I wanted to make a few comments about the nominations for Academy Awards this week. IMO in an atmosphere in which we are inundated with awards shows and the Academy Awards are becoming irrelevant I found them banal, bland, and remarkably predictable. I was reminded of Louis’s repeated line in Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects”.
There were a few surprises and I’ll focus on those. I was a bit surprised that Greta Gerwig was not nominated for direction but it isn’t entirely surprising since it’s completely consistent with the Academy’s recent practice of avoiding pictures that actually succeeded at the box office. Barbie received a number of nominations and Margot Robbie got the nomination that counts for picture as a producer. If the Academy of today had been making the nominations for 1939 or 1959 both Gone With the Wind and Ben Hur would have been snubbed.
I was disappointed Japan didn’t nominate Godzilla Minus One for Best International Film. It might well have won. A matter of timing, perhaps? As it is it only got one technical nomination.
To my eye the most interesting nomination to follow will be Best Actress. I believe it’s between Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon and Emma Stone for Poor Things. The results might well depend on how hungry for a Standing Ovation Moment which Ms. Gladstone’s winning certainly would be the Academy is.
