Here are the nominees for the 2022 Oscars
Dozens of films, including Belfast, Dune, Licorice Pizza, and The Power Of The Dog, will compete for a prize at the 94th Academy Awards next month
Aux News the 2022 Oscars
The Oscars will return for its second post-quarantine year next month, and the list of nominees for the 94th annual ceremony is officially here. This year’s list includes Belfast, Dune, Drive My Car, Licorice Pizza, The Power Of The Dog, The Lost Daughter, and King Richard, among others.
The Power Of The Dog and Dune lead the list with 12 nominations and 10 nominations respectively. Belfast and West Side Story are next up with seven nominations each.
Spencer didn’t nab a nomination for Best Picture, but Kristen Stewart did score her very first Oscars nomination for her role in the film. Kirsten Dunst also landed herself a first-time nomination for The Power Of The Dog, and Jane Campion’s Best Director nomination has made her the first woman to be nominated in the category twice.
Last year, the awards ceremony was moved from its usual home at the luxe Dolby Theatre to Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles. At the time, the move was a way to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This year, though, the Oscars will return to Hollywood Blvd.
Though the Oscars ceremony is returning to normalcy in some ways, there are still a couple of big changes to expect that night. This year, there are 10 films nominated for Best Picture. In past years, there have been about eight or nine Best Picture nominees.
The other change? Well, though the annual ceremony has been without a host the last few years, the Academy has promised the return of emcees this time around. However, no official host has been announced yet.
This year, the Oscars nominees were announced at an event led by Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan. The 94th Academy Awards ceremony will air on ABC on March 27 at 8 p.m. ET. The list of nominees is below and the complete list can be found here.
The nominees for the 2022 Oscars are:
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Judi Dench, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power Of The Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Best Adapted Screenplay
Dune
Drive My Car
The Lost Daughter
The Power Of The Dog
Best Original Screenplay
Belfast
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Best Supporting Actor
Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Jesse Plemons, The Power Of The Dog
Troy Kotsur, Coda
J.K. Simmons, Being The Ricardos
Kodi Smit- McPhee, The Power Of The Dog
Best Animated Feature
The Mitchells Vs. The Machines
Best International Feature
Drive My Car
Flee
Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom
The Worst Person In The World
Best Actor
Javier Bardem, Being The Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power Of The Dog
Andrew Garfield, tick, tick…BOOM!
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy Of Macbeth
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes Of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Nicole Kidman, Being The Ricardos
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Best Director
Belfast, Kenneth Branagh
Drive My Car, Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Licorice Pizza, Paul Thomas Anderson
The Power Of The Dog, Jane Campion
West Side Story, Steven Spielberg
Best Picture
Belfast
Coda
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Licorice Pizza
The Power Of The Dog
Drive My Car
King Richard
West Side Story
274 Comments
No one cares
Yes, I am no one.
lmfao dumbfuck
The Academy took a dump on House of Gucci.
Better than I expected for sure. Drive My Car and Nightmare Alley getting in there over Being the Ricardos and tick, tick…BOOM! is a win.
My real question is how the yak movie got in there over A Hero and the other shortlisted films. Bhutan must have mounted one hell of a campaign.
I haven’t yet seen the others in the International category, but I’ve heard great things about Drive My Car and Worst Person. A Hero, however, is my favorite of Farhadi’s big ones. That yak movie must be incredible.
I’ve seen all of the other nominees and they’re great. The yak movie has a lot to live up to.
I can’t believe how many nominations Dune got. I thought that everyone else was massively disappointed with it too. Guess not.
Where have you been hanging out?
The people who I saw it with also didn’t like it and then I can’t say I heard much else about it since then. I think it was also released during a massive streak of big movies though.
With my friends at the Toschi Station.
nah this is basically the first dissenting opinion i’ve seen haha.
I’m not gonna lie, I’m right there with you. I will say, production-wise I thought it was great (cinematography, score, acting, etc.), but man not only could I barely follow the overly complicated plot, but it just kinda left me cold by the end. I never felt like I had a reason to care about most of these characters, and hot damn is the “young white male is the chosen one” trope getting old. I’m aware the original novel is probably an early iteration of said trope, but this isn’t the original novel, it’s an adaptation that could have easily swapped Timmy’s role with Zendaya’s. Also, the “everything in the future is grey and brown” trope is ALSO getting old. Why the hell is there never any color in sci-fi anymore?
I’ve never read Dune, but from what I’ve gleaned it seems that the “white male chosen one” trope is less incidental default character setting and more instrumental to the plot and themes. Although I would have had a great laugh at the furor it would have caused in the fandom if they had made the change. The consternation going on right now at the idea of non white characters (and manicures, omg) in Lord of the Rings is way less than I think it could have been in the year 2022, but I imagine it would have been a whole other story for this movie.
The character is not the chosen one, he is the manufactured one – created over centuries of cross breeding select members of the ruling class. Since the ruling class is white, so is he.
The character is not the chosen one, he is the manufactured one – created over centuries of cross breeding select members of the ruling class. Since the ruling class is white, so is he.
The character is not the chosen one, he is the manufactured one – created over centuries of cross breeding select members of the ruling class. Since the ruling class is white, so is he.
The character is not the chosen one, he is the manufactured one – created over centuries of cross breeding select members of the ruling class. Since the ruling class is white, so is he.
The character is not the chosen one, he is the manufactured one – created over centuries of cross breeding select members of the ruling class. Since the ruling class is white, so is he.
The character is not the chosen one, he is the manufactured one – created over centuries of cross breeding select members of the ruling class. Since the ruling class is white, so is he.
The character is not the chosen one, he is the manufactured one – created over centuries of cross breeding select members of the ruling class. Since the ruling class is white, so is he.
“Also, the “everything in the future is grey and brown” trope is ALSO getting old.”
It takes place almost entirely on a planet virtually entirely covered in sand.
Although it would have been unnecessarily disorienting and distracting, there’s no reason space sand can’t be green or red or purple or rainbow. The only reason Earth sand is usually bland is because it’s mostly boring dumb quartz.
And in the real world, many people who have lived in sandy places have gone to great efforts to make their world as colourful as possible. The Tuareg are traditionally known as “the blue people”!
hot damn is the “young white male is the chosen one” trope getting old. I’m aware the original novel is probably an early iteration of said trope
This is where Dune being split into two movies suffers, because1) It was an extremely popular and well-worn trope by the time the original novel was out, and2) the original novel is an explicit condemnation of said trope, which doesn’t become fully obvious until the back half (and is drilled home much further in the sequels).Though even in the first half of the story, it’s pretty clear that “chosen one” here indicates “chosen by a rich and powerful invading force as a means of subverting the natives after centuries of co-opting their culture and religion” rather than “chosen by fate” so it’s not like it hasn’t played some of its cards already.Suffice to say, Paul being a young rich white aristocrat who also just so happens to be The (carefully cultivated) Chosen (by a higher order which hopes to control him) One to a bunch of POC in the desert controlling a valuable resource isn’t an accident, or in any way considered to be a good thing by the story itself. Paul’s the protagonist, but Dune doesn’t have any heroes.
