 |
| Roma |
The Academy, so reluctant in recent years to embrace Netflix
and the streaming revolution in general, has kicked that bad habit cold turkey
this year with massive support for Alfonso Cuarón’s masterful Roma.
Nominees for the 91st Academy Awards were announced early Tuesday
morning, and Roma led the way with 10,
tied with Yorgos Lanthimos’ royal comedy The
Favourite. A Star Is Born and Vice each picked up eight nominations,
while Ryan Coogler’s powerful superhero
epic Black Panther garnered seven.
All five of those films earned Best Picture nominations and are
joined in the top category by BlacKkKlansman
(six nominations), Bohemian Rhapsody (five),
and Green Book (five).
Roma had been
expected to be among the leaders and picked up expected nominations for Director,
Cinematography, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing but showed its true strength
with well-deserved nominations for Yalitza Aparicio in Best Actress and Marina
de Tavira in Best Supporting Actress. It also picked up nods for Production
Design, Original Screenplay, and of course Foreign Language Film.
All of that means Cuarón is in position to walk away
with five Academy Awards on the big night, as he served as writer, director,
producer, and cinematographer on Roma.
His name would also be on the statue in the Foreign Language category. He
missed out on a sixth potential nomination when the film was surprisingly
passed over for Best Editing, a category often seen as a bellwether for Best
Picture.
Lanthimos, who had missed out with the Directors Guild,
earned his first nomination for Best Director – a development that delights me
to no end – and his wonderfully daft film showed up everywhere it conceivably
could have. Its stars, Olivia Colman (Actress), Emma Stone (Supporting Actress),
and Rachel Weisz (Supporting Actress) all picked up nominations, and though I
would have liked to see all three in the leading category, I won’t argue with
the recognition. The gorgeously mounted film was also named in Editing, Cinematography,
Production Design, Costume Design, and Original Screenplay.
Filling out the Best Director category are Pawel Pawlikowski
for Cold War, which also picked up a
Cinematography nod and joined Roma among
the Foreign Language nominees, Adam McKay for Vice, and Spike Lee with his long-overdue first directing nomination
for BlacKkKlansman. That left Peter
Farrelly (Green Book) and most
shockingly Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born)
on the outside looking in, although both picked up other nominations – Farrelly
for Original Screenplay and Cooper for Best Actor.
Coogler sadly did not make the final five for his work
elevating the superhero genre to new heights, but the film’s stellar showing is
evidence the Academy can embrace a Marvel blockbuster when it’s done right.
Coogler, of course, knows how to do it right. In addition to Best Picture, Black Panther was cited for Costume
Design, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Original Score, and
Original Song. It was not included among the Visual Effects nominees, where Avengers: Infinity War will carry the Marvel
banner.
Joining Cooper on the Best Actor list are Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Christian Bale (Vice), Viggo Mortenson (Green Book), and Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate). Aparicio and Colman
will compete for Best Actress with Glenn Close (The Wife), Lady Gaga (A Star
Is Born), and Melissa McCarthy (Can
You Ever Forgive Me?).
The Supporting Actor category features Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman), Sam Elliott (A Star Is Born), Mahershala Ali (Green Book), Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), and Sam Rockwell
(Vice). Amy Adams (Vice) and Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) round out
the Supporting Actress category with Stone, Weisz, and de Tavira.
It is traditional for film lovers and Oscar watchers to spend
the rest of nominations morning grousing about the movies and performances that
were not nominated, but on a celebratory day such as this, I like to keep
positivity on the menu.
In that spirit, I shall dispense with small gripes as
quickly as possible. I wish Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried had found more
appreciation for their work in First Reformed.
While Mary Poppins Returns pulled
down four nominations (Score, Song, Costume Design, and Production Design), it
would have been nice to see Emily Blunt recognized for finding her own take on
the titular character and Rob Marshall cited for his fluid and fanciful
direction. Other minor quibbles can be saved for another day.
In the plus column – and the plus far outweighs the minus
today – I am overjoyed by the showings of both The Favourite and Roma,
for my money the two best films of the year. Lanthimos’ and Lee’s directing
nominations are music to my ears. Also, it is about time Paul Schrader gets
some love from the Academy with an Original Screenplay nod that by no means
should be his first but somehow is.
This might be my favorite Costume Design group in a long
while, featuring the double Sandy Powell nomination (The Favourite and Mary
Poppins Returns) and the out-of-this world Ruth Carter designs on Black Panther. Excited to see Bing Liu’s
Minding the Gap in Documentary for the
kind of long-form character study Liu’s mentor, Steve James, usually gets
overlooked for. And finally, bravo for Hirozaku Kore-eda’s Shoplifters making the final five for Foreign Language.
That’s all for now folks. Click here for the full list of
nominees, and check back on the site over the next month for more about these awards
and these great films.
No comments:
Post a Comment