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New Horror Movie Breaks All-Time Oscar Nomination Record, Poised To Dethrone Lord Of The Rings

By Jennifer Asencio
| Published

The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards have been announced, and Ryan Coogler’s historical vampire drama Sinners has been nominated for 16 Oscars. This breaks the record for most nominations in a single year. The previous record, shared by the 1950 film All About Eve, 1997’s Titanic, and La-LaLand in 2016, was 14.

What is specifically historic about these nominations isn’t just that Sinners earned so many, but that the movie is black-led and black-made. Coogler, who is known for writing and directing Creed and both of MCU’s Black Panther movies, was honored with nominations for writing, directing, and producing Sinners. Michael B. Jordan earned a Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of brothers Smoke and Stack. Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku were nominated for best supporting performer in their respective categories.

Sinners also received all the technical nods, like Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound. The hair, makeup, and costumes also garnered nominations, with the costume designer, Ruth E. Carter, earning her fifth nomination for the work. She is black, as is production designer Hannah Beachler; Beachler is the only black woman recognized for her work, earning a second nomination for Sinners.

The soundtrack also received nominations for both its entirety and for Best Song, “Lie to Me.” The movie is about two Depression-era brothers who return to their Mississippi home to open a blues joint, only to find themselves the targets of vampires. Within its subtext are themes about racism in the Jim Crow South, using vampires to stand in for forces operating against black people during the era. Jazz music is an integral part of the atmosphere, thrusting music and the soundtrack into the center of attention.

With so many nominations, Sinners is poised to challenge Ben Hur, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for Oscar superiority. These three films are tied for most wins with 11 apiece.

The cast of Sinners

However, La La Land and All About Eve failed to convert their record-breaking nominations into wins, taking home only six each. Nominations aren’t the same as wins. However, they do draw their own prestige because they are recognized by the industry’s assessment of a movie’s excellence, even when the movie doesn’t get the award.

Sinners is up against a roster of competitive films this year, including Bugonia, One Battle After Another, F1, Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent, Train Dreams, and Sentimental Value. The Academy has been busy this year, and Sinners isn’t the only record that they’ve set.

Bugonia also broke a record this year by making Emma Stone the youngest actress, at 37, to receive nominations in the same year for acting and producing more than once; Stone also received nominations in both categories for Poor Things.

Emma Stone in Bugonia

Marty Supreme made lead actor Timothee Chalamet the youngest actor to receive three nominations for Best Actor. His other nominations were for Call Me By Your Name and A Complete Unknown.

Voting on the Oscars will take place between February 26 and March 5. Industry insiders will sift through all the nominees and announce their decisions at the 98th Academy Awards on March 15, 2026, on ABC, hosted by Conan O’Brien.


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Microsoft Office 2024 for Mac and PC gets smarter with AI, now 60% off

TL;DR: Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for Mac or PC is on sale for $99.97 through March 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT, offering 60% off Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more.


$99.97

$249.99
Save $150.02

 

If your work revolves around documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and email, Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business brings those core tools together with updated features designed to keep everyday tasks moving efficiently. The lifetime license for Mac or PC is priced at $99.97, representing a 60% discount off the regular price, and ends on March 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Included are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook — the familiar lineup, installed directly on your device for both online and offline use. Office 2024 brings performance improvements across the whole software. In Excel, for example, working with large datasets or handling multiple workbooks is quicker and more reliable. For anyone who routinely works with numbers or builds reports, this added speed can make daily tasks less tedious.

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Content creation tools have also been refreshed. PowerPoint now supports recording presentations with voice narration, video, and closed captions, which is a plus for remote meetings, online classes, or sharing presentations after the fact. Word adds Focus Mode to help reduce distractions as you write, alongside AI-powered suggestions to sharpen up your prose. Built-in research features keep citations and references at your fingertips, so you can stay in the zone without switching tabs.

Microsoft’s Fluent Design system brings Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook a cohesive look and feel. Touch and pen support is now smoother on tablets and convertibles, and customizable templates and themes make it easy to create polished work without a designer’s eye.

Collaboration tools are built in as well. Real-time co-authoring allows multiple people to work on the same file simultaneously, with chat, comments, and version history helping track changes and feedback. Deeper integration with Microsoft Teams centralizes file sharing and communication within the Office environment.

Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business is designed for users who already rely on Microsoft’s core apps and want updated features without changing how they work. For $99.97 through March 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT, the current deal makes it easier to step into the latest version at a lower cost, especially if those tools are already part of your daily routine.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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Super Bowl LX performers: Who is singing the anthems

The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl pre-show featuring Green Day may be taking up all the attention when it comes to Super Bowl performances — and rightfully so! Everyone is looking forward to what the internationally known artists will do or say regarding President Trump and ICE.

However, other musical artists are performing at this year’s Super Bowl as well.

Charlie Puth to sing national anthem

Kicking the show off with the U.S. national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the Grammy-nominated singer Charlie Puth. Puth’s debut single, “Marvin Gaye,” featuring Meghan Trainor, was a Billboard chart hit upon its 2015 release. Puth has since had other hits, including “We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez),” “Attention,” and “Nothing But Trouble.”

Brandi Carlile to perform patriotic song

Next up, singing “America the Beautiful” is singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile has a whopping 11 Grammys and two Emmy awards. Her biggest hit was 2007’s “The Story,” but she is also known for songs like “Broken Horses” and “The Joke.”

Coco Jones to sing Black national anthem

Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Coco Jones will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has become a Super Bowl staple since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed it at the event. Singer and actress Ledisi performed the song at last year’s game.

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How A Star Wars Set Malfunction Caused A Cast Member To Meet Jesus

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated

Would you believe that arguably the most recognizable figure in the entire Star Wars franchise once ran into Jesus? This was no Jedi, although it’s admittedly fun to imagine what the Son of God might have had to say to someone else who could come back from the dead as a powerful ghost. No, the Star Wars character in question was R2-D2, and he had an accidental meeting with the divine when a remote control malfunction sent him to the set of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth tv movie!

A long time ago (1977, to be precise), in a desert far, far away (Tunisia), two very different filmmakers were working on two very different projects. Franco Zeffirelli (best known for his Oscar-nominated Romeo and Juliet) was working on Jesus of Nazareth, which blended the four Gospels of the biblical New Testament into a single TV movie. Meanwhile, fresh off the success of American Graffiti, rebel filmmaker George Lucas was working on Star Wars, a movie that would effectively define his life while reshaping pop culture history as we know it.

Meeting The Maker

Aside from the involvement of James Earl Jones, these projects didn’t have much in common, and Lucas and Zeffirelli generally stayed out of each other’s way despite their sets neighboring one another. That all changed thanks to a scene requiring R2-D2 to be piloted using a remote control. While actor Kenny Baker was often inside the droid for scenes where R2 had to stay relatively still, there were some scenes in which George Lucas simply needed to move the little astromech from Point A to Point B.

In this case, Lucas intended for R2-D2 to exit a scene by rolling out from behind a sand dune. To do this, they intended to use a remote control, but the unit malfunctioned. Therefore, instead of stopping where the filmmakers intended, R2 just kept going until (as if guided by a higher power) he ended up on the set of Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth

Fortunately, the runaway astromech didn’t cause any damage to the set of the Jesus TV movie, something that we can only assume would be some kind of sin. These days, the whole incident has become a bit of amusing trivia for Star Wars fans to share among themselves. At the time, though, R2 encountering a savior from heaven was just one more reason that filming this sci-fi blockbuster had become a living hell. 

When Droids Move In Mysterious Ways

Reportedly, this is one of many incidents in which the droids weren’t doing exactly what the filmmakers needed them to do. On top of that, the droids were powered by exotic batteries that were hard to replace, and those batteries were soon drained in the hot Tunisian sun. Making matters worse, the truck storing R2-D2 and other droids once caught fire, damaging valuable props and costing George Lucas money he couldn’t really afford to spend.

Fortunately, it all worked out: after all these onset issues, Star Wars became one of the most successful films ever made. There are many reasons for this, including its perfect cast, killer effects, and charming story. However, we can’t discount the possibility that the movie’s success is a product of divine intervention; after all, his excursion to meet Jesus proves R2-D2 is a droid with friends in very high places!


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