Editor Ruby here to talk about one of her favorite topics: The Oscars!

It’s Oscars weekend, folks! Do the Oscars “matter”? No, but do I have fun thinking about and watching them? Yes, and that’s what counts. Here’s some fun facts about this year’s Oscars, and the history of the awards.

This year’s awards have 16 first-time acting nominees, the oldest being Bill Nighy for “Living” and the youngest being Paul Mescal for “Aftersun.” Of the actors being nominated again, we have these fun facts, which I will turn into trivia questions.

Judd Hirsch, who absolutely stole “The Fabelmans,” broke the record for longest gap between first and second Oscar nominations. Can you name the actor whose record he broke? Hint: He won in 1982 for “On Golden Pond,” 41 years after his first nomination for “The Grapes of Wrath.”
What returning nominee, who was nominated for “Best Actress” in 1994, is the first person to get an acting nomination for appearing in a Marvel movie?
Cate Blanchett has been nominated for “Best Actress” five times, and each time played a titular character. Can you name all five of those movies which contain her characters’ names? Hint: Two of them are about the same character.
Michelle Williams is nominated for a fifth time, for her role in “The Fabelmans.” How many Oscars has she won?

If you like Oscars records, I cannot recommend the “List of Academy Award Records” Wikipedia page enough. The only new records entered with this year’s nominations, so far, are Judd Hirsch as mentioned above, and John Williams, who is now the oldest ever Oscar nominee at age 90, beating Agnès Varda, who had been nominated at age 89 for 2017’s “Faces Places.” Williams is just six nominations short of the record, held by Walt Disney with 59, for most nominations for a single person.

This great list of Oscars facts about this year mentions that the titular donkey in “EO” was played by six different real life donkeys. It’s too bad for them the movie wasn’t made in the era of the PATSYs, an animal-focused acting award given out from 1951 to 1986. This spirit is carried on by the Cannes Film Festival’s Palm Dog Award, which, as I believe I’ve complained in this newsletter before, should be called the Palme D’og. But that award is only for dogs, so none of the “EO” donkeys or cinema’s hottest donkey, Jenny from “The Banshees of Inisherin,” would qualify. Speaking of Jenny, she’s being kept in a secret location to prevent exploitation or annoying fans from overfeeding her.

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