90th Oscar Nominations: Shape of Water Leads. Darkest Hour and Phantom Thread Surprise.

by Nathaniel R

Guillermo del Toro's beauty & the beast style macabre fantasy romance cold war mystery monstery movie whatsit The Shape of Water led the nominations with 13. (The record for most nominations remains 14 held jointly by Titanic, All About Eve and La La Land). Darkest Hour and Phantom Thread were the overperformers this morning with 6 nominations each even though many pundits (including myself) didn't think they'd quite manage Best Picture nods even though we were predicting them in other categories. For the record I myself had Phantom Thread in 10th place and Darkest Hour in 12th place (oops). As expected Blade Runner 2049 was the most nominated film without a Best Picture nomination (5 nominations. The record in the new era of the expanded Best Picture field remains with Carol which had 6 nominations). And finally The Post ends its whiplashing inducing what-is-happening-with-this-movie precursor adventure by scoring just 2 nods but they're biggies: Picture and Actress. 

TRIVIA AND COMMENTARY FOLLOWS...

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Live Nomination Announcement

Complete list of nominations with commentary here. Our Oscar charts will be updated today... though obviously it will take the full day. Enjoy.

Best Dressed at SAG

by Nathaniel R

Marvel at this feat of fashion engineering. Somehow the 16 actors (+ god knows how many stylists) got together and took the title This is Us to heart and made it work. Everything was gorgeously coordinated and complimentary though not samey samey. From the royal blue throughline of the gowns to small color accents on the tuxes to the peppering of earth tones, purples, blacks, and golds to keep it vibrant and versatile. The more you look the more cohesive and beautiful it becomes. Bow down. Okay now on to the gowns... 

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One Last Moment for Our Biggest Oscar Hopes

Chris here, with our last moments before the Oscar nominations are announced in the morning. Naturally, my mind is lingering on my highest hopes for nominations just on the buble of happening instead of the sure things. My fingers are most tightly crossed for one contender I've gone at length about here: Tiffany Haddish for Best Supporting Actress in Girls Trip.

Strangely, Haddish will be reading the nominations tomorrow morning along with Andy Serkis. While other awards shows have had potential contenders present their nominations in the past (and even resulted in nominations, he said as he lit another prayer candle), this remains an odd and inappropriate choice to have her hopes dashed in real time before our eyes. As if hearts won't already be breaking should she not make the final five, we'll have to watch her get the news. But to block that bummer thought from our brains, we have a clip of Haddish on the upcoming season of Drunk History to remind us of all the joy she brought to 2017. Here she tells the story of Rose Valland and the Monuments Men which you'll remember from... the George Clooney film that yielded no Oscar nominations.

Let's take a final moment and share our biggest hopes for the nominations. What on the bubble contenders would make you happiest to see announced tomorrow morning?

Beauty vs Beast: All Sewn Up

Jason from MNPP here for our weekly "Beauty vs Beast" party - I'd been holding off on fêteing Paul Thomas Anderson's latest and most recently greatest Phantom Thread until it got its proper wide release, and now that it has, hitting over 800 theaters across the US this weekend, let us intrude ourselves upon the very strange (and strangely satisfying) union of Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), master designer, and his flung-from-space muse Alma (Vicky Krieps). Anderson muddies the waters great deal on what we think we know about this kind of power dynamic going in - Alma's nobody's pawn or pushover. And in Reynolds' sparkle-eyed acquiescence we see what she sees as worth all the fuss, too...

polls

PREVIOUSLY I kept hearing how last week's Hitchcock contest was tough for everybody and the numbers bear it out because this might've been the closest race we've yet had - Cary Grant topped Jimmy Stewart by just 3 votes out of over 300 cast! I'd say we're fairly torn on which man got the most from the Hitch treatment. Commenter Claran was decisively Team Cary though:

"Take that, Jimmy! Lest we forgot who stole the Oscar that should've gone to Grant, who wasn't even nom for The Philadelphia Story!! Tsk tsk....Shame on you, Oscars!!"