Midweek Update: Oscar Nomination Reactions

Let's play the game.

I try not to get too worked up about the Oscars these days. I accept it as an entertaining game and a snapshot. To accept it objectively as the arbiter of the “Best” of the year would be to miss the arbitrary rules, relentless campaigning, and marketing considerations that go into making the nominees in the first place. CODA, last year’s Best Picture winner, is a very nice movie, but it is absolutely a snapshot of an Academy in a certain time and place—two years into COVID, looking for a gentle reprieve, and finding it. One of the best pieces of Oscar advice I ever heard came from my pal (and now TheWrap co-executive editor!) Adam Chitwood: “Rob Lowe is an Academy member. Try to think about what Rob Lowe would like.”

With that in mind, I didn’t get too worked up about the crop of nominees that were announced this morning. A lot of the nominees landed as expected—Everything Everywhere All at Once, Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, All Quiet on the Western Front, etc. But if we’re going to do the whole surprises/snubs thing (and it should be noted that aside from Best Picture, Academy branches select their own nominees so cinematographers select cinematographers, actors select actors, etc.), let’s get to it.

Bill Nighy as Williams in Living | Image via Sony Pictures Classics

Surprises:

• Paul Mescal wasn’t a “surprise” but it seemed like his slot was down to him and Tom Cruise, and the nomination simply means more to Mescal. He’s young, it’s his first nomination, and it will open doors for a talented actor (it also shines a light on Aftersun, which deserved more love from the Academy, but oh well).

• Bill Nighy is a legend, and I’m so happy he’s now an Oscar nominee. He’s also just a very nice man. I remember meeting him for roundtable interviews at Comic-Con for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, and my guy was a total professional. Didn’t act like being at Comic-Con or promoting a werewolves and vampires prequel was beneath him. Just pleasant and good-natured. I want only good things for this man.

• There’s going to be a lot of hubbub about Andrea Riseborough scoring a nomination for To Leslie since did a word-of-mouth campaign via famous actors (the way it’s “supposed” to work is you have a studio’s awards publicity department campaign for you and then you do polite glad-handing at various lunches, dinners, and screenings). But I think what she did was great. Her asking price just went up and number of projects she’ll have available to her just went up. This is a business, and actors shouldn’t feel like their chances at a nomination are at the mercy of a publicity department’s budget.

• Brian Tyree Henry! I haven’t seen Causeway, but I guess it’s time to watch Causeway. Anyway, it’s been terrific seeing his stardom skyrocket in the past few years.

Snubs:

• NOPE. The Academy saw themselves in this picture and did not like it. You can’t say it was too much of a blockbuster (Top Gun: Maverick did quite well as did Avatar: The Way of Water). You can’t say it was too weird or too dark. Jordan Peele made a damning indictment that pushed the technological envelope (how was Hoyte van Hoytema not nominated for Best Cinematography?!) and it managed zero nominations.

• Speaking of overlooked cinematographers, I’m genuinely shocked that Claudio Miranda wasn’t nominated for Top Gun: Maverick. He was rolling through the awards season by landing plaudits from critics’ groups, and now he’s outside looking in. At least he’s already won in the past (Life of Pi).

• Bummed to see Paul Dano left out in favor of Judd Hirsch. Don’t get me wrong—I like Hirsch, but that is a very short performance in The Fabelmans, the film doesn’t turn on it, and it feels like a way to give Hirsch his first nomination since Ordinary People. And that’s fine, but Dano is better and his performance is crucial to why the film works. Also, if you want to talk about range, Dano is one of the few actors out there who can go from punchable psychopath to guy you just wanna give a big hug.

• I wasn’t a big fan of Triangle of Sadness (I think it’s too long and its satire too obvious), so I was less-than-thrilled to see it pick up nominates for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. I would have thrown those towards S.S. Rajamouli for RRR (for those wondering, RRR wasn’t nominated for Best Foreign Film because Academy rules state that countries can only submit one movie, and India chose Last Film Show as its submission).

• The Best Score nominees also left me a little cold. They’re fine, I suppose (Babylon is my favorite of the bunch), but the scores I’ve been listening to the most this year are The Batman by Michael Giacchino, The Northman by Robin Carolan & Sebastian Gainsborough, and The Whale by Rob Simonsen. So it goes.

Anyway, I have no idea who will win Best Picture right now, but that will probably become clear as the guilds make their picks (right now, I’m thinking it’s a three-way race between Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Fabelmans, and The Banshees of Inisherin).

Oh, and if we don’t get a live performance of “Naatu Naatu,” then there’s really no point in having a televised Oscars in the first place.

What I’m Watching

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal in The Last of Us | Image via HBO

If you’re not watching The Last of Us, you’re missing out. Two episodes in, and it’s clear that while showrunner Craig Mazin wants to follow the narrative of the game, he has no problem letting the story breathe and make changes where needed. While it does have the zombie genre staple of “Humans are the real monsters!” what sets this story apart is the relationship between Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey). The central question of the show is, “What do you do when you’ve lost everything and the world is in ruins?” As dark as the narrative gets (at least in the game, and based on the two episodes I’ve seen, the show as well), its core is about love and hope. That’s more interesting to me than the “survival is the best we can hope for” I’ve seen in other zombie narratives.

What I’m Reading

There’s a snide assumption that film critics are just wannabe filmmakers (I’ve met a lot of critics, and most of them don’t have screenplays in their back pockets), but it’s still very funny to see one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of his generation be a film critic. Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation shows that had he not picked up a camera, Tarantino probably would have had a successful career writing about movies instead of making them. He’s knowledgable, opinionated, insightful, and fun to read. I don’t agree with all of his takes, but that’s okay! The purpose of film criticism isn’t to find someone who agrees with you. It’s to find someone who broadens your horizons and challenges your thinking.

The book also feels like a rarity because most people in Hollywood always want to be cautious and polite so as not to jeopardize their relationships and future work. Tarantino, who says he’s only going to make one more movie anyway and hasn’t had trouble getting financing or a cast since 1994, is happy to throw bombs where he likes. Like I personally wouldn’t say Brian De Palma had nothing left after Bonfire of the Vanities (his Mission: Impossible is still a blast), but Tarantino is happy, as always, to let his opinions fly.

In other reading:

• The Last Days of Hollywood’s Most Reviled Reporter by Jacob Bernstein [The New York Times] - Nikki Finke was such an infamous figure in Hollywood that at one point there was almost an HBO series about her. Since she stopped writing and now passed away late last year, it’s easier to take a step back and note that she was a complicated figure. During the writers strike, she was gung-ho about supporting the unions. But she was also a muckraker and didn’t adhere to a professional code of ethics. She was someone who seemed deeply invested in Hollywood as an industry, but didn’t appear to particularly care about movies. Anyway, this is a good read about her personal legacy and who was still there for her after she burned every last bridge.

Substack Recommendation

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been raging for almost a year now. I’m as anti-war as it gets, but Ukraine has no choice but to wage war since the alternative is annexation and authoritarianism. In keeping up with this conflict, it’s been helpful to follow historian and Yale professor Timothy D. Snyder, who has helped to illuminate the history on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides while explaining why Ukraine must win this war.

What I’m Hearing

I’m still making my way through the Rolling Stone’s Top 500, but I decided to also pop on the score for The Northman after remembering how much I liked it. Between this and The Green Knight, apparently my favorite genre is “heavy strings for clomping through mud.”