So, just how many people associated with Fast Times at Ridgemont High have gone on to win Oscars?

The argument can also be made that successfully and convincingly portraying a well known person (either living or dead) can be a more difficult and challenging job than creating a fictional one.

Stop reading my mind (and posting first)!! ;)

LOL! I read your first posts and thought IS HE IGNORING ME!!! (Of two minds, sweetie.)

I can see that argument being made, but I don't agree with it. Since it is fundamentally a subjective view that's ok.

I'm more impressed by what O'Toole did than by what Whitaker did (even if the end results were of approximately equal entertainment value). I won't say anybody who feels the opposite is wrong.

You can't put a (likely rhetorical) research question in front of me and not get an answer. The Oscar's associated with cast and crew:

Cameron Crowe - Screenplay won Best Original Screenplay for Almost Famous

Sean Penn - Actor - won Best Actor for Mystic River, three other nominations

Forrest Whitaker - Actor - won Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland

Nicolas Cage - Actor - won Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas, one other nomination

Daneil A. Lomino - Art Direction - nominated Best Art Direction for Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Marilyn Vance - Costume Design - nominated Best Costume Design for The Untouchables

Roger Heman Jr. - Sound Re-recordist - won Best Sound for Jaws, one other nomination

Tom Overton - sound - nominated Best Sound for A Star is Born

I haven't seen the movie, but from what I've seen of the clips, Peter O'Toole did play a real person: Peter O'Toole. And Forest Whitaker looks like he did his typical Forest Whitaker, weird-eyed, intensity thing. Meryl Streep did her Meryl Streep tics in Prada. Cary Grant always played Cary Grant. Katharine Hepburn always played Katharine Hepburn. Etc.

It's a rare pleasure to find a famous actor who disappears into a variety of roles and whose tics and tricks you don't recognize. Kate Winslet comes to mind among women. Sean Penn and Jim Broadbent among men.

I'd disagree with you on Sean Penn, he almost always plays "godawful annoying." It's his trademark.

I agree on Winslet and, especially, Jim Broadbent. May I derail this to refer to Emmy Awards for 2007 and I feel that if he does not win for Longford, it will be a crime. Grim story, but he was marvelous. In this case playing an IRL person, but someone I don't know jack about. A remarkable actor, who raises up the quality of the worst crap (okay, not the horrible Bridget Jones sequel, at least he was only required to do a drive by on that piece of crap).

Sean Penn, Mystic River was agonizing for me.

Sean Penn's best role was Jeff Spicoli. I can't watch him without seeing Jeff, no matter what the character he's supposedly playing.