By my count there are seven (7) Wisconsin connections in this Sunday’s Oscar awards ceremony.
Six are film related and one of them is corporate. To recap.
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The list is front loaded by three local connections to the Oscar nominated stop-motion animated film “Anomalisa.”
Kenosha native and University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee film department Caroline Kastelic oversaw puppet fabrication for the film by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson.
After college Kastelic worked at Starburns Industries, the animation production company co-founded by Milwaukee native Dan Harmon, creator of “Community.”
Harmon is an executive producer of “Anomalisa.” And veteran animator Owen Klatte, an associate lecturer at UWM, was also an animator on “Anomalisa.”
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Mark Rylance, best supporting actor nominee for Steven Spielberg’s best picture nominee “Bridge of Spies,” spent his teenage years in Milwaukee.
Rylance, an acclaimed stage actor who was born in England and moved to the Milwaukee area in 1969.
His father taught at University School, and Rylance appeared in stage productions while a student there.
He later performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was director at Shakespeare’s Globe.
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Rylance competes for the best supporting actor award with Kenosha native Mark Ruffalo as a crusading reporter in best picture nominee “Spotlight.”
This is Ruffalo’s third nomination and since the award will probably go to Sylvester Stallone for “Creed,” it will likely be his third loss. Buffalo, 48, was born in Kenosha. His mother was a hairdresser and his father a construction painter.
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Brookfield native Adam Stockhausen is nominated for production design in Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies.”
Stockhausen won in Oscar in 2014 for ’12 Years A Slave,’ based on an Oscar-winning screenplay by Mequon native John Ridley. And last year he won the Oscar for production design for “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”
In an interview he called himself a “theater obsessed kid growing up in Milwaukee” who “took every little theater job I could find. Stockhausen received a theater arts degree from Marquette in 1995
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And finally the Menomonee Falls-based retailer Kohls is going to be the marketing sponsor of the awards show on ABC.
It replaces J.C. Penny which was the sponsor for the past seven years.
According to Kohls, the Oscars will be “a major brand moment” for retailer. It will use the hashtag #AllTheGoodStuff on Twitter and post on @Kohls on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. It will provide a “live, interactive, second-screen experience during the red carpet and commercial breaks” on Periscope.
And it will have multiple broadcast spots during red carpet coverage and the awards program.
The timing is a bit awkward.
T that it would be closing 17 stores to cut costs.
Tags: Anomalisa, Bridge of Spies, Brookfield, Kastelic, Kenosha, Kohls, Milwaukee, Oscar, Ruffalo, Rylance, Spotlight, Stockhausen Posted by