost to: Marlee Matlin, Jodie Foster, & Geena Davis
Closest to the Win: Weaver became the first actor ever to be nominated for two Oscars in the same year and lose both of them (since then it's happened three times, though only once, 2002 with Julianne Moore, did the Oscars doubly-snub someone who hadn't won before).  I would assume considering that 1988 had two winners that were somewhat surprising at the time that her best shot was that year, and perhaps she split her own vote too much to take it.
Well, She Still Won...: Weaver won both of the Golden Globes in 1988, a flip of her eventual Oscar night, and also took home the BAFTA for 1997's The Ice Storm (starring #13 on our list, Joan Allen).
Is This Happening Someday?: While she's not really famous enough to ever win an Honorary Oscar, she still is famous enough from her work in the Alien franchise to demand attention, and could get a fourth nomination if she had the right kind of movie.  Considering she's one of the few actors patient enough to work with Jim Cameron more-than-once, he owes her another juicy role in a movie at some point, if he ever stops making the nonexistent Avatar sequels.

8. Piper Laurie (1932-Present)

Nominations: The Hustler (Actress in 1961), Carrie (Supporting Actress in 1976), & Children of a Lesser God (Supporting Actress in 1986)
She Lost to: Sophia Loren, Beatrice Straight & Dianne Wiest
Closest to the Win: I'm genuinely not sure.  All of these nominations predate my involvement with the Oscars, and I haven't read any of these races as being particularly close.  Were it 2018 when The Hustler came out, she surely would have won Best Supporting Actress for the movie, denying Rita Moreno her iconic win, and proving why category fraud is so dangerous as one of Oscar's best choices would be ruled out as a result.
Well, She Still Won...: Laurie took an Emmy for 1987's Promise and won a Golden Globe in 1990 for Twin Peaks.
Is This Happening Someday?: Laurie still acts (she's seen in the Matthew McConaughey film White Boy Rick this year), but has never been a consistent presence in film, frequently taking long detours on the stage (she didn't appear in a Hollywood movie from The Hustler to Carrie), so I doubt it.  She's not well-known enough to win an Honorary Award, so I'm guessing her next mention with AMPAS will be at the In Memoriam (morbid, but accurate).

7. Angela Lansbury (1925-Present)

Nominations: Gaslight (Supporting Actress in 1944), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Supporting Actress in 1945), & The Manchurian Candidate (Supporting Actress in 1962)
She Lost to: Ethel Barrymore, Anne Revere, & Patty Duke (don't you love that there's still someone living who once competed against Ethel Barrymore?)
Closest to the Win: Lansbury was the heavy favorite for her dragon-lady mother in 1962's The Manchurian Candidate, but she had to go against Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker, which is pretty much a lead role and a sympathetic one at that, so she ended up losing as a result (Duke's very good in the movie, but nowhere near as marvelous as Lansbury).
Well, She Still Won...: Lansbury won an Honorary Oscar in 2013 for her body-of-work, a well-deserved honor that the Emmys should duplicate considering her 18 nods without a win there.  She also has five Tony Awards & six Golden Globes...Lansbury has a complicated history with awards ceremonies, with some adoring her while others consistently keep her in her seat.
Is This Happening Someday?: The Honorary Award was a great nod from Hollywood to one of its most enduring stars, but it was also an indication that Lansbury's time in the competitive categories is over.

6. Michelle Williams (1980-Present)

Nominations: Brokeback Mountain (Supporting Actress in 2005), Blue Valentine (Actress in 2010), My Week with Marilyn (Actress in 2011), & Manchester by the Sea (Supporting Actress in 2016)
She Lost to: Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Meryl Streep, & Viola Davis
Closest to the Win: Probably her first at-bat?  The other films had pretty strong frontrunners, but 2005 could have gone a few different ways, including toward Williams as the "long-suffering wife."
Well, She Still Won...: Williams picked up the Globe for her work in My Week with Marilyn (I remember Seth Rogen making fun of the "hilarious" movie while presenting and then having to sheepishly hand the statue over to his Take This Waltz costar).
Is This Happening Someday?: Only 13 women have been nominated four or more times for acting without actually winning a trophy, so we're entering very good odds territory, especially for someone who works as often as Williams who has made the move from leading lady to supporting parts relatively seamlessly.  She's admittedly turning forty in a couple of years so it'd be smart to score soon, but this is still achievable.

