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Beatrice Straight is undeniable unforgettable unwavering and frankly unleashed with such ferocious energy that grabs you and doesn’t let go, really ever. It’s like when Rey says, “I am all the Jedi!” to Palpatine…BS is all the Women past present and future, and yet she’s more than that still. I’m a man and was raised by a single mother who was abandoned for a younger woman…I am experiencing her characters trauma 😅my own trauma my mothers trauma and also a triumph over that trauma thru her performance…this is what makes Network such a strong film. It doesn’t hold back and encourages true expression of emotions that for some or most are never seen or expressed. Network is all about connection and connectedness and how little or how much one has in their life and to the world. It’s such a wonderful film on every level, it’s a point on the map. ❤

Who is the gentleman at the end

Emma Stone performance in La la land was cute and I get why she won. It was a nice win. I'm not a fan of her second win, her acting was good but not a fan of the screenplay. Whoopi was really deserving during her year and it was a nice opportunity for Academy to show not only drama can be awarded (plus bc of her previous nomination). I think Chakiris performance was fine. I think he won bc of the overal love the movie got and hos dancing did deliver which I believe was the most praised aspect of the movie. I'll be honest. I have never liked Benigni's performance. Maybe bc I watched years later after the release. I get why he won nd why it's liked. I just find too Oscar-baity (which it was)

Would love to hear your thoughts on the nominees for the 97th Oscars!

Jack Nicholson should have won best supporting actor for A Few Good Men.

Most supporting wins are too LONG to be considered supporting

How many of these won when the Oscars were given out in March instead of February?

Hi Michael: As I have posted before I am not a fan of Beatrice Straight;s screaming and yelling hysterical tantrum in Network. It just feels way too too theatrical. Personally I much prefer Jane Alexander' s completely opposite approach in All the President's Men. Her role, not much larger than Straight's is a master class of subtlety and nuance. I know this occurred before your time frame but believe Martin Balsam won without any precursor awards. Also love the movie Airport but have never been comfortable with Helen Hayes' win. Maureen Stapleton in that same movie was much more effective (again, subtlety)

People forget that "Carrie" wasn't the big deal in 1976 that it is now. It got some great reviews, particularly from Pauline Kael, but there's no way Piper Laurie or Sissy Spacek were going to win for a high school horror movie. "Network" had PRESTIGE behind it, even dwarfing "Taxi Driver".

Este año el Oscar se lo merece por su brillante actuación Demi Moore👌

It's ridiculous that Isabella Rossellini got a Supporting Oscar nomination for '''Conclave.'' It's little more than a cameo and basically has one notable scene with a couple of lines. The SAGs got it right by snubbing her. Meantime, here's another inequality: Carlos Diehz, a newcomer who plays the pivotal role of Benitez, has more screen time and more dialogue than Rossellini, but he isn't a part of ''Conclave's'' SAG Ensemble nomination, because he lacks the billing.

Anna Paquin has a good chance of breaking Helen Hayes record. She is already at 32 years and is only 42, just needs to get some good roles…

It’s wild about DeNiro’s win for Godfather 2 and him not really being nominated anywhere. He didn’t even win the Bafta’s most promising newcomer award. Nowadays, it seems that performance is seen as one of the best and that storyline as being central to why this movie works so well. I love Geena Davis and this win. Her character is so quirky but also down to earth and sincere, foiling the William Hurt character fantastically. Great win. I would’ve also nudged her over Susan in Thelma and Louise, but hopefully that is for another day 😉 Love Marcia’s win and thinks it’s deserved. I may be in the minority (?) but I adore Frances’ character much more than Kate in Almost Famous. Justice for Piper Laurie!! Gosh how I love Network and Beatrice’s performance but for the win? Still crazy to this day Poor HH, 😆

Marcia Gay Harden began her speech by thanking the members for “watching the tapes”.

Gina Davis is still a shock to me. Sigourney should’ve won man. . .

This is the way it's supposed to be. Why even bother to have all of these different award shows, if they're all gonna have the same hive-mind mentality and all nominate the exact same things?

