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Oscar Week: Didja Know? Fun Random Oscar Facts!!

Let’s have some fun today, with some random fun Oscar facts. These are just fun little tidbits you may or may not already know, but will take you on a fun little trip down Oscar Lane. Join us in our forums HERE and tell us what you think!

Didja Know?

– The most Oscars awarded to any film were 11. There is a current three-way tie for that number; Ben Hur in 1959, Titanic in 1997 and The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King (which won in every category it was nominated for) in 2003.

– The most Oscars to any film that didn’t win Best Picture: Cabaret won 8 Oscars in 1972, but lost Best Picture to The Godfather.

– The only silent film to win Best Picture was Wings in 1927.

– The only X-rated film to win Best Picture was Midnight Cowboy in 1969.

– The shortest film to win Best Picture was Marty in 1955.

– The longest film to win Best Picture was Gone With The Wind in 1939, which had a running time of 234 minutes. (That’s 3 hours and 54 minutes!)

– The last movie in black and white to win Best Picture was Schindler’s List in 1993. Before that was The Apartment in 1960.

– The most Oscars to any actor was 3, to Walter Brennan (all Best Supporting Actor) and Jack Nicholson (2 Best Actor, 1 Best Supporting Actor).

– The most Oscars to any actress was 4, to Katherine Hepburn (all Best Actress).

– The youngest Best Actor winner was Adrien Brody, at age 29, for The Pianist in 2002.

– The youngest Best Actress winner was Marlee Matlin, at age 21, for Children Of A Lesser God in 1986.

– The oldest Best Actor winner was Henry Fonda, at age 76, for On Golden Pond in 1981.

– The oldest Best Actress winner was Jessica Tandy, at age 80, for Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.

– The only performers to be nominated for playing the same character in two different films was Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley in Going My Way in 1944 and The Bells of Saint Mary’s in 1945; Peter O’Toole as King Henry II in Becket in 1964 and The Lion In Winter in 1968; Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather in 1972 and The Godfather: Part II in 1974; Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler in 1961 and The Color Of Money in 1986; Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth in 1998 and Elizabeth: The Golden Age in 2007.

– The most nominations to any film was 14 for All About Eve in 1950 and Titanic in 1997.

– The most nominations to any individual was to Walt Disney, with 59 nominations.

– The only ties for major awards was for Best Actor in 1931 and that was between Wallace Beery in The Champ and Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as for Best Actress in 1968 between Katharine Hepburn in The Lion In Winter and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl.

– The Academy Awards have been postponed three times: in 1938 for one week due to floods, in 1968 for two days due to the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. and in 1981 for one day due to the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

– Peter O’Toole has been nominated 8 times for Best Actor and has lost all 8 times. He did receive an honorary Oscar in 2003 but check out what he was nominated for and who he lost to:
– 1962: O’Toole was nominated for Lawrence of Arabia but was beaten by Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird
– 1964: O’Toole was nominated for Becket but was beaten by Rex Harrison for My Fair Lady
– 1968: O’Toole was nominated for The Lion in Winter but was beaten by Cliff Robertson for Charly
– 1969: O’Toole was nominated for Goodbye, Mr. Chips but was beaten by John Wayne for True Grit
– 1972: O’Toole was nominated for The Ruling Class but was beaten by Marlon Brando for The Godfather who declined the award
– 1980: O’Toole was nominated for The Stunt Man but was beaten by Robert De Niro for Raging Bull
– 1982: O’Toole was nominated for My Favorite Year but was beaten by Ben Kingsley for Gandhi
– 2006: O’Toole was nominated for Venus but was beaten by Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland

Join us tomorrow for another edition of Oscar Didja Know! Leave us a comment below and let us know what you think!

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Oscar Week: Didja Know? How Did The Statuette Come About?

Welcome to another Didja Know? Oscar article! In today’s feature, we find out just how the statuette came about, what it’s made of and it’s journey throughout the years.

Didja know, the Oscar statuette is formally known as the Academy Award of Merit? It only got it’s famously known name of Oscar when Academy librarian Margaret Herrick remarked that it strongly resembled her uncle Oscar. Imagine being the person that the most prestigious award in cinema is named after!

Before the name of “Oscar” stuck, people had also referred to it as the golden trophy, the statue of merit and the iron man. However, Bette Davis could also have a claim on giving the award it’s famous nickname moniker. When she won her first award in 1936, she remarked that the statuette looked just like her ex-husband Harmon “Oscar” Nelson… especially it’s butt!

Despite popular belief, the statuette isn’t made of solid gold. It’s actually just gold-plated; and comprised of an alloy called Brittania, which is made of 93% tin, 5% antimony and 2% copper. During World War II there was a need to conserve metal for the war effort, and thusly the awards were actually made of plaster. After the war ended, winners were allowed to exchange them for the shinier statues.

