Oscars Snubs, Flubs, and Chubs

Did the producers of 'Nyad' blackmail someone? How does this happen?

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It’s Oscars nomination day, and the stars are out tonight! I know, I know — I’ve gone on and on about how stupid awards shows are and haven’t been shy about expressing my general disdain for the cottage industry of “awards season prognostication” (which has annoyingly maintained its foothold in the media firmament while actual criticism breathes its death rattle). And hey, weren’t the Oscars just a union-busting scheme to begin with?

On the other hand… c’mon, it’s the Oscars! We don’t have to acknowledge how stupid arguing about them is every time we want to argue about them, that’s what they’re for!

Now then, let’s argue.

Here’s the full list of nominations, along with my commentary (sorry):

Best Picture:
American Fiction
(Looks good, I still haven’t seen it).

Anatomy of a Fall
(Solid picture, I was a little underwhelmed by the ending and I would’ve made a slightly different choice there, but engaging, great acting, and great dog).

Barbie
(Yep).

The Holdovers
(Double yep.)

Killers of the Flower Moon
(Triple yep?)

Maestro
(Absolutely not, but I’m not surprised).

Oppenheimer
(Yep.)

Past Lives
(Yep. Almost every year there’s a movie about two people in love that keep facing obstacles that makes me feel like a teenage girl — Brooklyn, Sylvie’s Love, Like Crazy, etc. — and this year’s was Past Lives. I understand their choice with the ending, though I wished for an ever-so-slightly different one).

Poor Things
(Yep. I never finished my review because I got sidetracked, but “high art as extended fart joke” is very much a thing I love that we should get more of. This is Lanthimos’ closest thing yet to a straight comedy and it rips).

The Zone of Interest
(Haven’t seen it yet, much to my chagrin. It looks good).

SNUBS: Uh… hmm. I liked Saltburn, but even I must grant some major quibbles with the last chunk (mostly re: unnecessary overexplaining). I also enjoyed Killers and Bottoms, but probably less than most of these, and we all know those ain’t getting nominated.

As for my favorite of these… damn, surprisingly, a bit of a Sophie’s Choice here. Gun to my head, I think it’s between Killers of the Flower Moon and The Holdovers. That’s mainly because the degree of difficulty seems so high with those (adapting narrative non-fiction and making actually-good Christmas movies are things almost no one ever does well). I can’t really argue with any of them other than Maestro though. This was a pretty solid year.

Best Director:
Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”
Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”
Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Justine Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”

SNUBS: I don’t know how you pass over Greta Gerwig for Barbie. Or Alexander Payne for The Holdovers, for that matter.

Everyone here did great work, but Scorsese should probably get it because he made some tough choices in Flower Moon and they all paid off. He actually improved the ending of the book and did it with his own cameo. Plus he’s old and everyone loves him. Just give it to him.

Best Actor:
Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”
Colman Domingo, “Rustin”
Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”
Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”

I still haven’t seen Rustin or American Fiction, but both those actors are insanely good basically always, so. I think Fassbender does a wildly underrated job in The Killer, but probably too much of a genre movie to get nominated. Barry Keoghan is also gross and brilliant in Saltburn, plus he hangs dong, but he was nominated last year and the Academy would never recognize a movie that punk-gross. Solid hog too, let’s be honest.

As much as I want to hate on Maestro, Bradley Cooper’s acting was notably the best part of it, so sure, why not. Joaquin Phoenix was pretty great in Napoleon, even if the movie was underwhelming. If anything he kind of suffers from the writing’s muddled characterization. Anyway, hell, give it to Giamatti. Did you know he’s only been nominated once, for Cindarella Man? Wild. And he was notably fantastic in The Holdovers. It’s time.

Best Actress:
Annette Bening, “Nyad”
Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall”
Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”
Emma Stone, “Poor Things”

Nyad! Holy hell, who did those producers pay off? As with Flamin Hot, I’m very curious what I’d think of the movie if I didn’t know it was based on a lie, but once you know something like that you can’t really un-know it. I caught about 45 minutes of Nyad and then I got bored and did something else.

SNUBS: I mean the glaring one is Margaret Robbie here. It’s not like she’s lacking for accolades or attention, but damn, watch Barbie again and ask yourself how many actresses in the world could’ve pulled that off. It’s a miracle. Carrie Coon should also be nominated for The Gilded Age. I know that’s a television show, but if it were up to me I would give her all of the awards.

Sandra Hüller is also fantastic in Anatomy of a Fall. I’m always blown away by performances that require speaking three languages. Maybe that’s a parlor trick or whatever, but it’s one that always works on my. Can’t argue with Lily Gladstone or Emma Stone either (Gladstone in a role that seems thankless in a lot of ways, and Stone in one that looked like an absolute blast the entire time). Carey Mulligan… look, she’s very impressive at doing takes that I kind of hate. I don’t believe her take on Felicia Montealegre, and that accent was a nightmare to listen to for an entire movie, but damned if she wasn’t perfectly consistent with it. Not my cup of tea, but it’s fine.

Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”
Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”
Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”
Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”

De Niro great, RDJ great, Ruffalo great, Sterling K. Brown I haven’t seen yet but he’s usually great. I know giving Baby Goose an Oscar while snubbing Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie is like everything Barbie was designed to mock, but he was so good! I even said he should get an Oscar in my review headline (is this the only time I haven’t jinxed someone?) Just a consistent delight in a thing that’s incredibly hard to pull off. Matt Damon was also feasting in Oppenheimer.

UPDATE: Dammit, I can’t believe I forgot Charles Melton in May-December! The movie as a whole felt like it was missing something, but he was undeniably great in it.

Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”
Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”
America Ferrera, “Barbie”
Jodie Foster, “Nyad”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

The Nyad producers have blackmail material on someone, there’s no way this is real. I don’t know three people that saw that movie.

SNUBS: Rosamund Pike was all-time in Saltburn. She absolutely owned that movie. Tilda Swinton was also amazing in The Killer, but it was sort of a glorified cameo, so I get it. UPDATE: Much like above, I forgot about Natalie Portman in May-December. She might be at best playing bad actresses.

Anyway, Da’Vine Joy Randolph is going to steamroll this category and she deserves to. She and Paul Giamatti are the perfect combination I never knew I wanted. And she arguably had the tougher role of the two, which is saying something.

Original Screenplay
“Anatomy of a Fall”
“The Holdovers”
“May December”
“Maestro”
“Past Lives”

Writers? BOOOOOORING. Jk, jk. I dunno, give it to Past Lives or The Holdovers probably. May December, similar to but even more so than Anatomy of a Fall, feels like it’s building towards a payoff or a watershed that never really comes. Fuck outta here with Maestro, the writing was the weakest part of the movie.

Adapted Screenplay
“American Fiction”
“Barbie”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
“The Zone of Interest”

SNUBS: How do you leave out Killers of the Flower Moon? They took a great book, changed it a lot, and ended up with something equally good that honored the spirit of the book. Do you know how hard that is? But hey, all of these nominees were pretty great too, so.

Animated Feature
“The Boy and the Heron”
“Elemental”
“Nimona”
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
“Robot Dreams”

Now that I have a toddler and I’ve seen almost every Pixar movie probably 10 times each, I can say even more confidently that Elemental is one of the worst movies they’ve produced. Onward and Luca are sort of considered “lesser” Pixar, and both of those are much better (I have a major soft spot for Luca in particular). Good Dinosaur also much better than people gave it credit for (and same director as Elemental, probably not his fault). Jeffrey Wright in The Good Dinosaur is the exception to the rule that we should bring back voice actors and stop hiring big stars for all the animated movies, he is so perfect as a dinosaur dad. Excluding the Cars movies (sort of low stakes/low ambition) it’s between Elemental, Soul, and Inside Out for worst Pixar. I haven’t seen the rest in this category.

Production Design
“Barbie”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Napoleon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Costume Design
“Barbie”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Napoleon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Cinematography
“El Conde”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Maestro again! I swear these old farts think black and white is magic.

Editing
“Anatomy of a Fall”
“The Holdovers”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Makeup and Hairstyling
“Golda”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
“Society of the Snow”

10 people saw Golda, but all of them were Academy voters.

Sound
“The Creator”
“Maestro”
“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”
“Oppenheimer”
“The Zone of Interest”

Visual Effects
“The Creator”
“Godzilla Minus One”
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”
“Napoleon”

Original Score
“American Fiction”
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Original Song
“The Fire Inside” (“Flamin’ Hot”)
“I’m Just Ken” (“Barbie”)
“It Never Went Away” (“American Symphony”)
“Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” (“Killers of the Flower Moon”)
“What Was I Made For?” (“Barbie”)

Did anyone remember that Flamin’ Hot had an original song?

Documentary Feature
“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”
“The Eternal Memory”
“Four Daughters”
“To Kill a Tiger”
“20 Days in Mariupol”

International Feature
“The Teachers’ Lounge,” Germany
“Io Capitano,” Italy
“Perfect Days,” Japan
“Society of the Snow,” Spain
“The Zone of Interest,” United Kingdom

Animated Short
“Letter to a Pig”
“Ninety-Five Senses”
“Our Uniform”
“Pachyderme”
“War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko”

Documentary Short
“The ABCs of Book Banning”
“The Barber of Little Rock”
“Island in Between”
“The Last Repair Shop”
“Nai Nai & Wai Po”

Live-Action Short
“The After”
“Invincible”
“Knight of Fortune”

—

That concludes our Oscars nominations for the year.

Programming Note:

If it seems like posting has been a little slow lately, it’s merely an illusion! I actually have three pieces in the can over at GQ that I was working, but now there’s a walkout at Condé Nast, so they’ve been delayed a bit. I’ve actually been writing more consistently than ever, and hopefully this newsletter will actually reflect that now. Thank you all for reading, especially the newbs.