So we have finally gotten here. The 2018 Oscars nominations have been announced and my predictions proved to be solid enough (outside of the Documentary category). More importantly, now Oscarathon 2018 can move into its next phase. So stay tuned for my upcoming looks at the current state of each category, and initial predictions. Until then, here are my immediate general thoughts about the nominations.
The Animation Category is Officially Pointless and a Disgrace
I will try to remember when you were a real category, but it is going to be hard.
Okay, fine. If you don’t want to be a real category, I am going to stop treating you like one. I was willing to forgive you for basically just being an advertisement for Disney/Pixar movies because a lot of those are actually good, and you seemed to want to at least acknowledge films from around the world, which is more than the Best Picture category can say most of the time (at this point it mostly just picks the best films in America and those in or about England). Last year you resisted letting Finding Dory into the nominees in a stacked year that featured many, many better films, and it looked like allowing the entire Academy to vote in this category wouldn’t be an entire disaster. Fast forward to this year, and I realize trusting this category was a mistake. After last years Oscars I lamented at how poor this year’s crop of animated movies looked to be, as it was basically Coco, and, uhhh, Coco, with the rest of the big American films being, umm, not great. Sure, that ended up being not completely true, as the rest of the world gave us The Breadwinner, Loving Vincent, Mary and the Witch’s Flower, This Corner of the World, and Bird Boy: The Forgotten Children, among others, to make this a slightly respectable year. But meanwhile America gave us The Boss Baby.
I joked about this movie getting an Oscar nomination, but in my heart of hearts I knew that this could actually happen, because this category is worthless; and now we live in a world where The Boss Baby is an Oscar nominee. The worry that Academy voters would mostly have no time to watch these movies and thus rely upon their kids to pick this category for them, because America has decided that animation is just for children, seems to have been a well-founded one. And look, that isn’t the worst thing, Coco is a great movie that is aimed at children, so this can be a good thing, but the general sentiment that animation is only for children has always been awful and harmful to the growth of animation as a whole. But seriously, The Boss Baby is garbage–pure garbage. Its mere nomination cheapens the entire category, and honestly also the Oscars as a whole. Coco‘s ultimate win in this category feels even less meaningful simply because The Boss Baby is considered real competition to be defeated. So, yeah, I am done with this category. It deserves no more analysis other than to say that Coco will win this year, and for me to constantly remind people that that win doesn’t matter, because this is a garbage, worthless category that doesn’t deserve to be spoken or written about.
Phantom Thread!!!
Well-played, PTA, well-played.
In more positive news, in a completely unexpected twist Phantom Thread snuck up on everyone to earn six nominations, including one for Best Picture. This is a delightful development. Phantom Thread had gotten a lot of publicity for Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance, the costumes, the production design, and even the screenplay, but not as a Best Picture contender. No one had thought this would happen, and it is a wonderful surprise that happens rarely now. Generally we are stuck instead with surprises like The Boss Baby being nominated for Best Animated–or Darkest Hour getting nominated for Best Picture, because the Academy continues to have some weird inferiority complex with England (not to mentioned the host of issues it brings with it for Best Actor frontrunners always seeming to find their films in the Best Picture race, while Best Actress frontrunners don’t always get the same treatment). So the Phantom Thread surprise was a nice change of pace.
Now let’s be clear, it is not like this is totally impossible to comprehend. Getting a Best Picture nomination is based on being loved. You need first place votes. That is likely what costs films like The Big Sick and I, Tonya, which both probably made a lot of top ten lists, but likely had trouble getting first place votes. Phantom Thread, meanwhile, is made by Paul Thomas Anderson,a beloved auteur whose films have a huge following. It is also the film that as of now is Daniel Day-Lewis’ last role as an actor (we’ll see if that sticks). It is also extraordinarily well done, and a unique movie that is different from everything else nominated this year. So that explains how it found the votes. Still, this was quite the haul. Especially considering it didn’t even get the screenplay nomination that would have made sense, but instead it got the more surprising Best Director nomination for Paul Thomas Anderson that, while totally deserved, was completely unexpected. It was a good day for Phantom Thread, and for the idea that there still can be some positive surprises when it comes to Oscar nominations.
The race between Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Shape of Water enters its next phase.
And we’re off for the real race, so wake up!
