7 Days til Oscar...

We already celebrated the 7th nominations of both Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet on the day of the nominations so what shall we celebrate today now that we're exactly one week from Hollywood's High Holy Night?

Hmmm. The Martian? It does have seven nominations but don't feel like it today. So let's just go with the year sevens. Oscar's choices, biggest box office, and our favorites here. 

1937: Oscar: Life of Emile Zola; Public: Snow White; TFE: The Awful Truth

1947: Oscar: Gentleman's Agreement; Public: Road to Rio; TFE: Black Narcissus

1957: Oscar: Bridge on the River Kwai; Public: Bridge on...; TFE: A Face in the Crowd

1967: Oscar: In the Heat of the Night; Public: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?; TFE: Bonnie & Clyde It's worth reminding you here that Mark Harris's book about this year in film "Pictures at a Revolution" is one of the best movie books ever. Get it!

1977: Oscar: Annie Hall; Public: Star Wars; TFE: Annie Hall

1987: Oscar: Last Emperor; Public: 3 Men and a Baby; TFE: Moonstruck

1997: Oscar: Titanic; Public: Titanic; TFE: Boogie Nights

2007: Oscar: No Country For Old Men; Public: Spider-Man 3; TFE: There Will Be Blood

2017: Oscar: TBA; Public: Star Wars Episode VIII; TFE: TBA

Your favorites in "7" years?  And let us all have a moment of silence for the great Se7en (1995) which only received one Oscar nomination in its year for Best Film Editing. What a shame! 

3 Times Lucky: Mark Ruffalo

Murtada here. Love for the Meryl and C/Kates of the world can skewer perceptions. It's rare for actors to receive multiple Oscar nods. Most first nominations are also last nominations. Less than 180 actors in Oscars 88 years have managed 3 or more. And this year Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight joined that list. (The rest is after the jump due to extreme gif'ing).

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Interview: Joshua Oppenheimer and Adi on The Look of Silence

Amir here. I first fell in love with Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence in September 2014, at TIFF. It was the last, and best, film I watched at that festival, and it left an emotional mark that I lived with for days. I caught up with the film again when it was released for the public and my conviction that this was one of the best documentary features of all time was reaffirmed – in my book, one of 2015’s holy trinity of films. So, you can understand my excitement when I finally had the chance to speak with director Joshua Oppenheimer, and Adi, the subject of his film.

The Look of Silence, nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary, a companion piece to the director’s earlier film The Act of Killing (also nominated in its year), is about the victims of the Indonesian genocide, who live side by side with the men who perpetrated those crimes against their loved ones. In his graceful and compassionate study of these people and their haunted spaces, Oppenheimer finds the language to bring invisible pains to the screen and push the limits of documentary form.

We talk about the relationship between his two films, his experiences in Indonesia, influences on his filmmaking, where documentary cinema stands today, and Adi’s life after the film’s release.

AMIR SOLTANI: I know you’re probably tired of comparisons between your two latest films, but I feel like there’s nowhere else to start but The Act of Killing. There’s a theatrical element to the first film that The Look of Silence, despite being polished, stylized and even often staged, doesn’t have. It’s more formally understated. What initiated your formal approach to the second film?  

JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER: I think these two films are both rigorously about the present, or rather, the past’s role in the present. [More after the jump...]

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8 Days til Oscar...

If you haven't fully investigated the Best Picture Chart you should do that today. There are several unusual ways to rank the 8 nominees for Best Picture: machismo factor, number of deaths, MPAA ratings, running time, and more.

Sample to your right. Check it out 

Ranking, my friends, is mandatory since Best Picture is determined on a preferential ballot. There's mine to the far right (this was crafted the day of nominations so no "backlash" was in play). Theoretically the preferential voting puts polarizing pictures at a disadvantage but what isn't polarizing these days?

How would you rank them? Are you still undecided as to which film will win? Three good indicators (SAG Ensemble, PGA, and DGA) famously went to three separate pictures (Spotlight, The Big Short, and The Revenant) confusing the matter more than is usual. If you missed the latest podcast Nick and I talked about the most difficult categories to predict which we're guessing are: Picture, Director, Costume Design, Production Design, and Sound

Undersung Works by the Oscar Nominated Cinematographers

Jose here. The five gentlemen nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar have amassed a more than respectable amount of accolades, they boast a collected 37 Oscar nominations between the 5 of them, with Edward Lachman being the least nominated having only two (both for his previous collaborations with Todd Haynes) and Roger Deakins being the perpetual bridesmaid with 13 career nominations and no wins (not that he needs them anyway, he has 3 BAFTAS and 3 ASC Awards to console him).

Even if these folks get nominated for awards all the time, some of their work has been received coolly by awards bodies. Unbelievable, I know. So, here are 5 “undersung” achievements by this year’s nominees...  

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