Another bright early morning, and a whole new format for the Oscar nomination announcements! Let's dive in and take a look at what happened this year.
- La La Land indeed did tie the record for most nominations in history. It's a very exclusive club, and one has to wonder just how far it can go on Oscar night. The win record is 11, can La La Land beat that?
- Best Song continues it's track record of nominating something no one has ever heard of. In spite of it being one of the great years in cinema history for Song, they went with something called "The Empty Chair" from Jim: The James Foley Story. Was hoping a Sing Street surprise could have happened, but alas, Jim was just too popular!
- Films that did worse than expected: Silence, Martin Scorsese's incredible passion project got just one nomination. Hidden Figures, which felt like it was coming on very strong, only managed three.
- Films that did better than I expected: Jackie, with three nominations. It felt like it was on its way out lately, but it even got in for Mica Levi's incredible, odd score! Very glad. Hacksaw Ridge, with six including Director! I didn't think they'd welcome Mel back in but they did with open arms.
- Moonlight, a film a few months ago felt like the kind of movie you hope gets at least one or two nominations given how arty it is, ended up with the second most nominations of the year. Incredible!
- Let's talk about this new format for announcing the nominees. It was pretty terrible. There's something about the energy in the room when they're announced live that adds to the excitement. This new format of past nominees telling us stories in between announcements was pure filler and added nothing. The only people watching this are Oscar fanatics who want to know who was nominated. We're already up at 5 in the morning, don't waste our time!
- Arrival
- Fences
- Hacksaw Ridge
- Hidden Figures
- Hell or High Water
- La La Land
- Lion
- Manchester by the Sea
- Moonlight
Who Should Win: La La Land. It's just a huge crowd pleaser, a technical marvel, and I think it will hold up well among winners this decade as history wears on.
Who Will Win: Probably the film that tied the record for most nominations in history. Just a hunch.
Surprises: None. Again, go back to five and we might have some more suspense.
Best Director
- Damien Chazelle - La La Land
- Mel Gibson - Hacksaw Ridge
- Barry Jenkins - Moonlight
- Kenneth Lonergan - Manchester by the Sea
- Denis Villeneuve - Arrival
Who Should Win: Chazelle. What he pulls off with this film is certainly impressive.
Who Will Win: Chazelle. I'm starting to think I may be happy with a lot of the results come Oscar night.
Surprises: Mel. He got in over Scorsese, over the guys behind Lion and Hell or High Water. Clearly they loved the film to nominate him after his history.
Best Actor
- Casey Affleck - Manchester by the Sea
- Andrew Garfield - Hacksaw Ridge
- Ryan Gosling - La La Land
- Viggo Mortensen - Captain Fantastic
- Denzel Washington - Fences
Who Should Win: Viggo. Such a lovely, nuanced performance. It's the kind of performance that you don't normally see nominated, so it makes this nomination extra nice.
Who Will Win: Tough one! Wisdom says Affleck continues his winning streak, but I feel like they may not be warm enough to him as a person to give him a win. I have a weird feeling Gosling could be the surprise of the night, riding the coattails of La La Land as it potentially ties or breaks the win record.
Surprises: Viggo was not a sure thing, but he felt fairly likely. And poor Tom Hanks is forgotten yet again for another strong performance in his late period renaissance. Hopefully he can return to the fold again soon.
Best Actress
- Isabelle Huppert - Elle
- Ruth Negga - Loving
- Natalie Portman - Jackie
- Emma Stone - La La Land
- Meryl Streep - Florence Foster Jenkins
Who Should Win: Portman. She may have already won once before, but she deserves another statue for this towering performance.
Who Will Win: Emma Stone. And I can't really argue with it either, she is also quite good. The film wouldn't work were it not for her.
Surprises: Ruth Negga got in after the complete lack of love for Loving all season. She replaced Amy Adams, whose Arrival was one of the biggest films of the day. Quite a surprise!
Best Supporting Actor
- Mahershala Ali - Moonlight
- Jeff Bridges - Hell or High Water
- Lucas Hedges - Manchester by the Sea
- Dev Patel - Lion
- Michael Shannon - Nocturnal Animals
Who Should Win: Actually, this is a surprisingly strong lineup across the board. I'd probably go with Ali, but Shannon gives a delightfully weird performance in his film, I'm surprised they recognized him.
Who Will Win: Ali. It doesn't quite feel like the kind of performance that normally wins, and both Hedges and Patel have more emotional performances, but they will want to reward Moonlight somewhere and this is an easy one to give it.
Surprises: Shannon, who came out of nowhere. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was getting all the acclaim lately for the film, but Shannon replaced him in the end. As it probably should have been. And Hugh Grant, who felt safe all year failed to get the nomination. Perhaps because he was clearly a lead and voters didn't want to pretend he was supporting (although that didn't stop them from nominating Patel).
Best Supporting Actress
- Viola Davis - Fences
- Naomie Harris - Moonlight
- Nicole Kidman - Lion
- Octavia Spencer - Hidden Figures
- Michelle Williams - Manchester by the Sea
Who Should Win: Williams. It's her fourth nomination, she's on a roll and this is a good performance. I'm not really big on most of the performances in this category though, it felt pretty thin this year.
Who Will Win: Davis. Easiest call of the night. She is also very good in her film, and they certainly owe her after snubbing her for The Help five years ago.
Surprises: None really, although I continue to be mystified as to how Octavia Spencer gets nominations for not doing anything exceptional. They clearly saw Hidden Figures and yet they missed that every other performance was more worthy than this one, including fellow supporting actress (and Moonlight co-star) Janelle Monae.
So overall this feels like a strong group across the board, with only a few exceptions. A number of people got nominations that make me happy (Shannon, Patel, Hedges, Mortensen, Portman, Levi). Now it's time to see if La La Land can really take on the kings, Titanic, Ben-Hur, and Return of the King. I think it has a shot but we shall see. If I have one complaint about this year is that for the first time since 2011 we have an easy race to handicap. I'll miss the excitement of not knowing for sure what will win, but I'm glad it's at least a film I like that's steamrolling.
Nomination Tally
La La Land - 14
Moonlight - 8
Arrival - 8
Manchester by the Sea - 6
Lion - 6
Hacksaw Ridge - 6
Hell or High Water -4
Fences - 4
Jackie - 3
Hidden Figures - 3
Deepwater Horizon - 2
Florence Foster Jenkins - 2
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - 2
Kubo and the Two Strings - 2
Moana - 2
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - 2
Passengers - 2
No comments:
Post a Comment