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If only Laika had waited until 2017 to release Kubo and the Two Strings -they might finally have won that elusive Oscar that almost always goes to Disney or Disney/Pixar.
Owen Wilson poses with a life size McQueen for "Cars 3"
As previously discussed this year's animated slate doesn't look too promising in terms of American studio features, and there's also a complete absence of stop motion features *sniffle* from abroad as far as we can tell. What's worse, the Academy's just-announced a rule change for voting on the animated features that might well make the category less penetrable for brilliant work from across the ocean. But we'll have to wait and see if our worst fears materialize.
First Oscar Predictions for 2017's Best Animated Feature
While nearly everyone expects La La Land to be the major champion of the night, I don't think it will be record breaking. Damien Chazelle’s popular musical would need 12 Oscars to beat the record of 11 which was set by Ben-Hur back in 1959 and then tied by both Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) and Titanic (1997). West Side Story (1961), yours truly's all time favorite movie, is the runner up to "most wins" with 10. La La Land might tie West Side Story but I'm predicting 9 wins. That's still a lot mind you but it's not quite record breaking. The number of wins for a Best Picture seems to be trending downward in the modern era. The only really truly big hauls in the past twenty years have been for The English Patient (9 wins for 1996), Titanic (11 wins in 1997), Shakespeare in Love (7 wins for 1999), Return of the King which was a special case as they were obviously rewarding the whole trilogy (11 wins for 2003), and Slumdog Millionaire (8 wins for 2008). I can't see La La Land winning less than 8.
But let's divvy up the categories into sure things, probably sure things, and very unsure things...
No Oscar Trivia today. Unless you count all the stuff that's on the Oscar pages. The major category charts have been updated with our popular "how'd they get nominated?" speculation, chosen preferred Oscar clips, and other sorts of trivia. Every acting chart plus Picture and Director are update! Woooo
Thoughts? Comments? Feelings? Nonsense? Opinions? Do share. (Note: The final predictions full article will go up tomorrow but you can see a sneak peek of the predictions on the chart index.)
Okay fine, fine. You have to have your daily trivia don't you? As if the charts aren't enough!You're so greedy, sometimes, I swear. After the jump the six double winning actors who are two for two in that they won both times they were nominated, never losing an official Oscar race. (Obviously they lost out on nominations over the years but that's a different thing and everyone does. Even Streep)
General Linkage i09Mad Mad Fury Road meets Pixar's Cars AV Club ignoring that nobody on god's green earth could possibly want to relive the election fiasco of 2016, Megan Ellison and Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty) are developing a miniseries about it right now. Too soon. Interview Mag there's going to be a biopic of Sammy Davis Jr. They have casting suggestions including Elijah Kelley as Sammy and Delroy Lindo as his father Cinesnark has an ode to Keanu Reeves, calling him 'the last great movie star.' I personally think the demise of the movie star is a myth (that's been being told my entire lifetime... and yet my lifetime has had plenty of new movie stars in it) but I tend to like pieces like this anyway because worshipping movie stars is fun The New Yorker looks at the silent film Different From Others, reportedly the first gay romantic drama on film
MNPP Tom Cullen has been at the gym and has a movie coming out co-starring his love Tatiana Maslany Screen Crush Ben Affleck rumored to want out of the Batman game. I mean... he does look miserable doing it, so why not? Batman is the star not the actor playing him anyway. Notice how many faces he's already worn since 1989 and he's still just as popular Tracking Board Mahershala Ali is joining Channing Tatum and Tom Hardy for a new crime drama called Triple Frontier
Oscar Stuff Feinberg Forecast Feinberg is predicting 10 Oscars for La La Land, losing only 3 categories Variety on the backlash to La La Land and why "exuberance" matters. I co-sign this post. I hate when films are deemed "not important enough" as that leads to comedies and family films and adventures and romances and all sorts of genres that produce classics being regularly overlooked at the Oscars Write Out of LA is, on the other side, all in for the La La Land backlash Variety Netflix sharing Ava DuVernay's with classrooms, community groups, and book clubs VarietyMoonlight took the USC Scripter prize for adapted screenplay Indie Wire Anne Thompson says Moonlight is "guaranteed" one Oscar win. Guaranteed feels like too strong a word for me when both of its potential wins (Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor) have to face off against a surging Lion which took both of those categories at the BAFTAs ... oh and BAFTA wins and gowns in case you missed those posts here!
In Case You Missed It Denzel Washington gave an inspiring speech at the NAACP Image Awards. I'm still torn as to whether he'll pull off a third Oscar win for Fences but I'm rooting for it, since it can't be Viggo!
OSCAR VOTING HAS NOW OFFICIALLY BEGUN! The Academy now has just eight days to make the tough choices like Denzel vs Casey, La La Land versus everything else for the craft prizes, The Salesman vs Toni Erdmann (all of which were just discussed on the podcast), Mahershala vs Dev, and so on.
I am not a superstitious person. It annoys me that 13th floors do not exist in buildings. I have walked under ladders if it was the quicket path to get somewhere. I welcome black cats crossing my path because I love cats of all colors. But let's play along with the #13 being unlucky for the purposes of today's Oscar countdown.
Answer me these questions three...
• What is the worst possible outcome for Oscar night that you actually fear? • Who do you think has been unluckiest with Oscar over the years? • If one of the nominees accidentally breaks a mirror on Oscar night and gets seven years of bad luck who would you have it be?
Monday, April 10, 2017 at 12:32AM 
Owen Wilson poses with a life size McQueen for "Cars 3"
