March 16, 2026

Tip of the Week
The Five Attacking Placements.

Marty Supreme Goes Oh For Nine
Timothée Chalamet didn’t win for Best Actor for Marty Supreme, despite most considering him the slight favorite. Earlier in the year he’d been considered the strong favorite, winning at all of the following (from IMDB):

Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, Chicago Film Critics Assoc., Satellite Awards, Las Vegas Film Critics Society, London Critics Circle, Online Film Critics, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Vancouver Film Critics Circle, Austin Film Critics Assoc., North Texas Film Critics Assoc., Indiana Film Journalists Assoc., Denver Film Critics Assoc., Georgia Film Critics Assoc., Online Film & Television Assoc., Phoenix Critics Circle, Gold Derby Awards, AACTA International Awards, Hawaii Critics Society, Greater Western New York Film Critics Assoc., Discussing Film Critics Award, North Dakota Film Society, Portland Critics Assoc., Critics Assoc. of Central Florida, Minnesota Film Critics Alliance, Astra Film Awards, New Jersey Film Critics Circle.

I bet you didn’t know there were that many acting awards – and that was just the ones he won! He won about 2/3 of the available awards, with Michael B. Jordan  (“Sinners”) winning most of the rest, including the Actors Awards (formerly the Screen Actor Guild awards, SAG). Some thought Chalamet lost because of a recent sarcastic and disparaging comment about ballet and opera, where he said, “I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore.’” However, that took place after the Oscar voting was already closed. But others thought he lost because of arrogance during his campaign to win the award. Here’s CNN’s How Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar campaign may have cost him Best Actor (2:54) which explains this.

However, getting NINE nominations is incredible for a table tennis movie – Best Movie, Director, Actor, Casting, Cinematography, Original Screenplay, Production Design, Costume Design, and Editing. In the numerous organizations giving awards, it had 43 wins and 287 nominations – here’s the IMDB listing. That edges out Balls of Fury (2007), which somehow had zero nominations. (You’d think they could have gotten something for special effects or editing!) Here are some other table tennis films at IMDB – but they leave out a few.

I saw all ten of the movies nominated for Best Picture, and didn’t really have a favorite other than, of course, Marty Supreme. Here’s my Jan. 5 blog where I wrote about the movie, and in particular all the inaccuracies. I think if they’d given him the real personality of Marty Reisman – a narcissist but not in the malignant way of our president, a great showman, full of quips, and friendly to those who are friendly to him – he might have won.

Major League Table Tennis

MDTTC Open
Here are the results of the MDTTC Open held this weekend at my club, the Maryland Table Tennis Center.

Incredible Rally!
Here’s the video (72 sec)! This’ll wake you up for the day.

New from Butterfly

New from Table Tennis Teaching Channel

Table Tennis Racket Angle Adjustments for Topspin
Here’s the video (3:17) from Matt Hetherington/JOOLA.

Stop Losing Easy Points in Table Tennis
Here’s the video (3:12) from Pingispågarna.

Backhand Basic Techniques
Here’s the video (3:15) with Milo DeBoer, from Acceleraq.

Seth Pech vs Jesper Hedlund Sweden Div 1 2026
Here’s the video (10:41) with Seth’s usual play-by-play analysis.

New from PingSunday
Lots of new videos this past week – though now about half of them are “members only.”

I Was a Teenage Table Tennis Champion — It Was Intense
Here’s the article featuring EY Zhao, author of the table tennis novel Underspin. (Here’s my review of it.) “The film Marty Supreme has shone a spotlight on the world of competitive table tennis. The author EY Zhao writes about how playing the sport shaped her youth.”

Can You Name One Woman Who Changed the Sport?
Here’s the video (30 sec) about four women who changed the sport of table tennis, from Aga Pingpong.

New from Steve Hopkins/Butterfly

New from ITTF

Bench Pong
Here’s the video (11 sec)!

TT Serves Level 100
Here’s the video (4 serves in 7 sec) from Ping Pong Maestros!

Shots Table Tennis Cartoons
Here’s another week of table tennis cartoons!

Jimmy Faces Off Against Joshua Topolsky's Beer Pong Robot
Here’s the video (1:48) from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon! “It's man versus machine as Jimmy attempts to defeat tech expert Joshua Topolsky's robot arm in a game of beer pong.”

***
Send us your own coaching news!