Oscar talk is already all-year round (as if you don't know yet!), but it seems to me, the focus remains on the established performers - most notably the filmmakers and the lead actors and actresses (Streep, Dench, Day-Lewis, Eastwood, Scorsese). Some tMF readers remarked that perhaps it's great to talk about awards where the recipients are the younger performers. Of course, it has happened before when young talents (which means not older than 30) get the recognition they deserved.

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tMF takes a look at some of these winners - from the Oscars to the BAFTA to the Indie Spirit, the European Film Awards and more and asks should younger actors win more awards and why?

Young Oscar Winners and Nominees: The following either won or got nominated and are still not over 30 today: [correction made on Anna Paquin's award]

Jennifer Hudson won the Best Supporting for Dream Girls at 25, while Anna Paquin won the same award for The Piano at 11, one of the youngest ever. Nominees include Natalie Portman (Best Supporting for Closer when she was 24), Soairse Ronan (Best Supporting for Atonement when she was just 13), Keisha Castle-Hughes (Best Actress for Whale Rider when she was just 13),  Ellen Page (Best Actress for Juno at age 20), Abegail Breslin (Best Supporting for Little Miss Sunshine at 10), Rinko Kikuchi (Best Supporting for BABEL at 25, the year Hudson won) and Keira Knightley (Best Actress for Pride and Prejudice at 20) to name a few.

Heath Ledger won the Best Supporting (Posthumous) at 29, but he was 27 when he got the Best Actor nom for Brokeback Mountain. Nominees include Ryan Gosling (Best Actor for Half-Nelson when he was 26), Jake Gyllenhaal (Best Supporting for Brokeback Mountain when he was 25). While he's over 30, Adrien Brody won the Best Actor for The Pianist, when he was 29, the youngest ever to win.

Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard
Director: Michael Mann
Release Date: July 1, 2009
Running Time: 143 min
MPAA Rating: R
Distributor: Universal Pictures

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What lives in almost all Michael Mann movies is an entire generation, a lifestyle, of crime. Nearly every movie of his resembles an epic compilation of criminalities. Mann is best at evoking a dark, glamorous criminal world that initiates a mental and physical battle between willing individuals ready to undergo the consequences of pulling the trigger on any artillery device. His characters have an occurring eruption of violence wielded to them and all are saddled with bravado. Each of them has a boisterous attitude to defy excitement and challenge the dangerous.   From Robert De Niro in Heat, Tom Cruise in Collateral to Colin Farrell in Miami Vice, Mann’s characters have an overwhelming need to exemplify their feelings which ar e as highly charged as Mann’s in-your-face filmmaking. 

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Last June 13, tMF asked viewers their thoughts and opinions of Robert Pattinson's acting career.

Rob remains a perennial favorite @tMF and we'll continue to write interesting (and  provocative) articles about his acting career. I listed down "5 essential questions" that covers a lot of grounds in so far as Rob's career is concerned. The first 100 posters qualify for a surprise gift from our anonymous donor (hey! how's Hongkong and chinese food?) and as expected, the fans really participated in the survey and the quality of the posts were quite impressive - 12 of which we're simply awesome IMO.

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Before the announcement, let me just list down the questions:

1. Is Robert Pattinson all hype and no (or little) talent?

2. Do you think Rob has improved his ways in dealing with the media frenzy from the time he was cast in Twilight until now?

3. Which of Rob's up and coming movies (choose only 1) do you think would further give him the critical acclaim he deserve?

4. Who is Rob's most important rival as Hollywood's Next Golden Boy?

5. Name the actress (aside from Kristen Stewart) who would look awesome acting alongside Rob and would generate a lot of buzz?

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Here are the 3 winners (in random order) - of course, right after the jump!

Not only are they capable of lighting up the silver screen, they are also some of today's most talented young actresses, commanding huge fees - in some cases, in the millions. Many have won multiple awards, while others have starred in some of today's biggest box office hits. In short, we're listing down the cream of the crop!

Just like our recent Top 50 hottest young actors, we've narrowed down our list from 88 to 50, and set an age limit. If you miss seeing some of your favorites, so do we - including Maggie Gyllenhaal (31 years old) and Amy Adams (34 years old). Definitely some of the names you'll see on the list are emerging talents - the ones you will see getting the big roles in the near future - and some of them already have, with awards and nominations to boot.

Here's the updated Top 40 list! You'll definitely notice the international flavor!

# 40 - Ivana Baquero - She plays the young Ofelia, from Guillermo del Toro's unforgettable Pan's Labyrinth. It was this movie that catapulted Ivana Baquero into becoming an international celebrity. She then played the strong-willed daughter of Maria Valverde in the official Sundance entry, The Anarchist's Wife.