Until the 1950’s, children winning Oscars were actually given mini-statuettes, and when ventriloquist Edgar Bergen won an honorary Oscar in 1938 along with his “dummy” Charlie McCarthy, he was presented with one made of wood, along with a moveable mouth!

In 1939, Walt Disney got an honorary Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. He was presented with one full sized Oscar and seven miniature Oscar statues! Didja know that Disney held the record for most nominations (48), wins (22) and honorary given (4)?

What do you think? Didja already know all this info? Have you joined in the Oscar conversation in the forum, and voted in our polls where you too can win a prize? If not, CLICK HERE to join, and leave us a comment below!

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Oscar Week: Didja Know?

Each day this week we’ll be featuring various factoids and tidbits about the Oscars. We found them interesting and thought you would too! So, for today’s feature, we wanted to talk about lost and/or missing Oscar statuettes. It’s happened more than you think, but I have say, if I ever one won, it would be locked up tighter than Fort Knox!

Over the years AMPAS (Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences) has put into place policies to prevent the Oscar from turning into a mere piece of commerce or movie memorabilia in order to keep to the credo that the only way to get an Oscar is to actually win it. The one exception is if it’s bequeathed to a friend or family member by the actual winner. Since 1950 there has been in place a “Winner’s Agreement”, which is a binding legal document that restricts all winners and their heirs from selling the Oscar statuette. There may be a few Oscars popping up for auction here and there, but AMPAS reports that they’re generally pre-1950 awards. However, the Oscar has found itself in some strange situations, so sit back, relax, and read on about 10 of the weirdest places Oscar has found himself in.

In 1996 Clark Gable’s Oscar for 1934’s It Happened One Night was purchased at auction for $607,500 by an anonymous bidder, anonymous for a short while anyway. Keeping to the tradition of not wanting the Oscar to end up in strange hands, this bidder turned out to be none other than Steven Spielberg who promptly donated this Oscar back to the Academy.

In 1940 Jimmy Stewart won an Oscar for The Philadelphia Story. After the ceremony, he gave it to his father, who displayed it in the front window of the family business J.M. Stewart & Co. Hardware. It stayed there for nearly 20 years.

F. Keogh Gleason worked as a set decorator at MGM for 40 years and ended up winning a total of four Oscars. In the 1980’s, three of those awards were eventually found in a West Hollywood pawnshop called “Elliott Salter Gives Instant Loans” (for his work on An American In Paris, Gigi and Somebody Up There Likes Me). From what the shop owner states, Gleason’s son Pat brought them in for some fast cash. He later came back and reclaimed them.

In 1938 Alice Brady won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in In Old Chicago. She was too ill with cancer to attend the actual ceremony, and when her name was read as the winner, a stranger bounded on stage to accept the award on her behalf. The kicker is that she didn’t know this person and her Oscar was never seen again. Sadly, the Academy wasn’t able to reissue her one in time before her eventual death from cancer.

“Who’s the black private dick, that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft, ya, damn right”. Remember that song? Isaac Hayes wrote and sang the theme to Shaft and won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1972. That award sits in the entrance to his Memphis restaurant “Music, Food and Passion”.

Shelley Winter’s 1959 Oscar (Best Supporting Actress, The Diary of Anne Frank) was bequeathed to the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam.

Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Ghost. Although she was reluctant to let it go, it was sent out for cleaning by the Academy to R.S. Owens of Chicago. UPS later told them that it was lost in transit. It was later found, of all places, in a trash bin at the Ontario, CA airport by a security guard and returned to Goldberg. She has said that she’s dropped plans to have it cleaned and it will never leave her house again.

Margaret O’Brien and Shirley Temple both received mini-Oscars for ‘Outstanding Child Actress’. O’Briens’ 1944 Oscar was reportedly stolen by the maid in 1954. The Academy replaced it with a full sized one, and nearly 40 years later at a Pasadena City College swap meet the original turned up! It was returned to O’Brien.

In 2006 William Hurt was moving between homes and reported his 1985 Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman stolen during the move. It was later found by the police in a ditch, but it was badly damaged. Hurt has yet to take the Academy up on their offer to have it repaired.

Nestor Almendros, an acclaimed Spanish Director of Photography, was nominated in 1979 for his work on Days of Thunder. Apparently, he didn’t want to go to the ceremony, thinking the other DP’s and films had a better chance of winning. Close friend Scotty Bowers pulled him into the car and they barely made it to the ceremony, just as the doors were being closed. Being grateful for his friends urging him to go, he bequeathed the Oscar to Bowers before his (Almendros) death due to complication of AIDS in 1992. Bowers, who is a caterer, states he keeps it in his home, loaning it out once in awhile for parties.

