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This weekend, actor, director, and oft-photographed househusband Ben Affleck took an important step in reclaiming some buzz for a once-promising career stalled by a blow to the head from James Gandolfini's shovel and ill-advised participation in various, doomed J. Lo-centered endeavors, as Aflleck's turn as Hollywoodland's suicidal TV Superman George Reeves won the best actor award at the Venice film festival. But the The Envelope's Gold Derby blog notes that stay-at-home dad Affleck probably shouldn't start arranging a nanny for Oscar night quite yet:

Only a few times has a lead acting award at Venice translated into an Oscar and they were all more than 50 years ago: Vivien Leigh ("Streetcar Named Desire"), Paul Muni ("The Story of Louis Pasteur"), Fredric March ("Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde")

Many other Venice champs have subsequently been nommed by the academy, including last year's victor David Strathairn ("Good Night, and Good Luck"), Javier Bardem ("Before Night Falls") and Albert Finney ("Tom Jones"), but only rarely so.

Given the Venice award's small value as an Oscar predictor, we hope that Affleck tempers his expectations for an eventual nomination. No one wants the see him suffer a disappointment that might send him spiralling back towards his Jersey Girl-era career depression, attempting to dull the pain of an Academy Awards snub by drunk-dialing his favorite, soospeeshushly ferm-breasted mistress and frittering away the newfound tranquility of his family life in a single, slurred, French-accented booty call.