Thanks—I’ve always found the book to be a little too impenetrable, so this information is useful for context. I quite enjoyed the film, but mostly due to the great acting and incredible world-building it does. It’s obvious the director cared deeply for making this world as lived-in and authentic as possible.
Preach! That movie desperately needed some color. I mean, they visited 4 different planets in this movie and everyone of them was gray, brown, and black. No distinction in palette whatsoever.
I’m with you, however, I am aware this is a minority opinion. Most people seem to love Dune (my suspicions feel like it has more to do with positive bias about the director, rather than the movie as a story) but at the very least, it does deserve its technical nominations.
This is honestly the first opinion I’ve heard that isn’t someone praising the film. Although I will admit, I saw it opening night in a community surrounded by quite few highschools, so there was a tonne of group of highschool age kids who I assume didn’t know why they were there besides Timothee Chalamet.
They were all totally asleep by the last act lmao. I find it hilarious that they casted it entirely with big franchise actors giving the impression that it might be a quippy MCU-like affair. Hilarious prank.
Nerds lovd it.
Don’t Look Up being nominated for anything is criminal
very odd choice. I didn’t even hate it, but it felt like a movie from 5 years ago.
It’s self-important horse shit that pretends to say something while saying nothing at all…similar to McKay’s last Oscar bait film, Vice. Baiting works. I’m just glad it didn’t get any acting nods…
YEP. This.Don’t Look Up was to “incisive commentary on human response to climate change” what Joker was to “incisive commentary on class warfare.”
Oh, Vice definitely said something. It said it loudly, repeatedly, almost unceasingly.[“Dick Cheney is bad”. Also, “American politics and big business are corrupt”, and “Republicans are fascists”.]
If it were a proper theatrical movie the poster would have been yellow for sure
Don’t Look Up feels like a classic, not as good as, but certainly the closest in the last 20 years, to Dr. Strangelove. It was also misunderstood by a lot of people at its release, and really gained appreciation as the years went by. People are going to learn how to watch it. When to laugh, how to sit with the discomfort, etc. Like in 5 years, people will still talk about this movie, along with Dune and Drive My Car, and maybe Coda. I can’t say that about any of the other nominees.
I can see where you’re coming from, but I strongly disagree— I think that’s what the film was going for but failed at miserably, ending up pretty cheap and shallow (and badly edited). I do agree that most of the nominees here are pretty forgettable though
I think the shallow read is one that’s going to slip away with age. Its a reflection of a shallow time and it didn’t help that it spins out modern politics that are already exhausting most people. But in 5 years, lets say the major debated topics of the day aren’t the science of covid, vaccines, climate change, etc. People will come back to this movie to point to what was going on.
I think the shallow read is one that’s going to slip away with age.There is no deep read of Don’t Look Up. It has all the depth and bite of a Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show joke.
It’s like if The Day After Tomorrow had gotten an Oscar Nomination. I wonder if there were people on imdb boards back in 2004 going on about how deep that movie was. “You don’t understand man, just you wait, in years to come, people will learn how to watch it, they’ll really get all the deep nuances to this transcendent film.”
CORRECT.Like…how the fuck are people finding more than a thimble’s worth of depth to this movie? It ain’t there. It WANTS to be there, but it ain’t.
people will be talking about it, as a punchline, for sure.
See, the issue is that it tries to do the things that Dr. Strangelove does, but nowhere near as well. It’s a semi-capable apery of that flick, but they aren’t in the same league.
Is this a bit?
It felt pretty much like just about every made for Netflix movie, like they were working off a first draft script. It’s ok, nothing special, not Oscar worthy, not even Cable Ace worthy.
To me it feels more like one of those scattershot attempted satires of the 60s than something as tight as Strangelove.
Like the producers, Bye Bye Birdie, In Like Flint, etc. Yes, this movie is in that range, and similarly misunderstood in its time.
Agree, Don’t Look Up is one of those movies that I think we’ll still be talking about some years from now. I thought a lot about Dr. Strangelove as I was watching it.
Don’t Look Up will be talked about in 5 years, but much in the way the non-Cronenberg Crash is still talked about. Such a hokey movie.
The academy seems to like the directors movies for some reason.
It’s not Dr. Strangelove. It’s the comet episode from The Simpsons but much worse.
at least meryl streep wasn’t nominated for her acting
Yeah, you can’t find one person who liked this thing and it’s nominated for Best Picture???
It’s like if Nickelback were a movie.
I, um, kinda enjoyed it. Nowhere near Best Picture quality, but it was lighthearted fun. DiCaprio was good, Lawrence was good, Streep….maybe go back to live theater? The more I see her, the more appropriate her style seems to be for theater than film.***slinks away in shame***
Are you in The Academy?
Nothing wrong with kind of enjoying it, it’s an ok time waster, you can kill an afternoon with it and get a few chuckles. But award worthy? Any award? Come on, you know better.
Hey, I didn’t even say it’s worthy of an award! So I do know better! Apologize! APOLOGIZE!
Implying someone thinks Don’t Look Up is award worthy, is indeed over the line. My humble apologies.
Yeah, it’s decently entertaining at points, but Dr. Strangelove it ain’t. Not that it has to be, but it just didn’t land for me at all.
Nah I’m with you. I dug it. Laughed a lot. But I certainly could have found another dozen films to nominate before Don’t Look Up for Best Picture.
I guess it’s too bad that your opinion is statistically in the minority. The film has a a 78% audience approval score on RT, meaning that only about 22% of the people that saw it disliked it.Nickelback can only dream of having a 78% approval rating, and even then I don’t think their imagination is strong enough.
I guess.
Nickelback has sold 50 million albums. There’s clearly a ton of people who love or at least loved them.
Statistically, Sonic the Hedgehog is a far better movie than Don’t Look Up according to both fans and critics on RT.
I kinda agree with that. It has a lower IMDb score than Don’t Look Up. but Sonic the Hedgehog wasn’t bad either. It obviously could have been a lot worse—had they not fixed up Sonic’s looks.
It’s just sooooo heavy handed. I get it, people are divided by politics and politicians are using that to divide us further. Yup. Sure. And?
It was bad. And anyone saying people don’t get the satire and that’s why they didn’t like it… no, the satire is very obvious.
I understand not liking a film but I find the anger directed at that film utterly perplexing.
all i wanted was garfield for tick tick boom as i got it. hoping drive my car gets some wins!
Man, I know French Dispatch is one of Anderson’s more divisive movies, but I was hoping it would get at least a screenplay nod or something.
I am very shocked to see nothing at all too. I’m starting to think Grand Budapest Hotel is going to be his only real nominated film.
well, it was arguably his best, and his last 2 have been turd sandwiches. so its one thing Academy has gotten right.
Agreed. Grand Budapest Hotel is a great movie.
Grand Budapest Hotel was his best film and all these awards were very well earned.I haven’t watched The French Dispatch yet, though I did heard that it was mixed. If not enough people thought it is good enough for the awards, so be it.
I don’t know if it was the best directed film of the year, but it was certainly the MOST directed.
the academy doesn’t really fuck with him that much. i loved it but didn’t expect anything.
15 nominations. His last four films before The French Dispatch were all nominated, and five of his last seven. I’d say they have a bit of time for him!
beautifully shot, bit of a stinker in the character work in relation to his other films, but definitely better than Don’t Look Up.
