89th Oscar Nominations

The Original BJ
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

Post by The Original BJ »

Some more thoughts/responses:

I imagine that Jackie's costume recognition has a lot to do with the film's recreation of several iconic outfits from a woman widely appreciated to this day as a fashion symbol. (It may be, like Atonement, the kind of movie recognized primarily for an individual outfit or two rather than for Most Costumes.)

I'm not sure how The Jungle Book DOESN'T qualify as a human interacting with effects -- a lot of what's impressive about the look of the movie is the human Mowgli interacting with the animal characters and his environment, all generated by computers.

Mister Tee, I will take your point on Kubo, though. For me, the curious thing about that nomination isn't necessarily "why?" -- Kubo is certainly a visually impressive experience. But I definitely have a reaction of "why this one?" as opposed to say, Coraline, ParaNorman, or any other stop-motion animated effort. I assume we'll get some online articles in the coming weeks highlighting the technological specifics of the VFX nominees, because I'm curious why this was viewed as such a breakthrough as to warrant a nomination when so many other similar films did not.

It's interesting that, after a couple weeks of big box office-fueled buzz for Hidden Figures, the movie actually didn't do all that well today, despite the Best Picture citation. Song/Score and Production/Costume Design all seemed well within reach, and many people thought Henson and Monáe had the chance to surprise as well.

Sabin is right that the question now will be, how far does La La Land's sweep extend? Is it the default winner everywhere (save Best Actor, which seems an obvious miss)? Or do voters at least spread the wealth a bit?

This is nothing but anecdotal evidence, but I'm genuinely surprised by how many people in my circles (i.e. Hollywood) DESPISE Manchester by the Sea. And I don't mean, they think it's simply overpraised, but they think it is a colossal snooze where absolutely nothing of interest happens. Obviously, this doesn't seem to be a response shared by awards bodies in toto -- Manchester seems to be running, at worst, third in the Best Picture derby. But I am starting to wonder if what many of us thought would be a likely Manchester writing prize might get tripped up, as occurred at the Globes, by simply stronger enthusiasm for La La.

"Drive It Like You Stole It" would have made a GREAT telecast production number, one I'm sad we won't get to see.

The BFG is only the fifth (or sixth, if you count his segment of The Twilight Zone movie), Spielberg movie not to score a single Oscar nomination, out of 29 (or 30).
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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Mister Tee wrote:
As soon as they read off Sound Editing and La La was there, I knew the record of 14 was tied. And, I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous: first because there's no real precedent for a film like La La Land getting that nomination, meaning it had to be done more or less purposefully, and because, as nice a film as La La is, if you want to create a backlash, heap it with levels of praise in excess of its value. All this because it's a love letter to Hollywood life? As Mark Harris said a few weeks ago, "The Oscars: We used to honor films about life; now we honor films about ourselves".
14 nominations and 7 Globe wins is gilding the lily. But if it's "in excess of its value", is it really by a lot? It's turning into a remarkable success. Sure, it's a love letter to Hollywood, and something of a vanity project. But it's also, simply put, the right movie at the right time. Some movies just feel like natural Best Picture winners, not only because they have that "feel" to them, but also because of the circumstances surrounding it. Manhola Dargis wrote "When I went to see 'La La Land' again, I was in a terrible state, and this time I just fell into it, gratefully. I surrendered. Afterward, I realized that this must have been what it was like to watch Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers during the Great Depression." Exactly! In between the Cubs winning the World Series and the worldwide "Fuck you, you Nazi"... er, I mean the worldwide women's marches last Saturday, La La Land was the only thing that left me with a high. I'm fine with whatever it receives. Let it be overpraised. Let it win.

And yes, as of now it's my favorite film of the year.... although I've only seen seven 2017 releases.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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OscarGuy wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:
OscarGuy wrote:Peter, both Bob Hope and Billy Crystal were referenced, though I think that was only when they were talking to the host, not the actual nominations announcement.
Yes, it was the new host who mentioned Billy Crystal, but if he mentioned Bob Hope I missed it.
Sorry, I meant Bob Hope & Johnny Carson, not Crystal. I heard Crystal too. Hope and Carson were referenced by the producers, not the host. They were discussing that those two were two of the figures they were looking at to emulate with their choice of Kimmel.
OK, but no deceased Oscar winners were mentioned and no living Oscar winners born before Glenn Close who will turn 70 in March were interviewed. I'm sure Dustin Hoffman, Diane Keaton, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Sidney Poitier to name a few, would have made themselves available if asked.

