Animation at the Oscars, an Infographic

There's so much information to parse out here about Oscar's history with the hand or computer drawn division of their industry. This was created by Border Stylo. Isn't it neat?

I wish the information was more complete (i.e nominations by film, too) but it's pretty cool as is. It's not surprising but definitely interesting that 66% of the nominations gathered by the animation genre are in the aural categories (Song, Score and the Sound categories)

For the record, to add to this chart the most nominated animated films are the following.

Belle. She has few equals in the canon.

6 nominations
BEAUTY & THE BEAST (1991) including Best Picture
(I think it's worth noting that even if you subtracted one of these nominations -- given that films can no longer get 3 song nominations by the rules, you'd still have to add it back in if there were animated feature prizes to be won in the 90s. Beauty & The Beast is still the champ, Oscar wise. It's the one that changed the way Oscar thought of Animated Features... with a little help from it's lead in The Little Mermaid of course.)
WALL•E (2008)
5 nominations
ALADDIN (1992)
RATATOUILLE (2007)
UP (2009) including Best Picture
TOY STORY 3 (2010) including Best Picture
4 nominations
THE LION KING (1994)
MONSTERS, INC (2001)
FINDING NEMO (2003)
THE INCREDIBLES (2004)

What'cha think about that?

About That Best Actress Oscar Curse...

I've noticed a raft of articles popping up about the infamous Best Actress Oscar curse which states that your marriage will fall apart if you win Best Actress.

Recent Oscar-Winning Divorcees

This is undoubtedly on the brain because of the whole Sandra Bullock Brouhaha last year (and because people have run out of things to talk about Oscar-wise?). ABC says scientists have proven it statistically and one of said scientists offers up this unscientific theory.

Winning an Oscar can be construed as a big jump in professional status that an actor or actress has in their world and in the eyes of the broader audience… The general social norm kind of requires a man to have higher professional and economic status over the wife. So whenever that social norm is violated, both husband and wife may feel discomfort.

We do still live in a patriarchal society so this is probably true. It would be especially true for men or women who buy into the patriarchy without having questioned its value system thoroughly (most people don't). This problem of separate status might just be acerbated by Hollywood itself which knows from hierarchies. Who's hot, who's not, etcetera. Star actors undoubtedly have egos.

But here's another happier detail they didn't think to look at. What of the women who win only after they shed their troubled relationships? Perhaps break-ups prompt creative renewal.

Jane Wyman won her Oscar for Johnny Belinda shortly just after dumping Ronald Reagan. Nicole Kidman won her first nomination (Moulin Rouge!) and then her first win (The Hours) back-to-back in the year that followed her high-profile split with Tom Cruise. That's just the two I can think of off the top of my head but I'd be willing to bet that there's more. Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt's break-up was already brewing before she won for Erin Brockovich. Julia's case could theoretically be part of the aforementioned curse or part of this bizarre blessing in disguise; lose a handsome man, get a naked gold one to replace him.

As for actresses who married or will marry their man after they've already achieved major star status (I'm thinking of Amy Adams actor man and Natalie Portman's acclaimed ballet star fiance in this year's Oscar race), I don't think they should worry too much. These men have undoubtedly already evolved or acclimated themselves to their "societal-norm" breaking coupledom.

Then you have women who crossover these categories, defying it. Emma Thompson's marriage to frequent collaborator Kenneth Branagh ended two years after her Oscar win but her relationship with Greg Wise (her Sense & Sensibility co-star) didn't suffer when she won her second Oscar.

His & Hers BAFTAs (Spring 1993); Emma's Oscars (March 1993 and March 1996)

And where does marriage-crazy two-time Oscar winner Elizabeth Taylor fit into all of this?

If you have the answers or just theories to these wedded bliss / wedded miss questions, have at it in the comments.

Alan Menken Goes for a Tangled Record

Serious Film's Michael C. here to shine a light on an overlooked story from the Oscar nominations. 

With all the attention paid to Tangled focusing on its somewhat surprising exclusion from the Best Animated Film lineup I think most people missed the more interesting story. If Alan Menken wins the Oscar for best song for Tangled’s "I See the Light" - and he has as good a chance as any of winning - he will have won an incredible ninth Oscar. Already the most awarded living person a ninth trophy would surpass famed costume designer Edith Head tying him with composer Alfred Newman (All About Eve) for the most awarded individual Oscar winner in history. 

