Well, Here We Are

The Oscar Noms are here. Some are good.

*Editor’s Note*: Hi, it’s Greg. I’m also the editor of this newsletter, I guess. I’m writing all of this on the morning of January 23rd, right after the nominations. So when I say this morning, I mean this morning. That seems pretty clear. Not sure why I wrote any of this, to be honest.

I woke up too early this morning, maybe because it was a big day or maybe because that happens sometimes. I futzed around on my phone for a while, sent a number of TikToks all over the place and waited for the nominations to start.

Like I always do (as I am insane), I had a spreadsheet out with my picks and then highlighted the green/correct ones as the movies/actors/writers were announced. I went back and highlighted the incorrect ones in red.

This is where we ended up:

The Best Picture lineup was pretty set ever since the PGAs, so I wasn’t too shocked by anything there, as the green clearly indicates. To be honest, I haven’t seen all the shorts, so that was always going to be a mess. Same with the documentaries. Other than that, good? Or whatever. Who knows? What does any of this mean? Anyway, here are some random thoughts.

Let’s Sort Through Barbie

This is going to be the main talking point of the noms. That Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie were snubbed. My first takeaway is … kind of. It’s weird to see Barbie land with eight nominations and still not have any clue about how the Academy actually views the movie. Was it just a runaway hit that voters saw and felt compelled to vote for, or is there a real admiration for it?

The Best Film Editing category (a bellwether for Best Picture) miss for Barbie has me thinking that voters filled out Barbie when there was room but didn’t push it over the top when comparing it to some of their other favorites.

Perhaps the strangest selection was that of America Ferrera, a fine performance, sure, but not a main takeaway from Barbie, especially when remembering that Robbie didn’t make the Best Actress cut.

I think this had less to do with Ferrera and more to do with their specific categories. Best Actress is a barnburner with Lily Gladstone, Emma Stone, Carey Mulligan, Sandra Hüller (from the obviously beloved Anatomy of a Fall) and Annette Bening. Robbie had a tougher hill to climb than Ferrera who went against great but either less seen or less critically acclaimed opposition like Penelope Cruz in Ferrari, Julianne Moore in May December, Rosamund Pike in Saltburn and Rachel McAdams in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

McAdams should’ve made the cut, but this is what the Oscars are for. A lot of yelling.

The Gerwig Director miss probably came due to the influx of international voters over the last half-decade that has shaken up the Academy. The last few years have seen more international directors nominated per year than ever before, especially with more surprising picks like Ruben Östlund, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Thomas Vinterberg over the last few years. Think Gerwig just happened to be the odd one out to Justine Triet and Anatomy of a Fall.

It happens. Gerwig got a nom in Adapted Screenplay and Robbie got one as a producer of Barbie in Best Picture. They’ll be just fine.

Charles Melton

Well, we tried. The Charles Melton nom for his unbelievable work in May December didn’t come to fruition, even though it looked like we were getting it for a few weeks there.

Looking back, it was the critics groups that loved him and not the general audiences, which is death when it comes to the Oscars. Also, it seems like May December didn’t click with a lot of the actors. Is this because it’s a movie secretly (or not-so-secretly) ridiculing actors? Perhaps.

The movie as a whole got a lone nomination for May December in Original Screenplay and even that feels like a win at this point. It just didn’t have the juice when it came to this voting body, which feels right when it comes to Todd Haynes. The movie’s great. What are you gonna do?

Release Dates

It feels like this year, more than in the past, release dates and when studios started really backing their projects became critical. Movies with super late wide releases like The Iron Claw, All of Us Strangers, Saltburn and Origin got blanked. The Iron Claw, in particular, feels like a movie that would’ve been an Oscar shoo-in if it dropped in October.

There was SO much stuff in December and that’s not including some movies going to wider release that were already out like Poor Things or American Fiction. Feels like Zac Efron and company got lost.

After last year’s winner of Everything Everywhere All at Once came out early in the year, you would think studios would release all sorts of movies around the calendar, which would make for better theatrical windows. Past Lives was this year’s earlier release, which had time to gestate from June onward. Greta Lee didn’t get in for Best Actress but it still got Original Screenplay and Best Picture, which is pretty big considering the size of the film.

Some Good

My guy, Godzilla, is Oscar-nominated for Best Visual Effects. Jeffrey Wright and Paul Giamatti are in Best Actor. Mark Ruffalo snuck into Best Supporting Actor after a late scare. Oppenheimer is a behemoth. Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone will be duking it out for Best Actress. The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar may get Wes Anderson his first Oscar. And Bradley Cooper’s nose is up for Best Makeup & Hairstyling, so we get another month or so of that discourse.

Maybe this is bad for Oscars content, but I feel like I’m the most at peace with the randomness of the Academy as I’ve ever been. Some good things got nominated, some bad things got nominated, some bizarre things got nominated. It doesn’t take away from what we saw last year and it’s just a fun made-up race that’s mostly full of movies I liked.

With that said, how the fuck did Killers of the Flower Moon not get in for Adapted Screenplay?