What do you think? Would you lock yours up if you won? Would you display it for all the world to see? Let us know below, and come join us in the Forum HERE to talk about all things Oscars! Don’t forget to vote in the Oscar polls too!

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Oscar Week: The History Of The Oscars

Welcome to YakkityYak’s Oscar Week! We have a whole bunch of fun things planned for the week so be sure to keep your eyes on the Yak! Also, be sure to head into our forum HERE during the week where we will be voting for what nominees we think should win, leading up to First Annual Yakkster Oscars to be handed out on Sunday, February 27th. (No need to register to vote!) PLUS, just to see who’s the best when it comes to actual Oscar predictions, we’ll have a “Predict The Actual Winner” contest, with a prize of course! To enter to win a prize, you must be registered in the forum. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER, then go vote!

We thought we would start out this week with the history of the Oscars and how the annual tradition got it’s start. It began with man named Louis B. Mayer, studio boss of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who conceived the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927. Initially, it was a non-profit corporation made to promote the art of movie making. The Academy had 36 members at it’s beginning, with Douglas Fairbanks Sr. acting as president. The very first Academy Awards were actually held out of the public eye; a private banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was held to hand out the awards on May 16th, 1929. Tickets to the event held in what is known as the “Blossom Room” cost just $5!

There was very little suspense, actually no suspense at all, during this first ceremony, as the winners were already announced three months prior to the event. The following year, however, the Academy decided to keep the results private, only releasing a list of the winners to various news publications to be released at 11:00pm the night of the awards. This practice worked for awhile, until 1940, when the LA Times broke protocol and published the winners in the evening edition, which nominees were able to read as they arrived at the event. Yikes! Thus, the sealed envelope system was born in 1941, which is still in use today.

Only 15 awards were handed out at the first awards ceremony, representing cinematic achievements for 1927 and 1928. Emil Jannings won the first Best Actor Oscar, and received the very first Oscar statuette, literally. Jannings put in a request to have it delivered to him early since he was unable to attend the ceremony; he needed to return to Europe before the event could begin. This first ceremony was the only one that didn’t have an audience, but the enthusiasm surrounding the event was so great that an L.A. radio station began having a special one hour broadcast. It has been broadcast via radio and TV ever since.

The awards themselves continued to be held as a banquet at the Biltmore or Ambassador Hotels until 1942, when increased attendance made it impractical. The Academy needed a change of scenery to accommodate the growing amount of guests, so the 16th Annual Academy Awards were held at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, marking the move to a theater ever since. The first televised Oscars occurred in 1953 allowing millions across the U.S. and Canada to take in this prestigious event. The first color broadcast occurred in 1966, and the first international broadcast in 1969!

There are a ton of little known facts and fascinating Oscar trivia which the Yak will be proudly presenting to you in the coming week, with “Oscar Didja Know?” daily articles, Nominee specific articles, and more! So, keep your browsers tuned into the Yak all week, and don’t forget to come over to the FORUM and vote in the Oscar polls. You just may win a prize!

Also, be sure to leave a comment below! Are you excited for the Oscars? Do you have Oscar parties? Who do you want to win?

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Legendary Composer John Barry, Dead at 77

Musical Composer John Barry, who wrote the scores for more than a dozen James Bond Films and won 5 Oscars, has died. He was 77.

Although his work on the Bond Films is his most famous work, the English-born composer wrote a long list of movie scores, including for “Midnight Cowboy,” “Dances with Wolves,” Cotton Club,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” and “Body Heat.” Barry was proud of his diversity in both action blockbusters, and the smaller, independent films.

He won two Oscars for “Born Free” in 1966, for best score and best song. He also earned statuettes for the scores to “The Lion in Winter” (1968), “Out of Africa” (1985) and “Dances with Wolves” (1990).

My all-time favorite however is not one of his most famous works, but I will admit to having it in my ‘classical’ playlist at home, from the film “Somewhere in Time.” (Yes, even this little rocker loves her classical music!) It is an elegant masterpiece that completely captured the emotions in this terrific movie.

[wpaudio url=”http://www.yakkityyaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/01-Somewhere-In-Time.mp3″ text=”John Barry – Somewhere In Time” dl=”0″ autoplay=”1″]

If you have not yet seen this little gem of a film, definitely do so. It’s an amazing piece of work, from the film to the music.

The Bond Films his most notable, he wrote music for “Goldfinger,” “From Russia with Love,” “Thunderball,” “You Only Live Twice,” “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” “Diamonds are Forever,” “The Man with the Golden Gun,” “Moonraker,” “Octopussy,” “A View to a Kill” and “The Living Daylights.”

Other films included “Robin and Marian,” “Somewhere in Time,” “The Cotton Club,” “Howard the Duck,” “Mary, Queen of Scots” and “Chaplin” in 1992.

