Trivia

For the films of 2018
Mister Tee
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Re: Trivia

Post by Mister Tee »

Uri wrote:Mahershala Ali is the first actor in 26 years, and the fifth over all, to win twice for performances featured in best picture winners. He joins Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson and Gene Hackman in this very respectable club. He is the first "person of color", i.e. black, actor to do so. Obviously, no actress has ever managed to achieve this.
I only just saw this, very late obviously, but two things strike me about this:

1) It's remarkable for Ali to join this list since, both times, his film was not the best picture favorite going in

and

2) (probably related): he's the only one whose director failed to win along with him either time (Brando had just one director fall short)
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Re: Trivia

Post by Mister Tee »

Another oddball view of the facts, one that my particular chronological exposure to the Oscars may make more obvious.

I first watched the Oscars at the 1962 show, and became my obsessed self about the time of the 1965-66 awards. In those first five years, I saw David Lean, Robert Wise and Fred Zinnemann win second Oscars for directing. This was not an unusual occurrence at that time. In the 39 years of the Oscars though 1966, 30 of the 39 directing wins had been by people who won more than once (covering 13 directors, Capra and Wyler having won three times and Ford four). This compared to only 9 wins by one-timers. And even most of the one-timers had at least managed multiple nominations -- over that entire 39 year span, only four men (Norman Taurog, Victor Fleming, Delbert Mann and Tony Richardson) won on their sole shot.

But that tradition/history/whatever you call it came to a sudden stop, as if someone had drawn a red line, after 1966. Over the next 17 years, I watched 17 different people named best director. Many of them achieved multiple nominations over the period, and some, at least, seemed like they COULD have won more than once (Nichols, Coppola, Allen), but the fact is, no one did. Also, during that stretch, more people won on their one-and-only nomination than had in that earlier, twice-as-long period: Franklin Schaffner, John G. Avildsen, Michael Cimino, Richard Attenborough and James L. Brooks (it pains me to include Brooks with these lesser lights, since he was expected to be -- and should have been -- a second-time nominee for Broadcast News, but stats are stats).

And then, the tide shifted again. Milos Forman -- whose first win had come in the middle of that 17-year stretch -- broke the streak by winning his second for Amadeus (the fact that four of that year's five directing nominees were former winners had made a repeat a statistical likelihood). And since then, multiple winners have once again become a regular thing: Oliver Stone, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, Alejandro G. Innaritu, and, now, Alfonso Cuaron, have all won twice in the 34 years since Forman's second win. One-and-done syndrome also appears to have waned some -- between 1983 and 2007, only five people have achieved that distinction: Kevin Costner, Jonathan Demme, Robert Zemeckis, Anthony Minghella and Sam Mendes. (I cut off after 2007 because it's too recent, and we're too early in some directors' careers to know if they might repeat. It's easy to imagine Boyle, Bigelow and Chazelle, minimally, making return appearances. Not to mention Mendes. Remember: even Mel Gibson got a years-later second nomination.)

I don't know that all this means anything, but it's a statistical anomaly that caught my eye.
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Re: Trivia

Post by HarryGoldfarb »

HarryGoldfarb wrote:Mahershala Ali stars in both Best Picture and Best Animated Picture winners... I haven’t thought this through but is this is a first?

Answering this to myself...

Unless I’m not getting anyone, had La La Land won Best Picture, J. K. Simmons would have been the first to achieve this, as he appeared also in Zootopia.
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Mister Tee
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Re: Trivia

Post by Mister Tee »

Another interesting tidbit: between 1953 and 2014 -- 62 years of awards -- best picture/best director/best editing went to three different films exactly once: 1981's Chariots of Fire/Reds/Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In the four years since, the three-way split has happened THREE times: Spotlight/The Revenant/Mad Max: Fury Road, Moonlight/La La Land/Hacksaw Ridge, and now Green Book/Roma/Bohemian Rhapsody.

Granted, a lot of the reason for that coherence during the 62-year period was the fact that film and director matched up 51 of the 62 years. But 1) 27 times, the film/director matches also won editing and 2) I still find it remarkable that in the "missing" 11 years, editing matched one of the two top categories every time but once -- and they split down the middle between film (1956, 1967, 2002, 2005, 2012) and director (1972, 1989, 1998, 2000, 2013).
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Re: Trivia

Post by HarryGoldfarb »

Mahershala Ali stars in both Best Picture and Best Animated Picture winners... I haven’t thought this through but is this is a first?
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Re: Trivia

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote: I think this means a lot. I was aware of the huge number of Picture/Director splits but for whatever reason I wasn't aware of the Cinematography connection until this evening. From here on out, whenever a film is going to win Best Director and Cinematography, I am absolutely not picking it for Best Picture. Or, I'm going to ask myself "Honestly, can voters connect to this film emotionally?" If the answer is no, then it's not winning.
You might not want to be too doctrinaire about this. It's very possible The Shape of Water was extremely close to winning cinematography; it certainly would have been had Blade Runner 2049 not existed. Of course, maybe your later sentence would have pushed you the right direction there.

