Best Sound Mixer Kevin O'Connell: 21st time's the charm

Tim here. Somewhat overlooked in all the furor over the rightfully furor-inducing parts of the Oscars on Sunday, a little bit of history was quietly made.

When the four-member team from Hacksaw Ridge took to the stage of the Kodak Theater to accept the award for Best Sound Mixing, the worst losing drought in the history of the Academy Awards ended. Kevin O'Connell received his first nomination in that category in 1983, for the subdued domestic drama Terms of Endearment, which perhaps unsurprisingly lost to The Right Stuff. 33 years and 21 nominations later, in a career including 209 films to his credit as a mixer, he finally picked up his very first statue on Sunday. You may remember him as the guy who thanked his late mom for helping him to get his first job in the industry, and who asked as thanks only that he'd mention her one day as he accepted an Oscar.

Whatever feelings one might have about the film, it's hard not to be excited on O'Connell's behalf...

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New Facts & Trivia from the 89th Oscars

Before we begin, a quick note that we shouldn't have to share but we do because the rest of the universe has conspired against the proper way of doing things. When we refer to an Oscar ceremony year we are talking about the year of the films honored, not the random month of the following year in which the ceremony is held. What we just witnessed was the 2016 Oscars. We don't know who will even be nominated for the 2017 Oscars yet though we'll make some early bird predictions on April 1st as we do.

Anyway... FACTS. TRIVIA. FUN.

• La La Land's loss was shocking but its performance at the Oscars was not completely without precedent. Two other films in Oscar's 89 years have won the rare combo of Best Actress and Best Director without winning Best Picture. That would be Cabaret (1972, also the single film to win the most Oscars without winning Best Picture) and 7th Heaven (1927) in the very first year of the Oscars. That silent film is an unusual case though as Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for three roles including Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel (Oscar quickly changed the rules so nominations could only be for one picture.) 

• Arrival (8 nominations) is the first non-war film Best Picture nominee to win Sound Editing only...

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So how did Jimmy Kimmel do? A conversation

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hello readers. My brain is always so scattered post Oscar. The hosting gig, which so occupies discussions of the show each year in real life and online, is curiously the part of the show that I always find least interesting. I'm there for the movies and the celebrities, not the jokes.

But recognizing that this is an uncommon blind spot, I asked three of our contributors, Sean Donovan, Chris Feil, and Eric Blume to weigh in on Jimmy Kimmel as host. They're joined by new team member Kim Rogers, who is a talented actress I saw in a play a couple of years ago, who also likes to blog. Naturally they didn't quite obey the Kimmel directive... but who can concentrate on one topic with Oscar's Envelope Gate and Trevante Rhodes running around in his undies. Here is their conversation. - Nathaniel R 

CHRIS: So how well has everyone studied the Oscar Zapruder film of the Moonlight team taking the stage?

SEAN: I feel like it could be the next season of SERIAL- unpacking who had what envelope when, and why, and how many duplicates? so many questions

CHRIS: First of which: has anyone checked on Trevante Rhodes? Is he ok?

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Bill Paxton (1955-2017)

By Nathaniel R

In all the hoopla and festivities surrounding Oscar night, we neglected to note the passing of an actor who has a real pop culture fixture since the 1980s. Bill Paxton died of complications in surgery the day before the Oscars. He was currently leading the TV adaptation of Training Day in the former Denzel Washington role (they had reversed the race dynamics of the leads for the series). CBS says the role will not be recast though they have not yet announced if there will be a second season.

Paxton's first credited feature role was as "Soldier" in the comedy Stripes (1981) but most people first noticed him in the mid 80s in the films of James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow...

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Only one "woke" at a time

by Deborah Lipp

One of Oscar's best moments. Iranian-American engineer Anousheh Ansari accepting on behalf of protesting Asghar Farhadi

If I may use this year’s vernacular, Oscars are woke. Except, well, they can only be woke about one thing at a time. Last year after the Oscars, I wrote about the powerful “spotlight” (see what I did there?) the Oscars brought to the issue of rape and sexual violence. And I’m going to acknowledge, that yes, that was amazing. 

But rape is so last year.

This year was all about diversity and inclusion. Those are wonderful topics, those are topics that matter to me. The diversity was beautiful to see. The powerful immigrant voices—from Iran, Mexico, and Italy, among other nations—moved me. It was important that people of color were not merely supporting characters—even though the winners were in the Supporting categories, they supported other people of color...

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