12 Days Til Oscar: Best Picture Nominations by the Dozen

Tim here, with your daily dose of Oscar numerology. We’re now in the third year of the Academy’s undoubtedly well-intentioned "some random number that always turns out to be nine" approach to selecting Best Picture nominees, and for some of us, this is irritatingly arbitrary. But it could be so much worse. Think of how awful it must have been to been a rabid Oscar fanatic in the first decade of the award’s existence: depending on the year, there were anywhere from three to twelve Best Picture nominees, until it was finally nailed down at a nice, round ten at the 9th Academy Awards, for the year 1936.

The magic number of the day being 12, I'd like you to join me, for a closer look at 1934, the first of two years with 12 nominated films (for space reasons, I am alas compelled to leave 1935 to fend for itself) - the first year, as well, that the awards corresponded to a single calendar year. What can we learn about the Academy’s tastes and habits down the decades from each of these?

BEST PICTURE – It Happened One Night (released by Columbia)
What It Is: One of the greatest of all screwball comedies, in which the sexily odd-looking pair of Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable cross country and banter.
The Slot It Fills: The long-abandoned "comedies are a valid form of artistic expression like anything else" spot. But, of course, the period in which the film came out was unusually good at producing top-notch comedies starring the best movie stars of the day.

Only 11 more slots to fill after the jump

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When All Acting Nominees Come From Best Pictures...

If you're an Oscar stats geek, you should check out the new blog 1:37:1 which responded to the recent debate about whether or not the number of Oscar-nominated films is shrinking due to the expanded Best Picture field with lots of charts. It's fascinating but requires concentration. Then a follow up specifically looking at the acting categories.

All was lost this year for male actors without Best Picture heatThe most interesting finding in the second article is how enormously rare it is for an acting category to feature only performances from Best Picture nominated films. It's happened only 10 times in Oscar's entire 86 year history and 2 of those times were this year alone including, for the first time ever, in a supporting category. That's a disturbing development if you're of the opinion (and you should be) that great performances can happen anywhere including within movies that aren't otherwise popular or great.

The Only Times (Once All Acting Categories Were Invented) When All Acting Nominees in a Category Came From a "Best Picture"

• 1939 BEST ACTRESS Davis (Dark Victory), Dunne (Love Affair), Garbo (Ninotchka), Garson (Goodbye Mr Chips), Leigh (GWTW)
• 1940 BEST ACTRESS  Davis (The Letter), Fontaine (Rebecca), Hepburn (Philadelphia Story), Rogers (Kitty Foyle), Scott (Our Town)
• 1942 BEST ACTOR Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy), Colman (Random Harvest), Cooper (Pride...), Pidgeon (Mrs Miniver), Woolley (Pied Piper)
• 1943 BEST ACTOR Bogart (Casablanca), Cooper (For Whom The Bell Tolls), Lukas (Watch on Rhine), Pidgeon (Madame Curie), Rooney (The Human Comedy)
• 1964 BEST ACTOR Burton (Becket), Harrison (My Fair Lady) O'Toole (Becket), Quinn (Zorba the Greek), Sellers (Dr Strangelove)
• 1966 BEST ACTOR Arkin (Russians are Coming...), Caine (Alfie), Burton (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, McQueen (Sand Pebbles), Scofield (Man For All Seasons)
• 1977 BEST ACTRESS Bancroft (Turning Point), Fonda (Julia), Keaton (Annie Hall), Maclaine (Turning Point), Mason (Goodbye Girl)
• 1988 BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Cusack (Working Girl), Davis (Accidental Tourist), McDormand (Mississippi), Pfeiffer (Dangerous), Weaver (Working Girl)
• 2013 BEST ACTOR Bale (Hustle), Dern (Nebraska), Ejiofor (12 Years), DiCaprio (Wolf of), McConaughey (DBC)
• 2013 BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR  Abdi (Capt. Phillips), Cooper (Hustle), Fassbender (12 Years), Hill (Wolf of), Leto (DBC) 

a sample chart from 1:37:1

As we can see and to no one's surprise if you've ever read an Oscar stat in your life, Best Actor has the closest ties to the Best Picture race. In the 64 year span (1944-2008) in which we had only 5 Best Pictures a year, though, this exact correlation Actor-Pictuer has only ever happened twice (1964 & 1966). 

Do your share Mark Harris's original concern that the Academy is actually looking at less films now than they use to for honors?