Are you kidding? This is the happiest day of my life. Wes should ditch the style over substance and make a Marvel movie. The only people who enjoyed The French Dispatch are AV Club writers and readers. Check and Mate, good sir.
‘Check and Mate, good sir’…uh, who’s playing chess against whom in this analogy? did you win against wes anderson or did he lose against the academy?
Agreed. Should be on the screenplay list if nothing else. “Don’t Look Up”? Ugh, don’t further enable Adam McKay’s worst impulses, please!
Agreed. I found this baffling. Anderson (like PT Anderson and Tarantino) seems to have become so much better with time. I am gobsmacked that Jeffrey Wright did not steal a nod. He should win the freaking trophy for that portrayal.
Like most of Wes’ works it rewards repeat viewing. The French Dispatch Of The Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun practically requires it. It’s so intensely dense and fast paced at times that it just washes over you in the most Wes Anderson way, so the first watch can be quite overwhelming. The second time watching it knowing the structure, the general outline of the disparate stories and the reason for the format and what he’s saying about storytelling it was a much more pleasant and entertaining watch. It’s definitely in his top 3.
Production Design and Score were its big misses.
woo for Power of the Dog, beautifully shot, and amazing story about the insidious nature of toxic masculinity. More like power of the bottom amirite my fellow queer bbs?Dunst I hope wins the oscar, she really blew me away in that film.
I’ve been holding off on finishing Power of the Dog (I’m legit, like, 10 minutes in) because every review I’ve skimmed has referred to a “shocking revelation” that seems painfully obvious from the first moment you witness Beelzebub Cucumber being an asshole about paper flowers, but maybe that’s just because I’m a practicing homosexual* so I’m primed to expect these things.Anyway, Kirsten Dunst fuckin’ rules; looking forward to her performance.*lady variety, though, so my wheelhouse is more “tragic lesbian love stories where one or both end up dead or with a man”, and thus could be completely wrong here…
I watched the movie with a bunch of straights and they were shocked by the ending, so I honestly think the movie plays with some of those toxic masculine expectations by the audience more than the average queer may realize(or seasoned movie watcher). This weird indoctrinated belief that the stoic repressed cowboy is a source of strength is something some audiences just can’t shake.And yes, Dunst said “fuck ya’ll for overlooking my Melancholia performance, I’m back to take it all”
The homosexual aspect of the film is pretty well publicized. Not what people are referring to when they say there are shocking revelations. At least I hope not. Because that would be dumb. It was obvious from the trailer. And I say that as a card-carrying straight guy.
lol, yeh. i clocked it in the trailer. i think if you know, you know.
i haven’t watched it yet because i have an aversion to kirsten dunst. but it’s jane campion, so…
I could be wrong about what these reviews are referring to, but just so you’re aware, there is another “shocking revelation” at the end of the film that has nothing specifically to do with a character’s sexuality and is impossible to predict if you’ve only seen 10 minutes of the movie
You’re about halfway there.
I saw the movie and didn’t find the plot development remotely “shocking”, more like somewhere between “of course” and “Duh!”
Also you fall asleep every ten minutes trying to watch it like I do right? More like Power of the Slog.
As a straight man who’s seen more than my share of westerns, I did NOT see the end coming (and rather stupidly, in hindsight). I had to think about that a long time—it plays with the tropes of westerns, masculinity, and even homosexuality as it’s portrayed in movies so well that I thought I was being led in one direction, only to find myself ending up in a different place entirely. I loved it. Easily one of the best movies of the year—happy to see it nominated.
I would argue that the shocking revelations are tangentially related to the gay parts. Like the repressed desires of a wannabe tough cowboy are important, but they also set up other stuff happening. There are also a couple blink and you miss it revelations in there too. It trusts that you’re paying attention.
Yeah it was all there, but kind of amazing how my own perceptions blocked them out with what I thought was going to happen, rather than just trusting what was told and shown to me throughout the film.
Heh, that’s not the shocking revelation. The shocking revelation comes at the very end, which makes me wonder if a lot of people don’t realize what actually happened. .
Having finally gotten around to watching it tonight, I’ll say that the other “shocking revelation” was telegraphed from, like, the halfway point of the film that I’m honestly surprised that anyone would call it shocking ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I didn’t find it overly telegraphed, but rather a good example of plant/payoff structure in a script.
Yeah Dunst was quite good in it, as was Plemons. I enjoy watching them pair off together and the different shades they bring to it in various roles. Not alot of similarity between this movie and their path in Fargo, but it’s fun to have that background in your head.
Kodi Smit-McPhee is so, SO fucking good in that flick
awwwww…. this thread totally spoiled The Power of the Dog for me. Boo.
I guess it’ fine that I know this information but…. to this day I insist my best theatre experience was getting taken to see “Call Me By Your Name” by my girlfriend at the time, who insisted that I should not research the film.
I’ve never been more satisfied going in totally blind to a film before. A solid 45 minutes in wondering “what is the story this film is telling….. OOOOOOOH”.
I was genuinely surprised the kid didn’t get the actor nod–I could see how it’s a supporting role, but it felt much bigger.
I hope Cumberbatch is finally recognized for his amazing “American” “accent.”
I think the fact that it’s shaky actually works in the context of the movie. His character is supposed to be an upper crust jerk putting on this cowboy character mostly as an act.
It does seem consistent with his character, but having heard his other attempts at an American accent, his Dog accent made me think more of his inability to nail that accent as an actor rather than because his character can’t nail the cowboy accent.
I agree in general I just think it’s something that happens to work for this movie. For a character who’s so unsure of themself and where they fit in having an accent all over the place is more of an asset than a hindrance. Now in August Osage County well…………………..not so much.
Odd that Dune didn’t get a best director nom. The academy really loved that awful Lucy biopic huh? Or at least the actors in it.
I thought Kidman got a lot of flack for what was a pretty good performance in a really dull movie. Although that final scene where she stumbles on her lines was beautifully done. It’s also the only scene that really considered Lucille outside of the weird Sorkin workplace obsession.
The Oscars love movies about old Hollywood, actor transformations, and Kidman, Bardem, and Simmons. Given that, I think the fact that it wasn’t nominated in more categories suggests a pretty tepid reaction by the Academy.
Javier Bardem really transformed himself into Javier Bardem in old timey clothes. Masterful performance.
To be fair he was so horrifically miscast that there wasn’t a whole lot he could do. Who do we get to play a perpetually baby-faced heartthrob and former nightclub singer?Umm…the guy who played Anton Chigurh?
Yeah. I still don’t know what Sokin was thinking. Kidman kind of pulled it off, but it was too much to ask for Bardem to get anywhere close to Desi. At least the movie was crappy anyway, so it’s no big loss.
A lot of prognosticators had Being the Ricardos tabbed as a Best Picture nominee. So the fact that it only got acting noms seems like a small mercy.
I would have preferred that to Don’t Look Up getting a nomination, I’m still scratching my head at that one.