The fact that Marcia Gay Harden was able to come in and just get the Oscar nomination and win is iconic as hell. As much as I love Geena Davis in The accidental tourist, I do wish Sigourney Weaver would have won for Working Girl. It would have been so cool to see Sigourney win an Oscar, be nominated in both best actress and Best supporting actress and have the best actress nomination be for aliens. That would have been a trifecta of talent right there but alas Geena won.

At this point in time, I almost feel that Diane Keaton might be the only one who might beat Helen Haye’s 39 year Oscar stretch. Woody Allen needs to write her a good Supporting role in something. Otherwise, I’d go with Marisa Tomei, who is at the 32 year mark and has had two previous BSA nominations. She seems to have that ‘please forgive us, we know you’re great’ momentum on her side.

Personally I don't really give much power to BAFTA because I have issues towards it.

Side question: how do you get screeners? you need to be a critic registered?

Amazing . Thank you.

Thank you for actually covering the histography of Hollywood film industry awards as you explore award show narratives around wins. That being said, I do feel like those awards did and do have their own unique distinctions in their choices for nominees and winners, and I do think that trend is coming back in all good ways, imho. I do think what makes these wins unique and noteworthy is that actors who win these Oscars were working with either Oscar winners in their films and that increased notice, and/or working with someone that the Academy respects but haven't rewarded yet. Also, I do think that the actor's branch can often nominate people not on the award show track to show the power of the actor's branch in the Academy, even if by their lead, the rest of the industry factors into voting from that cue. Differentiation is important in looking at precursor wins as much as it is important to unique ones. SAG-AFTRA might vote for a winner because of the actor's respect in the union. The Golden Globes does look at how a film does overseas in global box office. BAFTA is basically films British people enjoy, etc. etc. The Academy does pull things altogether, but it doesn't mean altogether the track continues. It's possible that Marisa Tomei helped herself win by working with newly minted Academy Award winner Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny, and managed to share and steal the spotlight from him. It's possible that Marcia Gay Harden was working with previously nominated, respected actors, Ed Harris and Amy Madigan in a film about a painter that had profound impact in the world at large in an independent production, risking what mainstream success she was having by an artistic venture. It's possible that Helen Hayes won due to industry respect for her and wanting to keep her in films amid her obvious resistance to Hollywood. It's possible that Beatrice Straight commanded the screen for five amazing minutes of a zietgeist powerful relevant drama and made us forget about Faye Dunaway for a hot minute while also creating worthy opposition. Like any industry, it all depends on who you know and what impression you leave out of respect of the hard work you put in. Again, thank you for including award show histiography here. Keep it up. Not everything is cut and dry.

I loved Geena Davis in Accidental Tourist. How Muriel confronts Macon about his involvement in her son's education and how he refuses to commit, he likes her one minute and the next one he doesn't. Brilliant! ❤

Geena Davis had the lead female role in The Accidental Tourist. Sigourney Weaver should have absolutely won for Working Girl.

Hey!👋 Cloris Leechman won the Oscar for LAST PICTURE SHOW.

Great video as always BUT the hot topic now is this year's nominations. Miss Emilia is getting a lot of buzz and not for the right reasons. Many of the best picture nominees don't have producers listed which I find very strange and the International picture category which was once best foreign language film has me puzzled. Emilia Perez is French produced but the main language is Spanish. It is listed as a musical with songs in English . Bit confusing. And Latvia has an animated film with no dialogue. No Latvian is spoken. And let us not forget the elephant in the room in the Best Actress category. I think Shakespeare in Love will look like Gone with the Wind if Emilia Perez wins Best Picture!

Really great video!!! I always love how you give the context behind each actor! Ruth Gordon's backstory is crazy. I also love her performance. Beside this scene, I really like when she's eating the cake and also near to the end when Rosemary is having her breakdown and she just ignores her to go check the damage the knife made on the wooden floor hahaha just great. A great win for horror too! Javier Bardem was trully deserving of that Oscar too! He gives a chilling performance that still hunts me. He also comes from an old family of performers mostly on his mother's side which he acknowledges on his speech so that's really nice too!

MGH’s win was due to a fractured year and Pollock sending screeners to Academy members as opposed to the other precursor bodies. Davis’ was due to being a leading performance in supporting. WB took a gamble with that category and it paid off.

I will always be in the camp that Marissa’s performance in “My Cousin Vinny” was Oscar worthy! I feel that comedic performances are just as good as dramatic performances. It’s easy to make a person cry for dramatic performances, but it’s harder to make people laugh!

