18 days till Oscar

by Nathaniel R

18 is today's magic number. Everyone knows that Oscar's acting branch sometimes takes a shine to little kids for acting nominations (almost always it requires a Best Picture nomination for the movie that houses them) but how often do they nominate kids who've just become adults? Not too often! There have only been three 18 year olds who've ever been nominated* and curiously none were in Best Picture nominees. Still, all of them gave unforgettable performances and the latter two could have easily be argued as "shoulda wons" in their year. They are...

•  Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan (1979), Best Supporting Actress
•  River Phoenix in Running on Empty (1988), Best "Supporting" Actor 
•  Juliette Lews in Cape Fear (1991), Best Supporting Actress

Fact: No 18 year-olds have ever been nominated in either lead acting category.

* It's possible we missed an 18 year old in Supporting Actress (though we could only think of 19 and 20 year olds like Angela Lansbury and Saoirse Ronan beyond the 16 and under famous inclusions) since it's the category that is most favourable to teenage nominees and most trivia and articles list don't go beyond age 15 or 16 in that category. If we did we trust you'll tell us who in the comments. 

22 days till Oscar. Randy Newman, again !

by Nathaniel R

image credit: Danny Moloshok

Scarlett Johansson and Cynthia Erivo got all the press for being double-nominees this year at the Oscars but they were hardly the only ones. Others include Sound engineer Mark Ulano (Ad Astra, Once Upon a Time...) and special effects supervisor Dominic Tuohy (1917, Rise of Skywalker).  Randy Newman, nominated for both Original Score (Marriage Story) and Original Song (Toy Story 4) also got the double bringing his grand total up to 22 career nominations. Oscar's music branch can't get enough of him and he's also won twice before...

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24 days... 24 karats

It's 24 days till Oscar. Did you know that the Oscar statue is actually made of bronze and not gold? Though he's often referred to as the gold man, he's bronze. He is however, plated in 24 karat gold.

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Oscar Trivia: Longest gap between nods... and who might return next?

by Nathaniel R 

Tie a yellow ribbon round the ol' Oscar ceremony this year. There are a lot of "welcome back" nominations at the 92nd Academy Awards since the nominations skewed towards senior actors as it occassionally does. Seven previous winners are in play again -- Bates, Theron, Zellweger, Pacino, Pesci, Hanks, and Sir Anthony Hopkins... all of whom have been missing in Oscar action anywhere from 15 to 29 years!  Surprisingly none of them are close to the all time record for “longest gap between nominations”.

Still, two decades is a big long stretch of time since most actors of either gender have all of their Oscar activity in a relatively condensed period of time; when you’re hot, you’re hot. Gaps over 20 years are uncommon. Even Lee Grant and Ingrid Bergman, famously blacklisted or exiled for a spell before returning triumphantly to Oscar’s good graces, didn’t have to wait that long. So herewith a list of the only actors who returned to the mix after a 20 year absence. 

The 25 Longest Gaps Between Oscar Nominations (for Actors)

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Saoirse moves up the "fastest to..." Oscar ranks

by Nathaniel R

Saoirse Ronan preparing to burn up the record books

With Saoirse Ronan's fourth Oscar nomination at 25 years young, the Irish child prodigy turned even more excellent movie goddess' steady rise to top of her generation is more than complete. She appears to be the first real rival to Meryl Streep's eternal Oscar dominance since people thought Kate Winslet would be some 12-15 years back. 

So it's time to reshare/update one of our favourite charts that we haven't updated since 2015 (!). Herewith...

THE YOUNGEST TO EARN MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS
All Acting Categories Included

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