This, too, is less in the nature of trivia and more "what can we learn from this year's results?", but:

The fact that it was Green Book, not the bandied-about Black Panther or Bohemian Rhapsody, that won best picture, should tell us that we don't need to throw the entire rule-book out the window. Films that fail to be nominated in either directing or screenplay still don't have much chance at the top award, even in a year when things seem all over the place.

And, based on the small sample we've seen in the expanded-field era: 1) you really need a directing or screenplay win to be in play for best picture and 2) not having a screenplay nomination is more fatal right now (to Gravity and The Revenant) than not having a directing nod (Argo and Green Book both having managed a win).
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Re: Trivia

Post by Sabin »

dws1982 wrote
Also, not really a record per se, but something worth noting, especially as we make predictions and analysis in the upcoming years: Cinematography and Director went to Roma, which of course did not end up winning Best Picture. As Picture/Director splits have become common, Director and Cinematography, especially in these split years, have become more closely linked. Post-expansion, we've since Picture/Director splits in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2018. Every year that Picture and Director have split, Cinematography has gone to the film that won Director. Of films that won Best Picture and Director, Birdman is the only one to win Cinematography. (All movies that won Picture and Director in this period have been nominated for Cinematography; of movies that won Picture but not Director, only Moonlight was nominated for Cinematography.) Not sure that it means a lot, but it's something I'll be keeping an eye on in upcoming years.
I think this means a lot. I was aware of the huge number of Picture/Director splits but for whatever reason I wasn't aware of the Cinematography connection until this evening. From here on out, whenever a film is going to win Best Director and Cinematography, I am absolutely not picking it for Best Picture. Or, I'm going to ask myself "Honestly, can voters connect to this film emotionally?" If the answer is no, then it's not winning.

I also think it's interesting that four of these Best Picture winners hit three Oscars, the new magic number. Argo, 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, and Green Book all picked up Oscars for two of the follow three: supporting acting, writing, or film editing.
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Re: Trivia

Post by Reza »

Mister Tee wrote:You're exaggerating Three Coins' Billboard success by a massive amount:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_B ... es_of_1954

The song may well have stayed in the top 10 or 20 for 18 weeks, but it only hit number one for a single week (and that on just one of the three charts -- this being before Billboard had a unified Hot 100).
You are right. I re-checked my source and it stayed on the charts for 18 weeks but only for one week at # 1. Sorry misread it.
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Re: Trivia

Post by Big Magilla »

Interesting. Films in Review has a website but it doesn't have much on it. Its archives are only archives of articles written for the site, not the magazine.

It's been decades since I've read the magazine. Were their predictions based on insider information or their own assessments?

The New York Times pre-Oscar article on March 27, 1955, the Sunday before the awards which were given out on Wednesday, March 30, 1955 handicaps the top six categories only. They had the favorites down to two in all six categories - On the Waterfront and The Country Girl for Best Picture, Kazan and Seaton for Best Director, Brando and Crosby for Best Actor, Garland and Kelly for Best Actress, O'Brien and Tully for Supporting Actor and Saint and Foch for supporting actress.

Inside Oscar speaks to the sheet music push for all the Best Song nominees except The Man That Got Away which may have had some impact on the outcome. Three Coins in the Fountain was a major box-office success, the superior A Star Is Born was not, which also may have had something to do with it.

The big controversy that year was over the inclusion of the song from The High and the Mighty which was just a melody on the soundtrack. Lyrics were written and added to a single print shown in L.A. which qualified it for Oscar. Damien's only comment on the outcome of the race was that (Dimitri) Tiomkin's efforts to win for Best Song were in vain.
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Re: Trivia

Post by Mister Tee »

Reza wrote:
Mister Tee wrote:This stat could have been even more remarkable if The Man That Got Away had won in 1954 -- and all the histories tell us that song was the favorite, though upset by Three Coins in a Fountain.
You may need to check the history on this fact because "3 Coins in the Fountain" was a massive hit song in the United States and remained on the Billboard list at # 1 for 18 straight weeks during 1954. It was probably the front runner to win that year. The film was also a big success ($15m domestic gross compared to Star's domestic boxoffice of only $4 m - Garland's film tanked).

I think maybe Garland's song achieved its legendary status more as a musical sequence in the film itself instead of being popular as a song then. Later while singing it during her concerts down the years the song achieved that status too.
You're exaggerating Three Coins' Billboard success by a massive amount:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_B ... es_of_1954

The song may well have stayed in the top 10 or 20 for 18 weeks, but it only hit number one for a single week (and that on just one of the three charts -- this being before Billboard had a unified Hot 100).