Barry trained as a pianist, studied counterpoint with York cathedral organist Francis Jackson, and later took up the trumpet. He founded a jazz group, the John Barry Seven, in 1957.

The group teamed with singer Adam Faith, scoring hits with “What Do You Want?” and “Poor Me,” and Barry moved into film work when Faith was tapped to star in “Beat Girl” (titled “Living for Kicks” in the United States).

“The James Bond movies came because we were successful in the pop music world, with a couple of big instrumental hits. They thought I knew how to write instrumental hit music,” Barry said in an interview with The Associated Press in 1991.

In an interview in 2008 with The Irish Times, Barry said his success “was not that difficult.”

“If you hit the right formula, if you have an instinct for music, if you apply it, if you have the good fortune to meet with certain people who teach you well … I didn’t find it all that difficult,” he said.

R.I.P. John Barry. You were magical. I myself am looking forward to the Oscars paying tribute to this great man and his music.

He is survived by his wife Laurie, his four children and five grandchildren. A private funeral was planned, the family said.

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Harry Potter Loses his 3D

Harry Potter has lost it’s 3D, and no amount of magic is going to get it back, at least, according to his movie Headmaster Warner Bros.

Today, WB announced that it is scrapping it’s plan to release ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Part one 3D, and will only be releasing it in regular 2D and IMAX formats. WB said they weren’t able to convert the film in the “highest standards of quality” in time for the release, which is coming up next month, November 19, 2010.

Warner Bros. did say however that the second half of the finale of the films, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Part 2, will indeed open in 3D, 2D and IMAX formats, and is schedules to hit theaters on July 15, 2011.

Gonna watch? Looking forward to the movie? Let us know!

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Star Wars in 3D

What…?  Lucasfilm announced today that work is under way to convert the “Star Wars” saga to 3D.

Both sagas, that is six pictures, will get 3D make over and theatrical re-release starting with “Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” which is scheduled to return to theaters in 2012.

The exact release date has not been formally announced, but a Lucasfilm spokesperson said the movie will open wide and possibly worldwide.

Lucas wants to reintroduce the flicks to young Jedi audiences who have become accustomed to 3D and only know ‘Star Wars’ from the old home video.

Another source close to the project called the series “perfectly suited” for 3D and said “I expect this to be as much fun for people that have not experienced ‘Star Wars’ as it was for people who were there in 1977 staring at the screen with mouth agape.”

The time between re-releases has not yet been determined, as that will depend on how fast they can convert all six films to 3D.  Another source close to the project said, “that there are no plans to add or fix visual effects on the movies.”

I say whatever, why change a good thing, as there was nothing wrong with the first trilogy and everything wrong with the second.  Just leave it alone.

What do you think? Let us know here or in the FORUM.

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Precious: based on the novel Push by Sapphire

[singlepic id=173 w=240 h=320 float=left]In one word: wow.

The critics of this movie are all shining about Mo’Nique as the evil, selfish, lazy mother to Clareece (Precious) Jones; as well they should.

Mo’Nique is unrecognizable as the abusive mother of Precious, played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. You can barely associate her with the sassy/sexy/humorious comedienne that we’re all used to.

You want to throw her ignorant mother down a few flights of stairs after she just got done being chased around in a fish tank by a hungry, angry great white shark!  Yes, Mo’Nique makes you hate her. But it’s Mary, Precious’ mother, who you want to see burn on a stake while medievil prayers are chanted to save her soul. Mary’s very ignorance of life and need to “stay on the welfare” will have you saying “Oh no!” all throughout the film. When she plays nice for a visiting social worker, it’s quite humorous. Continue reading “Precious: based on the novel Push by Sapphire”

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Star Trek on DVD

[singlepic id=172 w=240 h=320 float=left]Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana & John Cho. They are only a part of the group that make 2009’s Star Trek a wonderful success. Everyone played their parts so well that, even though a couple of characters were obvious, you KNEW who the rest of them were.

Chris Pine is great as James T. Kirk: he has the flirtatiousness, arrogance and egotistical charm that William Shatner gave the character so many years ago.

Zachary Quinto is a perfect Spock:  he brings the seriousness, intelligence & stern need for duty that Leonard Nimoy brought to Spock’s character in the 60’s.

Zoe Saldana plays a very young, upbeat Uhura. Sexy, smart & energetic sides of Uhura that we rarely saw in Nichelle Nichols are portrayed as a playful, but serious Zoe as the communications specialist.

There’s nothing that’s cheesy about this movie; you don’t roll your eyes in your head at any lines and no uncomfortable moments with sexy scenes.  The humor is there, but only in the right moments.

I was grateful enough to see this movie at an IMAX theater, so it was no surprise that I’d invest in the DVD…even if buying it for my mother was a good excuse.

Continue reading “Star Trek on DVD”