MADness—the Blog

Every Oscar year offers a few oddities.  This is one of them.

Ryan Bingham is the name of the co-writer, with T Bone Burnett, of the Oscar-nominated song “The Weary Kind (Theme from ‘Crazy Heart’).”

Ryan Bingham is the name of the character played by George Clooney for his Best Actor-nominated performance in Up in the Air.

When’s the last time an Oscar-nominated role shared a name with an Oscar nominee of the same year?  I’d guess that would be 2002, when Nic Cage was nominated for playing Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation, a movie scripted by the Oscar-nominated team of Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman.

(There was no Donald Kaufman, really.  It was the first time the Academy nominated someone who wasn’t real.)

George Clooney accepted his New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actor of 2009, for his work in Up in the Air and Fantastic Mr. Fox, on Monday.

Gracious:

I’m also very aware of the fact that it took me two films to win this award. So I’d like to thank Jeremy Renner…for only doing one film this year.

Biting:

It is a high-water mark for me tonight, because of all the films that I have starred in, this is the first film that your colleague, Rex Reed, hasn’t said that I suck.  Where is he?  I know, I get it, I understand.  When I say suck, you can look it up, it says I suck.  Every one — ‘Michael Clayton,’ ‘Out of Sight,’ ‘Three Kings,’ you go down the list — I suck.

[...]

Now he’s started to soften a little bit. He’s starting to get a little soft in his old age. I want you to know, Rex, wherever you are, you’re over there somewhere, there he is, ah. I want you to know this:  I will not sleep, I will not rest, I will not sleep at my home, [or] at my villa in Italy — Lake Como, Italy.  I will not sleep in my villa in Lake Como, Italy, until you’re happy.

The guy can give a speech.