29 Days until Oscar

29 is the number of the day. It's also the most common age for Best Actress winners. That's quite something if you consider that the youngest best actor winner of all time was 29 and just a month shy of his 30th (Adrien Brody, The Pianist). The gender bias that preferences young actresses and older men gets even worse when you realize that HALF of all Best Actress winners won by the age of 33. Less than 10% of Best Actor winners were 33 and under. The eight women who won at 29 are...

Emma Stone is the youngest Best Actress nominee this year at 28 and expected to win by most pundits. Stone is the same age now as the following winners were: Norma Shearer in The Divorcee, Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve, Luise Rainer in The Good Earth and Charlize Theron in Monster.

Curiously there is no "most common age" for Best Actors (spread out fairly evenly from mid 30s to mid 40s) or Best Supporting Actress (all over the place). The most common age for Supporting Actor winners is 46 (seven winners).

30 Days Until Oscar

30 is...

...the running time of Wallace & Gromit's Oscar winning shorts A Close Shave (1995) and The Wrong Trousers (1993)

...the number of features directed by Steven Spielberg from Sugarland Express (1974) to The BFG (2016)

...the age of Bette Davis and Hilary Swank when they won their second Best Actress Oscars for Jezebel (1938) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) respectively

...the year of Best Picture winner All Quiet on the Western Front

... and the age at which you get all dressed up to be "terminated" in Logan's Run (1976). For the good of society!

Numbers. Oscars. Numbers. Oscars...

If you love Oscars too much (*raises hands*) your head can get a little swimmy on Oscar nomination day, trying to parse it all. Particularly the numbers and the new statistics. This could take some time. But here are some non-subjective hierarchies and numbers and stats from the day.

We'll start with the easy one.

Most Nominations

1. La La Land (14)
2. [tie] Moonlight and Arrival (8)
3. [tie] Hacksaw Ridge and Lion and Manchester by the Sea (6)
4. Fences (4)
5. Hidden Figures and Jackie (3)
   
   NOTE: Jackie marks the second year in a row wherein a "chilly" gorgeous movie about a complicated woman wins the distinction of "most nominated movie that isn't nominated for Best Picture" -- coincidence? Nope.

5 of past 6 years film w/ most noms that wasn't up for Best Pic was a chilly beauty about complex woman. Coincidence? I think not. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/fRFZXaflsb

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) January 24, 2017

Category with Most First Timers!
(excluding categories with too way many names to look up like producing, visual fx, sound,song, and makeup) 

1. Adapted Screenplay (5/5 nominees are newbies to Oscar)
2. [tie] Original Score and Cinematography (4/5 nominees are newbies to Oscar)
3. Best Director (4/5 nominees are first timers in this particular category though some have been nominated in other categories)
4. Best Supporting Actor (3/5 nominees are newbies to Oscar)
5. Original Screenplay (3/5 nominees are first time nominees for writing) 

Other Curious Statistics after the jump...

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Best Tweets on the Oscar Nominations

Now that Isabelle Huppert is an Oscar nominee, who inherits her "greatest working actor never to be nominated" title?

— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) January 24, 2017

Imagine thinking that HACKSAW RIDGE is a better film than 20th CENTURY WOMEN.

— Noah Tsika (@NoahTsika) January 24, 2017

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

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8 Big Takeaways from the Oscar Nominations

Each Oscar nomination morning brings waves of hot takes. Here are seven things that stood out to me on first pass. What stood out for you?

Barry Jenkins directing his young cast in MOONLIGHT which received 8 nominations

Oscars No Longer So White (For Now)
As far as we are aware this is only the second year (other than 2004) where all four acting categories feature at least one actor of color. There are seven actors of color nominated this year, or 35% of the nominees. While I personally felt the anger last year was both justified and misdirected (there simply weren't that many options to feasibly nominate - and the Oscar nominees have been more diverse than Hollywood itself in years past which is where the problem truly lies), it's a great relief to see so much diversity this year. Not  every year has so many acclaimed hits starring people of color like Hidden Figures, Fences, Moonlight, Loving and Lion so let's hope the Academy has plenty of options next year, too. It's a good development. We also have the first black female nominated in editing (Joi McMillion for Moonlight) and the second black man ever nominated in cinematography (Bradford Young for Arrival -- the first was British Remi Adefarasin for Elizabeth) and, most famously, Viola Davis becomes the most Oscar nominated black woman of all time with her third nomination. 

Releasing After Christmas Just Doesn't Work
A24 had been there before with A Most Violent Year but the magical miraculous 20th Century Women met nearly the same fate of a shut-out...

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