12 Things We Learned From the Oscar Nominations
Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 10:45AM Happy Christmas Oscar Nomination Day! Herewith quick observations on the 91st Academy Award nominations.
10 THINGS WE LEARNED (OR RELEARNED) FROM THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS
Cuarón with the first of his many wins this year1. All the times that Alfonso Cuarón made his (plentiful) Best Director acceptance speeches about Marina & Yalitza as the "heart" of his film, really paid off. Voters were paying attention, even if only subconsciously and both actresses were nominated in volatile fifth spots in their categories.
2. It's tough to snag a "lone" Oscar nomination for your movie if you're a non-legendary actor. Timothée Chalamet and Glenn Close and Willem Dafoe were all working at that this year and the one that dropped out was Chalamet for Beautiful Boy. He'll be legendary one day but he just became really famous last year and the film had no other boosts to keep him in the conversation...
3. People need to stop thinking and quoting that RT Scores matter. Bohemian (at 62%) & Vice (at 64%) remind us that, though critical consensus makes a huge difference with small films or arthouse-aimed indies, it doesn't mean much when it comes to unexpected hits, or mainstream targeted films with A list stars.
4. Academy Awards voters REALLY loved Never Look Away which won the year's most surprising nomination for Best Cinematography with virtually zero buzz in that category.
5. The Oscars continue to have a problem with Asian cinema. South Korea has never been nominated and that continues with the snubbing of the critically revered mystery Burning, easily one of the year's most praised films. People never seem to believe me when I talk about this but if I haven't proven by now that I study this category with a fine tooth comb every year in a way few others do, I don't know how I can convince people. FACT: Oscar has a problem with Asian cinema. Consider the film industries in China, Hong Kong, India, The Phillipines, Thailand, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, Vietnam and South Korea and then realize that between those nine countries there have only been only 12 nominations and 1 win which is only slightly better than Hungary or Poland ALONE (and not as strong as the singular records of any of these western european or scandinavian countries: Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Spain). Even if you add in Japan, which is slightly exempt from this rule with 13 nominations and 1 win (and also had 3 honoraries before this was a category proper), ALL ten of those countries combined are still behind France or Italy alone, and just slightly ahead of Germany and Spain all by themselves!
6. Genre bias continues to be a huge problem with the Academy... and precursor awards as well (which acerbate the problem by not refocusing voters). Their lack of respect for genre films doomed A Quiet Place to only one nomination (Sound Editing) despite a fairly robust campaign and lots of love out there for the sci-fi monster movie. It also stopped Toni Collette in Hereditary from making headway in Best Actress. Their favouritism for World War II dramas and biopics over contemporary films also and gave Germany a leg up over South Korea in foreign film, and Rami & Christian an easy leapfrog over the vastly superior Ethan Hawke (snubbed) and Bradley Cooper (always losing) in Best Actor.
7. Being a zeitgeisty blockbuster has record-breaking advantages. Black Panther became the first superhero movie ever nominated for Best Picture. In total it received 7 nominations, so it isn't the *most* nominated superhero movie. That honor still belongs to The Dark Knight but with BP's Best Picture nomination, it's now essentially the most well honored. Now the question is can it win any of its 7 nominations? The Dark Knight won two (Sound Editing and Supporting Actor).
8. Being a blockbuster documentary hit or even sensationally-reviewed never makes you a lock in Best Documentary Feature which has been one of the most controversial and surprising categories year in and year out since as long as we've been watching the Oscars. This year the huge hit status didn't help Won't You Be My Neighbor or Three Identical Strangers score a nod, but it did help RBG so you never know...
9. Release date truths reaffirmed. As with most years, 2018 proves that it doesn't matter when you are released as long as you have the goods (see Black Panther & BlacKkKlansman released in February and August, respectively). Waiting until the last minute, as most Oscar hopefuls do via November and December platforming is risky since so many films get lost in the shuffle but distributors continues to take the risk because voters have very short memories. November and December are your best bet for both landing plentiful nominations OR for landing craft nominations for films that people don't really love because at least they still remember them! Not to knock the films makeup and costuming (both lovely) but would Mary Queen of Scots have been nominated in either category had it been released back when Black Panther was? Nope! Would Vice have won 8 nominations despite divisive reviews if released in August? Nope!
10. Campaigning remains crucial to winning nominations. A24, our favourite distributor of the last several years (sorry everyone else!) has been excellent at the Oscar game but they mostly sat this year out and paid the price despite wildly acclaimed films. Hereditary and Eighth Grade, both with devout fanbases were totally ignored and First Reformed only nabbed a Screenplay nomination despite having the year's most acclaimed leading performance from four-time Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke. Meanwhile, Netflix pulled out all the stops this year to make themselves a contender and ended up with a surprising 3 nominations for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and a very hefty if not surprising 10 nominations for Roma. Campaigning is always a dice throw though. Warner Bros worked hard for its titles and A Star is Born got 8 nominations but Crazy Rich Asians was shut out entirely. Disney worked hard for Black Panther and Mary Poppins Returns but one soared while the other didn't do as well as it might have in another year.