I watched the first 10 minutes of the Lucy movie and couldn’t get past the sheer, unnatural Sorkin-ness of the dialogue. It was easier to overlook his weird dialogue tics when I was less familiar with his entire oeuvre, but the more I’ve seen, the more I’ve developed an antipathy to him. I think it might make my eyes roll more than Tim Burton’s entire aesthetic and over-reliance on Johnny Depp.
What kills me is I have read a few interviews with Sorkin and he didn’t really seem to get the material. Sorkin was obsessed with the whole HUAC stuff when Lucy herself was on record several times in her life saying it was not that big of a deal. He also talked about the show like it was some how obscure these days and modern audiences would not find it funny. Which, I don’t know, maybe zoomers don’t know it but Millenials grew up with Nick at Night and Gen X just had it on TV in rerun for a million years. And while comedy is always subjective its still finds an audience that will laugh at it because the humor is universal, broad and classic
Born in the mid-80s here so the upper of the millennials but I Love Lucy is of the shows from that era which I have basically no nostalgia for. I totally understand its importance in history and the importance of Lucy herself but that’s about as far as it goes.It wasn’t shown on Nick at Night here when I was a kid in the mid-90s (though seemingly every other American sitcom from the late 50s to the mid-1970s was and god did I watch so much of that stuff for years) and outside of references on the Simpsons and the mentions of Lucy in the history of Star Trek, I don’t think I even really became aware of the show until I went to America in 1996 and saw all the stuff about her at Universal Studios (I think). It’s not like it’s forgotten but I don’t think it would be entirely unfair to say it is obscure now, particularly for people younger than their mid-30s and people outside of America.
Wife and I are also mid 80s babies and I watched a ton of nick at nite and tv land I saw a ton of 70s bullshit for sure but when it came to TV of the 50s I feel like I Love Lucy was the most often played. I don’t remember ever seeing Honeymooners, Mr. Ed was there. Lots of Bewitched and Dick Van Dyke but that’s getting into early 60s. The reason I Love Lucy had suck amazing staying power and enduring syndication run is because they insisted on shooting in Burbank. At the time, most TV was produced in New York City and technology being what it was East Coast viewers got a clearer picture since they are closed to the source. Therefore, they shot I Love Lucy on film, so that east coasters would get the kind of picture quality they were used to and not abandon the show. But a lucky side effect is that these are some of the best preserved television episodes of the era and they look great on modern TVs (maybe too great, the make up takes into account the picture quality of the time). Go find an episode of the Jack Benny show online to compare. The writing is just as good but the picture quality just can’t compare to a Lucy episode. If this is explained in Meet the Ricardo’s I apologize. I have not seen the film (Though JK Simmons as William Frawley alMost got me there. Almost.)
-Biopic-Hollywood golden age-Sorkin-Actors who have already won OscarsYeah this wasn’t a shock.
No Pig? Some kind of issue with the timing, or something?
A good time to remember that the Oscars very rarely actually reward the movies that will stand the test of time, after all how can they when they completely ignore whole genres, and moments like Parasite’s win are rare.
Some pig!
Is this a deleted scene from Seinfeld?
It would be terrific if it was.
Holy crap, that movie was awesome. Sigh.
I knew it was a real long shot, both because it’s an A24 film, which seems to be almost completely ignored, and also because any discussion of award attention seemed to fizzle out soon after the release, but I was really holding out hope for a nomination for Dev Patel in The Green Knight. Alas, nothing.
The Green Knight was mostly meh.
Yeah , I wanted to like it ,it looked great , but honestly I got about half way through and just sort of zoned out .
I had the same experience with the David Copperfield that Dev Patel starred in. It was a great cast, fun energy, but extreme narrative compression/liberties with minor characters does not work for an adaptation of that particular book, imho.
Loved The Green Knight. I don’t think it had broad appeal, but I also think it was a victim of poor release timing. Patel will just have to settle for being handsome.
Definitely the flick that disappeared the most this year. A24 didn’t do it many favors in the publicity department either. I would have liked to see an effects or cinematography nom, it was very impressive for being made on the cheap.
Loved the Green Knight. Should have been best pic nom, especially with the movies they did put on the list.
I didn’t think it would win anything, but I thought it would get nominations – it was divisive, but people who liked it seemed to REALLY like it.
There are some categories where it’s lack of nomination are genuinely perplexing, like costuming and special effects (the effect work for the Green Knight alone is stunning), even if you didn’t particularly like it.I just find it odd because it’s a movie that could’ve been such a “oh dear lord do we need someone adapting yet another thing that’s often taught in English Lit classes” and has something more going for it. It took real risks and is the kind of movie that should be celebrated, even if it’s not your cup of tea.
Well he’s not white so
it was a very competitive year, with a lot of stuff that would have come out in 2020 also coming out this year. i think if it had come out in 2020 it would have had a better chance.
I thought the film was overall beautiful, but took a LOOOOOONG time to get anywhere. But to your point, Patel was excellent in it and I’d fully support him getting a nod for it.
Well… yey for Dune getting so many nominations, booo for Don’t Look Up getting anything.
Don’t Look Up? Seriously? I expect Power of the Dog is going to sweep every category it is nominated for. Which I wouldn’t have a problem with, as it was brilliant.
I haven’t yet watched “The Power of the Dog” as its definitely a movie that feels like I have to be in a particular mood to watch, but I find it a bit interesting (as well as a bit frustrating) that Campion’s best chance at winning comes from a film that’s at least in part about masculinity, when her films about women and their interior lives have been often ignored (yes, I know that The Piano DID get attention). It still kills me that “Bright Star” was so ignored.
the films comments about masculinity are in reference to the effeminacy that the young queer kid is given flack for, and the love he has for his mother whose femininity is crushed. the film is about how feminine qualities are seen as weak and overlooked as non-threatening. So I would say this film really is about how masculinity represses us and everyone around us, and the film solidifies the strength of women and the strength of men who engage in qualities that are deemed “feminine”.
Well, except the only major female character is pretty much exclusively defined in the film through her relationships with the major male characters, with her role in the story ultimately confined to being a victim of one man who must be saved entirely through the actions of another man.And in what sense is the strength ultimately shown by Peter “feminine” in nature? I mean yes, Phil ironically fails to see how dangerous Peter really is because Peter does not overtly display the sorts of masculine characteristics which Phil admired and loved in Bronco Henry. But in the end (spoiler alert), Peter uses a ruthless and purely individual cunning to eliminate Phil by simply killing him. And I am not sure the message that such men are perfectly capable of killing you through cunning, I guess rather than with their fists or a gun, if you disrespect their moms is really a celebration of the strength of women themselves.
Peter is inherently feminine through the very themes of cowboy culture, I don’t think that’s really a point of argument, it’s established pretty early on through the symbolism of the flower origami. Phil quit literally crushes the origami.Spoiler:And the method of murder is inherently female, which is through poisoning, which we somehow deem as more reprehensible than the average cowboy shooting a gun. I don’t think the message of the movie is go murder people lol, but in the context of this being a western it is reevaluating the repressed cowboy trope as something to admire. His mom shows how women who show independence are crushed by toxic masculinity, she loses part of the independence the moment she gives up her business and then things slide quickly. Peter can simply move through society a little easier as a man but is also seen as less capable because he has more traditional feminine qualities.
