by
Julien Faddoul
Below is the full list of nominees for the
89th Academy Awards with my written reactions.
A few notes:
Overall I did well in terms of predictions
this year, frequently predicting 5/5. Everything else was well within the realm
of possibility. No real shockers.
Nomination Tally:
14 (La La Land),
8 (Arrival, Moonlight),
6 (Hacksaw Ridge, Lion, Manchester by
the Sea),
4 (Fences, Hell or High Water),
3 (Hidden Figures, Jackie)
2 (Deepwater Horizon, Fantastic Beasts
and Where to Find Them, Florence Foster Jenkins, Kubo and the Two Strings, A
Man Called Ove, Moana, Passengers, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story)
For the first time since 2013, they went
with 9 BEST PICTURE nominees.
La La Land makes history by joining All About Eve
(1950) and Titanic (1997) as the now golden three who have received
the most nominations ever at 14! Pretty big deal.
Hidden Figures’ low nomination tally is fairly odd, missing
out in COSTUME DESIGN and both MUSIC categories, despite its inevitable
placement at the top.
Um, where the
hell did Passengers come from? Really?
Manchester by the Sea’s BEST PICTURE nomination marks the first nomination for Amazon Studios and the first for a theatrical division of a streaming service of any kind.
Manchester by the Sea’s BEST PICTURE nomination marks the first nomination for Amazon Studios and the first for a theatrical division of a streaming service of any kind.
How they
treated Arrival might be the oddest thing of all, as it received plenty of
nominations (8) yet it missed in at least two of its more assured categories:
ACTRESS and VISUAL EFFECTS.
That MAKEUP category
cracks me up every year.
Michael
Shannon!
Mica Levi!
OJ!
BEST PICTURE
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
9/9
correct, though I did throw the net to 10 for the sake of fortuitousness.
I feel
validated in sticking with Fences
when others abandoned it.
The fact
that Jackie received the same amount
of nominations as the lowest numerated film here leads me to the conclusion
that it was probably the 10th film. Oh well.
DIRECTOR
Arrival – Denis Villeneuve
Hacksaw Ridge – Mel Gibson
La La Land – Damien Chazelle
Manchester by the Sea – Kenneth Lonergan
Moonlight – Barry Jenkins
4/5 correct, missing Gibson for David Mackenzie.
My doubt of Hollywood’s supposed minor clemency of
Gibson proved ultimately to be in vain. Whatever. I still think his movie
sucked.
Jenkins becomes the fourth black director nominated,
after John Singleton, Lee Daniels and Steve McQueen.
ACTOR
Captain Fantastic – Viggo Mortensen
Fences – Denzel Washington
Hacksaw Ridge – Andrew Garfield
La La Land – Ryan Gosling
Manchester by the Sea – Casey Affleck
5/5 correct.
The expected five. Poor Tom Hanks.
ACTRESS
Elle – Isabelle Huppert
Florence Foster Jenkins – Meryl Streep
Jackie – Natalie Portman
La La Land – Emma Stone
Loving – Ruth Negga
4/5 correct, missing Negga
for Amy Adams.
The category that gave us
all the biggest headache this year. Although Adams’ snub was unexpected, it
isn’t really surprising given the fierceness of the category.
At the risk of being accused
of cynicism, I’d love for someone to try and convince me that Negga’s
nomination isn’t the result of most academy members feeling that a black
nominee in a lead category was required of them, irrespective of how good she is
in the film. Any thoughts?
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Hell or High Water – Jeff Bridges
Lion – Dev Patel
Manchester by the Sea – Lucas Hedges
Moonlight – Mahershala Ali
Nocturnal Animals – Michael Shannon
4/5, missing Shannon for Hugh Grant.
Many will feel sorry for Grant here but Shannon’s
performance is (typically) superb. It’s funny that my fear of Nocturnal Animals – a terrible movie –
being nominated for anything resulted in the one Oscar nomination it actually
deserved and nothing else.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Fences – Viola Davis
Hidden Figures – Octavia Spencer
Lion – Nicole Kidman
Manchester by the Sea – Michelle Williams
Moonlight – Naomie Harris
5/5 correct.
Nothing to add; these were expected.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Hell or High Water – Taylor Sheridan
La La Land – Damien Chazelle
The Lobster – Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
Manchester by the Sea – Kenneth Lonergan
20th Century Women – Mike Mills
4/5 correct, missing Mills for Captain Fantastic.
Pretty great line-up, no?
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Arrival – Eric Heisserer
Fences – August Wilson
Hidden Figures – Theodore Melfi, Allison Schroeder
Lion – Luke Davies
Moonlight – Barry Jenkins
5/5 correct.
Hey, remember when we were scared of Deadpool getting nominated for anything?
That was stupid of us.
ANIMATED FILM
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia
5/5 correct.
As I thought, they went with two foreign candidates.
I’ll be standing over here waving my flag for Dory.
Interesting that both Kubo and Moana received
recognition in other categories and Zootopia
only appears here.
FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Land of Mine – Denmark
A Man Called Ove – Sweden
The Salesman – Iran
Tanna – Australia
Toni Erdmann – Germany
4/5 correct, missing Tanna for It’s Only the End
of the World.
Will Xavier be pissed? I hope so.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Arrival – Bradford Young
La La Land – Linus Sandgren
Lion – Greig Fraser
Moonlight – James Laxton
Silence – Rodrigo Prieto
5/5 correct.
Great line-up, which includes a black guy, a Swede, a
Mexican and an Australian.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Arrival – Patrice Vermette; Paul Hotte
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Stuart Craig, James Hambige; Anna Pinnock
Hail, Caesar! – Jess Gonchor; Nancy
Haigh
La La Land – David Wasco; Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Passengers – Guy Hendrix Dyas; Gene Serdena
3/5 correct, missing Hail, Caesar! and freaking Passengers
for Jackie and Silence.
The crop contains two sci-fi assignments and two
old-Hollywood assignments.
COSTUME DESIGN
Allied – Joanna Johnston
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Colleen Atwood
Florence Foster Jenkins – Consolata Boyle
Jackie – Madeline Fontaine
La La Land – Mary Zophres
3/5 correct, missing Allied and Beasts for Hidden Figures and The Handmaiden.
I really thought Hidden
Figures had this one. I guess they really liked those fantastic beasts.
FILM EDITING
Arrival – Joe Walker
Hell or High Water – Jake Roberts
Hacksaw Ridge – John Gilbert
La La Land – Tom Cross
Moonlight – Joi McMillion, Nat Sanders
5/5 correct.
This one was easy. Only Lion had an outside shot.
SOUND
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
4/5 correct, 13
Hours for Deepwater Horizon,
which appeared in the editing category instead.
SOUND EDITING
Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Sully
3/5 correct, missing La La Land and Sully for 13 Hours and Rogue One, both of which appeared in the mixing category instead.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
4/5 correct, missing Deepwater Horizon for Arrival.
Arrival’s
exclusion here is weird.
A couple of points:
1) I am fairly saddened to see the most heinous and
misguided piece of CG technique of the year resulting in a nomination for Rogue One.
And 2) Kubo’s
nomination – which I predicted – makes no goddamn sense! It is an animated
film; therefore it is literally a visual effect in its entirety. This is yet
another example of most people, including those in the film business, not
knowing what animation actually is. Because the form it utilizes is stop-motion
puppetry, idiots think that its post-production process is somehow different
from its CG and hand-drawn counterparts. Whatever, rant over.
MAKEUP
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide
Squad
1/3 correct, missing Ove and Suicide Squad for Deadpool
and Florence.
This bloody category ever
year makes fools of us all. Whatever wins here, it will be a strange film to
call “Academy Award Winning”.
ORIGINAL SCORE
Jackie – Mica Levi
La La Land – Justin Hurwitz
Lion – Dustin O'Halloran, Hauschka
Moonlight – Nicholas Brittel
Passengers – Thomas Newman
3/5 correct, missing Mica Levi (yay!) and Newman for
John Williams (BFG) and Alexandre
Desplat (Florence).
This category is notorious for being very a difficult
club to get into if your hand isn’t already stamped, which is why I predicted
Williams and Desplat.
What we have here is a rarity with four first-time
nominees – including Levi who is only 29.
And instead, the old-timer they went for was Thomas
Newman? I don’t get it.
ORIGINAL SONG
Jim: The James Foley Story – “The Empty Chair”
La La Land – “Audition”
La La Land – “City of Stars”
Moana – “How Far I’ll Go”
Trolls – “Can’t Stop This Feeling”
2/5 correct.
My worst category. Here was my thought process:
I betted against “Audition” because a La La Land double seemed, even to me, to
be an overestimation. I was wrong.
I knew a documentary would get in because that has become
standard, but I betted on Miss Sharon
Jones instead.
And I left out Timberlake because 1) the song is awful
(like that matters) and 2) he lacks snob appeal for the academy.
Those who adore Sing
Street must be pissed at its shutout.
The two I got right were “City of Stars” and “How Far
I’ll Go”.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Fire at Sea
I am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated
OJ: Made in America
13th
5/5 correct.
The three racial films all got in. I’d also like to
take a minute to brag that I predicted that Weiner
(a great film) would not be the Academy’s cup-of-tea when others did.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Extremis
4.1 Miles
Joe’s Violin
Watani: My Homeland
The White Helmets
4/5 correct, missing Watani for The Mute’s House.
ANIMATED SHORT
Blind Vaysha
Borrowed Time
Pear
and Cider Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper
3/5 correct, missing Blind Vaysha and Borrowed
Time for Inner Workings and The Head Vanishes.
A rare occasion where Pixar gets in but Disney
doesn’t.
LIVE-ACTION SHORT
Ennemis
Interieurs
Le
Femme et le TGV
Silence
Nights
Sing
(Mindenki)
Timecode
3/5 correct, missing Sing and La Femme for Graffiti and Nocturne in Black.
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