New Oscar Trivia, courtesy of this season's nominations

by Nathaniel R

We just called to say we love you!With each new year's nominations, new trivia or follow-up stat discussions can emerge. Here are some things we noticed straightaway this morning. If you have any suggestions, do tell!

ACTRESSES

• With Glenn Close's seventh nomination for acting at 71, she is now the 8th oldest nominee in that category ever, and THE most-nominated actress who has never won. Meanwhile Amy Adams, with her sixth nomination if she loses, takes Glenn Close's previous spot in a three way tie with 1950s mainstays Thelma Ritter and Deborah Kerr for 'most noms for an actress ever without a competitive win'. Related: OUR CHAT WITH GLENN LAST MONTH

• If Glenn Close wins in February for The Wife (2018), she'll become only the third leading actress over 70 to have won. The other two were 80 year old Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and 74 year old Katharine Hepburn for On Golden Pond (1981).

• Last year Mary J Blige became the first actor ever nominated for Best Original Song and acting in the same year! The very next year, Lady Gaga has repeated the trick with A Star is Born , so now there are two people who have done it. Note: Barbra Streisand is the only person to win for both songwriting and acting but she did it in two separate years...

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Adams / Weisz + Oscar

by Murtada Elfadl

Weisz and Adams at their first Oscars as nominees

This year marks the second time Rachel Weisz & Amy Adams have been nominated together in the supporting actress category: Weisz for The Favourite, Adams for Vice. The first time they did so was for their first nominations, thirteen years ago for The Constant Gardener and Junebug respectively. They are linked together in my mind -and possibly for some of you - because of that. Adams’ performance in Junebug is my favorite of her nominated performances and I've always said that if she had won that year we wouldn’t be talking about overdue status for years on end. 

Since that time their Oscar careers have diverged...

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12 Things We Learned From the Oscar Nominations

Happy Christmas Oscar Nomination Day! Herewith quick observations on the 91st Academy Award nominations.

10 THINGS WE LEARNED (OR RELEARNED) FROM THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS

Cuarón with the first of his many wins this year1. All the times that Alfonso Cuarón made his (plentiful) Best Director acceptance speeches about Marina & Yalitza as the "heart" of his film, really paid off. Voters were paying attention, even if only subconsciously and both actresses were nominated in volatile fifth spots in their categories.

2. It's tough to snag a "lone" Oscar nomination for your movie if you're a non-legendary actor. Timothée Chalamet and Glenn Close and Willem Dafoe were all working at that this year and the one that dropped out was Chalamet for Beautiful Boy. He'll be legendary one day but he just became really famous last year and the film had no other boosts to keep him in the conversation...

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Live Announcement: Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards

Related Articles: 
• 12 things we learned from the noms
• Adams vs Weisz, Round Two
• Best Picture Silliness
• Deep Cut Oscar Trivia
• Mourning the Snubs
• How to Stage the Original Song Performances
• Nomination Index (individual charts still being updated)

 I used to call this day my Christmas but I worry about coal in the stocking. Did we receive Oscar nomination gifts this year or lumps of coal? A little of both of course. Tracee Ellis Ross and Kumail Nanjiani were the chipper announcers this morning, making frequent jokes about how little sleep they'd gotten before the announcements.

The full list of nominations and how well we did on our predictions follow...

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Podcast Special: Lots and Lots of Reader Questions Answered

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl answer your questions this week

On this special edition of the podcast we ONLY answer reader questions. As many as we could get to in an hour. We had soooo much fun doing this one so we hope you enjoy, and thank you for the diversion.

Index (60 minutes)
00:01 Who will win SAG's Supporting Actress + fixing category fraud?
06:50 Original screenplay nominations + buying DVDs
12:00 Characters wardrobe, female directors, and films that define 2018
22:30 "Shallow" + "If you saw this... than why?" + replacing Oscar lists
31:35 Nominee presentations + Oscar Hosting 
35:45 Ben is Back and Roma questions
41:40 Nomination balloting procedures + Fav scenes of the year
52:00 Mandatory Best Actress diversion
57:00 Changing opinions on previous top 10 lists?

Further Reading / References
• Nadine Labaki (Capernaum) interview
• Smackdown of 1943
• Oscar Charts
• Kyle Buchanan on the hostless Oscars article

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Special Episode: Reader Questions!