|BEN AFFLECK - Argo|
|BRADLEY COOPER - Silver Linings Playbook|
|DANIEL DAY-LEWIS - Lincoln|
|HUGH JACKMAN - Les Misérables|
|JOAQUIN PHOENIX - The Master|
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|EMMANUELLE RIVA - Amour|
|HELEN MIRREN - Hitchcock|
|JENNIFER LAWRENCE - Silver Linings Playbook|
|JESSICA CHASTAIN - Zero Dark Thirty|
|MARION COTILLARD - Rust and Bone|
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|ALAN ARKIN - Argo|
|CHRISTOPH WALTZ - Django Unchained|
|JAVIER BARDEM - Skyfall|
|PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN - The Master|
|TOMMY LEE JONES - Lincoln|
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|AMY ADAMS - The Master|
|ANNE HATHAWAY - Les Misérables|
|HELEN HUNT - The Sessions|
|JUDI DENCH - Skyfall|
|SALLY FIELD - Lincoln|
Are you impressed? I'm not. I don't think most of the important performances will get nominated. I would vote, for example, Michelle Williams Best Actress for "Take This Dance." I am glad Hugh Jackman and Ben Affleck got nominated for Best Actor and that Helen Hunt, Judi Dench and Sally Field got nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
I think there is "Oscar bait" this year. And I'm not impressed with most of it.
But I wanted to note the BAFTAs -- not because I'm a Brit groupie but because the whole world will be noting the Academy Award nominees. The BAFTAs are a quality award from a respected body and so I wanted to be sure we were aware of them.
Though they are handed out in England, they do not just award the British.
Shirley MacLaine, for example, won back-to-back BAFTAs. In 1959 for "Ask Any Girl" and in 1960 for "The Apartment." They also had nominees that you would know. Marilyn Monroe was nominated for "The Prince and the Showgirl" and "The Seven Year Itch." Judy Holliday was nominated repeatedly. Jane Fonda was first nominated in 1967 for "Barefoot In The Park." Mia Farrow was nominated two years later for three movies ("Rosemary's Baby," "Secret Ceremony" and "John and Mary"). In 1970, Jane Fonda got her second moniation ("They Shoot Horses, Don't They?") and Goldie Hawn got her first nomination (for "Cactus Flower" and "There's a Girl in My Soup") and then in 1971 Jane was nominated for "Klute."
Like Shirley, when Jane won for Best Actress, it was back-to-back years. She won first in 1978 for "Julia" and then the next year for "The China Syndrome."
So that's a look at the previous Best Actress competition.
I'm going to write about the BAFTAs tomorrow night too, just a heads up.
Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"