It is that time of the year all the cinephiles in the world wait for. The Academy Awards! Two days ago, the nominations were out. And I have received my to watch list before D-Day. Last year I watched 8/9 of the nominated films in the Best Picture category. And with the help of a few colleagues, I was able to predict most of the wins right. Let’s see if I can do better this year.
But for now, it’s trivia time!
1. Till now, only three films were able to bag all 5 of the major awards known as the Big Five. Those being – It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
2. The only performers to win consecutive Academy Awards are Luise Rainer, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Jason Robards and Tom Hanks
4. While some people crave for a victory,
others decide not to attend the ceremony and receive the award themselves.
5. I keep talking about this a lot. But the shortest performance to win an Oscar for Best Actor is by
Anthony Hopkins of about 16 minutes.
6. There are several different stories why The Academy Award of Merit is called an Oscar. Well, check out
this weird explanation.
7. The trophy is a knight, holding a crusader’s sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes signifying the five original branches of the Academy (actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers).
9. Three actors have won Academy Awards for playing characters that utter not a single word throughout the entire film. Jane Wyman, Sir John Mills and Holly Hunter.
10. Chaplin’s film Limelight, made in 1952 had to wait for another 20 years after its first release for an award. At that time, to be eligible for the award, it had to be screened in Los Angeles.