24 March 2010

My mathematical grandfather just won the Abel Prize. (I.e. the "Nobel Prize of math", with apologies to Good Will Hunting.)

05 March 2010

So there was just an article in the times arguing that the best actor oscars shouldn't be gender-segregated. I'm pretty sympathetic to the argument. The obvious problem with making this change is that you can't really just cut the number of acting awards in half, and "second best actor" somehow wouldn't quite work. Anyway what really interests me here is who would have actually won a unified award. Here's my guesses (these are for would have won, not should have won). I'm starting in 1996 cause that's where my movie knowledge starts. Which do you disagree with? I think the toughest guesses are 99, 03, 04, 06

1996: Frances McDormand (Fargo) over Geoffrey Rush (Shine)
1997: Jack Nicholson (As Good as It Gets) over Helen Hunt (As Good as It Gets)
1998: Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful) over Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love)
1999: Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) over Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry)
2000: Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) over Russell Crowe (Gladiator)
2001: Denzel Washington (Training Day) over Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) [though maybe Crowe if he didn't win in 2000]
2002: Adrien Brody (The Pianist) over Nicole Kidman (The Hours)
2003: Charlize Theron (Monster) over Sean Penn (Mystic River)
2004: Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) over Jamie Foxx (Ray) [on the "she was robbed for Boys Don't Cry" theory]
2005: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) over Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)
2006: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) over Helen Mirren (The Queen)
2007: Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) over Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)
2008: Sean Penn (Milk) over Kate Winslet (The Reader)