For his performance as the abusive father of genius pianist in Scott Hicks’s Shine, Armin Mueller-Stahl received Oscar nomination as Suporting Actor as well as (with his fellow actors from the film) a Screen Actors Guild Award nominee.

The Oscar race in the Supporting Actor category seems to be over.  Two months ago, I analyzed in this column the prospects of Heath Ledger to receive an Oscar nomination for “The Dark Knight,” for his scary, brilliant turn as the anarchic Joker.

Since then, Ledger has won the Los Angeles, the New York, the Broadcast Film Critics Awards, as well as the Golden Globe, the SAG Award, and last night the BAFTA Award in the U.K.  Thus, unless there is a major upset, Ledger should also receive, most deservedly, the Supporting Actor Oscar.

What was the worst year for women as far as the Oscar Awards are concerned?  In what year, the roles allotted to women, in both lead and supporting categories, were so weak, that the Acting Branch had to go out of its way to find them and then to elevate supporting into leading roles so that they could have five nominees in the Best Actress league?

Feb 4, 2009–The International Documentary Association (IDA) will celebrate the documentary nominees of the 81st Annual Academy Awards at the organization’s 27th Annual Nominees Reception on Wednesday, February 18 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Headquarters in Los Angeles, California. One of America's foremost comediennes, Lily Tomlin, will host this year’s celebration of the best documentaries of 2008.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical “Flower Drum Song” was nominated for five Oscars, but lost all of them to “West Side Story,” which swept all the awards in 1961.