Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration
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Catherine O'Hara has been included here because of the irony (and the sheer injustice!!) of her Academy Award nominationlessness in early 2008. After all, Christopher Guest's 2007 satire For Your Consideration revolves around a bunch of performers obsessed with getting touched by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Sword-Carrying Naked Golden God. Problem is: instead of getting touched, they get cut down.
Catherine O'Hara is nothing short of brilliant in the role of aging, small-time actress Marilyn Hack, who believes that an Oscar win for her performance in "Home for Purim" will lead to film stardom. O'Hara won Best Supporting Actress honors from the National Board of Review and the Kansas City film critics, was part of For Your Consideration's Gotham-nominated ensemble, received individual nominations for the Critics' Choice and Independent Spirit Awards, and was considered a top Oscar contender.
It's really too bad that life imitated art in this instance (well, minus the monstrous facelift we get to see on-screen). In my view, O'Hara should definitely have been one of the nominees. In fact, she probably should have been the winner.
For the record: the five that got in were Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine, Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza for Babel, Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal, and winner Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls. (It should be noted that neither Blanchett nor Hudson had truly "supporting" roles.)
Photo: For Your Consideration (Suzanne Tenner / Shangri-La Entertainment)