I agree Peter’s creativity with paper flowers was coded as feminine by Phil, but that is not what Peter uses to kill Phil. Peter is in fact a medical student, and he uses his knowledge of medicine to kill Phil by intentionally infecting him. Interestingly, that is not exactly a classic poisoning, and given the association of being a doctor with the masculine, I don’t think it is so easily coded as feminine. In general, Peter is portrayed as being a bit of a sociopath, and another critical part of his strength is a lack of emotional reaction to Phil’s mean remarks, unlike Rose who finds them crippling.Again, I agree Phil, being quite the emotional idiot despite supposedly being very intellectually smart, is so blinded by his self-hating prejudices that he doesn’t see Peter in that way—as someone immune to his meanness while also being capable of using his medical knowledge for murder. But I still don’t see how that is supposed to be an example of actual female strength, and indeed the contrast with Rose seems all too apparent.
Indeed, I agree Rose is supposed to represent how women who choose to give up their independence to marry convenient men like George are ultimately vulnerable to losing all sense of self worth. And that is never actually resolved! Peter kills Phil for her—Rose herself plays no part in her own salvation. And are we now supposed to imagine Rose and George living happily ever after since Phil is dead? Rose still has no real life of her own!Again, I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that this movie contains any real celebration of the strength of women. We learn a man who appears feminine in some ways was actually a sociopathic killer. And in that sense his overtly feminine aspects were effective camouflage due to Phil’s prejudices. But the one woman in the story is still just a victim who needed to be saved by a man.
I felt Rose was more of a metaphor for femininity, both Peter’s mom and his salvation into a certain unconditional and female love. The more Phil tries to crush the feminine attributes out of Peter, the more his mom dies. He’s saving his mom, but he’s also saving the virtues of feminine and queer attributes that align more with who he is.Perhaps Peter isn’t a good person in the end, but he still recognizes that the most magic in the world he exists in is the character of Rose and the symbol of femininity she represents. So yes, she’s a victim, but she saves herself by continuing to exist in world that would be truly horrible if it wasn’t populated with the much more affirming qualities of femininity.
So the only prominent woman in the story is reduced to a symbolic presence in the men’s stories, and this is a good thing for women in film?Yes, Rose isn’t a real character in her own right, she is really just Peter’s mom, the “darling” in the quote “deliver . . . my darling from the power of the dog.” And she doesn’t save herself, she is saved by a man. You can say she continues to “exist” at the end of the film—but what existence will she actually have? A good one? And in any event, she was on her way to drinking herself to death until Peter, a man, intervened to save her. And she played no role in how he did it. Now Peter is a queer man, sure, but he is also someone’s whose relevant virtues are sociopathy and medical knowledge. Which I still struggle to see as “feminine” virtues. Again, his apparent femininity tricked Phil into discounting him as a threat, but his actual power to kill Phil had nothing to do with those traits.Finally, I disagree it took Phil trying to crush Peter in order for him to crush Rose. As soon as Phil perceived Rose as taking George from him, he set about crushing Rose directly. And he was doing a lot of that when Peter wasn’t even around.But the message of the movie is that because Rose isn’t a sociopath, unlike Peter, she was powerless in the face of Phil’s verbal abuse.So, yay for women? Sure, women themselves are helpless prey of men like Phil if left to their own devices. But if they are lucky, maybe their loving sons will do the man’s work of saving them . . . .Don’t get me wrong, I think it is interesting that Campion makes a point of portraying Phil as such a loser underneath the bluster, and portraying Peter as a cold-blooded killer underneath the apparently gentle demeanor. But in the course of telling that story, Rose is basically given the same sort of cliched treatment that women typically get in “revenge” movies like this, one which has properly been criticized for how it basically does exactly what you said: treat women not as fully realized characters in their own stories, but just as feminine symbols that can be used and abused as necessary to tell stories about men.
well stated
I’m not sure what she’s done before has been ignored. As you note, The Piano won multiple Oscars. I liked Bright Star but I don’t think it was as good as The Piano or In The Cut, which was criminally misunderstood at the time. Personally I think The Power of the Dog is her best work though.It should be noted too, that this wasn’t some project that was being made and she was just hired as director. She happened to read the book in 2017 and became obsessed with making a film out if it. She secured the rights and the funding herself over the course of a few years. It’s her project entirely and the subject matter obviously was something she deeply cared about. It brought her out of a more than decade long filmmaking hiatus.
I don’t think Dunst will win.
I didn’t see West Side Story, but I think she gave the best performance out of the other performers in her category. The Academy is also pretty good at sidelining people who have been in the industry forever though.
My impression is that DeBose is the expected winner. Aside from Power of the Dog, the only other film in that category I’ve seen is The Lost Daughter (and in the same week!) because they’re both on Netflix.
I generally like Dunst and think she did the best she could with this part, but again to me this was a really, really disappointing character. Rose basically has no real agency of her own. She appears completely content just giving up any sort of independence as soon as George asks. And while I am not exactly agreeing she was a conscious fortune hunter, there is so little chemistry between them it seems hard to avoid it was just a marriage of convenience for her.She then gets bullied into being an alcoholic by all-bark-and-no-bite Phil. And I can accept that as a realistic portrayal of something that could happen to a woman at that time in those circumstances—but it makes her just a victim, a person acted upon by others who is not actually doing anything herself, which is the classic trope of a woman in a movie whose only point is to be in jeopardy so that she can then be saved by a man.Ugh.
What a thrill that Flee pulled off the triple nomination in Animated, Documentary, and International Feature!
Unfortunately it might lose in all three. Drive My Car is certainly a lock for International, Animated will most likely go to Encanto, and the Doc category is very strong this year.
I was once happy and optimistic like you when Collective got two nominations for Documentary and International Feature. Then on awards night it lost to an octopus movie. Never again.
Ha, that’s certainly fair!But also, I never think any indie has a chance to win Animated Feature.
What counts as an indie here? Ghibli I’m not aware of a parent company but they definitely had some Disney stateside support for awhile, I feel like Aardman has definitely come close if not actually winning in the past but they’re sort of an institution, and I don’t think Laika has ever won despite Nike money and my beloved Kubo getting two noms in one year being the closest they’ve had to a triumph?
I would count Laika as an indie, by which I mean “anything that isn’t a major studio.” Ghibli and Aardman have each one the award once in the past, but those were a very long time ago (2002 and 2005).
I wasn’t particularly up for Pablo Larraín’s explorations of female trauma, but I really liked Spencer and am pulling for Kristen Stewart. I would’ve liked to see nominations for score and cinematography.
she truly became Diana in that role. That movie was pure paranoia and so well done.
that score was insane.
I might be in the minority but Spencer was probably my favorite movie of the year (having seen a lot of the other major films of the year including Power of the Dog) and I was pretty surprised and disappointed to see it getting so little recognition on the awards circuit outside of a few Best Actress wins and noms. I haven’t seen any of the other Best Actress performances nominated here except for Olivia Colman, who I adore and thought was fantastic in The Lost Daughter, but I’ll be pretty sad if Kristen Stewart doesn’t win just so that Spencer can have an Oscar to its name
I saw Belfast over the weekend, and I thought it was fine but not great. I’m not even sure I’d recommend it. I know this was based on/influenced by Branagh’s first-hand experience as a kid in Belfast, but it felt maybe uncomplicated and didn’t really reveal much to me. If it had been presented solely from the kid’s POV, then that might make sense as an approach, but because it was more of a God’s eye view, I was expecting more nuance than “we don’t want to leave because we grew up here.” I wouldn’t count it as one of the best I’ve seen this year.
