12 days til Oscar - a dozen wishes as Oscar voting begins

Though we're dreading the Oscars for the first time in our lives that we can recall (it's that damn gnawing off of their own limbs while in ABC's trap that they're doing) we'll still be watching and hoping for the best. With Oscars just twelve days away and voting beginning here are

12 WISHES FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SEASON...

1. For voters to watch one or two more screeners before they vote. Better, or at least fairer choices will be made if they have seen every option within a category. Particularly in the lower profile categories like Animated Short or Documentaryl don't just vote for Bao or RBG because they're the ones you've seen -- vote for them only if you think they're the actual best.

2. That John Bailey and the Board of Governors realize their disgusting mistake and reverse course yet again restoring the cut categories to the Broadcast. Giving out awards during commercial breaks is shameful and also, as we've heard from people who've attended, extra disrespectful because in the room there is tons of noise during commercial breaks as everyone runs for drinks, bathroom breaks, to visit friends in other seats, etc...

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13 days til Oscar - Voting Begins Tomorrow!

Timothée & Glenn, together again at the BAFTAsOscar voting begins tomorrow. The Academy will have eight days to pick their winners -- we're in the homestretch! That's right y'all, we made it through the PGA's Green Book fandom, the DGA's Roma love and Eighth Grade surprise, the entirety of the Sundance Film Festival, the SAG f***ery where only lead actors won prizes, the adorable Oscar Nominee Luncheon, BAFTA's love in for The Favourite, the Cold War surprise at ASC, Four current Oscar nominees winning Grammys (including Bradley Cooper of all people), and here we are.

The only thing left (er, actually, it's still a lot) is our last minute frenzy of interviews and coverage, the remainder of the Film Bitch Awards, final Oscar predix, Supporting Actress Smackdown, César Awards, Spirit Awards, CDG Awards, and OSCAR NIGHT. Please visit us every hour on the hour and express your love so that we can borrow your energy to conjure the stamina.

14 days til Oscar - Costume Design Lists!

Photography by Brigitte Lacombe

With 14 days until Oscar we're thinking about Queen Sandy Powell, now with a towering 14 nominations for costume design via her double nod this year for Mary Poppins Returns and The Favourite.  We interviewed her in the year of Carol and Cinderella (2015), also a double nominated year. The only time she's ever won while double nominated was the first time...

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Directing an Actor to a Nomination - The Stats

by Ben Miller 

Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman) is the third actor Spike Lee has a directed to a nomination after Danny Aiello (Do the Right Thing) and Denzel Washington (Malcolm X)

With the upcoming Academy Awards celebrating their 91st year, the Oscars have plenty of history to obsess over.  One of the less-discussed pieces of history is which directors have the most pull with the Academy's acting branch. Today's topic: directors who have guided multiple actors and actresses to nominations and/or wins. 

With this season's nominations, directors Bradley Cooper (3), Yorgos Lanthimos (3), Peter Farrelly (2), and Marielle Heller (2) all join a group of directors who've guided multiple actors to Oscar nominations. In this season's crop of films Vice's Adam McKay (4), Roma's Alfonso Cuaron (3), If Beale Street's Barry Jenkins (3), BlacKkKlansman's Spike Lee (3), Bohemian Rhapsody's Bryan Singer (2) and At Eternity's Gate's Julian Schnabel (2) all add to their previous tallies since each had previously directed either one or two actors to a nomination.

In the 91 year history of the Academy Awards, 1757 performances were directed to an Oscar nomination.  I tracked every single one of them to come up with these numbers. More notes after the jump...

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Links: Binoche in Berlin, Pfeiffer in Planning, and Endgame in Post-Production

• Gurus of Gold the latest charts on our Oscar predictions
• Coming Soon The Oscars are going hostless this year for the first time in decades but as it turns out they were originally going to go with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson who still hopes to do it someday
• Vanity Fair film insiders are speaking out about the Oscars intended changes. Thankfully many in the insider are as angry as we are about shunting some awards off air.

more after the jump including Avengers Endgame, Juliette Binoche in Berlin, Michelle Pfeiffer's smell, a new Pixar short, and the Gypsy remake...

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