The Academy announced the nominees for this year’s Oscars Tuesday morning. I tried to resist the urge to tweet too much because I’m trying to use the internet less, but, well
sometimes duty calls.
So I thought I’d lay down my thoughts on the nominations in a more coherent form. I’ll skip the categories where I have no strong opinions or where I haven’t seen enough of the films to know what I’m talking about.
Graveyard of Dreams
- In the Heights – Huh????? This one had such lofty expectations once upon a time. Feels like the Academy just forgot about it.
- The French Dispatch / The Matrix Resurrections – These weren’t expected to get any above-the-fold nominations, of course, but that they have 0 technical nominations between them confuses me.
- The Green Knight – A24 just refused to campaign this and I have no idea why. (I do have an idea why, they thought The Tragedy of Macbeth would do better. Oops.)
- Passing, Red Rocket, The Last Duel – The “darn, I really wish there was any acting nomination from these” club
- Annette – I guess we won’t get the “So May We Start” opening to the ceremony after all.
This is actually a really good Best Picture slate. I’m not hot on every nominee, but there’s only one that I would rather not be there at all.
The Power of the Dog is our hero (and clear frontrunner, at the moment). Don’t Look Up is our villain. Drive My Car is our fantasy. I can only dream it pulls off a Parasite.
Jane Campion became the first woman to receive more than one Best Director nomination, and she’s in a good position to be the 3rd woman to receive one. It’s overdue.
Steven Spielberg has now been nominated in 6 (!!) different decades.
Denis Villeneuve missing the cut is a surprise, but if that’s what it took for Ryusuke Hamaguchi to make it in, it’s a worthwhile sacrifice. Then again, maybe I’m making a hasty assumption. This is the 4th year running a non-English-language director has been nominated.
Alas, we will not see Simon Rex at the Oscars.
Bardem’s the odd one out, but it’s hard to argue with the other 4. Will Smith getting his 3rd nomination is weirdly heartwarming for me, and Denzel is gunning for his 3rd win, if he can get over the Benedict Cumberbatch-sized hurdle (he is tall). And of course congratulations to my fiancé Andrew for his second nomination.
What the hell is going on here?
Of the five films represented by these nominations, zero are nominated for Best Picture. Is that a first? That might be a first? I haven’t checked.
It’s amusing to see how head-over-heels the Academy has fallen for Olivia Colman; this is her 3rd nomination in 4 years. I groaned a little when they read Nicole Kidman’s name but screamed enough to make up for it when they read Kristen Stewart’s right after. Academy Award Nominee Kristen Stewart. The lack of Haim is a bummer but I don’t think I would swap, say, Cruz for her.
Wait wait wait I want to say it again. Academy Award Nominee Kristen Stewart. Hee hee. Yay.
We demand justice for Mike Faist!
This Jesse Plemons nomination might be a big indication of just how high the Academy is on The Power of the Dog. That’s not a particularly Oscar-y performance, yet it got nominated along with another performance from the same movie. That’s big.
also jk simmons what are you doing here go home
Both screenplay categories have foreign-language representation, which is always exciting to see. Paul Thomas Anderson has a good chance to nab his first (?!) screenplay win. I’ll be keeping an eye on Drive My Car in this category too, although The Power of the Dog might be too big of a juggernaut.
I thought Encanto was a clear lock, until…
… Flee got the never-before-seen combo of Animated Feature/Documentary Feature/International Feature nominations. I still think Best Animated Feature is Encanto‘s to lose, given the nature of that category, and International will surely go to the film with the Best Picture nomination, but this might point to a strong case for Flee in Documentary. I’ll be surprised if it goes home empty handed.
I’ve said this before but surely it’s going to happen this time, right?
Congratulations to Billie Eilish for winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is still an O away from an EGOT, but this isn’t the year. Believe me, he will have another chance.
This category’s fun because it always spits out some films with little *artistry* but a whole lot of *craft*. Also everyone wave to House of Gucci‘s lone nomination as we drive by.
I don’t have anything to say here other than it’s very strange that this is Tick Tick Boom‘s only other nomination outside of Garfield’s for acting.
As a perennial Oscars grouch (read: addict) I’m actually mostly satisfied with how these turned out. We’re always going to wish more great work got recognized. Unfortunately there just aren’t enough nominations to go around. The important thing is, though, that wishing more films got in is always better than wishing a lot of films that did get in were out. I don’t feel much of that this year, which makes it a good one.
The winners will be announced on March 27. I will write about it again before then, I promise.