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Tuesday
Jan242017

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.

 

 

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...

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Jan242017

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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Tuesday
Jan242017

Best Tweets on the Oscar Nominations

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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Tuesday
Jan242017

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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Tuesday
Jan242017

8 Big Takeaways from the Oscar Nominations

Each Oscar nomination morning brings waves of hot takes. Here are seven things that stood out to me on first pass. What stood out for you?

Barry Jenkins directing his young cast in MOONLIGHT which received 8 nominations

Oscars No Longer So White (For Now)
As far as we are aware this is only the second year (other than 2004) where all four acting categories feature at least one actor of color. There are seven actors of color nominated this year, or 35% of the nominees. While I personally felt the anger last year was both justified and misdirected (there simply weren't that many options to feasibly nominate - and the Oscar nominees have been more diverse than Hollywood itself in years past which is where the problem truly lies), it's a great relief to see so much diversity this year. Not  every year has so many acclaimed hits starring people of color like Hidden Figures, Fences, Moonlight, Loving and Lion so let's hope the Academy has plenty of options next year, too. It's a good development. We also have the first black female nominated in editing (Joi McMillion for Moonlight) and the second black man ever nominated in cinematography (Bradford Young for Arrival -- the first was British Remi Adefarasin for Elizabeth) and, most famously, Viola Davis becomes the most Oscar nominated black woman of all time with her third nomination

Releasing After Christmas Just Doesn't Work
A24 had been there before with A Most Violent Year but the magical miraculous 20th Century Women met nearly the same fate of a shut-out...

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