5. Annette Bening (1958-Present)

Nominations: The Grifters (Supporting Actress in 1990), American Beauty (Actress in 1999), Being Julia (Actress in 2004), & The Kids Are All Right (Actress in 2010)
She Lost to: Whoopi Goldberg, Hilary Swank, Hilary Swank (again), & Natalie Portman
Closest to the Win: I distinctly remember there being a lot of conversation in 1999, when Bening was just north of 40, that "it's time" for her to win for American Beauty, which she didn't do but had to be close.  While in hindsight that was ridiculous considering the body-of-work she's put out since, it has to be noted that women around the age of 40 frequently have their flourishing acting careers disappear if they can't transition into playing the grittier, indy films that Hollywood's sexism relegates them toward.
Well, She Still Won...: Bening took home the BAFTA for American Beauty (Boys Don't Cry feels a more "American" story than American Beauty, so this makes sense though it's weird they didn't go with Julianne Moore for the "more British" End of the Affair), and nabbed Golden Globes for both Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right.
Is This Happening Someday?: Yeah, I think it is, though it's probably going to have to be supporting.  While Bening has missed in the past two years, she scored major precursor nominations (Globes & BAFTA) proving the love is still there, and she's the rare actress in her sixties that still headlines movies.  I think she's quite likely to get this, and it doesn't hurt that she's married to Hollywood Royalty, as Warren will clearly push for his wife to win this if she's close.

4. Jane Alexander (1939-Present)

Nominations: The Great White Hope (Actress in 1970), All the President's Men (Supporting Actress in 1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (Supporting Actress in 1979), and Testament (Actress in 1983)
She Lost to: Glenda Jackson, Beatrice Straight, Meryl Streep, & Shirley MacLaine
Closest to the Win: Straight was a big upset in 1976, with most people assuming the trophy would go to Alexander or Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.  Her other three options she wasn't one of the main contenders, so I think this was her best option even though it's not the most memorable of parts in All the President's Men.
Well, She Still Won...: Alexander took home the Tony for the stage version of The Great White Hope and won Emmys for her work in Playing for Time and Warm Springs.
Is This Happening Someday?: No, I don't think so.  Alexander still works regularly, but mostly in TV (I'd totally buy that she has another Emmy win in her), and was never a household name in the way that Bening is, so there's less pressure to give her an Honorary trophy.

3. Marsha Mason (1942-Present)

Nominations: Cinderella Liberty (Actress in 1973), The Goodbye Girl (Actress in 1977), Chapter Two (Actress in 1979), & Only When I Laugh (Actress in 1981)
She Lost to: Glenda Jackson, Diane Keaton, Sally Field, & Katharine Hepburn
Closest to the Win: It's hard to tell, but it'd be one of her first two nominations.  Jackson's win in 1973 was considered a big surprise (if you've never seen the looks of shock and not-so-veiled disgust on Mason's, Joanne Woodward's, and Ellen Burstyn's faces when Jackson won at the 1973 Oscars, do yourself a favor).  Mason seemed happier being beaten by Diane Keaton, though considering the Annie Hall wins weren't a foregone conclusion that night (Mason & Jane Fonda were both in the running), she might have just been acting.
Well, She Still Won...: Mason picked up Golden Globes for both Cinderella Liberty & The Goodbye Girl, but is one Tony nomination away from having been nominated for every leg of the EGOT but not winning any of them (only Lynn Redgrave has ever pulled off this feat).  Considering how often she treads the boards, this is not out of the question (weirdly Redgrave also won two Golden Globes in her career).
Is This Happening Someday?: Doubtful.  Mason is very active, one could argue more active than even Alexander, but her days as a leading woman are largely forgotten by modern audiences, and so there's no way for her to easily get in on pop culture cache.  She'd need to land a really good film role, which is tough for a woman nearing eighty.

2. Amy Adams (1974-Present)

Nominations: Junebug (Supporting Actress in 2005), Doubt (Supporting Actress in 2008), The Fighter (Supporting Actress in 2010), The Master (Supporting Actress in 2012), & American Hustle (Supporting Actress in 2013)
She Lost to: Rachel Weisz, Penelope Cruz, Melissa Leo, Anne Hathaway, & Cate Blanchett
Closest to the Win: I don't think Adams has ever actually been close to a win.  Her best shot would have been in 2013, where she was competing against four former winners so a movement to "make her one of the club" was definitely possible, but it never panned out.  She's more consistently in 4th place when she's nominated.
Well, She Still Won...: Adams took an expected Golden Globe for American Hustle and then a shock win for Big Eyes (she clearly hadn't prepared even a "I can't believe I won" speech that year).
Is This Happening Someday?: Only five women have gotten to the 5+ club without taking home a competitive trophy, so Adams is in rare company if she never wins, but I kind of think she will.  Her fame and age indicate it should happen soon, and Oscar's love of her may be waning (she missed for Big Eyes & Arrival despite ample precursor attention), but Vice this year has a solid recipe for a trophy (supporting part, biopic, showy work) if its reviews don't bury her chances alive.

