Fourth Timers: Brad, Kathy, Saoirse, Joaquin, and the Zeéeeee

Four days till Oscar.

This season brings us multiple four-timers. It's round quatro for a full 25% of our acting nominees: Brad Pitt, Renée Zellweger, Saoirse Ronan, Joaquin Phoenix, and Kathy Bates. They're all on their fourth nomination for acting (though Brad has additional nominations for producing).

Let’s rank their 20 nominated performances for fun after the jump, shall we? Yes, let's...

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5 Days till Oscar

For a bit of 'number of the day' silliness, let's talk about the #5 in relation to Oscar. Obviously the best correlation is that the traditional Oscar category is 5 nominees wide and has been for most of Oscar's history once they settled into their routines with various exceptions of categories which resisted being that large for reasons both understandable and nonsensical. Best Makeup FINALLY became a five wide category this very season (long overdue). Of this year's five-wide categories only one is made up entirely of first time nominees: Best Animated Short!  Other five related nonsense after the jump...

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Unlucky 13 ???

Everyone keeps saying we're "bitter" in the comments this year, even though we're not (listen, final time saying it: 1917 is a good picture, it'll make a non-embarrassing winner but it's just a little disappointing when they had a chance to make history with a real masterpiece staring them right in the face and gently blowing peach scrapings at them while doing next to unthinkable box office numbers in the current moviescape for subtitled features!)  

ANYWAY let's lean in to the bitter in a silly numbers way and talk about something potentially icky, the infamous "unlucky number" 13. Is 13 an unlucky number with Oscar or not?  Let's find out...

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a sweet 16 days till Oscar

We're just two weeks away and some change!  Since 16 is the magic number of the day, here are some memorable 16-related happenings at the Oscars.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was John Williams 16th nomination (out of 52!). Can you believe he lost for that adventure? Well, yes, because Chariots of Fire took Best Picture and that also had an instantly hooky score.

The 2016 Best Picture announcement (‘La La Land”... whoops, sorry, Moonlight’) will surely go down in history as one of the most memorable Oscar night moments ever.

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Bradley Cooper will play Leonard Bernstein

by Murtada Elfadl

Did you know that Bradley Cooper is now an 8 time Oscar nominee? He received his eighth nomination as a producer of Todd Phillips’ Joker. Only half of these nominations are for acting: Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, American Sniper and A Star is Born. Three are for producing, writing and starring in one film, A Star is Born again. Now he has a chance to add four more nominations with his next project...

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