Adam: Let's get started because I am so fucking furious over this morning's Oscar nominations. I was preparing myself to be disappointed but I am shocked at just how many of my hoped for nominees got snubbed.
I think after last year's debacle -- where Sam Rockwell got in for a George W. Bush impression whereas Michael B. Jordan didn't for a career-defining performance in Black Panther AND where Green Book ultimately triumphed over infinitely superior competition -- this year is the nail in the coffin for me.
I'll always be curious who gets what and who wins but I am turned off of watching, turned off of caring and generally convinced that until something fundamental changes the Academy is and will remain a stodgy, old, white, pretty racist institution that by and large ignores the best and most interesting films so they can reward what makes them feel comfortable.
Every once a while, something different like Mad Max Fury Road, Get Out or Moonlight slips in there and sometimes they even win and we're all given a little false hope, but at the end of the day there always seems to be a step back in the wrong direction. I need to take solace in the fact that this was an excellent year for movies/performances -- that the slate of Best Picture nominees is strong and at the end of the day these awards have far less influence now than they ever did before.
Like off the top of my head I can't tell you how won Best Actor or Best Actress last year. I genuinely don't remember. I think the critics' groups (who overwhelmingly favored Lupita Nyong'o's Us performance for example) are far more spot on and as I always say time will be kinder to the better films here.
Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was not a box office hit and was almost completely shut out at the Oscars, and yet its cultural legacy has lived on far beyond the film that won that year, Driving Miss Daisy. But yeah, this year's results were trash.
No Uncut Gems. No Greta Gerwig. No Eddie Murphy. No J-Lo. No Lupita. No The Farewell (p.s. Notice a trend here, most of these films have minorities or women at their center). It's hard to take this thing seriously when they so egregiously screw up.
Brian: Oh man, you beat me to it. Getting our hopes up for the correct Oscar nominations must be what being a Cleveland Browns fan is like. Year after year after year, we hope that this is finally the year that everything comes together. This is the year they will actually reward the best performances and films. But before you can blink, we're looking at a 3-13 season and they've fired their coach. I gave up on watching The Oscars years ago and I'm perfectly at peace with it. I'll check out the winner's list the next day, but I'm not staying up for something that will most likely disappoint me.
Green Book's wet fart of a win last year only sealed the deal for me. It summed up the Oscars in a nutshell... a culturally tone def, faux woke of a movie. It's everything that people complain about Hollywood (pretending to be liberal while not-so-secretly being a horrible place for women, people of color, etc.). I think I'm numb to the shock after all these years.
However, I am dumbfounded by today's nominations. No Uncut Gems (my personal favorite of the year. I get that Adam Sandler made Jack & Jill, but that shouldn't matter. I get that Eddie Murphy made numerous critical flops, but that shouldn't matter. Reward the performance. Don't punish for past career choices.
And don't get me started on Lupita's historical snub. I was secretly hoping that she would get nominated for Best Actress and Supporting Actress for her generational performance in Us. Like you said, the Oscar winners (especially when they're wrong) are usually forgotten. Is anyone still talking about Green Book? Or are we clamoring for another Black Panther? Does anyone rank Ordinary People with some of the best movies of all-time? Or has Raging Bull cemented its legacy? Same goes for Dances With Wolves, Shakespeare In Love, and on and on and on.
There is one thing that I do love about Oscar season, though. It's our traditional back and forth predicting the wins, losses and snubs. If there's one bright side to today's nominations, it's that we'll have plenty of red meat to chew through. Let's get started with our 7th annual (where has the time gone?) Oscar pick-a-palooza.
First up is Best Supporting Actress. I'm not going to lie... I've only seen one of the nominated performances... Laura Dern in Marriage Story. Luckily, it seems to be the performance that will win. I, however, was not feeling Dern's performance. I really liked Marriage Story, but her performance wasn't anything special. She was essentially reprising her role in Big Little Lies.