1. Glenn Close (1947-Present)

Nominations: The World According to Garp (Supporting Actress in 1982), The Big Chill (Supporting Actress in 1983), The Natural (Supporting Actress in 1984), Fatal Attraction (Actress in 1987), Dangerous Liaisons (Actress in 1988), & Albert Nobbs (Actress in 2011)
She Lost to: Jessica Lange, Linda Hunt, Peggy Ashcroft, Cher, Jodie Foster, & Meryl Streep
Closest to the Win: In 1988, Close was the frontrunner for this win.  Most people assumed she'd take it after a decade of headlining major films, perhaps joining Sigourney Weaver on the stage (getting two women off of this list), but Jodie Foster pulled off the upset, and Close would have to wait another 23 years before she finally was invited back to the Oscars.
Well, She Still Won...: Close has won two Golden Globes, three Emmys, and a trio of Tony Awards-the only thing left to cap off an incredible career would be an Oscar...
Is This Happening Someday?: Close joins Thelma Ritter & Deborah Kerr as the only actresses to ever hit six nominations and never win the Oscar.  As a result, it's hard not to see a movement happening for her if she gets a citation this year since she'd be in uncharted territory for a woman if she got seven nods & never won.  In a normal year, I'd argue that Olivia Colman or Lady Gaga or even Emily Blunt would have more steam than Close's quiet, introverted turn in The Wife, but that's the sort of performance that eventually won Geraldine Page her Oscar too after losing seven times previously (though Close is better than Page was in The Trip to Bountiful), and honestly at this point the movie behind her name might not matter-they are likely just voting for Glenn Close, Oscar Winner, at that point.  I think if she gets in there's a very strong possibility the Oscars decide to avoid another Richard Burton situation and just gives her the trophy.  If not, expect an Honorary Oscar soon, though Close famously wants this so I doubt she settles for an Honorary if she can help it.

A Monster Calls (2016)

Film: A Monster Calls (2016)
Stars: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson
Director: JA Bayona
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

There are few movies where I go into the film and feel like it was staggeringly different than what I anticipated.  I generally avoid trailers if I can, particularly full trailers ("why can't all trailers be teaser trailers?" is a subject I have trod many times before, so we won't get into that), but with major movies it's kind of inevitable.  If anything else, I end up seeing these because I like my regular seat at the movie theater and get there before the movie started.  In 2016, by-and-large trailers were relatively accurate in depicting movies and their plots (with the notable exceptions of Zootopia and Passengers), so my favorite films of the year list featured few films that really stunned me that I liked them, save one: A Monster Calls.  I cannot remember the last time I had such a gut-wrenching, visceral experience from a film that on-the-surface looks like a standard fare popcorn movie.  Easily one of the best films I saw in 2016,  A Monster Calls was decidedly the biggest surprise for me personally in 2016.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on a young man named Conor O'Malley (MacDougall), a middle school-aged young man who lives a relatively depressing life.  His mother (Jones), is dying of some sort of illness (it sure looks like cancer but it's never specified), and he is forced to live with his stern grandmother (Weaver).  During the night, however, he is visited by a monster at 12:07 who tells him a series of three stories, each showing morally ambiguous situations.  Slowly, Conor realizes he must tell his story, about a recurring dream that he has where he cannot save his mother from falling over a large cliff.

The film's center is around growing up, and realizing that people are not black-and-white, but internally complicated and frequently at odds with their baser instincts.  As it's a children's movie, it's quite obvious that the moral of the fourth story is that Conor must let go of his mother, that he must admit he wants her to be out of her pain even if that means he'll have to live without her, but the way it is presented and acted is so gorgeous it is hard to fault the picture for such an obvious moral.

Indeed, it is in that presentation that A Monster Calls summons all of its strength.  I cannot remember the last time Liam Neeson, such a commanding if occasionally staid presence onscreen, has been used so well.  His monster shows few cards, and his narration is wonderful.  The highlight of the film are his stories, particularly the first two, where an enchanting and rich animation sequence takes over-think "Tale of Beadle the Bard," but better in my opinion.  I genuinely said "wow" out-loud at least a couple of times during these stretches, it was such an impactive moment in a movie filled with grief but hope trying to get to the surface.

