Doc Corner: The Non-Fiction Class of 2016

This year’s Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature was a fiercely competitive one. With the strength of the 15-wide finalists list, quite frankly, it would have been hard to give us a truly bad line-up. We particularly weep for the omissions of Cameraperson, Tower, Zero Days and Weiner, but personal grouching aside about a couple of the nominees, this year’s batch is quite something. We have three films about race (one with queer undertones), a foreign language title, and the longest film ever nominated for an Academy Award.

The nominees are:

• Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi, Donatella Palermo)
• I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, Rémi Grellety, Hébert Peck)
• O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman, Caroline Waterlow)
• Life, Animated (Roger Ross Williams, Julie Goldman)
• 13th (Ava DuVernay, Spencer Averick, Howard Barish)

We will be looking at the documentary short nominees later (I have one title left to watch, which is proving difficult!), but now we're going to hypothesize how the doc feature nominees did it. Let us break down the imaginary math…

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Numbers. Oscars. Numbers. Oscars...

If you love Oscars too much (*raises hands*) your head can get a little swimmy on Oscar nomination day, trying to parse it all. Particularly the numbers and the new statistics. This could take some time. But here are some non-subjective hierarchies and numbers and stats from the day.

We'll start with the easy one.

Most Nominations

1. La La Land (14)
2. [tie] Moonlight and Arrival (8)
3. [tie] Hacksaw Ridge and Lion and Manchester by the Sea (6)
4. Fences (4)
5. Hidden Figures and Jackie (3)
   
   NOTE: Jackie marks the second year in a row wherein a "chilly" gorgeous movie about a complicated woman wins the distinction of "most nominated movie that isn't nominated for Best Picture" -- coincidence? Nope.

5 of past 6 years film w/ most noms that wasn't up for Best Pic was a chilly beauty about complex woman. Coincidence? I think not. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/fRFZXaflsb

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) January 24, 2017

Category with Most First Timers!
(excluding categories with too way many names to look up like producing, visual fx, sound,song, and makeup) 

1. Adapted Screenplay (5/5 nominees are newbies to Oscar)
2. [tie] Original Score and Cinematography (4/5 nominees are newbies to Oscar)
3. Best Director (4/5 nominees are first timers in this particular category though some have been nominated in other categories)
4. Best Supporting Actor (3/5 nominees are newbies to Oscar)
5. Original Screenplay (3/5 nominees are first time nominees for writing) 

Other Curious Statistics after the jump...

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Happy Thoughts from Oscar Nominations!

We've delivered the hot takeaways, mourned the snubs, but now let's get positive. I polled Team Experience about what made them happiest this morning and which category is the best overall. I hope you'll chime in. An unexpected consensus emerged straightaway in their answers. More after the jump...

Which nomination made you happiest?

Tim: Kubo and the Two Strings for Best Visual Effects. It's a great movie that deserves as much as it can possibly get, and also a good reminder to keep our conceptions about what "counts" as film craft as broad as possible

Laurence: Kubo and the Two Strings for Visual Effects. After the Ex Machina win I got the sense that branch was becoming more interested in awarding outside the box effects, so I bet on this nomination happening early. It's stunning work even by Laika standards...

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Best Tweets on the Oscar Nominations

Now that Isabelle Huppert is an Oscar nominee, who inherits her "greatest working actor never to be nominated" title?

— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) January 24, 2017

Imagine thinking that HACKSAW RIDGE is a better film than 20th CENTURY WOMEN.

— Noah Tsika (@NoahTsika) January 24, 2017

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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Team Experience: Mourning the Snubbed, Pondering the Head-Scratching Nominees

I polled Team Experience this morning about the Oscar nominations. Here are the first two related questions on absences and curious inclusions. We expect your answers to add to the conversation in the comments. 

What omission in this morning nominations most upset you?

Matthew: Like everyone else on here, I am devastated, first and foremost, for the outstanding Annette Bening, an exclusion for which I hold A24 accountable. Finally, I'd like to imagine that Pharrell and Sing Street composer Gary Clark are off together somewhere getting hammered and slinging insults at the tire-fire that is "Can't Stop This Feeling."

John: The intense excitement at Isabelle Huppert's name being read first, chased quickly by the sad reveal that Annette Bening lost a nomination is a perfect capsule for this Oscar morning...

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