OSCAR INDEX: J-'Argo'-naut! In Spite Of Academy Snub, Oscar Momentum Continues To Build For Ben Affleck's Picture

Best Actor

It remains a foregone conclusion that Daniel Day-Lewis is poised to make Oscar history as the first to win three Academy Awards for Best Actor. But the week was livened up by news that Joaquin Phoenix was honored at the London Critics’ Choice Awards. Sparing the London critics the disdain he reserves for the Oscars, Phoenix rose to the occasion with a gracious acceptance letter:

"I struggle with the idea of winning awards for acting. Stating I'm Best Actor for something as subjective as film seems strange to me. To the uninitiated it implies I'm solely responsible for the creation and implementation of the character. I am not.”

After gracious thank yous to cast and even crew members, he concluded with this recommendation:

“P.S. There's an up-and-coming actor named Daniel who's in a movie called Lincoln. You should check it out."

 1. Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

2. Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)

3. Denzel Washington (Flight)

4.Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)

5. Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)

Best Actress

There may not be a Saturday Night Live curse per se, but over 38 seasons only a handful of actors who have hosted as official Oscar nominees have gone on to win. The last was Forest Whitaker in 2007, when he was crowned Best Actor for his performance as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

The mostly panned episode did not help Jennifer Lawrence’s chances of joining an exclusive club that includes only Jeremy Irons and Hilary Swank. Lawrence was game, but the writing for her episode was strictly from hunger.

Meanwhile, Jessica Chastain had something of a career weekend, starring in the nation’s No. 1 (Mama) and No. 2 (Zero Dark Thirty) films at the box office. She topped such present and past box office heavyweights as Arnold, Mark Wahlberg, and Russell Crowe, and while several Oscar pundits still give the edge to Lawrence as the heart of the much-loved Silver Linings Playbook, Academy members are likely to reward the Julliard-trained Chastain, who has now proven her versatility and box office clout.

But don’t count out Amour’s 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva, counters Gold Derby’s Tariq Khan, who argues in part that “this year’s critical darling…has the most challenging role; support is soft for the category’s perceived frontrunners; (and) the Academy is filled with Francophiles.”

Khan, who in recent years correctly picked Marion Cotillard and The King’s Speech to score Oscar upsets, has another irrefutable argument on behalf of Riva: “Because I said so.”

 1. Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)

2. Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)

3. Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)

4. Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

5. Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)

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Tags: Anne Hathaway, Argo, awards, Oscar Index, Oscars

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