I suspect its success is at least partially as a result of it being in black and white; based on a serious moment in history; and somewhat autobiographical. It seems like the Academy just gives something with those elements automatic noms.
And I’m pretty sure it’s gotten pretty good reviews all around, too. Maybe I was expecting to be blown away and it came up short, which maybe fooled me into thinking it came up really short.
Belfast is probably the best of the movies I saw this year that are nominated for Best Picture, but I would agree that even if I were to call it great, it wouldn’t be a great “Best Picture” winner, even by Oscar standards. I don’t think films need to be complicated to be great(I feel you mean something more nuanced here, though even then, I don’t think the nuance missing from this film hurts it a whole lot), but it does feel like it’s punching above its weight. I don’t mind it being nominated, even if it feels like a cursory honor, like Dune this year as well.I suspect it’s all moot anyway, as The Power of the Dog (which I haven’t seen yet) seems all but a lock. Maybe with a small chance of them giving it to West Side Story.
Maybe ‘nuance’ isn’t the right word, because you’re right that it’s not required for a movie to be good. I just thought there wasn’t anything too new or surprising about how the adults viewed the situation. Things were dangerous, and it was difficult to leave because that’s their home. I just didn’t quite find that revelatory, and I didn’t think focusing on these characters’ experience as especially poignant. Maybe they’re representing the majority’s experience and that’s intentional. It just wasn’t as interesting as it could have been.
The Power of the Dog is absolutely outstanding. Subversive and smart, and 100% deserves to be on this list. Not sure it was my personal choice for Best Picture (probably Macbeth, as it’s the only film on the list I immediately watched again–though I have seen Dune 3 times now and am thoroughly impressed with the incredibly immersive world built by that movie) but I won’t be upset if it wins. That film stuck with me a while.
I liked that dance scene tho.
Of most of the movies nominated, I’d say they were fine but not great. And quite frankly, it’s been this way for a little while. This is just where we’re at now when it comes to awards films.
I haven’t seen it, but it’s always good to see Ciarán Hinds get noticed.
Branagh hasn’t won an Oscar yet, or been nominated for directing since 1990, so I wonder if he’s on the shortlist of people who the academy feels “deserve” one and will be nominated for any half-decent showing until he wins. He’s been making absolute garbage the last twenty years though, so that might take a while.
Man I really didn’t watch much in 2021 as I haven’t seen any of the best picture noms. I will fix that by watching Dune, Nightmare Alley and Don’t look up after this week. And hopefully Licorice Pizza which looks like something I would love.
Nightmare Alley is on HBO max.
Yeah and I saw it was on Saturday Night on HBO and I just missed it, so for sure I will check it out soon. thanks.
Not as bad as I had expected, due to avoiding the Leto nomination and having a few less “just because” nominations than I had expected. It’s too bad that Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem got in (the only award I could give Kidman is Best Stephnie Weir impression, and even that I would question). Kidman seems likely to win as well. Hopefully someone can pull off a surprise. At least the usual fawning over this type of empty film got JK Simmons, who is such a wonderful actor, another nod. I’m happy for Andrew Garfield and Kristen Stewart too. Not complaining, but the Academy sure loves Olivia Colman.
Olivia Coleman is great, but I hated Lost Daughter. It’s 2 hours of telling the audience that she hates being a mother.
Oh yeah I got that gist from the reviews. It seems like something that would have been a TV-movie 30 years ago if the genre was not dead.
It’s like the Sally Field movie, but opposite!
It was very well done, though. Jessie Buckley’s scenes with her children in particular brought back my own former-parent-of-young-children PTSD. Call it the Saving Private Ryan of parenthood.But that does sort of lead me to saying that although Colman was very good as always, if I could get just one of them a win it would be Buckley.
It does look very powerful – TV movie isn’t a knock, per se, just the subject matter is something which reminds me more of that era and less of what headlines as many major films. But it’s always good for movies to try new themes, especially when we are drowning in a sea of biopics.
Yeah, I found it pretty gripping, but I also agree the basic subject matter does not seem particularly groundbreaking. It just made me feel everything so particularly, including the double standards for mothers and fathers, which are seen repeating themselves with the younger couple in the “present” timeline. Kinda grim, really.And I guess in that sense the “weren’t we already discussing this a generation ago?” reaction is exactly right. Unfortunately.
Am I the only one happy that Wes Anderson was shut out? That guy needs to go back to the drawing board.
The chalk board with futura bold font, haha.
TFD was the movie that finally gave me Anderson diabetes. It was overpraised by critics because it’s a love letter to their profession, but the tableau structure meant no vignette was long enough to establish an emotional through line like his best films do (Grand Budapest, Royal Tenenbaums), instead feeling like the make-up and art direction was doing all the heavy lifting. Put into context, The Last Duel was my palette cleanser for TFD.
He clearly had an idea of what he wanted to convey with the anthology format (it’s a film about the different ways people receive, interact with and discuss art, and the different kinds of impact it can have), but it just doesn’t quite build to any sort of larger observation that makes the journey feel worthwhile. I think he thought the conversation with the chef was it, but… nah.
He really needs to change up his style. You don’t see someone like Scorsese do nothing but mafia movies. He has done anything from a musical to serious highbrow fare.
Jackass forever for best picture you cowards!
That would be next year
I was really hoping the Academy would buck tradition and nominate the team of Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire as Best Actors for Peters Parkers / Spiders-Men.
i don’t think anyone actually thought it would happen, but can i just say i’m so so so happy no way home didn’t get a best picture nomination.
Right? You know Feige was hoping for at least a Cinematography nod for Eternals.
maybe until he saw it…
So . . . I simply did not like The Power of the Dog. I recognize it is clever, and that it says something important to say. And I recognize the actors did what they could with the parts they were given.But in execution, I found it tedious. I basically could not wait for it to be over, for most of the movie! And ironically, I think the basic problem is at this point, it is just all too obvious to me how a story like that could be better told over the course of something like a limited streaming series than a feature-length movie. So critical characters and relationships just felt far more conceptual than actual to me, and that prevented me from really engaging with the movie.Dune, on the other hand, was a real pleasure for me. I think Villeneuve not being at least nominated for Best Director is a shame, but hopefully it cleans up in a bunch of visual and audio categories.
I’ll say it: I didn’t find Benedict Cumberbatch convincing as a cowboy at all. Plemmons and Dunst were great- and better (and honestly, I wish the story was more about Dunst’s character, and her decent into alcoholism) but the lead performance is the most showy, so naturally it’s going to get all the attention. Not that he isn’t appreciated. The Power of the Dog is a mood piece, and it does drag. I think it takes half its runtime to find its story (when young Smitt-McPhee comes home) and finally get interesting, so if it weren’t for Cumberbatch being an a-hole in his early scenes, the first half the movie would be a slog.