It was as though we were entering into Soylent Green territory where people are snuffed out on their 70th birthday to be turned into little green pills to serve as food for the living.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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OscarGuy wrote
And, Sabin, I think you discount Fantastic Beasts as just another Harry Potter film. It's a 1920s drama set in New York City. It's got plenty of production design and costume design that the Harry Potter films didn't have.
I might give it a watch. It's two things I'm allergic to: Eddie Redmayne and J.K. Rowling.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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Tee, have you seen Kubo yet? It's far more than just stop-motion animation. There are plenty of visual effects in the film. It's also visually spectacular, so a win wouldn't be entirely out of the question.

And, Sabin, I think you discount Fantastic Beasts as just another Harry Potter film. It's a 1920s drama set in New York City. It's got plenty of production design and costume design that the Harry Potter films didn't have.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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Big Magilla wrote:
OscarGuy wrote:Peter, both Bob Hope and Billy Crystal were referenced, though I think that was only when they were talking to the host, not the actual nominations announcement.
Yes, it was the new host who mentioned Billy Crystal, but if he mentioned Bob Hope I missed it.
Sorry, I meant Bob Hope & Johnny Carson, not Crystal. I heard Crystal too. Hope and Carson were referenced by the producers, not the host. They were discussing that those two were two of the figures they were looking at to emulate with their choice of Kimmel.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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Yes, Amy Adams is the snub of the day. I backpedaled my hunch that she would be left out but the only reason I can see (aside from the competitiveness of the category) is that she was too successful in her performance that people forgot it was acting. How many minutes of Gravity were you convinced that Sandra Bullock was somebody else? Amy Adams was totally convincing. Maybe it looked like she was upstaged by the filmmaking? Or maybe this race was just too competitive.

Best nomination? The Lobster for Best Original Screenplay. I'm so glad that picked up a nomination.

What races are still competitive? An easier question would be asking what La La Land won't win (Picture, Director, Score, Song, Film Editing, and Sound Mixing seem like done deals).

Is Best Original Screenplay still competitive? Despite six nominations, I'm not convinced that the Academy sees Manchester by the Sea as substantially more than the Casey Affleck show. Whereas industry worship for Damien Chazelle's screenwriting seems to be carrying over from Whiplash. I can't tell you how highly the screenplay for that film is regarded.

Is Best Cinematography still competitive? While La La Land never quite transforms Los Angeles into something beautiful, the nimble camera movements probably win it.

Is Best Production Design still competitive? Aside from the ending, La La Land may be most successful in convincing voters that framing is tantamount to production design. But more so, is Arrival's nomination solely for the alien craft? Is Fantastic Beasts any different from the other Harry Potter films, none of which managed to win? And can Hail Caesar! or Passengers overcome the fact that nobody really liked them?

Is Costume Design still competitive? The most costume design tends to win, which would tend to exclude the smartly-dressed La La Land, but again: is Fantastic Beasts' any different from Harry Potter's chances? Can Florence Foster Jenkins or Jackie overcome the fact that clearly there isn't a lot of love for these films?

Is Best Actress still competitive? This one we can't really know until SAG and the BAFTAs but Emma Stone still has a strong trajectory to a win for me. Not just in thanking SAG (we can just give her that award right now, right?), but a recent, previous Oscar nominee headlining and the emotional center of a Best Picture juggernaut playing an struggling actor but doing something unique (singing & dancing when she's not a singer or dancer). And unlike Natalie Portman, she has worked consistently in the industry for the past ten years, which means she likely has a lot of people rooting for her.

Finally...is Sound Editing competitive? I'm torn between Arrival and Hacksaw Ridge. I'm honestly not sure what is more likely to win. A WW2 film or a sci-fi film with an invented language, albeit no lasers. Or...does La La Land have a chance here as well?
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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Any reason this thread isn't under 89th Nominations and Winners?

The presentation was both a waste of time (who needed to hear all that filler we're going to hear multiple times from now till February 26th?) and a bit rushed (the disembodied voice ran through names just a touch faster that human announcers -- I could tell because I had more trouble than usual writing down all the nominees).

As soon as they read off Sound Editing and La La was there, I knew the record of 14 was tied. And, I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous: first because there's no real precedent for a film like La La Land getting that nomination, meaning it had to be done more or less purposefully, and because, as nice a film as La La is, if you want to create a backlash, heap it with levels of praise in excess of its value. All this because it's a love letter to Hollywood life? As Mark Harris said a few weeks ago, "The Oscars: We used to honor films about life; now we honor films about ourselves".

Second big headline: #Oscarssoblack. Six acting nominees (plus Asian Dev Patel); two writing nominees and a directing nominee (I think there are now as many black men nominated by the directors as there are women); three nominated films with dominant black casts -- plus 3 documentaries, I guess. All achieved while the falsely touted Birth of a Nation was left aside. There's no reason to think this wouldn't have happened anyway -- apart from Ruth Negga, all those cited are attached to popular films -- but everyone's going to ascribe it to last year's brouhaha. Which is to say: Cheryl Boone Isaacs will pat herself on the back, and reactionaries will claim it's just Hollywood bending over backward to be politically correct. Yuck to both their houses.