11. Winning the Golden Globe for Best Score is occasionally a bad-luck charm, since the Globe voters and Oscar tend to have very different musical taste (this is also true in Best Song). The unlucky recipient this time was First Man's glorious score by Justin Hurwitz was somehow stiffed with Oscar after winning the Globe. This isn't the first time that's happened. Previous examples in the last twenty years include: Alex Ebert for All is Lost (2013), Alexandre Desplat for The Painted Veil (2006), Craig Armstrong for Moulin Rouge! (2001), and Ennio Morricone for The Legend of 1900 (1998)
12. The Academy is still not ready for Emily Blunt. This is probably the third time she's come close to an acting nomination following The Devil Wears Prada (2006), and Young Victoria (2009). One senses that she's just going to join the ranks of the most-beloved-always-ignored movie stars or win on her first nomination.
WHAT DID YOU LEARN THIS MORNING?
Related Articles:
• Adams vs Weisz, Round Two
• Best Picture Silliness
• Deep Cut Oscar Trivia
• Mourning the Snubs
• How to Stage the Original Song Performances
• Nomination Index (individual charts still being updated)
P.S. Sign up for our newsletter which we'll be relaunching this week, if you dont wanna miss anything going forward related to Oscar and beyond...
Reader Comments (71)
Lots to digest from today's news, but one qustion for now: is this the first time that two actors from the same non-English-language movie have been nominated? I think it might be...
I don't get Roma's love fest...
I really don't think Bradley Cooper deserved a Directing nod (2nd half of ASIB has a noticeable drop in energy & quality), but his Actor nomination? Sure thing.
I think another "lesson" is that the Academy will stop considering you Foreign if you speak great English, work with and hire in Hollywood or the U.K., and make as many movies in English as you do in a foreign language.
I'm thrilled that the work of Alfonso Cuaron and Pawel Pawlikowski was recognized in categories other than Best Foreign Film. But I don't think the multiple nominations for Roma and Cold War signal a real cross-over or a willingness of the Academy to truly go global. I'm reminded more of the year in which Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon wracked up so many nominations. Like Ang Lee, Cuaron is at this point a Hollywood insider. Pawlikowski, instead, has lived most of his life in the U.K. and is the recipient of a number of "best British film" awards.
Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters received a lone nomination for Best Foreign Film even though many of its elements were as good, if not better, than the nominees in other categories. Lee Chang-Dong's Burning received no recognition whatsoever. Neither director has worked in Hollywood and neither speaks fluent English. Neither, therefore, has the kind of network or campaigning ability that helped propel Cuaron and Pawlikowski's work to multiple nominations.
You can win all the critics awards in the world, but if you wear a suicide vest in your movie you're going to get snubbed no matter what.
This is the third year in a row that a black director has been nominated (Jenkins, Peele, Lee). Quite a sharp change from the prior 88 years when only 3 black directors made the cut ever.
Also interesting, if Alfonso Cuarón wins for Director then 50% of Director Oscars will have been awarded to Mexican filmmakers this decade (with one year still to go!).
You can win all the critics awards in the world, but if your surname contains the word "Hawk" you're going to get snubbed no matter what.
I guess they could always give Chalamet the award after Guadagnino finishes his in-progress CMBYN cycle. Heh!
Chalamet will no doubt return; in the meantime, he should probably seek out different roles (as he seems to already be doing) and try new things.
The crying and modern-day settings leave his filmography a little repetitive and stale currently. Which also makes CMBYN stand out, since it's a nice middle ground for him.
I thought the supporting actor field this year was mostly on point, actually, so kudos to the Academy for not just nominating him "because".
Isn't is like the third year in a row that a little swedish movie takes up a slot in best makeup & hairstyling? Thats sweet. 👏👏
Sad for Timothee, he worked his ass for that movie (not just his nomination). If Amazon ever wants to hire him again, they better pay through the nose. Of course I'm always happy for anyone who gets an Oscar nomination, but this year's snubs were especially hard to take. Ethan Hawke, Beale Street, Emily Blunt, Widows, Burning, the lack of love for First Man. Too bad we won't even have a host to make fun of during showtime.
@Patagonia-Emily Blunt is not the new Cameron Diaz. Blunt is eons better than Diaz.