I also have to say, though, that while the animation was a highlight, I was struck by how raw and excellent the rest of the live cast was.  Felicity Jones gets the showiest part, and admittedly her mother remains unknowable, but through the eyes of a young man who will never properly get to know his mother, that seems appropriate, and she lands that "you break them" speech with a ferocity that I had yet to have seen from the young actress.  I personally think this is her best work, and while I can't quite say the same for Sigourney Weaver, this is certainly the first time I've seen her challenged as an actress in a while.  The scene where she comes across her home, broken by her angry, belligerent grandson and wordlessly breaks down in pain over her daughter dying, not over her broken things as we'd expect from the way Conor frames it-it's a magnificent scene.  Honestly, in a year where dying parents seemed to be a regular occurrence (Manchester by the Sea, Moana, Other People), this movie in my opinion stands apart as the one that finds a new approach to grief, showing its devastation and the way that life forces us to move on when we cannot imagine that it's possible.  It's incredibly moving, life-affirming, and spellbinding-the rare children's movie that feels made to be a classic.

Those are my thoughts on this staggering picture (like I said, genuinely one of my favorite films of 2016)-how about yours?  Considering its box office, did you even see it?  If so, share if you were surprised or if you found it more run-of-the-mill...I'm interested to discuss!

My 10 Favorite Trivia Questions

I love trivia.  It's one of my absolute favorite things-I cannot get enough of it, and I am a bit of a fountain for it.  One of my goals in life is to know at least five minutes worth of conversation about any given topic.  As a result of this, I have MANY different trivia questions that I love to whip out to stump people, but here are ten of my favorites:

Gov. Samuel J. Tilden (D-NY)

1. Which Men Lost the Presidency by One Vote?

These are not in order of personal preference, except for this one, as this is one that I came up with myself and it's my favorite stumper.  Three men have lost the presidency by one vote.  The first was in 1868.  President Andrew Johnson was on trial at the time and was impeached by Congress.  As a result, his removal from office was put to a vote and 36 "guilty" votes were required to remove him as president.  Only 35 were cast, however, so he stayed as president by one vote.  Had one more vote been cast, Senate President Pro Tempore Benjamin Wade of Ohio would have assumed the presidency.  Wade would have a rough year in 1868: he lost the presidency by one vote, was denied the vice presidency when Ulysses S. Grant refused to give in to party pressure and nominate him, and then would lose reelection to his Senate seat later that year.  Were it not for one vote, he would have become our nation's 18th president for about ten months in 1868.

The second man was eight years later, and his name is Samuel J. Tilden, at the time a New York governor who was running for the presidency.  Tilden actually won the popular vote by a healthy three-points in 1876, but the electoral college was basically a tie against Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes.  Several states (Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon) had electors that were disputed whether or not the Republican or the Democrat had won.  Since Tilden had 184 electors already locked up, had he taken just one of the twenty electoral votes these states had, he would have won the election.  Since no one could properly decide who won the states, Congress decided a commission of seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one Supreme Court justice would decide on the victors.  Justice David Davis, famously independent, was to be that justice, but the Illinois State Senate, in hopes of bribing Davis to pick Tilden, offered him a Senate seat, which he took, but as a result had to resign his position on the Court.  As a result, there were only Republicans left on the court and the commission voted 8-7 on all twenty electoral college votes, effectively handing the election to Hayes.

The final instance happened relatively recently, with Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush.  With the election being hauntingly close (though Gore won the popular vote), everything came down to Florida.  The recounts intricacies were so minute (this was the closest statewide election in the history of the Republic, so pretty much any nuance you could find in election law could result in a switch of the victor) that the Supreme Court's decision may well have cost Vice President Gore the election (the media in subsequent analysis decided that a victory for Gore at the high court would have resulted in anything from a win for Governor Bush by 496 votes to a victory for the Vice President by 161 votes).  The Supreme Court denied Gore's recount in select counties in Florida by a 5-4 decision, effectively handing the White House to Governor Bush.

It should be noted that we actually know who cast these three deciding votes: Sen. Edmund Ross of Kansas was the final Republican defector in 1868, denying Wade the presidency, Justice Joseph Bradley was the Supreme Court justice who got Republicans their eighth vote in the Tilden/Hayes elections, and based on the order in which the Supreme Court votes, Justice Clarence Thomas (who was appointed by George W. Bush's father, coincidentally enough) would have been the fifth vote in 2000.  It's also worth noting that Wade, Tilden, and (so far) Gore never ran for the White House again.

Emil Jannings

2. What Oscar Winner used his Oscar statue to prove to Allied troops he was from Hollywood?

Emil Jannings was a German actor who won the first Best Actor Oscar (I believe it was actually the first award of the night, so he won the first Oscar, period) for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh.  Later in his career, the man with a thick German accent couldn't transition into talkies, but did find his way into Nazi propaganda films, many under the supervision of Joseph Goebbels.  As a result of this, when the Allied troops came to Germany in the Spring of 1945, he was potentially in danger, and as a result, reportedly came out into the streets waving his Oscar over his head in hopes of them recognizing his association with Hollywood.  Jannings was subject to denazification, and as a result never made another motion picture after the war.

