8 Big Takeaways from the Oscar Nominations

Each Oscar nomination morning brings waves of hot takes. Here are seven things that stood out to me on first pass. What stood out for you?

Barry Jenkins directing his young cast in MOONLIGHT which received 8 nominations

Oscars No Longer So White (For Now)
As far as we are aware this is only the second year (other than 2004) where all four acting categories feature at least one actor of color. There are seven actors of color nominated this year, or 35% of the nominees. While I personally felt the anger last year was both justified and misdirected (there simply weren't that many options to feasibly nominate - and the Oscar nominees have been more diverse than Hollywood itself in years past which is where the problem truly lies), it's a great relief to see so much diversity this year. Not  every year has so many acclaimed hits starring people of color like Hidden Figures, Fences, Moonlight, Loving and Lion so let's hope the Academy has plenty of options next year, too. It's a good development. We also have the first black female nominated in editing (Joi McMillion for Moonlight) and the second black man ever nominated in cinematography (Bradford Young for Arrival -- the first was British Remi Adefarasin for Elizabeth) and, most famously, Viola Davis becomes the most Oscar nominated black woman of all time with her third nomination. 

Releasing After Christmas Just Doesn't Work
A24 had been there before with A Most Violent Year but the magical miraculous 20th Century Women met nearly the same fate of a shut-out...

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Who's Joining Jenkins & Chazelle in the Best Director Shortlist?

While working on Oscar chart updates, Best Director suddenly felt quite loose and ripe for shifting favor. While the Directors Guild Nominations will surely clarify that race to an extent those aren't until January 12th, a week after Oscar nomination voting begins. Right now though the coveted nominations for Best Director look fairly up in the air beyond the two thirtysomething wonder boys who have been showered with the most honors already: Damien Chazelle (La La Land) and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight). 

La La Land is only Chazelle's third feature (though many would mistake it for his second) and Moonlight is only Jenkins second (though many would mistake it for his first) so they're relative newbies. Oscar, however, is an octogenarian institution and they aren't always comfortable handing everything over the reigns to fresh blood. In fact the Best Director's race isn't usually that amenable to multiple fresh faces. You have to go back to 2009 to find an Oscar year with two directors nominated that were this green in their filmmaking careers (Jason Reitman's Up in the Air was his third feature and Precious was Lee Daniel's second) and they definitely weren't the frontrunners. For a long this year we were predicting a shortlist of all first-time nominees in the directing category but that hasn't happened since 1999. It's not a common occurrence.

Oscar's love of long-since proven directors suggests good news for Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge), Eastwood (Sully) or Scorsese (Silence) but the only one of those films with any noticeable precursor heat is Hacksaw Ridge and are they really going to welcome Gibson back in the year of angry white men upsetting the world with their prejudices? 

Kenneth Lonergan and Denis Villeneuve both have heat with Best Picture probables Manchester by the Sea and Arrival respectively but performance pictures like Manchester can sometimes suddenly be absent when the director's nominations are read out and critically acclaimed sci-fi pictures can also stumble come nomination morning due to genre biases. They might be in but they might not.  In a year when the buzz hasn't totally settled on a handful of auteurs, Oscar can sometimes surprise with a left field foreign or indie choice but even that seems hard to parse this year since so many different pictures have small passionate devotees but not huge mouthy legions of them. 

Are we overthinking this? Check out the New Best Director and Best Picture chart and report back. 

Good Links Revolt

Autostraddle "How to Dress like Cate Blanchett's Oceans 8 Character Who is Definitely Queer, Right?"
Comics Alliance Pixar's Coco gets concept art and a voice cast - Gael García Bernal! 
Sydney Morning Herald Australia's own version of the Oscars goes big for Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge with 9 wins from its 13 nominations.
The New Yorker "the fate of cinephilia in the age of streaming"

 

Awards Daily interviews the production design team on Loving 
EW Ryan Reynolds as Entertainer of the Year
Boy Culture Hunky Van Williams, discovered by Liz Taylor of people, who came to fame on TV's The Green Hornet has died at 82. His last movie role was as homage to his friend and co-star Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)
The Wrap Madonna raises $7 million for Malawi with a little help from Sean Penn who she offers to marry again
THR Harsh words for Amazon with the cancellation of Good Girls Revolt 

The World Has Lost Its Mind
Twitter protesters of the lack of gender equality in the Australian film industry dressed as sausages at the AACTAS. "End the Sausage Party!"... they were not talking about the animated movie.
Daily Beast Sofia Vergara sued by her own embryos 
Time has released their Person of the Year stuff. I shan't type his name anymore ever (vomiting ∞). Beyoncé was apparently runner up. So that makes the second strong woman he who shall not be named has grossly defeated in this awful no good terrible when will it end year (except for at the movies. So many good movies) 

List-Making. Tis the Season
Vulture David Edelstein's top 16 includes 20th Century Women and The Fits
Vanity Fair Richard Lawsom's top 10 includes Jackie, The Lobster, and Fire at Sea
Time Stephanie Zacharek's top 10 includes The Shallows, Loving, and Paterson 

And we'll end with David Ehrlich's annual Top 25 Video Countdown. It's always a pleasure to watch this even if you don't agree on the films or their ranking though this year is a far more worthy selection than last year's!

Best Director Chart Revisions

by Nathaniel R

This morning's update - the Best Director chart. And just as I'd finished those chart updates the Silence trailer arrived so we'll discuss that later today. So much happens all at once.

Speaking of. You don't want to see the way my doorman looks at me whenever I walk into the building - there's always a new stack of packages from the studios to sign for. Today alone there have been 4 deliveries of multiple packages. Why must campaign teams wait until the day before Thanksgiving to send everything? It's overwhelming really. It's the same as the studios waiting until the second half of December to release all movies ever. 

But back to the topic at hand - Best Director Hopefuls. We'll divvy them up into 3 categories after the jump...

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Linkville

Variety Will Hollywood forgive Mel Gibson with Hacksaw Ridge?
Variety Robert Redford to retire from acting. That's a pity. He was just starting to be in movies again regularly. 
MNPP Joe Alwyn eleven times 
Coming Soon Geoffrey Rush as Albert Einstein in a new series

/Film a new featurette about a Ghost in the Shell set visit
I Like Things That Look Like Mistakes on the resonance of Dogville's revenge fantasy 
Total Verhoeven the Film Society's Verhoeven retrospective just began. I'm anxious to see his Oscar nominated Turkish Delight (1973) for the first time!  
DListed first shot of Johnny Depp (or rather the back of his head) in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2. Can't believe they're already promoting the second one before the first one is in theaters (sigh) 

RIP Because 2016 continues to be the most hateful year ever  
Deadline Robert Vaughn (The Man From UNCLE, The Magnificent Seven)  
Criterion Corner Remembering Leonard Cohen (via McCabe and Mrs Miller) 

In this very difficult week these things gave me teensy moments of solitude or defiant strength
NY Mag Hiking and running into Hillary Clinton
Advocate People of the Year: The survivors of Pulse nightclub
Review "Rules for Survival" under men like Donald Trump 
Pajiba "never forget that Donald Trump is a profoundly stupid person" -perhaps his incompetence will help prevent some of the possible catastrophes
The Matinee "Dear America..."
Towleroad The continually scrappy Elizabeth Warren on Rachel Maddow "we fight back" 
The New Yorker "How to restore your faith in Democracy" 
Gothamist advice for how to protect your fellow citizens from Trump's embolded xenophobic and racist fans if you see bullying taking place