Paper chase isn't bad. I think Houseman was very good. Idk if his perfomace was excellent to the point where he deserved the oscar or anything. But imo, out of all the people who were up for supporting actor, De Niro gave the best perfromance with Johnny Boy in mean streets. And Keitel should've been nominated for best lead actor. Like you said, I think Lemmon gave the best performance and deserved to win though. De Niro has given a lot of amazing performances though I'll tell ya. From the early 70s up til 2000 he gave so many phenomenal performances and gave us so many great movies. Now he's a shadow of what he once was. He was wonderful in silver linings playbook however. I think he should've won best supporting actor for that too over waltz. Waltz was great in django and inglorious bastards but in django it just seemed like he played the same type of guy but maybe a little nicer. Waltz should've been up for lead not supporting as well.