The Shape of Water landed a near record 13 nominations to go along with its recent PGA win, while Three Billboards got seven nominations and is coming off a win at SAG. It would seem highly unlikely that anything else is winning at this point. Right now, The Shape of Water is the slight favorite, even with a couple troubling historical indicators against it–such as, the last film to win without a SAG nomination (which The Shape of Water did not get) was Braveheart in 1996 (and La La Land for about thirty seconds), and the fact that so far Three Billboards has consistently beat The Shape of Water in the Best Original Screenplay category, when since the beginning of this century only three films have won Best Picture without also winning one of the screenplay awards. Still, being the favorite is what you earn with 13 nominations, and more importantly, a relatively smooth road to the Oscars so far, as it has yet to face a real backlash from anyone. Now, one might quibble that this film is once again an example of the Oscars honoring a film that loves Hollywood itself, as this film is a love letter to Hollywood hidden behind a love story between a mute woman and a merman, but that is a minor issue at this point.
Still, Three Billboards is right there as a clear favorite right now in the Lead Actress, Supporting Actor, and Original Screenplay category. The Best Director snub hurt, though, as the directors branch went with the more seasoned and honored writer-director in Paul Thomas Anderson likely over Martin McDonagh. Also, seven nominations feels a bit low for this film (it was only one more than Phantom Thread), but at the same time it was the third most behind The Shape of Water and Dunkirk, which got eight. The biggest concern for this movie is, I really wonder if there is a true backlash coming for it. It already has caught some flack for how it handles racial issues, as well as its lack of meaningful minority characters, and in general its weird messaging on race could cause people to turn away (I have found that happening to me, I will admit). Like–and Three Billboards is a much better movie than this comparison might suggest–but it has a little bit of a Crash vibe, which is not what you want. (Sure, Crash won the Oscar. But that was 2004. -Ed) This may all even out once The Shape of Water starts to get some backlash as the flashier frontrunner, so this category is still too close to call, which hopefully leads to a fun race.
We’re sorry for last year, Denzel Washington!
Glad you approve.
Hollywood is a different place than it was last year, when Casey Affleck’s sexual misconduct cost him a SAG award but not the Oscar. This year, when similar troubling allegations came out against James Franco, the chorus of opposition sang much earlier and more swiftly (and gave us a rather awkward moment at the SAG awards, where it was clear that no one at the ceremony wanted Franco to be there–Franco included) and ultimately likely cost him the Best Actor nomination. Many had expected Tom Hanks (who continues to be somewhat taken for granted at this point) to take this spot if Franco failed to get a nomination, but instead it went to Denzel Washington. This isn’t completely out of nowhere–Washington got a SAG and Golden Globes nomination for his role this year in Roman J. Israel, Esq., and is also Denzel Washington–but it was a bit unexpected. So you can’t help but wonder if Washington might have gotten a bump because many in the Academy feel bad about him not winning last year, and if this is a bit of an apology. It won’t make up for last year, obviously, but still, a well-earned Oscar nomination is never a bad thing.
The real question going forward is whether Gary Oldman is going to be affected by any of this. The Academy made a strong statement with the Franco snub, but will that be muted if Oldman goes on to win, considering his own history of domestic abuse allegations? Oldman is a revered actor whom many have felt should already have an Oscar, so it may be that the desire to reward him outweighs any other impulse, but Twitter has certainly been rumbling with anti-Oldman sentiments. That may not sound like much, but Film Twitter was one of many groups leading the anti-La La Land charge that cost that film Best Picture in the end, so ignore Twitter at your own risk.
At least Logan got one nomination
Rejoice.
Logan has kind of been forgotten by the masses, because it came out in the spring, and unlike Get Out it didn’t have the cultural resonance to stay in the public consciousness all year. Plus, Wonder Woman (which itself was, sadly, completely shut out of the Oscars) took whatever buzz Logan left as the most talked-about super hero movie of the year. So Logan has mostly been forgotten, which is a shame, because many would argue it is the best film of the year (I would be one of those people). So the fact that it was able to not only get a nomination, but a fairly big one with Best Adapted Screenplay was great to see. With most of the Best Picture nominees occupying the Original Screenplay category this year, the door was open for the Adapted category to be a bit more outside the box, which let Logan in. Plus, there is an outside chance this film could even win this award, as the competition in this category only has it facing one Best Picture nominee. It would have been nice if Logan could have gotten a greater buzz for Best Picture, or for the performances by Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, but this will have to do, as it least it shows that the Academy is willing to consider super hero movies now, if they are as well-done as Logan.
And that is it for now. Overall, the Academy did a fairly good job (especially now that I no longer consider the Animation category to be a real category), nominating a great mix of talent from diverse backgrounds and also honoring movies that people have actually seen as well as indie films that deserve recognition. So I suppose kudos are mostly due, Academy. As I mentioned, check back for the return of the megathreads covering each category as Oscarathon 2018 heads into the heart of the season.