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Ivana will soon be seen alongside Kevin Costner and Samantha Mathis in new horror-thriller The New Daughter, from Spanish filmmaker Luis Berdejo, soon to be shown in theaters this year. Comments Marcy Dermansky on her performance as the young Ofelia:

Not many major movies star bookish, little girls. Period. Guillermo del Toro earned my respect and admiration straight away for creating the character of Ofelia, in a remarkable performance by eleven-year-old Ivana Baquero. The movie starts: Ofelia is in the back seat of an expensive car with her very pregnant mother, whisked off into the countryside where Ofelia's new stepfather, a Fascist captain, wages war against a band of resistance fighters at the tail end of the Spanish Civil War. The real world is a grim and scary place; the fairy tale land where Ofelia seeks solace is not much friendlier. [ read more ]

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# 39 - Camilla Belle - She played alongside Jamie Bell and Justin Chatwin in the less well-known but absolutely awesome movie The Chumscrubber. She is also known for her lead role in the 2006 remake of When a Stranger Calls, the 2008 film 10,000 BC, and the 2000 Disney Channel film Rip Girls. She's Camilla Belle.

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Working with someone like Daniel Day-Lewis, you’re challenging your creative self and seeing how far you can push yourself. Then working opposite pieces of tape is something that pushes you in a completely different way – you can feel so silly. You just want to stand back and laugh at yourself, but you keep on going. At least all of us are in it together.

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Starring: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph
Director: Sam Mendes
Release Date: June 5, 2009 (Limited)
Running Time: 98 min
MPAA Rating: R
Distributor: Focus Features

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Sam Mendes is, for me, one of the most interesting directors putting out films right now.  He’s definitely had his misses.  Jarhead was uneven and overly trite in it’s portrayal of affected American soldiers in Iraq, The Road to Perdition was a solid, good film, but vastly overrated.  But he, at the very least, has a competence behind the camera that makes any of his films interesting to watch.  Away We Go, written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, is no different.  It’s effectively charming, funny, and a little sappy, but falls just short of the mark.

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Starring: Jeremy Renner, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Release Date: June 26, 2009 (Limited)
Running Time: 131 min
MPAA Rating: R
Distributor: Summit Entertainment

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A tiny robotic camera used to capture up-close images of bombs hidden in rubble and buried under ground pans across the thirsty desert terrain capturing the dirt, grittiness and hastening feet of a culture used to moving hurriedly and cautiously. These dusty streets of Baghdad act as an aversion for most directors who previously decided to take a chomp out of the war in Iraq and leaving out a vital part in the process. They treaded waters that led them to idiotic and repetitive ideological views (Lions for Lambs and In the Valley of Elah) missing the instinctive nature of war itself. Ms. Kathryn Bigelow dignifies her filmmaking by projecting an impetuous display of how war acts as a consummate drug, both fulfilling and decapitating the soul of those participating in war.
 
Once the drug is digested and the adrenaline is at full-throttle the need to accomplish something becomes the main priority of a soldier. In one’s blood-stream the will to cheat death, the courage it takes to disarm an explosive device that would blow an entire city to shreds, and the process of healing a psychological scar are all made possible given war’s demented opportunities that can serve as a vessel for both instances. The Hurt Locker portrays a trio of soldiers who exert their courage by risking their lives every time they awake in Baghdad 2004.  

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Starring: Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds
Director: Anne Fletcher
Release Date: June 19, 2009
Running Time: 108 min
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures

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I have an odd love/hate relationship with Sandra Bullock.  I think her comedic timing and humor are quite excellent.  But the projects she does are, well, it’s not that they’re just extremely low-brow, it’s that they’re mostly just insulting.  It was refreshing to see her take a small, but not self-important role in the wildly overrated Crash of 2005, but she quickly burned through any credibility that that film might have garnered her by following it up with projects like Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, and Premonition.  Not many even took the time to see her critically-acclaimed Infamous (in her defense, it was insanely overshadowed by Capote).  After a three year break, she’s finally back on the big screen, and unfortunately, she’s up to her old tricks: shitty romantic comedies.

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Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera, David Cross
Director: Harold Ramis
Release Date: June 19, 2009
Running Time: 97 min
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

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There are a lot of stock catchphrases that are widely used by people to describe movies that I have grown tired of hearing.  Reading a review of a film that is described as a “rollercoaster thrill ride” or a performance is hailed as being a “tour de force” stinks of laziness and unoriginality by the critic.  Specifically there are two descriptions that apply to Year One that I am deathly sick of hearing across the board:  “Check your brain at the door” and “the actors looked like they had fun making the movie”.
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