It's worth noting that Jannings is associated with two other pieces of Oscar trivia, both also quite sad.  His performance in The Way of All Flesh is the only Oscar-winning performance to currently be considered "lost," while his performance in The Patriot is also lost.  The Patriot is the only Best Picture nominee to have that designation.  In fact, only one of Jannings' five Hollywood films (The Last Command) is fully-intact.  Jannings played a role in a later Best Picture, however, as he was a character (played by Hilmar Eichhorn) in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

Park Young-Seok

3. What is a True Explorers' Grand Slam, and who was the first person to complete it?

If there is a Mount Everest of adventuring, it oddly enough doesn't end with Mount Everest.  It's the True Explorers' Grand Slam, which is topping all of the Seven Summits (the seven highest mountains on each continent), as well all of the 8000-meter mountains in the word (there are 14 of them, all in the Himalayas), and also reaching the North and South Pole.  This feat was first accomplished in 2005 by Park Young-Seok, who reached the North Pole in 2005 after completing all of the other mountains and expeditions.  Young-Seok went missing six years later while mounting Annapurna (one of the more treacherous eight-thousanders), and is considered dead, but lives on in adventuring legend for this accomplishment.

Gabriel in Da Vinci's Annunciation

4. How many angels are there in the Bible?

The answer is roughly 2.5, cheekily enough.  Two full-on angels are named in the Bible: Gabriel, who is the most mentioned angel in the Bible by name, who appears in the Book of Daniel as well as is the angel who announces the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, and then there's Michael, the archangel who appears in the Books of Daniel and Jude.

However, there are two angels that appear in the Bible that are "fallen angels," so 2.5 seems like a more appropriate answer.  The first of these is Lucifer, who is mentioned in the Books of Isaiah and Luke, and was considered the "most beautiful and powerful" angel until his fall, and he is generally associated with Satan.  Then there is Abaddon, who is briefly mentioned in Revelation 9:11 as the king of an army of locusts.

It's worth noting that there are two other angels that feature prominently in sects of the Christian faith, though are not mentioned in all different versions of the Bible.  Raphael, for example, features prominently in the Book of Tobit, which is part of the Catholic Bible but not part of the Protestant or Jewish Bibles, while the Book of Enoch (which is part of some Orthodox liturgy) features the angel Uriel.

Gen. Galusha Pennypacker

5. What General Couldn't Vote for His President?

Galusha Pennypacker is not just a man with the greatest name you've ever heard, he's also a famous overachiever.  During the Civil War, Pennypacker was in the Second Battle of Fort Fisher and fought valiantly, though received what at the time was thought to be a fatal wound, and was promised by General Alfred Terry that he would receive a brevet promotion for his bravery that day.  As a result, he was promoted to brigadier general on January 15, 1865.

However, Pennypacker actually survived this incident, and won a full promotion on February 18th, just four months shy of his 21st birthday.  As the voting age at the time was 21, Pennypacker became the first and so far only man to hold the office of general while not being able to legally vote for his president (he also received the Medal of Honor).  Considering that the voting age and the age for admission into the Army are now the same, it seems extremely likely that this is a distinction that Pennypacker will hold forever.  Pennypacker did eventually die of his Civil War injuries, but not until fifty years later, and is buried at Philadelphia National Cemetary

Queen Elizabeth II

6. What is the Royal Family's Last Name?

The (as of today) still unnamed princess born to William and Kate may not have a first name yet, but she does have a last name, even if it isn't widely-known by the public.  The last name of members of the Royal Family is either Mountbatten-Windsor or just Windsor.

The distinction is between those who have their "royal family" status as a result of Queen Elizabeth II and those that have it as a result of George V.  The former were given their last name as a result of an Order in Council issued by the Queen in 1960, which combined the royal names of Prince Philip's family and her majesty's family.  Prince Philip's family (he was a Greek prince) actually assumed Mountbatten during the war after a request from Prince Louis to King George V to move from Battenberg to Mountbatten.  Prince Louis of Battenberg was the grandfather of Prince Philip.

The House of Windsor started in 1917. At the time, anti-German sentiment was high in England and there was an emerging anti-monarchy sentiment across the continent (resulting in the assassinations of Emperor Nicholas II and his family in Russia).  As Nicholas II was a cousin of King George V, the monarch was convinced to change the family's name, which was the extremely German Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to something a bit more British.  They chose Windsor since it was the name of a well-known castle, and declared it by royal proclamation in 1917.

