Oh boy, this is a chaotic year. We've got some good nominations. We've got some questionable nominations. We've got some very questionable nominations.
Among the Best Picture nominees, our frontrunners are clear: "The Power of the Dog," with twelve nominations, is Netflix's best shot yet at a Best Picture Oscar. "Belfast" and "West Side Story" represent the only real competition, with seven nominations apiece. "Dune" has ten, mostly thanks to craft awards, though noticeably no Director nod. Ditto "King Richard," with six nods. "Don't Look Up" and "Licorice Pizza" are still in the race, but the lack of acting nominations is not a good sign. On the other hand, "Nightmare Alley" did much better than expected, with five nods. "CODA" and "Drive My Car" round out the list, though I'd much rather have "Tick, Tick… BOOM!" "The Lost Daughter," or "The Tragedy of Macbeth," which did get a few nominations in other categories.
Let's take a look at the acting categories. Best Actor was pretty well predetermined, and I can't really argue with any of the choices. Nicholas Cage should be there instead of Javier Bardem, but as wacky as the Oscars are this year, that was never going to happen. Best Actress delivered the biggest snub of the morning, which was Lady Gaga. She's the only reason “House of Gucci” holds together at all. Meanwhile, Chastain was pretty meh and Kidman and everyone else from "Being the Ricardos" seem to represent the worst of the Oscars' voting inertia, favoring familiar names over more deserving ones. J.K. Simmons has no business being in Supporting Actor, and yet somehow Nina Arianda isn't in Supporting Actress? And "Belfast" got nods for Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds, helping to crowd out anybody from "Mass" or "The French Dispatch" or "Don't Look Up." I loved "The Power of the Dog," and Kirsten Dunst in general, but she shouldn't be here over Ruth Negga, and Ann Dowd. Jessie Buckley was a nice surprise for "The Lost Daughter" though.
Foreign films are doing very well this year. "Drive My Car" got Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay nods. "The Worst Person in the World" popped up in Best Original Screenplay, and Penelope Cruz got a Best Actress nom for "Parallel Mothers," an Almodovar film I haven't managed to watch yet. Meanwhile, the animated foreign language refugee documentary "Flee" secured Best Animated, International, and Documentary nods. I sincerely hope that it manages to win one of them. "Drive My Car," unfortunately, is a film that didn't work for me at all, and I'd much rather have Denis Villeneauve in the Director category and "Tick, Tick… BOOM!" in Best Picture. Best International Feature Film is always a mess because of individual countries' choices about what to submit. "Titane" and "Memoria" were never in the running, but I'm surprised that Asghar Farhadi's "A Hero" didn't get a nomination.
There are so many contenders this year that I can't help seeing an awful lot of snubs. It saddens me that "The French Dispatch," "Passing," "C'mon C'mon," "The Green Knight," "Mass," "Pig," and "The Last Duel" came away with nothing. I wasn't much of a fan of "Annette" or "The Harder They Fall," but they're both conspicuously missing from Best Song. "The Rescue" feels oddly missing from Best Documentary Feature. Meanwhile, there are a lot of films that got much less attention than they were hoping for. Personally, I consider "Spider-man: No Way Home's" single nomination for Visual Effects a bullet dodged, considering that they were gunning so hard for Best Picture. "Cyrano," "House of Gucci," and "Spencer" also walked away with a lone nomination each.
Honestly, it's not a bad year. I may want to roll my eyes at "Belfast" and "CODA," but "The Power of the Dog" is great, and there are a lot of unexpected choices and interesting little stories. I'm oddly very proud of the Academy voters for not nominating Jared Leto for "House of Gucci," and for slipping a Best Makeup and Hairstyling nomination to "Coming 2 America." I'll be rooting for Questlove and and Lin Manuel Miranda and Maggie Gyllenhaal. And really, Diane Warren won't ever stop, will she?
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