That’s the point of the film. You weren’t supposed to be fully convinced of him as a cowboy. He was an elite who left the big city to become a cowboy. And he was also struggling with his sexuality. His performance as a cowboy was meant to feel dissonant.
“I didn’t find Benedict Cumberbatch convincing as a cowboy at all.”kind of the point though, he’s basically appropriated this grandiose machoism to the point of it almost feeling like a very sad rich repressed man simply play acting.
The theory I heard is that by 1925, and given Phil’s own personal background (education and such), Cumberbatch is basically playing a person playing at being a cowboy. So all that overblown fakey feeling is intentional.Which I can buy, but it still helped make the movie a drag for me. There was a moment early on when it seemed like Phil might be a malevolent force-of-nature type. Pretty quickly, though, it becomes clear he is all bark and no bite, and that his only real power is saying mean things. And I guess knowing who he can safely be mean to, except then he rather miscalculates with Peter. So ha-ha, gotcha Phil. Except by that point he is such a weak antagonist it didn’t do much for me to see him defeated.Anyway, I liked Plemons and Dunst so much in their season of Fargo, and they had such great chemistry there, it was a HORRIBLE disappointment to me how little they were given to work with in this movie. I don’t blame them at all, I just think the movie didn’t have the space to really develop them properly.
The Power of the Slog is right.
I felt the same way about Eternals!
While it is nice to see a “genre” film getting love in the best picture category, I am honestly stunned to see Dune there. While I love the book I felt that it was somehow a slog that had nothing really in it.
No Best Supporting Actress for Kathryn Hunter in the Tragedy of Macbeth? This isn’t even a list, then.
Being The Ricardos (Prime Video)
Belfast (rent$)
Coda (AppleTV+)
Don’t Look Up (Netflix)
Drive My Car (–)Dune (rent$)
Encanto (Disney+)The Eyes Of Tammy Faye (WOW)
Flee (Hulu)The Hand Of God (Netflix)King Richard (rent$)Licorice Pizza (–)The Lost Daughter (Netflix)Luca (Disney+)Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom (Spectrum$)The Mitchells Vs. The Machines (Netflix)Nightmare Alley (Hulu, HBOMax)Parallel Mothers (–)
The Power Of The Dog (Netflix)
Raya And The Last Dragon (Disney+)Spencer (rent$)tick, tick…BOOM! (Netflix)The Tragedy Of Macbeth (AppleTV+)West Side Story (HBOMax)
The Worst Person In The World (–)
Thanks for this. I’m annoyed that Drive My Car isn’t available anywhere, though maybe it’ll show up in a wider theatrical release soon. Parallel Mothers and Licorice Pizza are both playing locally now. Even Flee was here for about a week.
It’s already had a wider release in the last two weeks. It’ll only gain theaters after today.
What is “WOW”?
No idea. https://www.wowpresentsplus.com/the-eyes-of-tammy-faye
That’s the documentary, not the narrative film.
Worlds of Wonder is the production company that created the Tammy Faye doc that the film is based on. They are also behind the Ru Paul industry.
I don’t have the slightest idea what Wow is even after googling it. It stands for World of Wonder, which I’ve associated with a Christian bubble tea chain(?) but I guess it is also the production company for Rupaul’s Drag Race and I guess a lot of other LGBT adjacent stuff. I assume that’s the original documentary however, I started watching Eyes on HBOMax.
No no, they’re saying Tammy Faye is a new playable character in World of Warcraft.
It’s that thing that Owen Wilson says.
I thought that was Joey Lawrence…?
Joey Lawrence is “Woa!”
World of Wonder is the production company that does RuPaul’s Drag Race. They’ve been producing for RuPaul since the 80’s and RuPaul was close friends with Tammy Faye. That’s presumably how they ended up working with her. They’ve also produced some stuff for HBO like Carrie Fisher’s one-woman show Wishful Drinking and the Mapplethorpe documentary.
And they produced the excellent Party Monster movie with Macaulay Culkin! I’m surprised they didn’t bother with more films after that one, but I guess it didn’t make all that much money.
I thought they made Teddy Ruxpin.Anybody else remember Teddy Ruxpin?
I vaguely remember a creepy robot bear that talked shit at the TV with me, but for some reason Marky Mark is there…?
The 1961 version of West Side Story is available on HBOMax, not the 2021 version.
The Eyes Of Tammy Faye (WOW) This is on HBO now I do believe. Saw the last hour waiting on another show.
This is pretty handy, but it needs a legend (what’s WOW?)
Pretty sure Eyes of Tammy Faye is on HBO Max and World of Wonder has the documentary that it’s based on.
If only there was some sort of pop-culture website that could collect this information and put it into a slideshow!
Just FYI, I think The Eyes of Tammy Faye that’s on WoW+ is the documentary from 2000 that RuPaul narrated. The new one doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere.
The Jessica Chastain one is streaming on HBO Max
Actually only the original West Side Story is on HBO Max.
Edit: As others have pointed out, I listed the wrong West Side Story (the one is not on HBOMax) and The Eyes of Tammy Faye (the new one is on HBOMax).
Glad to Lance from Friday Night Lights get a nomination
Drive My Car did very well: screenplay, director, best foreign picture, best picture. And my instinct is that screenplay, especially, is a tough category to crack for “foreign films”. So congrats to The Worst Person in the World for that, too. A Best Actress nod for Renate Reinsve would have been sick, though.
Aunjanue is an awesome name for someone who ended up becoming an actor.
How in the FUCK isn’t the Tragedy of MacBeth not nominated for adapted screenplay, best actress for Frances McDormond, and cinematography? Only love for Denzel for this (which, obviously, deservedly)? That movie was best of the year.
My guess with Frances McDormand’s lack of nom at least is that she not only won last year, but that she had another win in the past few years. Does it make sense? No. Does it happen though? Yes.
She also shat out that acceptance speech. Came off as could give a fuck. I think she knew she shouldn’t have won last year and it showed.
I’m incredibly disappointed that Kathryn Hunter didn’t get nominated for that one.
Maybe people are just getting tired of there being a new Macbeth every couple of years every time an actor wants to go for an oscar? The last one was critically acclaimed too, but ended up not getting any nominations iirc.
It’s a classic for sure. And this is easily the best version of it ever put to film. It’s like watching a painting come to life. It was all done so fucking well I can’t say enough good things about it. I get that Shakespeare is not a lot of people’s bag, but for anyone that loves film this movie should be on their ‘must watch’ list.
Frances McDormand was shockingly not good. Her unsex me here monologue was flat. It was wild to see such an accomplished and talented actress really not nail such an iconic role. And It seems that was the critical consensus around the film. Glad you were able to enjoy it. I thought she was good at acting crazy and nothing else. I actually found the script disappointing. The prophecies were underwhelmingly portrayed and really took out the mystical elements of Macbeth. Kathryn Hunter was incredible though.
It’s not listed here but it is nominated for Cinematography.
Kathryn Hunter was fucking robbed. She was incredible (as was everyone in this movie).