As a result of this, any member of the royal family who derives their royal status from Queen Elizabeth II (such as her children and male-line grandchildren) have the last name of Mountbatten-Windsor, while any members of the royal family who derive their royal status from King George V (these would be the Queen's cousins, such as the Duke of Gloucester and Prince Michael of Kent) have the last name Windsor.

Eva, Zsa Zsa, and Magda Gabor

7. How many times did the Gabor sisters get married?

Long before the Kardashians became the fodder of every tabloid story known to man, there was another trio of sisters whose every move and romance was chronicled by the press: the Gabors.  Extremely glamorous, the sisters were famed occasionally for their acting but mostly for their gossip-ready marriages.  Throughout their lives, the sisters married a combined total of twenty men (so far-Zsa Zsa is still kicking at age 98, though is reportedly in extremely bad health, so this number will probably remain concrete).  Amongst their conquests were plastic surgeons, stock brokers, millionaires, playwrights, hotel magnates, a count, a prince (Zsa Zsa's current husband) and most famously an Oscar-winning actor, George Sanders.  Sanders has the distinction of being married to both Magda and Zsa Zsa.

It's worth noting that in twenty marriages, only one of them resulted in one of the women having a child (Zsa Zsa and Conrad Hilton had a daughter in 1947...Zsa Zsa also famously slept with her stepson Nicky Hilton during the marriage, and Nicky went on to marry Elizabeth Taylor, another serial bride).  Only two of the marriages didn't end in divorce: Magda's first marriage to Jan Bychowsky ended when Bychowsky died and Zsa Zsa's present marriage to Frederic Prinz von Anhalt is still valid (yes, this is the guy who was one of the men that could have been the father to Anna Nicole Smith's daughter...it's a fine line of millions of dollars and a royal title that distinguishes "trash" from "socialite").

8. What are the only states never to have elected a woman to Congress?

This used to be four states, but with the election of Joni Ernst In Iowa this past fall the list is down to three.  The states are Delaware, Vermont, and Mississippi.  It's worth noting that women have run for Congress in all three of these states, but none have emerged victorious.  Of the three, Mississippi comes across the worst of the trio: not only has no woman won a congressional seat in the state, but the state has never elected a woman as their governor (this isn't the case for Delaware or Vermont, where Ruth Ann Minner and Madeline Kunin have served, respectively).  It's also worth noting that as-of-today, Mississippi has six congressional seats representing it while the other two states only have three.  Mississippi does have a prominent state senator running in the special election to succeed Alan Nunnelee, but it looks to be a very competitive primary so we shall see if this finally removes this distinction.

If you want to expand this a bit, six states have never had a woman serve in the House (in addition to the above three, there's Iowa, North Dakota, and Alaska), but all three of those states have had female senators.  22 states have not had female senators as of today-looking ahead to the upcoming elections the most likely contenders to rectify this (should candidates run and win) are Colorado (where Attorney General Cynthia Coffman is considering a Senate bid) and Nevada (where Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Dina Titus are both looking at running or are already in the race).

Georges Braque's The Birds

9. Who was the first living person to be displayed at the Louvre?

Georges Braque was the first living artist to have his work displayed at the Louvre.  I cannot find the specific piece that it was (a little help in the comments?), but I do know that he had an installation piece called "The Birds" that was put into the Louvre in the 1950's, an extremely high honor for any artist.  Braque's career was significantly overshadowed by his friend and professional rival Pablo Picasso.  Picasso is frequently cited with being the creator of Cubism, but he actually did this in conjunction with Braque.  The two worked together for several years leading up to World War I (when Braque would serve in the French Army), and their art during this period is extremely similar.  Braque never really strayed from Cubism (while Picasso was constantly trying a new artistic style), and therefore has been relegated to more of a footnote status in art history than Picasso, who enjoys a position as one of the "greats."

Sigourney Weaver and Meryl Streep

10. What roles was Meryl Streep turned down for?

Like all things behind-the-scenes in Hollywood, there is some different interpretation for this question, but there are three roles that definitely Streep was turned down for: Miss Kenton in The Remains of the Day, Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth, and Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams.  It's worth noting that all three of these parts (which went to Emma Thompson, Cate Blanchett, and Jessica Lange, respectively) won Oscar nominations, which means that Streep's awards count could, staggeringly enough could be even higher by now.  There's also rumors that she was turned down for the part of Michelle Straton in American Gigolo, while other sources state that she was offered the role (which eventually went to Lauren Hutton) but turned it down because she didn't like the direction of the script.  She also was brought in to read for the part of Dwan in King Kong, but was thought to be "too ugly" by Dino de Laurentiis (this part also went to Jessica Lange).

