Day Eight: Best Original Screenplay, 1969

No preamble, folks. The nominees for Best Story and Screenplay Not Adapted from Material Previously Produced and/or Published are....

Part One: 1986 Retro Hollmann Awards

It's the first day of the 1986 Retro Hollmann Awards - a day late, but it did, indeed, take me a while to finally choose my Number One picks in each category.

The first nine categories will be presented here, beginning with Best Supporting Actor. If you'd like to know all the names of the nominees, do consult the complete nominations announcement.

And now - our first winner!

Best Supporting Actor

Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth
Blue Velvet

2. Daniel Day-Lewis in A Room with a View; 3. Andy Garcia in 8 Million Ways to Die; 4. Wang Xiao in A Great Wall; 5. Simon Callow in A Room with a View

A perfect outlet for Dennis Hopper's particular brand of intensity, Frank Booth is one of the most frightening characters in cinema. His sudden outbursts make him unpredictable - are they strategic, or the result of a truly diseased mind? Hopper suggests it's both, and they get worse as the movie continues, as Frank unravels. But then there's that look when he hears "In Dreams" - Hopper knows what that song means to Frank, you see it in his eyes - and it's a moment that haunts.

In second, DDL's "decadent" snobbery. Andy Garcia's drug lord, calm and collected until the unexpected occurs, in third. Wang Xiao as a poor Chinese teen jealous of his beautiful neighbor's American cousin in fourth. Simon Callow's gleefully indulgent vicar in fifth.


Best Actress, Best Visual Effects, Best Adapted Screenplay, and more - after the jump.

Class of '86: Nervous Sigourney and Best Supporting Actor

Supporting Actor is interesting this year, in that it seems, to me, to consist entirely of the B Squad. Not to deride the accomplishments of these fine men, but most of them aren't even the Best Supporting Actors in their own films, much less of the whole year. The one actor I would argue belongs here is Dennis Hopper, and he's nominated for the wrong movie!

On Oscar night, Jeff Bridges and Sigourney Weaver presented - remember, the previous year's winners teamed up to do Best Supporting Actress - and good Lord people, could it be that presenter banter has actually gotten better in the 30 years since? Were they ad-libbing? Sigourney seems nervous, which is understandable; even though this is her third Oscars as a presenter, it's her first as a nominee, and Best Actress is still to come.

Then comes the anticlimax of a no-show winner - but fortunately, Weaver knows Caine, having worked with him in Half Moon Street, just released the previous September. So it's a sweet moment.

Anyways, after the jump, the nominees - the adulterer of Hannah and Her Sisters, the recovering alcoholic of Hoosiers, the dueling sergeants of Platoon, and the retired journalist of A Room with a View....