Ariana DeBose, Saturday Night Live, and Oscar Campaigns

by Nathaniel R

As you may have heard Best Supporting Actress Oscar hopeful Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) will be hosting Saturday Night Live when the show returns tomorrow, January 15th. That's just 12 days before the Academy starts voting on nominations. Which got us to thinking: How often is Saturday Night Live used as a campaign stop for Oscar hopefuls and is it successful? Let's do a little research. We're only going back five years for time constraint reasons but we do wonder when this became a thing or if it's always been thus? I have only ever been a casual SNL viewer but perhaps there are Saturday Night Live experts reading who could shed some light...

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Oscar Trivia: Three Nominated Actresses

By Ben Miller

I'm sure you've already read Nathaniel's awesome breakdown of the films with double acting nominations.  I love that specific type of Oscar trivia.  Along those same lines, what if all three West Side Story's actresses all end up nominated?  How many times has a film nominated three actresses from the same film?  Not very often.  But that wasn't always the case.

The Supporting categories were added in 1936 and it only took three years for the first three-actress set of nominees.  Both Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel won Oscars, while Olivia de Havilland earned a nomination for Gone with the Wind. That 1939 triple set off a trend...

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SAG Nominations - Movies

We'll have a separate post for the TV nominations a little later today but first, the MOVIE nominations. 

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS

• Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
• Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
• Jennifer Hudson, Respect
• Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos

Instant Impression: The morning's biggest shock -- no Kristen Stewart in Spencer. I'm okay with this but the internet won't be...

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Oscar Trivia: Concerning double-acting nods. How many films could do that this year?

by Nathaniel Rogers

How many films will be nominated for acting this year? That question reads odd on the surface as there are 4 acting categories with 5 slots each. So the answer is obviously 20?. Nope! Usually at least a few films will score multiple acting nods, so 20 different films just doesn't happen.

But what we want to talk about specifically today is double-nominations within a single category. That's very common, happening more than half the time. In 55 of Oscar's 93 years to date, at least one acting category offered up a double from a single film. Sometimes more than one of the four categories will offer up a double nomination.  So what about this year...

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Sidney Poitier (1927-2022)

by Nathaniel R

The Oscar winning actor Sidney Poitier has died at the age of 94 in the Bahamas, leaving a remarkable legacy behind. Do you remember when you first became aware of Sidney Poitier? It can be difficult to pinpoint for stars of his magnitude. The most legendary actors become so much a part of the cultural fabric that it feels as if they have always existed. As if they have always been part of the very conception of "Hollywood" as our dream machine, as if the cinema couldn't have existed without them. But this is not strictly true. Hollywood had no room for any sidney poitiers before Sidney Poitier. His undeniable charisma and dramatic talent were potent enough to force Tinseltown's gates open, and reconceptualize who could be a movie star. And, it must be said, his good timing helped too...

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