Yesterday was the final day of voting for the nominations for 93rd annual Academy Award nominations. Since there are four days until the nominations are announced please name your 4 non-locked up dreams for Monday morning. I'll go first...
- A surprise nomination for my pfavourite pfilm star Michelle Pfeiffer who feels like she's running in 7th place but hasn't quit campaigning (very unlike her to do this much press!) so you never know. Whether or not you love French Exit (or have even seen it) -- she was in the dread sixth spot for me* which hurts me more than you know, trust -- three nominations for that level of talent is shamefully stingy. If I ran the world she'd have 7 nominations and 3 Oscars already. (Yes, equal to Ingrid Bergman's Oscar stats; she's that much of a movie goddess)
- For Youn Yuh-Jung to get a Best Supporting Actress nomination. I know pundits, professional and amateur alike, think she's locked up but she's really not. Oscar has been so stingy with Asian actors even when their films are Best Picture locks as we've noted many times over the years at TFE. Would be nice if the Academy could finally get over this hurdle with Minari since they haven't been able to get over it with other Asian-centric movies that they themselves loved like Slumdog, Memoirs of a Geisha, Crouching Tiger, Parasite, Ran, and The Last Emperor. All of those films, no matter what you think of them individually, had at least one but sometimes two obvious options for acting honors. Obviously not every buzzed performance was nomination worthy -- just as it's always been with any random group of films starring white actors -- but the fact that none happened despite other big nominations is telling. And not flattering to AMPAS.)
- For First Cow to get at least 1 nomination (Director? Adapted Screenplay? Cinematography?). It would be a pity for it not to have any after being in the critical conversation for so much of 2020.
- For Sound of Metal, one of my own Best Picture nominees*, to have a good morning. It feels like it's on the cusp of several categories but only secure in two: Actor and Sound.
* P.S. Yes, the Film Bitch nominations are done in all the Oscar parallel categories with 11 more "special" awards to come (Limited Performance x 2 and all seven "Best Scene" categories). We'll try to finish them all within a week's time so we can put 2020 behind us. I don't pay much attention to Film Bitch stats since the fun is in making the lists but out of curiousity I looked it up because the nomination stats seemed very low and I was right to be curious. Minari and Nomadland are now the joint record-holders of lowest nomination tally for a nomination leader (six nods each). The previous record holder was Lady Bird (2017) with 7 nominations in its year. While I was looking this up I discovered that Moulin Rouge! (2001) is the all time most nominated picture at the Film Bitch Awards with 14 nominations and 12 Years a Slave (2013) is in second place with 13 nominations. These stats are mostly very surprising to me. I know I know. We should put it in all book form. Who will buy ;) ?