I’ve lived in California since 1999. I don’t remeber the Oscars ever not being live. I’ve always sat down in front of the T.V. late afternoon. In fact, I remember one year I had forgotten it was Oscar day. I was in a sheet music store mid-afternoon, and the owner was closing early that day and was getting very upset with me taking my time. He didn’t say anything about why he was closing so early but I figured it out and I myself went home to watch on T.V.
With Ben Affleck winning for Best Picture[sup]*[/sup] and previously for Best Original Screenplay, and still the potential to win for acting and directing, I was curious who had won Oscars in the most different categories. Typing “who has won oscars in the most different categories”, the first result is a SDMB thread.
Walt Disney had Wins in the following categories:
[ul]
[li]Best Short Subject (Cartoon)[/li][li]Best Short Subject (Two-Reel)[/li][li]Best Documentary (Feature)[/li][li]Best Documentary (Short Subject)[/li][li]Best Short Subject (Live Action)[/li][/ul]
*For the purpose of tallying up records, Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) and Best Short Subject (Live Action) could justly be counted as one category. The Live Action Short award as we now know it used to be split into Best Short Subject (One-Reel) and Best Short Subject (Two-Reel). So, Walt has 4 category wins by my count.
The record for nominations referred to in the interview was 6.
Walt Disney also had one nomination for Best Picture, which by my tally brings his total to 5- so they must be counting Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) and Best Short Subject (Live Action) separately in order to bring Walt up to 6.
Clooney’s 6 are:
[ul]
[li]Best Picture (Win)[/li][li]Best Supporting Actor (Win)[/li][li]Best Actor[/li][li]Best Director[/li][li]Best Adapted Screenplay[/li][li]Best Original Screenplay[/li][/ul]
As to the question of most different category WINS, I’m not prepared to answer that yet. If 6 is the record for nominations, and if we count Walt Disney at 5 category wins rather than 4, then I’m sure he has the record. The only other possibility is another person with 5 category nominations that actually won in all 5 categories. If we count Walt only at 4, then there’s a possibility that there’s a 5 out there who has him beat.
The previous thread is here (from 2004), and Walt Disney seems to be considered the leader there, too. The changes in categories make a direct comparison tricky, though. Also worth mentioning are Francis Ford Coppola (Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay (The Godfather: Part 2) Original Screenplay[sup]*[/sup] (Patton)) and Billy Wilder (Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (The Apartment)). Wilder also won “Best Writing, Story and Screenplay” for Sunset Blvd., but that appears to be analogous to the Original Screenplay category.
Strictly speaking “Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced”.
No, he’s tied at five with a few other people (although Kenneth Branagh is the only one I can think of off the top of my head). Clooney broke the record this year with his Best Picture nomination, his sixth category.
I thought Seth was fine. His monologue / opening skit was a little edgy (We saw your boobs!) but overall I thought he was appropriately respectful of the show.
I loved the return to more song-and-dancing which had been trimmed back in recent years. Seth has a great voice (he released an album of standards last year), and I liked hearing the familiar music from Chicago, Dreamgirls, Les Miz, and the Bond movies. Some of the sound mixing was off, though, and though Shirely Bassey is cool as hell she doesn’t have the pipes she used to.
It seemed like there were a lot of minor- to middling upsets. J-Law over Riva was the biggest surprise, but I have no beef with that. I love Walz but I really don’t think he deserved it this time - it should have gone to DeNiro IMO. Wreck-it Ralph also deserved the win.
Did not like Jennifer L’s big dress. Too much neck too, I think. But I didn’t see any spectacularly enduring wardrobe choices this year.
The Sound of Music joke made me laugh harder than anything else I’ve seen on TV in a long time. I don’t know why but it made me so tickled.
What, what’d I say?
I know very little of the politics behind Oscar voting, but all I kept hearing after the noms were announced was that there’s no way Lincoln won’t win. Argo’s Golden Globe was a big surprise, and then suddenly Lincoln wasn’t such a lock anymore.
Not that I’m terribly upset over the outcome, I just don’t know why everybody was so wrong initially, and why Argo rose up over the early favorite.
