14 Days Until Oscar. When will Thomas Newman win?

Thomas Newman is currently the most nominated composer to have never won the Oscar (and third in line of most nominations for a living artist without a win). Sci-fi hit Passengers marks his 14th nomination. Unfortunately this year he's up against the La La Land juggernaut so he'll have to wait for #15. Or beyond. His cousin Randy Newman waited until his 16th before taking home the gold.

Thomas Newman is on his 14th nomination at age 61. His father won 9 Oscars but he's still waiting on his first.

Composing for Hollywood is a family business in case that connection escaped you but their relatives didn't have to wait nearly as long...

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26 Days Until Oscar. Sing-along with Sammy Cahn

On this 26th day before Oscar, why not sing along to classic tunes co-written by Sam Cahn who received an incredible 26 Oscar nominations. He was so popular in his time that he even posed for pictures like this! Hee.

Yes, dear reader, there are people with more Oscar nominations than Meryl Streep.  Not many of them, mind you, and the bulk of them seem to be from the sound or music branches...

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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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Final Predictions: Animation, Documentary, and Sound Categories

Another day another dizzying array of last minute nerves over this confusing Oscar race. We've already talked Picture, Director, Actor, and the Screenplay categories right here. Now several more categories...

Animated Feature
A couple of months ago The Red Turtle looked like the sure thing "art" entry in the this category but it doesn't appear to have gathered much momentum and I worry it may be omitted. Working the opposite trajectory is Kubo and the Two Strings (more and more popular... could it even give Zootopia a run for the win?) and My Life as a Courgette which could pick up nominations in both animated feature and foreign language feature, something that has never happened before.  

Documentary Feature
The only question that seems relevant at this point is "can anything beat O.J.: Made in America?"...

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FYC: Jackie's Original Score by Mica Levi

by Sean Donovan

You sit down in a movie theater to see the latest biopic that has earned a superstar Oscar heat, and after the series of trailers for undoubtedly happier movies you could be seeing, you stare at a black screen. Gradually you hear something, a strong string note that quickly careens down the scale into dissonant whine. It’s immediately upsetting, destabilizing: flat and lacking grace when you were promised a classy portrait of one of America’s most iconic first ladies. So disjunctive it possesses a strange, ethereal beauty. It reminds me of the sound of an airplane flying overhead, fitting for a film where some of the most dramatic scenes occur onboard Air Force One. 

Music is the standard-bearer for everything that makes Jackie an unusual Oscar contender...

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