What does a fresh list of winners bring? Why... New TRIVIA of course!
Do you think Patty Arquette has seen SAVAGE GRACE?
picture birdman director alejandro gonzález iñárritu, birdman actress julianne moore, still alice actor eddie redmayne, theory of everything supporting actress patricia arquette, boyhood supporting actor j.k. simmons, whiplash original screenplay birdman adapted screenplay imitation game foreign film ida animated feature big hero 6 documentary feature citizenfour cinematography birdman editing whiplash production design grand budapest hotel costume design grand budapest hotel makeup and hair grand budapest hotel visual effects interstellar score grand budapest hotel song "glory" selma sound mixing whiplash sound editing american sniper live action short the phone call documentary short crisis hotline animated short feast ...I forgot to ask all of you how you did on your predictions? I did decent but not spectacular 18/24 (but i heard from a few readers who said I helped them win their office pool so there's that) but the short film categories messing me up as usual grrrr
After the jump, there's lots of trivia brought on by the 87th batch. If you have a really good one I forgot, I can always update the post so please to enjoy and comment...
• Poland was once tied for "The Most Nominated Country Never To Have Won the Foreign Language Film Oscar". Now they must give up that title since Ida triumphed Sunday night on Poland's 10th try. Israel which also has ten nominations, now regains the title all to itself. Ida is the first black and white film to win in the category since the 1960s. A Man and a Woman (1966) was partially in black and white and before that, of course, black and white was fairly common.
• All four acting winners played Academics which is a first (thanks to Luiserghio in the comments for that one!)
• Julianne Moore is only the second woman in her fifties to ever win Best Actress. The first was Shirley Booth for Come Back Little Sheba (1952). They were both 54 years old when it happened.
• Julianne Moore is the 10th oldest woman to win Best Actress, Booth the 9th (as she was closer to 55). The most common exact age to win Best Actress is 29 years old (8 women). 33 is the second most common age (6 women). 70% of best actress statues are won between the ages of 26 and 41
• Eddie Redmayne is the 8th youngest Best Actor winner at 33. Just a couple of months older than Daniel Day Lewis was for My Left Foot (the 7th youngest) which was also, coincidentally, a biopic about a disabled best-selling writer. There is no most common age to win Best Actor. It's fairly evenly spread out with 70% of best actor statues are won between the ages of 36 and 53.
• This is the first time ever that the Best Actress & Best Actor winners are a pair that previously played mother and son.
Julianne Moore & Eddie Redmayne in Savage Grace (lucky Hugh Dancy is between them)
...though they are definitely not the first Best Actress and Best Actor pair to have had a sex scene together ;)
• Boyhood is the only presumed early frontrunner that I can recall to win only 1 Oscar (anyone else?). Other early leaders in the past couple of decades that ran out of steam in the last leg of the race -- Bugsy (2 Oscars), Brokeback Mountain (3 Oscars), Lincoln (2 Oscars), The Aviator (5 Oscars), Saving Private Ryan (5 Oscars) and The Social Network (3 Oscars) -- all did better on Oscar night.
• Birdman is the first comedy to win the Oscar for Best Picture without first winning Best Comedy at the Globes (Grand Budapest Hotel won) since Annie Hall (1977) which lost to The Goodbye Girl. The only other time it happened was The Sting (1973) which the Golden Globes did not even nominate. (Note: This stat does not include movies before the Golden Globes began in the 1950s)
• Birdman is only the tenth movie ever (since the Editing Oscar was invented) to win Best Picture without having an Editing nomination. It used to happen more frequently but the last time was Ordinary People (1980).
• Alejandro González Iñárritu is the 5th consecutive director to win who was born outside of the US (after Cuaron, Lee, Hazanavicius, Hooper) and the second consecutive Mexican. So the US directors really need to make a comeback. The last director from the United States to win was California born Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker who, funnily enough, if she had lost it would have been to her ex-husband who is also not from the US (James Cameron is Canadian) which would have made AGI the 7th consecutive.
• Batting 1000. All five of Iñárritu's films thus far have received at least one Oscar nomination from Amores Perros to Birdman and his sixth, The Revenant, seems as likely as anything to continue the streak. Especially with nomination magnet Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. I *think* this 5/5 is a record...at least in contemporary cinema... but I'm not sure. Anyone? Other filmmakers/studios this season with perfect-ish Oscar records? Bennett Miller's narrative features have all been nominated for either Picture or Director (Capote, Foxcatcher, Moneyball). Laika, the animation studio, is also at 100% with their three features though they're still waiting for a first win. The Norwegian-Canadian Oscar winner Torril Kove has been nominated for all of her short films, Me and My Moulton being her third, though she lost this year's animated short contest to Feast.
• Milena Canonero, who won her 4th Oscar Sunday for Costume Design (Grand Budapest Hotel) at the age of 68 has the longest spread of nominations for any costume designer with 39 years between her first nomination (Barry Lyndon, she won) and her most recent (Grand Budapest Hotel, she won), yes even trumping Edith Head. Edith Head's stretch of Oscar nominations runs from 1948 (Emperor Waltz, she lost) through 1977 (Airport 77, she lost). This puts Canonero one Oscar ahead of contemporary cinema's reigning dueling queens Sandy Powell (3 wins / 10 noms) and Colleen Atwood (3 wins / 11 noms) and into the top three ever.
Oscar's All Time Favorite Costume Designers
1. Edith Head (8 wins / 35 nominations. Oscar record from 1948-1977)
2. Irene Sharaff (5 wins / 15 nominations *in this category*. Oscar record from 1951-1977)
3. Milena Canonero (4 wins / 9 nominations. Oscar record from 1975-2014)
It's worth noting that both Sharaff and Head had the advantage of working in a time frame when there were two costume categories (black and white & color).
• To quote Jessica Chastain... "Chivoooooooo" The Mexican DP Emmanuel Lubezki is the 4th cinematographer to win consecutive Oscars (Gravity/Birdman). The previous men were Leon Shamroy (Wilson / Leave Her to Heaven) and Winton Hoch (Joan of Arc / She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) in the 1940s and John Toll (Legends of the Fall / Braveheart ) in the 1990s
• Patricia Arquette is now unquestionably the most lauded member of the Arquette family, which has multiple generations of actors. She's the first Emmy, Globe, SAG & Oscar winner among them though it's worth noting that Rosanna, previously the most celebrated with her heyday in the 1980s, has Emmy & Globe nominations as well as a BAFTA win to match Patty's (mostly from different performances, unlike Patty whose prizes mostly came from Boyhood). No word yet on whether this acting dynasty will continue. Patricia, Rosanna, and David had a kid or two (Richmond and Alexis did not) so we'll see.
• The losses of How To Train Your Dragon 2 and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in animated feature and visual effects respectively, remind us that Oscar has never been crazy about sequels. The only two sequels that have won Best Picture are The Godfather Part 2 (1974) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
• For the first time since the expansion of the Best Picture field every single Best Picture nominee went home with an Oscar. In the non-specialized categories (i.e. everything a traditional live action feature can be nominated for) which number 18 categories only two films without Best Picture nominations won anything: Interstellar & Still Alice. Since the expansion of the Best Picture race, it's been four or less. To date: 2013 (3 films - Blue Jasmine, Frozen, The Great Gatsby); 2012 (2 films - Skyfall, Anna Karenina); 2011 (4 films - The Iron Lady, Beginners, The Muppets, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo); 2010 (2 films - Alice in Wonderland, Wolfman); 2009 (3 films - Crazy Heart, Star Trek, The Young Victoria)