The Academy doesn't deserve all the blame for ignoring Asian films. Year after year, the Asian countries make mostly terrible choices when they pick their candidates for the Oscars. I love Asian films, but the East and South Asian Oscar contenders are usually some of the weakest on the list. China selected "Wolf Warrior 2" over "I Am Not Madame Bovary" and "Hidden Man" over "Shadows", making them a laughing stock.....The Philippines sends poverty porn year-after-year, India has gone from choosing wacky Bollywood fare to "very respectable" but "very small" arthouse fare. Japan- which make some of the world's best movies- is very uneven, randomly selecting movies that either nobody really likes or movies that depend on a thorough understanding of Japanese culture, often ignoring Oscar-friendly fare (Always: Sunset on Third Street, Memories of Matsuko, Like Father Like Son).
As for "Burning", it was certainly a thought-provoking mystery.....But it was also 40 minutes too long, divisive, and extremely slow-paced for the first hour. I saw it with two friends....All of us have lived in Korea, studied Korean and love Korean films. But none of us loved "Burning".
I haven't seen any discussion here yet on why THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS popped up in ADAPTED Screenplay (I had predicted the nomination, but I had followed Nathaniel's (and almost everyone else's) lead and put it in Original.)
Travis - the Tom Waits story is based on a Jack London story and the Zoe Zakan story is based on other material as well.even though four are original the whole had to be entered in adapted.
I just want to dissent from what appears to be a prevailing view around here – that is, that, and I quote, “the Academy undervalues Bradley Cooper.”
The same Bradley Cooper who stole not only what should rightfully have been John Hawkes’ second Oscar nomination in 2012, but the one that should have gone either to Ralph Fiennes or to David Oyelowo in 2014? No, the Academy does not undervalue Bradley Cooper, thank you very much. They may undervalue this specific performance – not having seen the film, and not especially caring to besides being positively ecstatic that Sam Elliott is now an Oscar nominee and being willing to sit through anything he’s in, I ain’t in a position to argue that point – but in general, not only does the Academy not undervalue Bradley Cooper, but I’d argue that the reverse is true in the extreme.
While I’m permitting myself to be unnecessarily and unbecomingly catty, I should point out that, speaking exclusively for myself, Ethan Hawke’s snub here would hurt a lot more had he himself not been the reason why Steve Buscemi was denied his lone shot ever to receive mainstream awards glory and justly reap the due rewards of a career as one of the ten or so finest character actors in the last 30 years of the cinema by becoming an Oscar nominee. Although sometimes I wonder whether it might make more sense to direct what has now been 18 years’ worth of stricken cinephiliac ire at Jon Voight instead.
(To my mind, Steve Buscemi ranks with Brian Cox, Charles S. Dutton, Brendan Gleeson, Ray Winstone, Kelly Macdonald, Shirley Henderson, Timothy Spall, Ving Rhames, Stellan Skarsgård, Robert Wisdom, Dylan Baker, Tony Shalhoub, Hope Davis, Paul Bettany, Anthony LaPaglia, Molly Parker, Alfred Molina, Jeffrey Wright, Kirsten Dunst, Alison Lohman, Michael Gambon, Campbell Scott, John Turturro, Giancarlo Esposito, Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Dennis Quaid, Pruitt Taylor Vince, David Morse, Jonathan Pryce, Gabriel Byrne, Anthony Mackie, and Delroy Lindo – and, yes, Emily Blunt! – as one of the finest living and working English-speaking film actors never to receive an Oscar nomination, and sadly it’s unlikely that he, or any of these magnificent actors, ever will. Although I feel obliged to point out that ever since Isabelle Huppert’s nomination two years back, the very greatest living and working film actor yet to be nominated is probably Gong Li.)
Aparicio is ok in "Roma" but Blunt is better in a "A Quiet Place"
Questlove gave a great explanation on instagram for how Wont You Be My Neighbor missed Best Doc. Great insight into the mind of a new Oscar voter, of which there are quite a few.
^^this here.
I heard Dennis Leary once say he votes for his friends, then anyone his friends are dating. He mentioned Sean Penn as a friend and also a great actor, mentioned how he liked Dances with Wolves but Costner's first film gets him an Oscar over the then Oscar-less Scorsese.
Good luck thinking things like this change.
So the Mr. Rogers doc missed because it starts with the letter "W"? Hah, OK. I thought maybe it was because it was a bit overrated and didn't have the political impetus of RBG and wasn't nearly as good as Minding the Gap, but that's another idea.
#timesup in Hollywood... unless you're Bryan Singer. Not acknowledging him in an acceptance speech doesn't erase the fact that Bohemian Rhapsody would not have happened without him..
Overall, a great set of nominations.
Bradley Cooper wasn't "robbed" IMO. I mean, he has three Oscar nominations THIS YEAR. The Academy can be weird with actors-turned-directors. They love their Eastwoods, Beattys, and Redfords, but can easily turn the cold shoulder to the Streisands and Afflecks, even when their films are best picture nominated.