All those new invitees to the directing branch appear to have resulted in Mel Gibson being what probably would have been an old-days' lone director. Proud of yourselves? One of my pre-nomination caveats did come true: you still have to go back to 1997 to find a year where all nominated directors were first timers. Even in a year of newbies, the directors like to throw in something familiar.

Yes to Sonic's overall take: Not enough surprises, and many of them on the unpleasant side. Gibson was the worst, of course (to their credit, the writers didn't cite him -- the only best picture nominee without a screenplay nod). I feel ambivalent about Amy Adams' omission -- sad because I think it was an excellent performance (better than at least two nominees), and because it stands out given her film's otherwise strong showing (though it did miss visual effects, as well); but also feeling she probably wasn't going to win this time around, and, with six losing nods, she'd start to hear Deborah Kerr/Thelma Ritter and get a lot of always-a-bridesmaid talk. Better she gets her sixth at a time when she's truly in the hunt.

However...Meryl. This one is, as I said yesterday, pointless. Will we some day look at 1991-2005 as Streep's fallow Oscar period? -- she got a mere 4 nominations in 15 years! This compared to 9 in her first 13 years, and 7 in the last ten. A good many of these mentions were deserved, but the lesser ones could have the effect of devaluing the entire group.

My favorite moment of the morning came early: Lucas Hedges made the cut! I was also fine with Michael Shannon, since I thought he was the one praiseworthy element of Nocturnal Animals (a film whose overall showing more closely matched our group reaction than the seeming Hollywood sentiment). Noteworthy things about Shannon's showing: 1) he now has nods for two films that were otherwise huge Oscar disappointments; and 2) he continues the tradition of the last two Golden Globe supporting winners not to win Oscar nods -- each (Ricard Benjamin '75, Katharine Ross '76) was replaced by a nominee from his or her own film (George Burns, Lee Grant).

Someone younger than I help me: why is Jackie -- generally ignored except for Portman -- a consistent costume nominee? Is it because I lived through that era that I don't perceive the costumes as the kind of period clothes that normally appeal to this branch?

Justin Timberlake gets past The Curse of the Hit Song. And "Empty Chair" fills the perennial Mystery Nominee slot.

The make-up branch continues to punish Oscar completists. With Deadpool omitted (another branch tradition: leave out an obvious contender), is it down to a mediocre Star Trek sequel?

A lot of people are talking about The Jungle Book as obvious favorite for visual effects, but I guess -- because of age -- I have difficulty with the concept. If a movie is ALL CGI, isn't it closer to a animated film than an effects film? I'm more impressed with seeing human characters interact with effects, in films like Fantastic Beasts or Miss Peregrine, than with a film where it's all drawn. On the flip side of that: I was certainly dazzled by Kubo story-telling cards, but is that more animation than effects? (Even people saying this is the second case of an animated film being nominated muddle the case -- the first, The Nightmare Before Christmas, was in early days of such animation, where it DID seem a visual effect -- in, besides, an era long before animated feature prizes.)

To end on an up note, two citations that made me happy: 20th Century Women for screenplay (well superior to alternatives like Captain Fantastic and Zootopia), and Denis Villenueve, for so quickly vindicating my Who'll Be Back contention last year that he'd soon join the Academy list.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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OscarGuy wrote:Peter, both Bob Hope and Billy Crystal were referenced, though I think that was only when they were talking to the host, not the actual nominations announcement.
Yes, it was the new host who mentioned Billy Crystal, but if he mentioned Bob Hope I missed it.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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My guess right now is that La La Land will win 10 awards: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Lead Actress, Original Song, Original Score, Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, and Sound Mixing. The only other film to win more than 1 award would be Moonlight: Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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Peter, both Bob Hope and Billy Crystal were referenced, though I think that was only when they were talking to the host, not the actual nominations announcement.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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The Original BJ wrote: Jim: The James Foley Story: 2016's Best Song Nominee From a Movie You've Never Heard Of.
It's actually a really wonderful documentary. It's available on HBO's apps and I suggest checking it out...I almost went on a limb and predicted it here!
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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Big Magilla wrote:
mlrg wrote: Assuming Emma Stone is not winning
She's not :o
Don't bet on it. I have a hunch she's winning.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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With its directing and editing nods, does this mean Hacksaw Ridge would have made it in a slate of five? Who are the supporters of this movie? I'm just glad Moonlight was nominated in every category where it had a chance.
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Re: 89th Oscar Nominations

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mlrg wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:
Aceisgreat wrote:19th for Streep? Or 20th? And any chance Kevin O'Connell finally makes it to the stage?
20th for Streep. 21st for O'Connell, but he'll probably lose to La La Land like just about everyone else in the non-acting categories.
Assuming Emma Stone is not winning
She's not :o
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