Sunday, February 27, 2011

One final Oscar post: the 2011 Academy Awards by the numbers

I'm too bored with this year's Oscar probabilities to bother with predictions -- though I foresee an upset in Best Supporting Actress, and so, apparently, does frontrunner Melissa Leo, who continued to campaign rigorously even after most prognosticators declared her a lock to win. Instead I offer the following factoids for those who, like me, are obsessed with numbers and links and trying to restore some semblance of order to seeming chaos.

Or maybe I just have too much time on my hands.

5 Number of Best Actress nominees who are also nominated for the Best Female Lead Independent Spirt Award. A record?

3 Number of last year's Best Actor nominees who are nominated again this year. Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth are rivals again for their 2010 performances in, respectively, True Grit and The King's Speech, while Jeremy Renner has been demoted to the supporting race for The Town.

2 Number of movies in which Natalie Portman has appeared below the title that starred fellow Best Actress  nominees above the title: Cold Mountain (in which Nicole Kidman was second billed to Jude Law) and Mars Attacks! (featuring Annette Bening after Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close in the credits).

2 Number of Best Actor nominees -- Javier Bardem (Biutiful) and James Franco (127 Hours) -- who kissed Julia Roberts on the lips in Eat, Pray, Love, in which 2009 nominee Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) pecked her on the forehead, and Viola Davis (also a 2009 nominee, for Doubt) just offered moral support.

5 Number of Best Actor and Best Actress nominees who were not yet born when Jeff Bridges received his first Oscar nomination for 1971's The Last Picture Show.

4 Number of Best Actress nominees whose leading men (or ladies) were snubbed. The snubbed: Rabbit Hole's Aaron Eckhart, Blue Valentine's Ryan Gosling, The Kids Are All Right's Julianne Moore, Black Swan's Mila Kunis.

3 Number of Best Actress nominees who've had kids with Oscar-nominated actors.

3 Number of Best Actor nominees who played real men (Colin Firth = King George VI, James Franco = Aron Ralston, Jesse Eisenberg = Mark Zuckerberg).

0 Number of Best Actress nominees whose characters existed off-screen. A record? No, but 2009 champ Kate Winslet (The Reader) aside, no winner since Million Dollar Baby's Hillary Swank in 2005 didn't play a real live woman.

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