12 Things We Learned From the Oscar Nominations

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...

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Live Announcement: Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards

Related Articles: 
• 12 things we learned from the noms
• 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)

 I used to call this day my Christmas but I worry about coal in the stocking. Did we receive Oscar nomination gifts this year or lumps of coal? A little of both of course. Tracee Ellis Ross and Kumail Nanjiani were the chipper announcers this morning, making frequent jokes about how little sleep they'd gotten before the announcements.

The full list of nominations and how well we did on our predictions follow...

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Podcast Special: Lots and Lots of Reader Questions Answered

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl answer your questions this week

On this special edition of the podcast we ONLY answer reader questions. As many as we could get to in an hour. We had soooo much fun doing this one so we hope you enjoy, and thank you for the diversion.

Index (60 minutes)
00:01 Who will win SAG's Supporting Actress + fixing category fraud?
06:50 Original screenplay nominations + buying DVDs
12:00 Characters wardrobe, female directors, and films that define 2018
22:30 "Shallow" + "If you saw this... than why?" + replacing Oscar lists
31:35 Nominee presentations + Oscar Hosting 
35:45 Ben is Back and Roma questions
41:40 Nomination balloting procedures + Fav scenes of the year
52:00 Mandatory Best Actress diversion
57:00 Changing opinions on previous top 10 lists?

Further Reading / References
• Nadine Labaki (Capernaum) interview
• Smackdown of 1943
• Oscar Charts
• Kyle Buchanan on the hostless Oscars article

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Special Episode: Reader Questions!

Beauty vs Beast: Queen Anne's Choice

Happy Oscar Nominations Eve, everybody! Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" which this week shall tackle one of the probable juggernauts nomination-wise tomorrow, or so we hope -- Yorgos Lanthimos' giddily profane The Favourite boasts a triumverate for the ages, with Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) sitting astride two wars, the more interesting one between her comely, craven subjects Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and cousin Abagail (Emma Stone). Everybody's predicting richkly deserved nominations for all three (while simultaneously bickering about their Lead vs Supporting placement) but we're more interested where you'd come down from Queen Anne's place...

bike trail guide

PREVIOUSLY Last week you guys wisely took Joan's advice and didn't fuck with her, fellas - Faye Dunaway's stark-raving turn in Mommie Dearest trampled through the roses to a win of just under 80%. Said Roger:

"I love MOMMIE DEAREST. In terms of Oscar eligibility, Faye Dunaway absolutely should have won the Oscar. Her performance is incredible and almost experimental. I think this is a rare example where the overused remark of losing one’s self in a role is warranted. The line between Faye Dunaway and Joan Crawford is blurred beyond distinction. Both actresses are so enthralling that seeing one as the other, Dunaway as Crawford, is so electrifying it borders on hyperreality."

"Roma" is the not so surprising superstar of the 1st annual LEJA Awards

We told you back in December about a new critics organization LEJA (Latino Entertainment Journalists Association) and they've announced their first year's worth of awards winners. Roma leads with TEN wins (nine proper plus a special award for Yalitza Aparacio as "Breakout," despite the fact that she also won Best Actress). The only other multiple winners were Black Panther (3), If Beale Street Could Talk (3), A Star is Born (2), and Into the Spider-Verse (2). They've mostly they avoided category fraud except in the messy Best Supporting Actor category where they rubberstamped Mahershala Ali. But we'll forgive that since they honored Bradley Cooper as Best Actor and he's been weirdly denied wins all season despite his multiple threat sucess with A Star is Born. The full list of LEJA winners is after the jump.

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