But further: the success you cite -- for the song and the film (which was a best picture nominee) -- is undoubtedly the reason why it won in the end. But I read a lot of contemporaneous coverage of the Oscars at the library back in college -- notably Variety, and a periodical called Films in Review, which wrote a detailed Oscar play-by-play every year -- and I can tell you it was unanimous expectation that The Man That Got Away would win. It likely sprang from using the past (where musicals dominated the category) as guide, rather than seeing the pop-charts future. (A similar thing would happen two years later, when True Love, thought the favorite, was upset by Que Sera Sera, which seems like a no-brainer today.)

Also: every single winning song prior to Three Coins had been sung in the body of the film (High Noon was only on the soundtrack, but it was sung throughout). Three Coins was the first over-the-credits-only winner, and I can see why it was resisted as front-runner (even though the over-the-credits tune soon became a commonplace winner).
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Re: Trivia

Post by dws1982 »

I don't believe it's been mentioned, but a total of seven people won screenwriting awards the other night: Three for Green Book and four for BlacKkKlansman. This is largest number of winners we've had in these categories in the modern configuration of the screenplay categories. (I think there may have been seven or more in the old days of a story award.)

Also, not really a record per se, but something worth noting, especially as we make predictions and analysis in the upcoming years: Cinematography and Director went to Roma, which of course did not end up winning Best Picture. As Picture/Director splits have become common, DIrector and Cinematography, especially in these split years, have become more closely linked. Post-expansion, we've since Picture/Director splits in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2018. Every year that Picture and Director have split, Cinematography has gone to the film that won Director. Of films that won Best Picture and Director, Birdman is the only one to win Cinematography. (All movies that won Picture and Director in this period have been nominated for Cinematography; of movies that won Picture but not Director, only Moonlight was nominated for Cinematography.) Not sure that it means a lot, but it's something I'll be keeping an eye on in upcoming years.
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Re: Trivia

Post by Reza »

Mister Tee wrote:This stat could have been even more remarkable if The Man That Got Away had won in 1954 -- and all the histories tell us that song was the favorite, though upset by Three Coins in a Fountain.
You may need to check the history on this fact because "3 Coins in the Fountain" was a massive hit song in the United States and remained on the Billboard list at # 1 for 18 straight weeks during 1954. It was probably the front runner to win that year. The film was also a big success ($15m domestic gross compared to Star's domestic boxoffice of only $4 m - Garland's film tanked).

I think maybe Garland's song achieved its legendary status more as a musical sequence in the film itself instead of being popular as a song then. Later while singing it during her concerts down the years the song achieved that status too.
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Re: Trivia

Post by Mister Tee »

A couple of odd notes:

dws noted that Chazelle, in only three films, has now won in ten categories. Remarkably, this includes no repeats -- which could have easily happened, given that we expected La La Land to win sound and editing (which would have repeated Whiplash), and First Man was expected to compete for, at least, score. And, of course, La La Land for a moment appeared to have won an 11th category, while First Man could easily have won sound editing. It took Scorsese decades to cover that many categories; Chazelle has done it with a career barely out of the womb.

I haven't done the leg-work on this, but someone at another site noted that Regina King joins a very small group of actresses who've won with a non-best picture nominee against an entire rest-of-field representing best picture contenders. The others are Mary Astor (1941) and Margaret Rutherford (1963). In each case (this year included), one film accounted for multiple nominees in the category -- The Little Foxes, Tom Jones and now The Favourite.

A Star is Born becomes the first remake to win best song exactly as a predecessor did. (Mary Poppins Returns was eligible to do the same.) This stat could have been even more remarkable if The Man That Got Away had won in 1954 -- and all the histories tell us that song was the favorite, though upset by Three Coins in a Fountain.
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Re: Trivia

Post by Precious Doll »

Greg wrote:None of the acting winners has ever lost an acting nomination. Three won their first Oscars on their first nomination, and, the fourth won his second Oscar on his second nomination.
That is pretty rare. I went back to when the supporting awards were introduced and these are the only other times this has happened:

1955 - Borgnine, Magnani, Lemon, Van Fleet (two would go on to one or more nominations)
1961 - Schell, Loren, Charkiris, Moreno (two would go on to one or more nominations)
1984 - Abraham, Field, Ngor, Ashcroft (only Field would go on to one more nomination and she had already one a previous Oscar)
2005 - Hoffman, Witherspoon, Clooney, Weisz (all went on to one or more nominations)

1955, 1961 & 2005 are notable in that all the winners were first time nominees.

Since the four acting awards we have not had a single year in which some of the winners have not gone to to gain further nominations. Jack Lemon remains the only person do date in this group to go on to a second Oscar but of course Sally Field & Mahershala Ali already had won prior - making 1984 & 2018 unique as well.
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Re: Trivia

Post by Uri »

inky wrote: The Guardian has also hailed Rami Malek as the first Best Actor winner of Arab heritage.
Malek is of Coptic heritage. There is a debate whether the Copts are Arabs or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_identity
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