As expected, Everything Everywhere All at Once led the way Tuesday morning with 11 Academy Award nominations, two ahead of The Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet on the Western Front. That puts the Daniels’ (Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan) critical and commercial hit in the driver’s seat for Best Picture at this midway stage of the Oscars race.
Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams were up early to present the nominees, and the universe-hopping sci-fi dramedy from Scheinert and Kwan showed immediate strength, pulling in surprise notices for Costume Design, Original Score, and Original Song. It also nabbed two of the slots in Best Supporting Actress, with Jamie Lee Curtis getting her expected nomination and Stephanie Hsu making good on the buzz around her. Michelle Yeoh is firmly in the running for Best Actress, and Ke Huy Quan remains the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor. The Daniels were also nominated for Director and Original Screenplay, while the film also picked up an all-important Editing nomination.
Joining Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, and All Quiet on the Western Front in the 10-film strong Best Picture lineup are Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, The Fabelmans, TÁR, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking. Along with The Daniels, the Best Director lineup consists of Martin McDonagh for Banshees, Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans, Todd Field for TÁR, and Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness. Östlund was a surprise and a welcome one, probably bumping out one of James Cameron (Avatar), Baz Luhrman (Elvis), or Edward Berger (All Quiet).
Berger’s popular German-language adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, which just recently dominated the BAFTA nominations, was a monster in the craft categories, making his missing out in Director a little more curious. Overall, All Quiet was recognized for Cinematography, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Original Score, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature, where it is the likely frontrunner. In addition to Director, the missing Editing nomination also suggests weakness for All Quiet, as that category is usually a bellwether of Best Picture strength.
This does not always hold true – and as recently as last year, this was not the case – but often a strong Best Picture nominee will have nominations for Picture (of course), Director, Screenplay (either Adapted or Original), and Editing. The only three films to be cited in all four of those categories this year are Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Banshees of Inisherin, and TÁR, meaning those are the films most likely to be battling it out for the top prize.
In addition to those four nominations, Banshees also picked up four acting nominations – Colin Farrell for Actor, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan for Supporting Actor, and Kerry Condon for Supporting Actress – and an Original Score nomination for my favorite working composer, Carter Burwell. Meanwhile, Field’s TAR picked up the expected Cate Blanchett nod for Best Actress and an inspired nomination for Florian Hoffmeister’s stunning cinematography.
Along with Farrell, Austin Butler (Elvis) and Brendan Fraser (The Whale) will battle it out as the three lockstep favorites for Best Actor, making this one of the more exciting acting races in years. Some of that excitement is likely to dissipate once we learn who wins the BAFTA and the SAG awards, so for now, let’s enjoy the mystery. Bill Nighy also made it into the lineup for the Akira Kurosawa remake Living, and Paul Mescal earned probably the biggest surprise nomination of the morning for his tremendous work in the critically beloved Aftersun.
Blanchett will have to fend off a strong surge from Yeoh in Best Actress, which also features Ana de Armas (Blonde), Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), whose late buzz caused quite a stir online but proved to be fruitful. This came at the expense of Danielle Deadwyler (Till) and Viola Davis (The Woman King), making this the second straight year and 83rd time in 95 years that no black performers are nominated for Best Actress. That said, Yeoh is the first East Asian actress ever nominated in this category, so we can rejoice in the breaking of that glass ceiling at least.
In Supporting Actress, Curtis, Hsu, and Condon are joined by frontrunner Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and Hong Chau (The Whale). The surprise omission is that of Triangle of Sadness star Dolly de Leon, whose absence is made all the more shocking by that film’s apparent strength with voters.
Over in Supporting Actor, Judd Hirsh (The Fabelmans) and Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway) round out a lineup headed by Quan, Gleeson, and Keoghan. Hirsch probably took the Fabelmans spot from Paul Dano, while Tyree Henry earned the nod in a competitive race for the fifth slot, beating out Dano and Eddie Redmayne (The Good Nurse).
Just behind Everything Everywhere, Banshees, and All Quiet in the nominations haul were Elvis with eight and The Fabelmans with seven. As for the other Best Picture nominees, Top Gun: Maverick and TÁR each showed up strong with six, while Avatar: The Way of Water earned four, Triangle of Sadness three, and Women Talking two, with Sarah Polley receiving the film’s lone other nomination for Adapted Screenplay.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever likely just missed out on a Best Picture nomination, earning five nods overall, the most for any non-Picture nominee. In addition to Bassett, the superhero blockbuster was recognized for Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Visual Effects, and Original Song for “Lift Me Up,” a collaboration among Rihanna, Tems, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Goransson. This gives Coogler one of the more fascinating Oscar resumés for a director – he is a Best Picture nominee for producing a film he did not direct (Judas and the Black Messiah) and now an Original Song nominee.
Also strong below the line were Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which each earned three crafts nods. Meanwhile, Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale also earned three nominations, being cited for its Makeup and Hairstyling, in addition to the two acting nominations.
So, how am I feeling?
The good: Five of my top 10 films of the year are nominated for Best Picture, while three more were recognized in other categories (EO in International Feature, Bardo in Cinematography, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed in Documentary). I am overjoyed at the nominations for Field, Östlund, and Mescal, as well as all the love for The Banshees of Inisherin.
The disappointing: I think I am going to have to resign myself to this being the year of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Everyone – critics, Academy voters, audiences, all the people I work with – loves this film. It truly did not work for me, and it will be difficult to spend this Oscar season watching it collect plaudit after plaudit. But, sometimes that happens. I am pleased for everyone who finds joy in this film’s success.
Beyond that, it is an oversight, plain and simple, that voters could not find one space for any of the remarkable performers in the Women Talking ensemble. Most likely, because all of the performances were so strong and there was not a single one for voters to rally behind, they all split the vote and missed out. But, that’s no excuse. Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley, in particular, will be coming for their makeup Oscars one of these days.
In addition to Polley missing in Best Director, there were no nominations at all for Till, The Woman King, or She Said, all strong films directed by talented women. And, though Mescal snuck into Best Actor, it is a bummer that Charlotte Welles got no recognition for her Aftersun screenplay, which tells her story so beautifully and truthfully.
What else? The producers of the Academy Awards had better be figuring out how to get “Naatu Naatu,” the nominated original song from RRR, on the broadcast because I promise it will be the highlight of the night. I am excited to catch up on some of the nominated documentaries and international features I missed this year, specifically Lucas Dhont’s Close and Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes.
A final note, in my pre-nominations piece yesterday, I requested the Academy spread the wealth. That didn’t happen. As mentioned, there were 41 feature nominees in 2021. This year, there are 40. That is not sustainable for the future of these awards. We need more films recognized, not fewer.
That said, this year’s broadcast is likely to be buoyed by the fact that two of the most successful and popular films of all time are nominated for Best Picture (Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick). It will also be helped if producers can entice the nominated Rihanna and Lady Gaga to perform their respective songs. And, honestly, there will probably be some rubberneckers tuning in to find out what might happen after last year’s Will Smith fiasco.
As always, we will dive into all of this in greater depth in the coming weeks, so check back in this space for more Countdown to the Oscars coverage, as well as the rest of my Year in Review series and hopefully some new film reviews and other stuff soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment