Oscar Nominations Thoughts

Of course I have thoughts and comments on the Academy Awards nominations.....

• Nine Best Picture nominations.  I have seen five of them ("Darkest Hour", "Dunkirk", "Lady Bird", "The Post", "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri").  Of the four I have not seen, I will make it a point to see "Get Out" and "Phantom Thread".  "Call me By Your Name" and "The Shape of Water" hold no interest for me.
• I have seen only one of the Best Actor nominees, Gary Oldman, but that seems to be the only nominee that is going to matter this year.
• I have seen four of the Best Actress nominees.  Based on early returns, this one would appear to be in the bag for Frances McDormand, and while I didn't care for the movie, there is no denying the performance that McDormand gave.  Her little speech to the Catholic priest was chilling.
• If I had a vote, though, my vote for Best Actress would go to Saoirse Ronan for "Lady Bird". That the same actress who played an Irish immigrant in "Brooklyn" a few years ago can now convincingly play a 17 year old American high school student is nothing sort of remarkable.
• Meryl Streep scores her 21st Oscar nomination.  Heard a line on a podcast the other day saying that the only person in America who has anything that comes even close to that is Tom Brady.  Good line.
• Denzel Washington, a terrific actor, scores a Best Actor nomination for a move, "Roman J. Israel, Esq." that was in an out of theaters in about a week.  Did anyone actually SEE that movie?
• Best Supporting Actor award, again, based on early returns, would appear to go to Sam Rockwell for "Three Billboards".  However, in my own opinion, he wasn't even the best supporting actor in his own movie.  That would go to Woody Harrelson.  Rockwell's character, an incompetent, drunken, racist cop was played so broadly as to almost be a cartoon character.
• Do you think that Christopher Plummer's nomination was an indirect shot at the now disgraced Kevin Spacey, whom Plummer replaced in "All The Money In The World"?
• Allison Janney will probably win the Best Supporting Actress Award although Laurie Metcalf's performance was better.  However, the fact that Holly Hunter of "The Big Sick" did not get a nomination kind of diminishes this category for me. Her performance was better than both Janney's (which, like Rockwell's part, was also almost cartoonish) or Metcalf's.
• Interesting omissions for Best Director were Steven Speilberg ("The Post") and Martin McDonagh ("Three Billboards").
• An interesting person to watch for on Oscar night will be Greta Gerwig.  She is nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for "Lady Bird".   She could be the beneficiary, if that is the right word, of the Times Up movement that is sweeping Hollywood currently.
• That Original Screenplay category is an interesting to watch.  Emily V. Gordan and Kumail Nanjiani are nominated for "The Big Sick" which just might have been the best movie that I saw all last year, certainly in the top three, but it got no other love from the Academy.  Jordan Peele for "Get Out" and Gerwig were also nominated for Best Director, and this could be the way to reward either an African American (remember the #oscarssowhite controversy of a few years ago?) or a woman.  Also nominated is Martin McDonagh, who didn't get a Director nomination.  The other nominees are Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor for "The Shape of Water", a movie about a fish-man.  Like I said, an interesting category.
• I am not making any official predictions yet, but if I had to pick one right now in a category that doesn't appear to have a shoe-in candidate, I am going to say that the Academy will recognize "Dunkirk" by awarding the Best Director award to Christopher Nolan.

I'm sure that I shall be writing more on this topic as the day of the awards draw closer, and. of course, there will be my always highly anticipated "Watch, but don't bet" predictions post.  How many times will I be able to say, "I believe I had that"?