15 03 2021
Just a few years ago, it seemed the Academy was in a tussle with Netflix – the young-buck streaming service determined to break its way into the age-old institution that is the Oscars. Now, the streamer has the most-nominated film at the 2021 Oscars with David Fincher’s
Mank – which bagged ten nods for the upcoming ceremony, leading the pack by a considerable margin. Fincher’s loving (but barbed) recreation of Hollywood’s Golden Age – and the story behind
Citizen Kane – was always going to play into the Academy’s soft-spot of ‘movies about movies’, and it impressed across a range of major headlining categories and in the more technical arenas.
Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson Make History With Ma Rainey s Black Bottom Oscars Nominations
David Lee / Netflix
For their work on
Ma Rainey s Black Bottom, Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson became the first Black women to be Oscar nominated in the makeup and hairstyling category.
Neal was the film s hair and wig designer and hair department head, and Wilson is the personal hair stylist for Viola Davis. Sharing the nomination with these women is Davis personal make-up artist and first-time nominee, Sergio Lopez-Rivera. Netflix s
Ma Rainey s Black Bottom, based on August Wilson s play of the same name, follows the titular blues singer (Davis) during a recording session in 1920s Chicago.
Rocks, and
The Father lead this year’s nominations, with two women Chloé Zhao and Sarah Gavron nabbing seven nominations each. Four women total earned nods for directing compared to last year’s all-male directing nominees, and in a reversal from last year’s entirely white acting nominees, 16 of 2021 s 24 nominated actors are from underrepresented groups.
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Deadline, the changes come as the result of a seven-month review process (HFPA better be taking some copious notes), in which the organization evaluated its procedures and implemented some changes, “including the introduction of a long-list system in a bid to increase viewership of all the submitted films, and increasing all four acting categories and the best director category to six nominees.” A total of 50 films (up from last year’s 39) were nominated this year, and the changes additionally resulted in more first-time nominees than ever before: Four of the six directors nominated, as well as 21 of th
Share That video was amazing, it kicked me in the gut. I didn t expect it to, he said, before admitting to feeling emotional.
In addition to thanking the HCA, he spotlighted the people who have really done right by him, even when he didn t have a place to live as well as the friends who he has known and grown with.
Trailblazer Award: Ahead of the 48-year-old actor superstar s acceptance speech, the virtual ceremony paid homage to his legendary career and extensive charity work
Reciting an old adage, the Ballers star reminded listeners: People will never forget how you make them feel.