**Trivia Alert** 

This record is debatable since ahead of Menken would technically still be behind art director Cedric Gibbons with 11 wins for such films as An American in Paris and The Bad and the Beautiful and Walt Disney with an untouchable 22 wins and 4 honorary Oscars. But I don’t believe they should be ranked against Menken since they were men who took credit for the work of entire studios and didn’t necessarily participate in the creation of all the award-winning works. Gibbons, in particular, had it written into his contract that every film released by MGM until 1956 credited him as art director. His IMDB page lists over 1,000 films among his credits.
 

Oscar hoarders throughout time

Most Awarded Living Individuals

8 Wins

• Alan Menken

7 Wins

• Gary Rydstrom (All wins were in Sound categories though he was recently nominated for Best Short Film for the animated "Lifted")

6 Wins + 2 Special Achievement Oscars and 1 Technical Achievement Award

• Dennis Muren - special effects artist (Jurassic Park, Terminator 2)

6 Wins

• Rick Baker -makeup artist (The new nomination for The Wolfman is his 12th)

5 Wins

• John Williams (Easily the most nominated person alive with 45 to his credit)
• Francis Ford Coppola

4 Wins

• The Coen Brothers
• Clint Eastwood
• Andre Previn - composer (Gigi, My Fair Lady)
• Mark Berger (sound categories - only person to ever go 4/4 nomination-to-wins. Last win was for The English Patient)
• Christopher Boys (sound categories - most recent win was for King Kong)
• Bob Beemer (yet another sound guy. Sound seems to be the easiest category to rack up multiple wins in. His last win was for Dreamgirls)

Who will be the next person to join this list? Some of the people still working who are stuck at 3 wins include writer/directors Woody Allen, Peter Jackson and James Cameron, directors Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone, actor Jack Nicholson, costume designers Milena Canonero and Sandy Powell (pictured left on her third win for Young Victoria), editor Thelma Schoonmaker and art director Stuart Craig.

Do you think Alan Menken will win his 9th for Tangled?

Golden Release Dates

Anyone who has read the Film Experience for very long knows that one of Nathaniel's pet issues is the weirdly blocked distribution/awards calendars. Counterprogramming seems like anathema to Hollywood. Most pundits ignore this, either because they're fine with the system the way it is or they have their own pet issues to attend to. But year after year it makes me crazy. So as a sanity measure, I do charts!

If I were only a little more organized the charts would mean a lot more in terms of comparisons sake.

Common consensus has it that the best time to release an Oscar contender is in December. That's true. But as with most "truths" it's not the whole story and thus misleading. It distorts the perception of other truths like the fact that summer is not a bad time to release a big Oscar contender, particular those with commercial appeal. Like many other common consensus beliefs, the December is everything belief is self-reinforcing so one never knows if it is actually true or if it's true because studios think it is and therefore hold their mainstream prestige pictures. The new traditions are so established now that it would certainly be a shock if there were another year like 1972 where the two big dogs (Cabaret and The Godfather) were both released before the previous year's Oscars were even held! Could you imagine if you saw 2011's biggest Oscar contenders in theaters before Oscar night on the 27th?!

On the chart below you can see that the 83rd Oscars are very November/December heavy. Last year's race was less weighted toward the holidays with only 4 of the nominees arriving in the last two months (Blind Side, Precious, Avatar and Up in the Air) earning 23 nominations between them. This year there were five (127, King's, Swan, Fighter, Grit) hogging 40 nominations. And that was just the Best Pictures.

For this chart I used all categories but the shorts. As you can see, my biggest pet peeve (one week qualifiers or the lack of any regular release required) is not the disadvantage I always pray it will be. Why do I pray for this? Because I believe that movies are for audiences first and foremost. If the audience is not allowed to see a movie, should Oscar voters so readily accept its existence? (I always wonder why this isn't part of the whole "Oscar's are irrelevant because they don't choose hits" argument. Perhaps it's too nuanced. It's not as catchy as "they ignored blockbusters!" to say "they have nominated movies the public wasn't allowed to see!) This year's Oscar roster contains as many nominations for barely qualifying films as it does from films released from January through May combined. Sad.