Obviously the biggest snug in this category was J-Lo in Hustlers. She was a force of nature and owned every minute of that film. But hey, who needs J-Lo when you can nominate Kathy Bates for the millionth time (sarcasm heavy)?
Also, is Margot Robbie becoming the next Meryl Streep? It seems like she gets nominated for every dramatic role she's in... good or average. Sadly, this may be the weakest category in the entire show.
Here's the nominees:
Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”
Margot Robbie, “Bombshell”
Florence Pugh, “Little Women”
Scarlett Johansson, “Jojo Rabbit”
Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell”
Who Should Win: Ummm, I have no idea. I'll say Florence Pugh for Little Women just to throw a wrench in Dern's coronation.
Who Will Win: Laura Dern. This one seems like a certain lock, and nothing in these nominations tells me otherwise.
Snub: J-Lo. From the first trailer, her performance seemed destined for recognition. Like I said earlier, she owned every minute of this movie in a way that only she could. I could spend more time typing out my disappointment, but honestly, I'm too tired. Another snub on my list would have to go to Shuzhen Zhao for her heartwarming turn in The Farewell. While that movie was not my cup of tea, she was really good as a woman blissfully ignorant of her terminal cancer diagnosis.
Who you got?
Adam: That's funny -- I assumed you watched the show. I guess I am right where you -- and I'm beginning to suspect -- most people are. I no longer feel this pull to watch the show which is always trying to pander. Like yes, on some level it's crazy that a superhero adjacent blockbuster like Joker is leading all the nominations, but on the same day they serve up Scarlett Johansson in not one but two movies. But ya know there's only room for one woman of color in the whole bunch. I too love doing this prognostication but it's beginning to make me a bitter person about the movies. Which I'd hope to never become.
Luckily, I've seen all of the nominated performances except for Margot Robbie's in Bombshell. I've heard nothing but bad things about that movie and went from being interested in seeing it to waiting for Netflix. I think its the turning problematic Fox News hosts into heroes aspect of it that has never sat well with me. That being said, I really like Margot Robbie. I think she's making some cool interesting choices, even if she has bogged herself in the DC comics movie world (with Harley Quinn). So she may be totally worthy here, I just don't know.
And then there's the J-Lo of it all. Her snubbing was the most shocking to me of any of them since this category hasn't been viewed as that competitive and most people had her pegged as the one person who might unseat favorite Laura Dern. At the end of the day I don't know if it was her larger persona and track record of mostly misses that screwed her here. She can take solace in the fact that Hustlers was an enormous hit and completely revitalized her movie career. Here's hoping the back half of her career is more Out of Sight than Monster-In-Law.
I think Scar-Jo is lovely in JoJo Rabbitt, but one nomination was more than enough. Kathy Bates is probably one of the more unassailable things about Richard Jewell, but I don't think this is a nomination that HAD to happen. So...
Who will win: It's going to be the Laura Dern show and you're so right about her performance in Marriage Story, it's her character from Big Little Lies on the big screen. She's great, she's always great. And she should have won an Oscar many times before. She's due and she's beloved in the industry so she will win, and that's precisely why these awards are BS because its all about a narrative surrounding a film, director or performance, never the work itself.
Snub: I totally agree with you besides J-Lo I had been pulling for Shuzen Zhao, who was the heart and soul of The Farewell. I think Julia Fox was great in Uncut Gems in a Marisa Tomei-like breakout performance, but like the movie itself, her work never seemed to get serious consideration from Oscar voters.
Who should win: With J Lo gone, I too and going with Florence Pugh. She had an amazing year, with Midsommar and Little Women (as well as Fighting with My Family, which I've yet to see but have heard great things about). She is the MVP of Little Women in my opinion, which is no small thing because that film is full of wonderful performances. She's one of the more exciting new actresses on the scene and I hope she doesn't go the way of Jennifer Lawrence.
Sometimes these female phenoms get the backlash treatment for no good reason very fast and then are rarely heard from again.
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