Lionel Ritchie has an Oscar for “Say You, Say Me” from the movie White Knights.
You maybe remember Grant Heslov in TRUE LIES: there’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, and there’s Tom Arnold, and there’s — the actor playing the junior agent? New guy on the team? Goes undercover as a newsman to shoot some bad guys? Says a terrorist they’re hunting calls himself The Sand Spider, gets asked why by Charlton Heston, and replies: “Probably because it sounds scary”…?
Yeah, he’s got an Oscar.
As I’m watching Watchmen on HBO, I’m reminded that Trent Reznor (Of Nine in Nails fame) has an Oscar for his soundtrack to The Social Network.
Never would have predicted that in the 90s
Look out, someday Nine inch Nails will get to be elevated into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame…
That wouldn’t surprise 90s me. NIN is a very popular and influential band who do rock and roll…it makes sense they’ll go to the HoF. But having the lead guy score movies? Not create a hit song for a movie that matches super well and winning for that (ala Eminem or Tech 9ine) but actually scoring the movie like a composer? Crazy.
Ditto David Byrne of Talking Heads, Oscar-winner for the score for THE LAST EMPEROR.
The film takes place in northern-most Russia, where the sun doesn’t set for half the year. So it’s WHITE NIGHTS (no K).
It’d be a bit harder to come up with a surprising acting win, I’d think. I don’t mean ones that people bitch about, like Marisa Tomei; that’s not surprising because everyone complains about it.
I don’t think a lot of people would know Goldie Hawn is an Oscar-winning actress, but she is.
It’d be easier to make a nominations list on this one. Oprah and Lady Gaga come to mind.
Not a person, but the movie * Bill and Coo* won a special honorary Oscar I 1948. It’s a movie starring birds, with no people in it. Really. And it’s not a documentary:
Willis O’Brien, who did the effects for King Kong, did not receive an Oscar for that film, despite that film’s impact. There was no Oscar for effects in 1933. (King Kong got no Oscars that year in any category. Cavalcade won for Best Picture. Goldner and Turner, in their book The Making of King Kong (1976) title one of their chapters “Remember Cavalcade?”, clearly miffed. But that film had standing to justify that choice. It’s based on a Noel Coward play, and was the second most popular film of the year and the top grossing film. Kong wasn’t even in the top ten (although, with re-releases in subsequent years, it beat all of them.)
O’Brien received his Oscar in 1950 for work on Mighty Joe Young.
Similarly, Ray Harryhausen, stop-motion VFX legend, never received an Oscar nomination his entire career (and all his films were eligible, but were rarely prestige projects at major studios). He received the Gordon E. Sawyer award–the Honorary Oscar given by the Scientific and Technical branches of AMPAS.
Another winner of the Gordon E. Sawyer was Douglas Trumbull, VFX genius behind Blade Runner, Close Encounters and the first Star Trek film–all nominations he lost. He actually had a rightful claim to the VFX Oscar that 2001: A Space Odyssey won, since it’s not uncommon for Special Effects supervisors to share credit now, but back then director Stanley Kubrick was listed as the VFX “designer”, so he was the only one cited for the Oscar (which would be Stanley’s only Academy win). Starting in the 70s, all VFX winners have been multiple individuals collaborating on a film.
Casey Affleck. How he has an Oscar and Denzel Washington doesn’t is one of the great mysteries of the universe. He is a totally unremarkable actor, and “Manchester by the Sea” did absolutely nothing for me.
Denzel Washington has 2 Oscars–one for Lead and one for Supporting Actor.
I believe Casey Affleck also has claims of harassment against him. And I was beaten to the punch to point out Denzel Washington has 2 Oscars, not zero.
I’m trying to think who is the top movie talent without an Oscar. I can’t think of too much now. Used to be Gary Oldman and Martin Scorcese. No more, though.
Tom Cruise? Say what you will about him, and he’s stopped trying for the most part, but he’s still a good actor who has been in a lot of dramatic, Oscar-winning movies
I thought about that and I think he missed it with Magnolia. And, yes, I think after Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut, he kind of just went all in on making big movies. He’s a great picker and rarely makes a terrible movie. I think he is unlikely to get an acting Oscar, but perhaps he produces some of the movies and can land a Oscar there?
Amy Adams? 6 nominations, no wins. She wasn’t even nominated for Arrival, which is just bizarre.
Interestingly, looks like Joaquin Phoenix is the guy to beat for Best Actor, in a role that’s nothing like his Oscar-nominated performance as Johnny Cash, which was nothing like his Oscar-nominated performance as the Emperor in Gladiator.
Glenn Close has her beat with seven nominations. She was favored to win for The Wife a couple of years ago, but didn’t.