Black History Month: Spotlight on Octavia Spencer

by Steven Fenton

On February 26, 2012, Octavia Spencer won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her endearing performance as the feisty Minny Jackson in Tate Taylor’s The Help. With her win, Spencer joined an elite group, becoming just the sixth black actress to win an acting Oscar (and only the seventh overall, if you count Irene Cara’s Original Song win for Flashdance, since she also starred in the film). Prior to 2011, Spencer had worked steadily since the mid-90s, gaining a reputation as a warm and generous co-star and a beloved character actress. So her win in February 2012 felt like an authentic opportunity for the academy to recognize an industry favorite.

Spencer was an indomitable force in the 2011 awards season, snatching wins at the Critics Choice, SAG awards, Globe Globes, and BAFTA, and beating out a talented crop of women in sensational breakout performances, including: Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Shailene Woodley (The Descendants), and Spencer’s co-star, Jessica Chastain (who had taken both the LA and NY Film Critics awards for her outstanding trio of performances in The Help, Take Shelter, and Tree of Life). Spencer’s Oscar win was a foregone conclusion early in the race. The real competition that was year between Viola Davis and Meryl Streep in Leading Actress. Viola could have made history that night as the second black woman to win in lead, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, Spencer walked away with The Help’s only win that evening. Little did we know then, Octavia’s Oscar story wasn’t over, and she definitely wasn’t done making history...

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3 Days Until Oscar -- multiple wins without a Best Picture Nod

With the seismic shift of the expanded best picture field in 2009, certain forms of Oscar trivia seem dead or at least on life support. Foxcatcher proved you could still be a "lone director" nominee for a non Best Picture player, and Carol proved you could still get a big swath of nominations but miss out on placing in the top category. But nearly all the records involving films that weren't nominated for Best Picture will not be broken now; when Oscar notices you in a big way these days, you're also likely to achieve that highest distinction of being a Best Picture nominee.

But with 3 being the magic number today, let's take a look back at the rare cases of films that won 3 or more Oscars that were not nominated for Best Picture. The only film that could theoretically join this list this year is Jackie (the most nominated film that isn't up for Best Picture) but it would have to win all three of its bids! 

The 18 Biggest Oscar Winners That Were NOT
Nominated for Best Picture
(current titles for categories used in this list though some have changed) 

01 Five Oscar wins from six nominations
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design. It lost only Best Actor but mysteriously wasn't nominated for Picture or Director despite obvious widespread love for it. But then, 1952 was among the very strangest of Oscar years for multiple reasons. 

Curiously Kirk Douglas also leads one of the three films tied for runner up in this particular list...

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4 Days Until Oscar. Come Low or High Trivia

Today's magic number is four. Since we have no brilliant angle on the number four, a random collection of Fab Four situations after the jump...

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5 Days Until Oscar. 5 Timer Men

Jimmy Stewart holding the wrong number of fingers up for our exercise!We're so close to the big show. Voting ends TODAY. And then it's all over but the big night (and recapping and contemplating celebratory madness). For today's trivia item with the number 5, a random sampling of men... stepping away from the ladies for a minute. (gasp)

Five time male winners
John Barry (composer, Dances with Wolves, Out of Africa, Born Free, etc)
Johnny Green (composer on lots of musicals)
Fred Hynes (sound on lots of musicals)
Dennis Murren (visual fx: Terminator 2, Innerspace, The Abyss, etc)
Edward Selzer (animated short films: Speedy Gonzalez, Sylvester & Tweety shorts, etc)
Lyle Wheeler (art direction: The King and I, The Robe, The Diary of Anne Frank, etc)
John Williams (composer: Star Wars, Schindler's List, etc)
Francis Ford Coppola (writer/director/producer: The Godfather, etc)

Actoriffic-ness after the jump.

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6 Days Until Oscar: Manchester vs Hacksaw vs Lion

With 6 days to go until the big show, let's play like we did with 8 days, and look at the Best Picture nominees with that particular number of nominations. Three movies received six nominations this time though they'll facing off less directly and only in the marquee categories at that. Nevertheless, remove the other nominees from the equation for this exercize and tell us who wins in these particular face-offs...

HACKSAW RIDGE	LION	MANCHESTER
Their six nominations
Picture	Picture	Picture
Director		Director
Actor Andrew Garfield		Actor Casey Affleck
	Supporting Actress Nicole Kidman	Supporting Actress Michelle Williams
	Supporting Actor Dev Patel	Supporting Actor Lucas Hedges
	Adapted Screenplay
		Original Screenplay
	Cinematography
Film Editing
	Original Score
Sound Mixing
Sound Editing

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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