Oscar History
Film Bitch History
Welcome

The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)

Follow TFE on Substackd

Powered by Squarespace
DON'T MISS THIS
What'cha Looking For?
Subscribe

Entries in Oscar Trivia (686)

Wednesday
Mar022016

The New Actor Hierarchy: Oscar's Most Beloved Male Stars


Leonardo DiCaprio is now an Oscar winner but where does he stand in history?

If you're feeling celebratory -- and we've all lived through his rise into cinematic legend so why shouldn't we? -- you really need to check out this cute video of Leo getting his Oscar engraved or this silliness of a party of bros celebrating his win like mad men (hey it's better than the bro-ness of the pussy posse reuniting) or the once mocking memes that have turned into odes to Leo Joy. Good funny stuff.

Even if you weren't enamored with The Revenant (*raises hand*) or find it downright suspect, his filmography is so loaded with memorable films that surely anyone can find one therein to direct all their feelings towards in this momentous week for the 41 year old superstar. I'm choosing to view the Oscar as a career achievement Oscar for specifically prompted by Gilbert Grape, Romeo + Juliet, and The Departed... love them all!) 

Last year when Julianne Moore won her long-awaited Oscar for Still Alice we quickly tabulated the All Time Oscar Actress Hierarchy; movement in the ranks at last!  Given that DiCaprio waited even longer for his eventual statue, nabbing his first nomination at the dewy age of 19 for What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), four years before Julianne Moore's first nomination, it seemed only right to do the same thing for the men in the wake of Leo's coronation. 

What follows is Oscar's 32 All Time Favorite Actors !
It's restricted to men with 5 or more nominations. Only the acting statistics are accounted for so George Clooney, for example, is not (yet) ranked. If you counted non-acting nominations, you'd also see DiCaprio jump a rank as he was nominated for producing Wolf of Wall Street two years ago and Brad Pitt would also factor in since he won Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave. Now that many major stars are involved in producing these types of extra nominations stats are likely to make Oscar lists of the future progressively murkier so we're opting not to include them for now. 

If you'd like to see how the ranks were determined (it's not as simple as basic addition or there would be many ties) that's at the bottom of the post.

OSCAR'S FOUR KINGS
And 28 other Royals 

after the jump 

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Mar012016

The 88th Oscars' Biggest Losers and Classics That Shared Their Fate

David here with some commiserations. The winners have been duly celebrated but what of those valiant souls who came, who sat, and who meekly applauded while silently ripping their pocket speeches to pieces? Are they over it by now?

Sometimes being the biggest loser can make you more famous than being a winner - just ask Leonardo DiCaprio, who may well just cease to exist now that his one purpose in life has been fulfilled and the internet’s long love affair with affectionately mocking memes has come to an end. Can we assume that Roger Deakins is up next for this treatment…?

The record for the biggest loser on Oscar night is jointly held by 1977's The Turning Point and 1985's The Color Purple. Since The Revenant walked away with 3 gongs from a possible 12 and Mad Max: Fury Road gloriously swept the technical categories for 6 out of 10, no film came close to the record - unlike recent failures True Grit and American Hustle, which both saw 10 noms come to sweet f' all. (The Color Purple's director Steven Spielberg was saved from indignity again with Mark Rylance's sort-of-surprise win for Bridge of Spies.)

Yet some of 2015's biggest movies still ended the night empty-handed. Since time has a habit of remembering movies differently to Oscar, let's see what hallowed company Sunday's biggest losers are joining in the hall of infamy. How might they fair in the collective memory in twenty years time? (Please forgive my Photoshop skills after the jump)

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
Mar012016

Pt 2: New Oscar Trivia, Stats, and Curiosities

Picking up where we left off after the headliner categories. But click not away. The below the line crafts and specialty categories are just as important and trivia-interesting. I promise.

FOR THE EYES

Production Design: Colin Gibson, Mad Max: Fury Road
Makeup and Hairstyling
: Mad Max: Fury Road
Costume Design: Jenny Beavan, Mad Max: Fury Road

Jenny Beavan previously won the costume category for another perfect film A Room With a View. Not since arguably Dianne Wiest has a two time winner won for such polar opposite achievements. Yes both of Wiest's Oscars are from Woody Allen pictures but those star turns couldn't be more different stylistically / emotionally / pscyhologically. Mad Max Fury Road is also the first sci-fi winner EVER in this category... unless you count Star Wars (1977) though some people prefer lumping Star Wars into the fantasy genre rather than sci-fi... and there have been multiple fantasy winners.

I can't think of any interesting stats to go with the Makeup and Production Design Oscars but they were richly earned, don't you think?

More after the jump including further Star Wars coincidences...

Click to read more ...

Monday
Feb292016

Pt 1: Winners. Trivia. Stats. (How'd you do on your predictions?)

It's time to sift through the debris! Let's clear away the rubble of Oscar night and seek out interesting trivia of note, check back in with our prediction triumphs and foibles, and more. We'll frame this with a complete list of winners if, by some extraordinary circumstance, you've missed knowing about them. If so can you account for your actions last night? What on earth is more important than the Oscars? (Except that event to help out citizens of Flint, MI poisoned by their own GOP led government so, well done, Ava DuVernay and others)

But first the sordid topic of punditry! In many ways this was a difficult year to predict the prizes with three(!) genuine upsets on the big nights (Mark Rylance, Sam Smith, Ex Machina) a Best Picture race that was truly difficult to read given precursor disagreements and the Best Film of the Year sidelined altogether (When it comes to the Academy's treatment of Carol... quoth Abby "I can't help you with that."). If you check in with the Oscar Chart Index, you'll see an overview of how well I did but it breaks down like so... I completed aced the Best Short categories (go me) but otherwise flailed about hopelessly because I had predicted 6 Oscars for The Revenant and 3 for Mad Max which is the opposite of what occurred. Not even my wishful thinking helped me get over my fear that Oscar just wouldn't know what to do with a genre achievement that gonzo. [more after the jump...]

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Feb282016

Take a Number: Here's the Order of Tonight's Statue Delivery

This was tweeted out by Jake Hamilton today. I assume it's accurate since it looks like the official program.

The hardest category to predict this year is, I mantain, Costume Design. I'd call it the only truly five-wide race. And it's fourth so some real suspense right off the bat. We'll also know very early whether a Kate & Leo reunion is coming since Supporting Actress is third... though I fully expect Alicia Vikander to take that one. [Final Predictions ICYMI

You'll also notice that they're not doing the short films all at once this year but (perhaps) pairing them with kindred spirit categories (animated short with animated feature, doc short with documentary, and live action short with foreign film... which makes sense since it's often a hodgepodge of foreign shorts that are nominated).

Are you feeling excited yet or merely panicked whilst preparing for your festivities?

P.S. Please enjoy this great Leonardo DiCaprio goodie from The Flippist.