Skandies: #11 (Patreon)

Picture: Ferrari (79/6)
Director: Trần Ang Hùng, The Taste of Things (79/8)
Actress: Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and One (74/9)
Actor: Nicolas Cage, Dream Scenario (83/9)
S. Actor: Luis Zahera, The Beasts (59/3)
S. Actress: Tilda Swinton, The Killer (83/9)
Screenplay: Andrew Kevin Walker, The Killer (63/6)
Scene: Five questions, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (62/6)

I somehow forgot to vote for this scene, glad to see it did fine without me. 

HISTORY: 

Trần placed 10th for Cyclo way back in 1996. Welcome back! 

Swinton, a previous Actress winner, extends her lead as the most beloved thesp in Skandie history, having now placed in the top 20 a whopping 19 times. (Nobody else has more than 15.) The complete previous rundown:

Cage was our first Best Actor (Leaving Las Vegas, 1995; Oscar-style voting) and has nearly won three additional times. He placed 5th for Face/Off (1997), 2nd for Adaptation (2002), 2nd again for The Bad Lieutenant—Port of Call: New Orleans (2009), 11th for Mandy (2018), and then 2nd yet again two years ago for Pig. Taylor and Zahera are new. 

Walker's best previous shot was Se7en, obviously, but that was the aforementioned Oscar-style inaugural year and he was not one of the five nominees. Almost certainly would have made the top 20, looks like he finished 13th in the initial voting round. Let's call it asterisked #13. 

So here's the shocker I alluded to earlier, when I noted that we'd be seeing a very major director improbably make their first Best Picture appearance. One person guessed that it'd be Wiseman, another Wenders. But no: Ferrari is the very first Michael Mann picture we've collectively honored (even though Mann has placed in Director at least four times over those same three decades). 1995 was the Skandies' inaugural year, but, again, Oscar-style, and Heat wasn't among the five nominees. The Insider placed 29th. Ali placed 30th. Collateral placed a distant 57th. Miami Vice came alarmingly close at #23. Believe it or not, Public Enemies is the one that juuuust missed at #21, was three points shy. And Blackhat, despite being terrible, was somehow #25. 

Bear in mind that Bilge Ebiri has been a Skandie voter this entire time. (Though I was surprised to find, upon checking, that he gave Miami Vice only 10 points. Turns out he went 10 across the board that year. Things might have been different had he been in a less egalitarian mood, as he was this year.)

Also Mann never having landed a film in Picture before is to me only marginally more remarkable than Soderbergh not having done so since 2000.