10 years, 10 unforgettable Oscar moments

by Cláudio Alves

We may quibble and despair over the Oscars but we still tune in every year and love them despite it all. If we didn't, why would we obsess over predictions, rejoice at worthy victors or grimace when injustices occur? Looking back at the last decade of the awards, there are many indelible moments that energized us and made us applaud, that had us at the edge of our seats, crying through a heady mix of surprise and mirth.

Honorable mentions and a top ten list after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Directing Actors to Oscar Nominations ~ Updated Stats!

by Ben Miller

Power couple Noah and Greta moving up the "Directed Actors to Oscar Nominations" charts

The Oscars are so stat heavy, it’s difficult to keep up with the information. Especially since each season there's yet more of it. One of the stats that gets perpetually lost in the noise is the complex area  of 'acting nominations by director'. If you’ve read my previous piece last year, I am somewhat of an expert in this field, and this year’s set of nominees and winners provides some interesting stats.

First Timers

With nominations for Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Laura Dern, Noah Baumbach does what Guillermo Del Toro did with Shape of Water and Martin McDonagh did with Three Billboards, going from zero to three acting nominations from his filmography in one year.  A few directors have gone from zero to four, including but not limited to...

Click to read more ...

At the Oscars, times are changing.

Please welcome guest contributor Mark Blankenship, who you've previously heard from as a guest panelist on the Smackdown...

Even while getting rightfully criticized by presenters who mocked the mostly-white acting line-up and the all-male slate of directors, the Academy still managed to deliver an Oscar ceremony this year that was full of historically inclusive winners. All of those victories are exciting on their own, and some even point to larger trends that suggest there's hope for this awards body yet. If the patterns hold, then the Oscars just might become prizes for all artists, no matter who they are.

For instance, Parasite's historic Best Picture triumph is even more encouraging when you consider it alongside Moonlight's win (about queer black men and boys)...

Click to read more ...

New Oscar trivia from the Hollywoods big night

by Nathaniel R

A FEW FIRSTS!

• Laura Dern became the first person in her highly acclaimed family to win the Oscar and is now (3/1) in her nomination/win stats. Her mother Diane Ladd (3/0) and father Bruce Dern (2/0), who she name checked as her heroes in her speech have never won. 
• Parasite became the first South Korean film to win ANY Oscars and it won 4 of them. The individual wins from Bong Joon Ho, Kwak Sin-ae, and Han Jin Won are the first times any Asian has won Best Picture or a writing category...

Click to read more ...

1999 with Nick: "Stuart Little" and Visual (and Animated) Effects

This week, in advance of the Oscars, Nick Davis is looking back at the Academy races of 20 years ago, spotlighting movies he’d never seen and what they teach us about those categories, then and now.

This year, The Lion King joins Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) as only the third fully animated feature to be nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. I’ve read that tidbit in several places and assume that it must be true, according to people who know better than I do. I wasn’t sure why the movie that defeated Kubo, the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book, did not belong on this list, until I remembered that Mowgli was played by a living, breathing actor, Neel Sethi. Actually, what I mean is that I remembered Mowgli was in the movie, period. And I actually didn’t remember, I had to look it up. The Jungle Book, like an incredible number of films nominated for Best Visual Effects since the category got expanded to a five-wide field in 2010, made almost zero lasting impression on me. Like Best Original Song, it’s a division where I gladly release myself from seeing all the nominees. So, sorry, Lion King. Sorry, Endgame. Don’t get smug, Rise of Skywalker, you weren’t much better. And, until I proposed this series to Nathaniel, which partly exists to fill my own viewing gaps, sorry to Stuart Little, a movie that really tested my sense of the line between animation and visual effects, especially in the context of 1999. That line only gets blurrier as time goes on, so I thought I’d dig in a little...

Click to read more ...