I will put a photograph for now, to represent what I considered to be exceptional about this Oscar year.

A comic by Doug Savage about the Oscars and choosing actors that win for longevity rather than recent performance.

Viola Davis shows everything, in her character-restraining way of showing practically nothing.
She is calm, and direct, and holds back with the dignity of a black woman who is confronted, unexpectedly; and yet is able to maintain composure. All the while, letting us, the audience, get a sense of her whole life. All the burdens she experiences.

I noticed that they all worked together, as if knitted together. It was my first sense, and desire, to be part of an acting ensemble. And, the role that Sinatra played, it was like a drop of ink on a piece of blotter paper. Just filled up the part. With an ease, and an intensity that never felt intense, at all. Magically alive.

The following actors never won an Academy Award: Joseph Cotton, Dana Andrews, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullavan, Deborah Kerr, Ida Lupino, Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre…Anthony Perkins, Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, Orson Welles…

(Oh! So that’s why “The Dark Knight” didn’t get an Oscar nomination.)—But what frequently happens is that only two or three movies cross that threshold. In this case, the Academy takes the movie with the lowest number of No. 1 votes and reallocates those votes to the No. 2 choices on the ballots.

Slumdog Millionaire is intriguing, though, because it is very difficult to pin down. Some audiences, promised a “feelgood” extravaganza, have been disconcerted to find themselves watching slum children deliberately blinded with acid…

Gary Oldman did this interview way back, when they were doing press junkets for the “The Dark Knight”.