My comments are only slightly related to this. Yesterday I saw "Conclave". Although I wouldn't vote for it for Best Picture, I'm rooting for both Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini to win their first Oscars. This is Rossellini's first nomination at 72. It relates to the last segment of the video, in that, although I'm rooting for her, I admit her part is pretty small. Though not small enough to make it on the Beatrice Straight list.

I have had an opinion for over 35 years : This Oscar thing exerts an inexplicable magic on all the inhabitants of the planet ... EVERYONE. Anyone who says they "don't care" is lying. Katherine Hepburn, Woody Allen and Marlon Brando either never went for it or refused because IT WAS ALREADY A REALITY in their lives; they were already living into the Oscar universe. If the three of them were "normal human beings", working 9 to 5 as McDonald's attendants, the three of them would dream of the Oscar too. This fascination reaches everything and everyone; INCLUDING THE OTHER AWARDS. When awards season comes around, all the other awards do is TRY TO GUESS WHAT THE OSCARS WILL DO! This is the truth! When the Oscars come around, they seem to say, "Nice try but, THIS IS THE REAL LIST OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR."; and the magic happens, and everything starts to fall into place and make sense. We start to laugh at what we thought the supreme Oscar would choose (Hugh Grant in "Heretic"? ... sorry, Oscar! forgive us mortals!). I remember in 1990 a movie was released called "Awakenings" (90 -Penny Marshall). The press went crazy, they said: "Robin Williams has been consecrated as the greatest invention since fire", "Williams can now start preparing the flannel to polish his brand new Oscar". People were moaning: "Look! The actor who played Popeye doing serious stuff! He's better than Brando and Tracy together!". And awards started to pop up for Williams... When February 1991 arrived, the Oscars arrived and ended everyone's party and said: "Shut up, everyone! I'm the boss on the block and the best actor in "Awakenings" is... ROBERT DENIRO!" What does everyone (including the other Awards) do? We sit down and shut up because the truth was told by those who hold the TRUTH. I love The Oscars !

Regarding Beatrice Straight in Network, it’s so obvious that the filmmakers never thought of that role as one that would a contender for any awards. Her character is only in three scenes, and the second scene she is in, I’ve seen the movie a dozen times on video, but I didn’t even know she was in that scene until I saw the movie for the first time at a movie theater on a huge screen. I was like, She’s in that scene too?! It’s the scene when Howard Beale is on TV telling people to go to their windows and shout “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore,” and Max and his daughter go to the window to see the people doing so. Louise (Straight’s role) is actually in that scene. But she only appears in one shot, and it’s of her back. They didn’t even think it she was important enough to give her reaction shot, or to even show her face in a wide shot. And there’s another scene where she calls Max at the TV station, and you don’t see her in her side of the conversation. It’s all reaction shots from Max. They could’ve included shots of her, making the call at home to increase the visibility of her character. But they didn’t. In retrospect, I’m surprised they didn’t cut her big scene in which she gives that monologue. Her character had not been developed at all, and that scene does nothing to advance the plot of the movie.

I think sometimes when an actor unexpectedly gets nominated, voters are like, “Oooh. What’s THAT performance? IT got nominated?” and they make a point to see it and actually think it’s the best performance of the five. That was me with Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock. I was elated when she won. The other four nominees had been on my radar, and then when Pollock got those nominations, I went to see it, and thought that Harden was by far the most impressive of the five and couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been in the race. Maybe the unjust omission up until the Oscars makes Academy members vote for that actor to rectify the omission. I think that’s one of the main reasons Marissa Tomei won. People were being snobby about her inclusion in the Oscar nominations, watched the movie (which they hadn’t seen when it had been in theaters earlier in the year) and probably thought, “Damn I love her in this movie! it’s crazy that she hasn’t been included up until now. I’m voting for her.”

I'm biased because I adore Network, but Beatrice Straight's one scene is breathtaking, same as Gary Oldman in True Romance.

Beatrice Straight has lost her reign! Isabella Rossellini showed HOW IT'S DONE: Oscar with a gigantic monologue is EASY, Rossellini will show how to win an Oscar with ONE LINE ( ... and a Xerox machine).