Women and Best Original Score

by Travis Cragg

Hildur Guðnadóttir already has an Emmy and a Globe. Is an Oscar next?Watching Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir walking up to receive her Golden Globe for Joker was one of the more interesting moments of last weekend's ceremony. My streaming service in Australia suddenly decided to log me out just as the presenter came on stage, so I was cursing the world and rebooting!  Once the anxiety was over, and Hildur was walking up to accept her trophy,  it was time to reflect on a woman winning the equivalent Oscar. The Globe win for Score doesn't always transfer to an Oscar win (sometimes the winner isn't even nominated -- as with All is Lost and First Man in recent years) but could Guðnadóttir repeat?

Has a woman ever won the Oscar for Best Original Score before? Turns out it has happened, but only with double-category caveats…

Click to read more ...

How often do two top Globe victories translate to Oscar gold?

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Sam Mendes had a great night on Sunday when he took home both Best Director and Best Motion Picture – Drama for his war epic 1917. That two-hander worked out very well for him exactly twenty years ago for his debut feature, American Beauty, since he went on to repeat at the Oscars. Winning both prizes at both ceremonies, however, doesn’t actually happen often. 

Between Mendes’ two bookends, that feat has only occurred twice...

Click to read more ...

35 days til Oscar

Edith Head is our icon of the day. She was nominated for 35 Oscars for Best Costume Design with an astounding run from 1948 through 1966 wherein she was nominated every consecutive season. It helped that they used to split the category into black & white / color (thus allowing 10 nominees per year)...

Click to read more ...

38 Days til Oscar. 38 Year-Old Oscar Winners

As we countdown to Oscar we'll try and do daily trivia for you for curiousity, infotainment and merriment. Since today's magic number is 38 and no one has ever been nominated for exactly 38 Oscars, let's talk about actors who won when they were 38 years old. There are only 12 of them. Have any favourite performances from this list?

Click to read more ...

Curious notes on the 344 films eligible in most Oscar categories

Feature categories like International, Documentary, and Animated and all three shorts categories have their own eligibility rules with Oscar. Visual Effects, Makeup, Song, and Score have bake-offs to narrow things down. But the bulk of Oscar's 24 categories don't have any winnowing process to speak of. The Academy has recently released their annual reminder list of eligible titles which always has a few odd reveals. You can read the full list of 344 features here but here are a four things that stood out to us.

Netflix gave most of their originals one week qualifiers from Velvet Buzzsaw early in the year til Atlantics now

1. Netflix gave almost all their non Best Picture contenders one-week qualifying releases this year, including Velvet Buzzsaw, Always Be My Maybe and Earthquake Bird and the mesmerizing Atlantics ...

Click to read more ...