Category Fraud Runs Amok Through Oscar Season

It seems that with each passing Oscar season, incidents of category fraud grow more common, and the conversation around it growing louder.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the  term, "category fraud" is when an actor or actress is campaigned for awards in the wrong category. It's usually done to avoid "internal competition", which is campaigning two performances from the same movie, or simply a case of the studio going with the less competitive category.

State of the Oscar Race

The Toronto Film Festival may be over, but awards season is just getting started. A bunch of potential Oscar players made a splash to the delight of critics and bloggers everywhere.

There were some notable surprises, but nothing that truly bombed; save for a few films, the big names more or less performed how they were expected to.

And then there were some films (the Rooney Mara/Cate Blanchett drama "Carol" for one) that decided to skip the festival altogether. That hardly matters; With Harvey Weinstein behind you, your film is assured some kind of nomination.

Here are a few of the biggest takeaways post-TIFF; Where do the current players stand?

Oscar Frontrunners Make Strides at Telluride and Venice

With the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals opening this past week, the Oscar contenders wasted no time in making their stakes at the front of the evolving race.

Below are a list of the films that received a boost from critics and bloggers after their respective premieres.

Eddie Redmayne is Front and Center on "The Danish Girl" Poster

We're still on the fringe of Oscar season, but all of the contenders are beginning to fall in place. Eddie Redmayne, our most recent Best Actor winner, is already predicted by many experts to be our frontrunner.

Redmayne's back with another transformative performance, this time as Lili Elbe. Elbe was the first recipient of sex reassignment surgery in the 1920s after being a stand in for a female model in one of her wife's paintings.

Though we've discussed why Redmayne's casting over actual Trans actresses is problematic, there's no doubt in my mind the Academy will take notice. Again, Redmayne won an Oscar just a few months ago, which means a buzzy role like this is likely to provide an 'afterglow' nomination. Not to mention that the film is being directed by Academy Award Winner Tom Hooper.

The film also stars Alicia Vikander, who is being poised as the newest it girl; hot off her success with "Ex-Machina", she will also star in the newest installment of the "Bourne" series. It's also possible she will follow in Felicity Jones' footsteps and land a nomination for playing Redmayne's wife.

Take a look below at the poster for the film, which will screen at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival before being released on November 27.

"Ex-Machina": Quietly Engaging, Nothing You Expect

Oscar Isaac is an actor that hasn't quite had his 'breakout' moment, despite being game enough. His performances (each one different from the last) in 2013's "Inside Llewyn Davis" and last year's "A Most Violent Year" were more than strong enough to warrant a leap into the A-List, however, he has stayed frustratingly under the radar.

That's not to say he has stopped trying. Though he is certainly being primed for a huge shift into superstardom with his role in the new "Star Wars" film later this year, Isaac is back with another fiery performance in a small indie.

Why Eddie Redmayne starring in "The Danish Girl" is a Problem

Eddie Redmayne will play Lili Elbe in the film directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper. 

If you were worried that Eddie Redmayne would disappear the way of Adrien Brody after winning the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, then fear not! The first image for his next high-profile project has just been released (pictured above). The actor will headline "The Danish Girl", a biopic about Lili Elbe, the first woman to undergo a sex-change operation.

The film will be the second collaboration between Redmayne and director Tom Hooper, who previously worked together on the Academy Award winning "Les Miserables". The film's screenplay has been adapted from David Ebershoff's novel of the same name, by Lucinda Coxon. It's no doubt a high-profile project; buzz is pretty loud given Redmayne's newly coronet status as an Oscar winner and Hooper's own Oscar past. But this is anything but good news, and I'm here to tell you why.