Streep was also considered for two other Oscar-nominated roles.  She was originally going to star in Thelma and Louise with her pal Goldie Hawn but had to drop out when she got pregnant (not sure who was playing which role, but both parts won Oscar nominations, the same of which can't be said for Hawn/Streep's eventual pairing in the cult classic Death Becomes Her).  She was also considered for the part of Ripley in the Alien films, which won Sigourney Weaver an Oscar nomination in 1986 for Aliens.  Weaver and Streep were classmates at Yale together, and were constantly fighting over parts, with Meryl usually winning the leads (also, if you trade in celebrity gossip, Weaver purportedly dated Don Gummer before Meryl ended up marrying him), so this is probably a nice vindication for Weaver.

And there you have it-ten of my favorite pieces of trivia!  If you like this article, please re-tweet it or share in the comments, and I'll do another one soon!  If any of these trivia pieces surprised you or you have additional shares, put them there as well!

Emmy Predictions: The Miniseries

Note from John: We are extremely excited to announce our very first guest star on Many Ranting of John, Luke from Journalistic Skepticism!!!

Luke here, ready to talk up the miniseries/TV movie nominees for this Sunday’s Emmys. For this year’s crop, it’s a little bit of business as usual, with a healthy mix of traditional big-event miniseries, HBO original one-offs and this genre’s own form of category fraud – the series masquerading as a miniseries. But let’s take them for what they’re worth – and maybe get a few fresh angles on the chosen few. Namely, how would these telepics fare in Oscarville?

Best Miniseries/TV Movie

Let’s kick things off with the big one. In the best-off list we have Behind the Candelabra, HBO’s Liberace biopic and the odds-on favorite; Top of the Lake, the Sundance sensation with the cable-drama pedigree; American Horror Story: Asylum, Ryan Murphy’s season-two outing pretending to be just another step in the anthology; The Bible, the massive History Channel event series; Phil Spector, the “other HBO movie” that proved to be a quiet blip on the radar; and Political Animals, USA’s failed attempt at a non-procedural drama that was branded a “limited series” as a just-in-case-of-ratings-failure.

Who Will Win? With Liberace’s ivory-tickling all but a certainty for the big win, it seems as though the low-key pot-boiler Top of the Lake will have to be a bridesmaid all season long. There’s no question that the Globes and SAGs will, as tradition fairly often suggests, follow suit come year’s end. There’s an outside shot at the classically concocted The Bible might spoil here due its ratings behemoth status, but it’s incredibly unlikely.

What Would Oscar Say? In order to make this judgment call, I’ll have to first imagine that all the entries – namely Top of the Lake, Asylum and The Bible weren’t hours-long epics but two-hour-long theatrical outings. With that in mind, Behind the Candelabra is cinematic enough in its energy and pacing that if it weren’t so gay it might have an outside shot at some Oscar love. TotL would perhaps see some screenwriting adoration, but the subdued tone and female-centric plot would be trouble to overcome with stuffy Oscar voters. Yet, it’s a beauty to look at, and Jane Campion isn’t any slouch with awards bodies. Then there’s AHS, which while wildly entertaining, is not at all Oscar’s cup of tea and wouldn’t stand a shot. Phil Spector suffers from an over-the-top narrative, and Political Animals is far too “TV” to translate well into theaters. And with The Bible chockfull of bizarre and horrendous performances and strangely low production value, it seems Candelabra would be the only near shoo-in.

Best Lead Actress

Inspecting this year’s leading ladies, name recognition should be no trouble. With now-perennial favorite Jessica Lange headlining AHS this time around, and awards darlings Helen Mirren (Phil Spector) and Sigourney Weaver (Political Animals) showing up, this could be a heated race. Rounding out the competition is “can’t get no love” Elisabeth Moss (Top of the Lake) and Laura Linney finishing up her stint as Cathy Jamison in The Big C: Hereafter.

Who Will Win? With a few category fraudsters in play (Lange, Linney, arguably Weaver), it’s a tough call. Hereafter’s minimal additional nods tell me Linney’s down for the count, and Mirren’s film hasn’t made enough of a splash, especially considering the subject matter. And with Weaver’s PA deemed a cancelled failure (though I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it), Lange and Moss will duke it out, with Emmy’s penchant for regifting leading me to believe Lange has this one.

What Would Oscar Say? Imagining these as theatrical performances, Moss’s even-tempered turn as a believably New Zealander detective would at least be in the conversation come Indie Spirit time. Imagining the much-improved final season of The Big C as a film, there’s no doubt in my mind that Linney would be campaigned for Oscar – it was a beautiful ending to a once-great show. Lange’s saddled with a tough genre, so I doubt she’d have much luck sneaking her way in. The nature of Weaver’s role (Hillary Clinton-esque politico) would lend itself well to a film, so a Globe nod doesn’t seem out of the question. And though Mirren has slipped through for less, her turn in Phil Spector isn’t nearly enough of a stretch for Oscar love.

