Craig's MovieBlog

Oscar Tips and Tricks

Variety compiled a few bullets of Oscar trivia, which I'll just post below, because for some sick reason, I just can't get enough of this stuff:

With his eighth acting nom, for Venus, Peter O'Toole is a winner either way. If he wins, great; if not, he goes down in the record books as the actor with the most noms without a win (he was previously tied with Richard Burton).

With her 14th nom, Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada) furthers her lead for most nominated actor ever. Runners-up are Jack Nicholson and Katharine Hepburn, with 12 apiece.

Kevin O'Connell, nommed for sound mixing in Apocalypto, scores his 19th nom. He furthers his status as the Academy's most nominated individual who, so far, hasn't won. Distant runners-up are composer Alex North and art director Roland Anderson, at 15 each.

Dreamgirls is the first live-action film to have three of its songs nominated. Two animated films can lay claim to the same record: The Lion King in 1994 and Beauty and the Beast in 1991.

I Need to Wake Up from An Inconvenient Truth is the first song from a docu to be nominated since More from Mondo Cane was up for the award in 1963.

Alan Arkin has gone 38 years since his last nom --1968's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter -- the same amount of time Jack Palance spent between Shane in 1953 and City Slickers in 1991. Henry Fonda is still the title holder at 41 years between acting noms.

With Little Children, Kate Winslet, 31, becomes the youngest actress to garner five noms. She has made 19 movies. Previous record holder was Olivia de Haviland, who secured her fifth at the age of 33. By that time -- 1950 -- she had made 33 films.

Academy Awards: One Man's Odds for Best Picture

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times printed Patrick Goldstein's latest odds on the Best Picture candidates, as there are 7 weeks to go before the nominations are announced..  Check out the full article for all the detail, but in summary:

The Favorites:

• Dreamgirls: 4-1
• The Queen: 6-1
• The Departed: 9-1
• Little Miss Sunshine: 10-1

Contenders:

• Flags of our Fathers: 12-1
• Letters from Iwo Jima: 12-1
• The Good Shepherd: 14-1
• Babel: 15-1
• United 93: 16-1
• World Trade Center: 16-1
• Volver: 18-1

Longshots:

• Children of Men: 20-1
• The Pursuit of Happyness: 22-1
• Little Children: 25-1
• Blood Diamond: 30-1
• Bobby: 40-1
• Apocalypto: 60-1

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice... I mean, Movie City News, The Gurus o' Gold have compiled their latest votes for all the categories.  Here's their top 10 for Best Picture Nominees:

1. Dreamgirls
2. The Departed
3. The Queen
4. Babel
5. Little Miss Sunshine
6. Letters from Iwo Jima
7. Volver
8. Flags of our Fathers
9. Little Children
10. The Pursuit of Happyness

Jeffrey Wells Looks Forward to the Summer

In this week's piece, he's surprisingly optimistic about the big films coming out this summer, rather than the normal huge studio dreck that normally accompanies June, July, and August.

Here, he riffs on (and offers alternatives to) Mission: Impossible III, Poseidon, The DaVinci Code, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Break-Up, Cars, Nacho Libre, Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Lady in the Water, Miami Vice, Flags of our Fathers, Apocalypto, World Trade Center, and Snakes on a Plane.