Olympics at the Oscar and "I, Tonya"

by Nathaniel R

Margot Robbie recently shared this pic from "exactly a year ago" when she was training for I TONYA

Is Margot Robbie the first actress to ever be nominated playing an Olympic athlete? I legit don't know the answer but I can't think of any others. The only previous Oscar nominated performances that we could think of were men: Will Smith as Muhammad Ali (though the focus there wasn't on the Olympics) and Mark Ruffalo as David Schultz (thanks commenters for this one!)

If you think back over movies that revolved around the Olympics in some way they aren't usually acting showcases (Chariots of Fire) or aren't focused on the Olympians themselves (Munich) or they're films that were either aimed at wide audience crowd pleasing or just didn't connect with awards voters (The Cutting Edge, Personal Best, Running Brave, Prefontaine, Eddie the Eagle, Cool Runnings) or they're documentaries which by their nature can't score acting honors.

There have been Olympians with movie careers but I can't think of any actors except Margot and Will Smith (who coincidentally co-starred in Focus in 2015) who have been nominated for playing an Olympian. Can you? Am I forgetting something totally obvious?

Box Office: The Post Widens, Proud Mary Aims, Paddington Returns

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Jan 12th-14th)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. Jumanji $27 on 3849 screens (cum. $283.1)	1.🔺 I Tonya $3.3 on 517 screens (cum. $10)  REVIEW
2. 🔺  The Post $18.6 on 2819 screens (cum. $23) REVIEW | OSCAR KICK-OFF	2.🔺 Phantom Thread $1.1 on 62 screens (cum. $2.2) HARRIET'S CAMEO
3. 🔺  The Commuter $13.4 on 2892 screens	3. 🔺  Call Me By... $715k on 174 screens (cum. $7.2) REVIEWISH | SCREENPLAY | SEX
4. Insidious: The Last Key $12.1 on 3150 screens (cum. $48.3)	4. Hostiles $276k on 42 screens (cum. $821k)
5. The Greatest Showman $11.8 on 2938 screens (cum. $94.5) REVIEW | ZAC	5.🔺 Condorita: La Pelicula $236k on 153 screens

Support for Steven Spielberg's inspirational newspaper drama The Post within awards season has been a hysterical rollercoaster. Pundits were all "it's winning everything" as the rollercoaster climbed to its peak. On the descent they're screaming "lost everything!" (GLOBES, CRITICS CHOICE) or "wasn't even nominated!" (SAG, BAFTA). But now that the public is on the ride with the press perhaps we begin to climb again towards another adrenaline rush. Whether the descent is thrilling or terrifying this time will depend on your feelings about The Post  and how many Oscar nominations it gets. Streep and Hanks and Spielberg all remain bankable so the film will do fine in theaters but will Academy voters bite after the whiplash we saw during the precursors? [More charts and thoughts are after the jump...]

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Costume Design and Cinematography Guild Honors

by Nathaniel R

Sometimes all it takes is one killer lewk. You might not have thought of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri as a "costume" movie but the Costumer Designer Guild gave it one of their contemporary nominations all the same. Must've been that already famous janitor jumpsuit with bandana on Frances McDormand. It's so very "Mildred". Either that or, you know, the Guilds are just voting on their favorite movies (as they are also prone to do) without thinking too much on their own fields within those movies. Who knows what lurks in the hearts of awards voters? No one truly as they're non monolithic.

More on their nominations (and the Cinematography guild also) with commentary after the jump...

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Soundtracking: "I, Tonya"

Chris's weekly look at movie music takes on Tonya Harding's arena rock...

I, Tonya has proven to be one of Oscar season’s most love it or hate it films - and naturally for yours truly, defending the film is a lot like defending its somewhat maligned soundtrack. And I fall on the slightly positive side for both. Like many of the film’s other broad strokes, it doesn’t nearly all work and some play for a quick grab at audience allegiance. Yet by my ear, its greatest musical sin is underserving Hot Chocolate’s “Every 1’s A Winner” (but we can leave that to Greta and Noah).

While the film becomes too contradictory to support its acceptance of the slippery boundaries of fact, personal truth, and conflicting perspectives, the way it uses music to examine this relationship is a bit more elegant...

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"Darkest Hour" Joins the Fray at BAFTA

by Nathaniel R

Nomination leaders: Shape of Water, Darkest Hour, Three Billboards, Dunkirk and Blade Runner 2049

Though The Shape of Water (12 nominations) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (9 nominations) continued their stamped across precursor season as the (probable) films to beat come Oscar night, Darkest Hour finally made a significant awards mark. The Joe Wright helmed World War II Winston Churchill drama really should have started its theatrical run in October in the US to build steam but perhaps it wasn't too late if the BAFTA nominations convince Academy voters this week to check the film out before completing their ballots. The other nomination leaders were Blade Runner 2049 and Dunkirk (with 8 nominations each). Other major Oscar contenders had to settle for less. I Tonya continued its Nathaniel-defying (argh!) upward trajectory this awards season with 5 nominations beating out previously more ballyhooed prestige competition like Call Me By Your Name (4 noms), Lady Bird (3 noms) and Get Out (2 noms).

But the biggest loser this morning in terms of nominations is Steven Spielberg's The Post which received not a single nomination. That also happened to it at the SAG nominations, this complete shut-out. Most pundits don't seem to think it's in trouble but wouldn't any other film shut out completely from SAG and BAFTA be considered "in trouble" for Oscar nods? Is its Mecha-Bait 'done-deal-on-paper' status working against it in this new more volatile "what makes a movie an Oscar movie?" era of voting? It's surely food for thought if you'd like to nibble in the comments.

Phantom Thread with 4 nominations and Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool with 3 nominations also did better than expected this morning. Full list of nominations with commentary for each category is after the jump...

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