Sally, Meryl, Michelle, Emma, Holly, Helen... and Sally!?

What follows is a note I received from a reader (thx Scott!) about the rather shocking Sally Hawkins omission this morning from Oscar's Best Actress list. As you may or may not know, Ms. Hawkins, who is a hundred kinds of terrific in the latest Mike Leigh picture Happy-Go-Lucky, has received the most Best Actress prizes this year (she went into the double digits of precursor prizes). I think the enormity of her snub should be understood. Here's the note and statistics:

This whole Sally Hawkins debacle is totally unprecedented. In the last 34 years, since the National Society of Film Critics, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association, The New York Film Critics Circle and the Golden Globes have co-existed (kind of the big 4 non-Oscar events for me and for everyone else I'm sure), only 7 women have won all 4:


Sally Field (Norma Rae, 1979), Meryl Streep (Sophie's Choice, 1982), Michelle Pfeiffer (The Fabulous Baker Boys, 1989), Emma Thompson (Howard's End, 1992), Holly Hunter (The Piano, 1993), Helen Mirren (The Queen, 2006) and Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008). Five of them won the Oscar and the other, Pfeiffer, should have (as we all know). So for Hawkins to miss a nomination altogether, even though we knew it was a possibility (and I grant you that the 6 other women won the Golden Globe Drama so she's not a perfect comparator), is still a massively surprising and altogether unusual, not to mention unjust, outcome

First Michelle and now Sally?! It's official: Being loved by Nathaniel R. means certain doom for your Oscar prospects. Movie goddesses beware! If you hear Nathaniel's heart quicken from the wonder of your actressing run far away from him --far far away... run like the wind. He's a Cooler.

If you missed my interview with Sally Hawkins, it's here. She was so humble about this Lucky success and all of the attention. Hopefully her awards haul up until this point will mean that we'll see more of her onscreen soon. Perhaps that political biopic (The Roaring Girl) will help. The Academy likes those.