Though Winter's Bone, Animal Kingdom and The Kids Are All Right started Oscar buzz at Sundance in January 2010 and kept it going for a year (all received acting nominations), the first actual theatrical release to wrap up the annum with a nomination was the poorly reviewed remake The Wolfman (Best Makeup). Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was the first multiple nominee released (March) and holds the distinction of being the most-nominated film outside of the Best Picture contenders with three (all in visual categories). This particular distinction used to be an exciting/interesting one but with 10 Picture nominees one doubts it will be that interesting going forward. Last year Nine (2009) held the honor with four nominations.

If you had an Oscar contender to push would you start early to get your nominee track firmly dug or would you risk the glut of the holidays hoping for a good sprint toward the gold in the thick of it. It's a tortoise or hare situation. Here are the months the last 10 winners chose.

2009 The Hurt Locker (June) *the year we started getting ten nominees
2008 Slumdog Millionaire (November)
2007 No Country For Old Men (November)
2006 The Departed (October)
2005 Crash (May)
2004 Million Dollar Baby (Dec)
2003 Return of the King (Dec) *the year the Oscars moved from March to February
2002 Chicago (Dec)
2001 A Beautiful Mind (Dec)
2000 Gladiator (May)

This year we're looking at an October (TSN) or a November winner (TKS) unless The Fighter has more underdog spirit in it that anyone is anticipating.

12+ Nominations. An Elite Club Gets a New Member.

How many films have been nominated for 12 or more Oscars in their calendar year? Only 25 across the eighty-three years of Oscar history. The King's Speech is the latest initiate of this very exclusive bunch. The films, along with their number of noms/wins, in chronological order are...

• Gone With the Wind (1939) -13/8
• Mrs. Miniver (1942) -12/6  
• The Song of Bernadette (1943) -12/4
• Johnny Belinda (1948) -12/1
• All About Eve (1950) -14/6
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) -12/4
• From Here To Eternity (1953) -13/8
• On the Waterfront (1954) - 12/8 
• Ben Hur (1959) -12/11  
• My Fair Lady (1964) -12/8 
• Becket (1964) - 12/1 
• Mary Poppins (1964) -13/5
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) -13/5
• Reds (1981) -12/3
• Dances With Wolves (1990) -12/7 
• Schindler's List (1993) -12/7 
• Forrest Gump (1994) -13/6 
• The English Patient (1996) -12/9 
• Titanic (1997) -14/11 
• Shakespeare in Love (1998) -13/7
• Gladiator (2000) -12/5 
• The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -13/4
• Chicago (2003) -13/6
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -13/3
• The King's Speech (2010) -12/???

 

Biggest Winner Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Ben-Hur nearly made a clean sweep, winning all its categories but Adapted Screenplay which went to the romantic drama Room at the Top instead. Ben-Hur is tied with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with most wins of all time... but curiously enough of the three-top Oscar earners only the fantasy epic made a clean sweep of it winning in every single one of its categories.

Biggest Loser Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Johnny Belinda which took home only one Oscar for best actress (Jane Wyman). Beckett also took home only one prize but it had a huge disadvantage in that 1964 was the most monotonous year ever nomination-wise with three (!) films clearing the obscene 12 nom hurdle. Most years don't even get one film that dominant. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins in an infamous singing duel to the death devoured 13 Oscars between them. Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!

CHARTS
But what you really want to know his how many of them won Best Picture, don'tcha? Well, I bolded them above so that's 15 of the 25... with 1 undetermined.

So let's do a pie chart...

God I love pie charts. And pies.
[Tangent: omg. I gotta start thinking about the Oscar party menu]

What does all this mean for The King's Speech?
Well, you'll be the judge of that in the comments, won't you? If you're just eyeballing those pie charts, and not really think about the particulars of this race , the likeliest scenario is that The King's Speech wins Best Picture and four to five other Oscars. But that seems like a lot, doesn't it? With a film as strong as The Social Network hanging around.

Before this rather shocking tally (seriously sound mixing, and cinematography???) most armchair and professional pundits assumed it was heading to only two sure wins: Actor & Screenplay with a lot of competition coming for its expected nominations in Costuming and Art Direction. But given the charts above -- not too mention the 12 nominations -- I'd say we underestimated its pull. Can it steal Best Picture from The Social Network? That would be Grand Theft Oscars.

Related Reading: Best Pictures From the Outside In
and current Oscar Race articles