Everyone’s getting mad about Don’t Look Up being here, but I’m gonna throw my hate-hat in for Licorice Pizza, which was an interminable nothing of a film – just dull boomer nostalgia-baiting, weird and misplaced ‘humor’, a complete absence of anything resembling a character arc, and the culmination of the story being a Haim sister deciding to finally, after two and a half hours of disparate vignettes, commit statutory rape.I truly, sincerely, am glad for anyone who enjoyed it – but I cannot begin to fathom why. Unless you, like, remember the 70s or are really in-love with scenes of white people running on sidewalks.
But does she start running slowly, then gradually increase her pace while a mournful tune plays? That’s Oscar stuff right there.
and the culmination of the story being a Haim sister deciding to finally, after two and a half hours of disparate vignettes, commit statutory rape.Nothing like this happens.
She starts dating a child.
I understand what you’re saying but they don’t start dating or have sex. They kiss on the lips and then we hear her saying she loves him in voice over but there’s nothing to suggest there’s any kind of on-going, serious romantic relationship going on there. It’s a summer crush
I get the argument, I do, but answer honestly – if any other movie ending (with an age-appropriate couple) ended with the two leads running through the night to serendipitously find each other, embracing, kissing, then running into the night after declaring “we’re getting married!” – would you assume “oh, there’s no reason to believe they start dating after this” or would you take it at face value that the movie having a big swelling musical number and dreamy fuzzy camera work was portraying this moment as “oh good, they finally made it work/figured it out.”
The movie does so absolutely little to ever interrogate or challenge any of their interactions – every time moment Alana -should- draw a hard line with this actual child, she instead, say, shows him her breasts – and the movie can’t offer more than a “haha, aw shucks” about it. We never see -anyone- in their lives – not Gary’s mom, not Alana’s parents, not any of their friends – say “hey, Alana, what the fuck?”
If I felt like the movie -knew- what an absolute creep she was, maybe I’d believe that the ending was supposed to be ambiguous. But I don’t think it did.
Thrilled that Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons finally get their due (both should have been nominated for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”). Stunned that “Last Night in Soho” was left off completely (I mean, not even for the cinematography and editing, or costumes that actually looked like clothes?). Happily surprised that Aaron Sorkin wasn’t nominated and that “House of Gucci” only got a token nod for Makeup. Overjoyed that “Drive My Car” and “The Worst Person in the World” get more than just International Feature love (though Renate Reinsve deserved a Best Actress nomination). Disappointed but not surprised that “Annette” got blanked, same with “Passing” and “Belle.” Somewhat sad for “Flee,” because it got the unprecedented triple nomination, but will likely lose all three categories (“Drive My Car,” “Encanto,” and “Summer of Soul” have to be seen as front-runners in their respective fields). Furious that Kristen Stewart and Nicole Kidman got nominated over Reinsve, Jennifer Hudson, and Alana Haim. Baffled that “Don’t Look Up” got so many nominations despite a 56% RT rating. Livid that Spielberg’s up for Best Director instead of Denis Villeneuve.Still, this is my March Madness, and I can’t wait to pore over everything and analyze it to death over the next seven weeks. And as always, when the Shorts come out on the 25th, that will be my happy time! It is easily the most fun part of my annual Oscar Blitz!
Yeah, Last Night in Soho was snubbed at least once here. One of my favorites this year, and in no small part due to the costuming. There’s no reason Nightmare Alley should have beat it out there.
I’m wondering if the Jesse Plemons/Kirsten Dunst nominations are the first time that a couple have been Oscar nominated in the same year?
I don’t think Spielberg took Villenueve’s spot. Branagh should be the one out.
Judi Dench? Really? I thought when you killed the original vampire, you killed all their acolytes, too, and that her reign of undeserved nominations came to an end when Weinstein was fired from his company.
I have no idea what your beef with Judi Dench is, but this comment made lol
Don’t Look Up gets a Best Picture (or best anything, really) nomination and Tick, Tick, Boom! gets… acting (Garfield) and editing? Really?
There are some criminal clunkers in that Best Picture field.
Bardem and Kidman should have been nominated for Razzies
Don’t Look Up getting a Best Picture nomination over tick tick Boom, French Dispatch, and In The Heights is my villain origin story.
I mean, I guess? Can’t really shake my fist at the Oscars this year, because when I look at the snapshot of 2021’s “best” I ‘d probably pick a lot of the same movies. It’s just that I’m not all that high on them. It is what it is. My apathy towards the favorites is having the funny effect of getting me to root for the more divisive picks. Contrarian Me suddenly wants to back Don’t Look Up and Being the Ricardos just for the sake of chaos.
Disappointed that Lady Gaga missed out. I don’t even think it’s necessarily an amazing performance, I’m just so ready for a return to big, scenery chewing, FUN performances. I’m sick of “realism” and “authenticity” being the only metrics by which a performance is judged. (This is related to the fact that it’s high-time the academy got over their anti-comedy bias.)Also would have loved to see Mike Faist get nominated.
No Ruth Negga or Tessa Thompson for Passing? Boooo!
Dune has to win because of this…
The Power of the Dog. clean sweep. end of ceremonies.Srsly, there’ Jane Campion’s neo-Western and then all the others. Rare when both ur Favorite and the Best film(s) are one in the some (even less so nominated), but TPOTD is 2021’s 12 Years a Slave, Fury Road, You Were Never Really Here.And You Know This ∞ PENDING APPROVAL ∞
BREAKING: RIP Douglas Trumbull (Special Effects Pioneer)
Kristen Stewart an Oscar nominee? The End Times are near.
I’m here for Don’t Look Up winning best picture to see the internet explode into the ether.Who does Denis Villenueve have to kidnap to get an Oscar nomination?
I wouldn’t call Don’t Look Up award worthy but it’s nice to see a comedy get nominated for once. Surprised to see Nightmare Alley in there.King Richard is a brilliant screenplay.
Has the Power of the Dog backlash started? I adored the movie but I haven’t followed whether it has crested into hate like usually happens with favorites. I think the film deserves a near sweep of its awards – all the acting, the directing, the picture, and the soundtrack for sure.
My tastes don’t typically line up with the Oscars, but I think this might be the most “off” I’ve been in a long time. Nothing I saw this year really wowed me and what I didn’t see was because most of these movies sounded too unappealing to even bother. Maybe I’ve just out of sync with today’s movies.
Wish Cage had picked up a nom for Pig, and Alex Wolff as well, if only to make up for his being absolutely screwed out of a Best Supporting nom for Hereditary.
I had hoped against hope that Rebecca Hall might at least be nominated for The Night House. It was only okay as a movie but her performance was devastating. 2022 and still waiting on the Academy to recognize brilliant filmmaking and performances in the horror genre.
Hard to argue against a “The Power Of The Dog” sweep for acting (Kodi Smit- McPhee this year, Plemons will get his in years to come) , writing, directing and cinematography, thus leading to best film.
Encanto was fine. It was colorful, bombastic and had a handful of mostly ‘okay’ songs but Luca, imo, was by far a more engaging story. I have not seen Flee so I can’t make a judgement but I’m guessing it has a better chance at winning best international picture.
Wow. I am out of touch.I have seen precisely none of these movies, and have only heard of two of them. My wife and daughter said tick…tick…BOOM was great, and I love Wes Anderson so, I’ll probably see French Dispatch.Apparently I lived under a media rock this year.