Best Lead Actor

Should any other network even try anymore? HBO sweeps the category with the Liberace boys, Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, landing themselves (thankfully) in the correct category for Behind the Candelabra, Al Pacino riding an array of ridiculous wigs into the category with Phil Spector, Toby Jones trying to outdo Anthony Hopkins in his take on Hitchcock in The Girl, and Benedict Cumberbatch (Parade’s End) landing his more than likely second of many more nominations to come.

Who Will Win? Will it really be a Douglas/Damon fight to the death on this one? The Behind the Candelabra stars will officially decide which one of the two of them will subsequently win the SAG and Globe later this year on Sunday night. And though Pacino is a big name here, his internal competition from fellow HBO stars could be too much to overcome. Cumberbatch is having a moment, to be sure, but he and Jones have the same problem – both in HBO films that barely got noticed on their release.

What Would Oscar Say? It’s kind of interesting to see how Emmy definites can change so much when switching out the voting Academy. Something tells me Jones’s mimcry and Cumberbatch’s costume drama-ing would read well with Oscar voters, and I could see both connecting. Pacino’s Spector is probably too subversive and outlandish for AMPAS tastes. And while Douglas would almost certainly land a spot in the Oscar lineup, Damon would definitely find himself in supporting. Because Oscar simply can’t help himself.

Best Supporting Actress

The category features a couple of relentless mainstays in Ellen Burstyn (Political Animals) and the darling of the Emmys Alfre Woodard (Steel Magnolias), as well as a British invasion in the form of Charlotte Rampling (Restless) and Imelda Staunton (The Girl). And it wouldn’t be a miniseries category without your AHS entry, this year’s model Sarah Paulson. Quick question though – how the heck did Emmy avoid Debbie Reynolds’ sneaky turn in Candelabra, the opportunity to recognize Phylicia Rashad (Steel Magnolias) and Holly Hunter’s wispy weirdo in Top of the Lake? All seemed like intensely likely players on paper but missed out.

Who Will Win? With seemingly no urgency to reward Woodard’s scene-stealing Ouiser or Burstyn’s colorful mama in PA, this feels like the Brits versus Paulson. Restless’s one-off nature looks unlikely, but Rampling’s had a memorable stint on the Emmy-popular Dexter this season. Staunton’s part is very small in The Girl but she has her Emmy scenes to be sure. This should theoretically be Paulson’s to lose – she was magnificent in Asylum, though it’s hardly fair, as she was the clear lead in the horror series’ second outing.

What Would Oscar Say? Disregard Horror once more here, but the other four are all entirely possible. Steel Magnolias perhaps wouldn’t play as well in theaters these days, and Burstyn was maybe too hammy for a surefire nod. Admittedly, I haven’t seen Restless so I can’t speak to its prospects, though the Academy has never shown much interest in Rampling. Staunton, though, seems like the likeliest of entries here, unless The Girl’s hypothetical theatrical run went by way of Hitchcock.

Best Supporting Actor

Closing out the big five categories for the miniseries genre, AHS put up two nominees this time around in James Cromwell and Zachary Quinto; Peter Mullan came out as the sole TotL man in the lineup; John Benjamin Hickey landed a surprise nod for the final season of The Big C; and Scott Bakula outdid Rob Lowe’s goofy plastic surgeon for Candelabra’s final nomination of the list.

Who Will Win? Though Candelabra will win the night and Damon’s not in play as many suspected, Bakula is a longshot. Mullan will be a part of the across-the-board loss I suspect Top of the Lake will suffer, and Hickey hasn’t had much luck throughout The Big C’s run, so I’m not sure it would start now. This looks to be a battle between Quinto and Cromwell, and, though the former’s star is rising, veteran Cromwell will win the day.

What Would Oscar Say? For some reason, Cromwell’s role in Asylum feels like the only one that could transcend genre bias to possibly get some awards love in theaters. If Mullan had a more recognizable name, his edgy character choices would move beyond just an Indie Spirit mention. It’s the Linney show this season on Big C, so Hickey wouldn’t see much golden guy. And Bakula could have an off-chance coattails moment if Candelabra were a big Oscar sweeper, though his bit part would be a tough sell.

So there you have it – how do you think the chips will fall come Sunday? How do you think these flicks would fare with AMPAS? And how strange is it that Emmy gave up the opportunity to nominate Hunter and Reynolds?