14 Days Til Oscar: "All About Titanic"

[Our countdown to Hollywood's High Holy Night continues. Here's abstew with a fun "battle"]

We've only 14 days to go. It seemed like the perfect time to take a look at the two films that jointly hold the record for most nominations (in case you hadn't guessed, that would be 14). One is a fabulous Actressexual's dream about back-stabbing in the theatre world and the other a small indie about a boy and girl in love. Oh, yeah and something about a ship. 

Technically, Titanic holds a higher place in Oscar history, having won 11 of its 14 nominations while All About Eve went home with only six statues (though 12 was the most it could have won with double-nods in Lead and Supporting Actress). But haven't you always wondered what film would come out victorious if they had gone head-to-head?  No? Well, let's find out anyway

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18 Days Til Oscar. 18 Nominations For Meryl Streep

Here's a piece of trivia that even people who are clueless about the Oscars can recite: Meryl Streep is the most nominated actor of all time. Sometimes those same people will say she's won the most Oscars but you can't know everything if you don't pay attention. But, any way you come at it, her record is astounding (18 noms / 3 wins) 

Today I'm having fun repurposing her bitchy dialogue from August: Osage County and pretending its mockery of her fellow nominees and their (comparatively) puny Oscar histories.

You ever been married nominated before?
...More than once? 

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Link Shelf

Can we talk about the official Oscar site for a minute? The past few years they've really improved it but some things are questionable. Like their live blog of the nominee luncheon being just a series of photos or this weird article about the biggest Oscar surprises evers that seeks to rewrite history and imagine a world where everyone didn't know that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were winning Screenplay for Good Will Hunting. LMFAO. Everyone knew that. But I have to say that I love their nominee questionnaire. Especially the handwritten responses from various celebrities and filmmakers.

Okay, Links
Pajiba Fox News' hilariously dumb war against the "anti-capitalist" The LEGO Movie. Hahaha. I swear they get dumber every year over there and they were pretty stoopid to begin with
Glenn Dunks Laura Dern's greatest faces
i09 the cast of Frozen, including Idina, did a live concert. Will Disney finally wise up and realize original voice recordings are better than overproduced lame pop versions of the song? 
/Film Weinstein Co drops a lot of money on Imitation Game (2014). We already thought it was an Oscar contender and this confirms it

Oh and have you seen McConaughey on Graham Norton talking about his Wolf of Wall Street chant? For some reason Julianne Moore is there, too, and eager to hear it. (I missed this episode, obviously)

Cinema Blend Anne Hathaway considering taking the lead role in The Intern, vacated by Reese Witherspoon opposite Robert DeNiro (but why are there two recent comedies about middle aged or senior guys doing internships -- is this a business trend I'm unaware of or just Hollywood being dumb?)
Grantland Mark Harris on Oscar season turning ugly
Pillow Tweets [NSFW] W Magazine has compiled a bunch of photos of stars in various states of undress with their white sheets and pillows including current Oscar nominee Pharrell Williams, increasingly naked Miley Cyrus, Joe Manganiello, noted homosexual Luke Evans and many more.

BOOKS!
I wanted to take the time out to congratulate some online writer friends. Manuel Muñoz's first full novel "What You See in the Dark" was inspired by and evolves as kind of an adjacent story to the making of Hitchcock's Psycho (we've discussed it a few times because it's awesome) and it's now been translated into French - here's a review if you're a francophone! Christopher Smith, who once upon a time vouched for me for BFCA membership, left film reviewing to become a best-selling novelist.He just keeps churning them out!  

But the real reason I'm posting this is three more online friends have new books out or arriving soon! Kenneth in the (212) wrote the pop culture saturated memoir "Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful?" which is available now. Dan Callahan, who was delighted when we coined the term 'actressexual' here (and definitely is one) has previously written a book on Barbara Stanwyck. His new book is  "A Life of Vanessa Redgrave" which doesn't arrive until May but I have a delicious looking copy on my coffee table because I am special. And last but not least, the Self Styled Siren (a must read blogger for you fans of classic cinema) also has a book coming out later in 2014 though I don't think we're allowed to share details just yet. Be assured that we'll discuss it when it arrives. I am officially now the only reasonably-somewhat-sort-of-well-known blogger I've ever met who never got a book deal. I am officially also quite happy for all of them. Well done!