Another year, another Oscars ceremony without a host. This is a year of many firsts for the Academy Awards. For one thing, this is the first year in quite a while where they’ll be hosting the ceremony in early February as opposed to late February/early March, so they’ll essentially be airing it in back-to-back weekends between the DGA’s and the WGA’s. This is also the first consecutive year to conduct the ceremony hostless, a trend they’ll be keeping up from the previous year when Kevin Hart was dropped from the show. And perhaps most surprisingly, this is the first year where the film to get the most nominations is not a period piece or a biopic, but a comic-book film.
Yes, dear reader: the critically-lauded Joker received not one, not 10, but 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Since the Academy has an especially sordid history with snubbing one comic-book film after another (with the likes of The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Captain America: Civil War, Logan, and many more), I’m surprised they recognized Joker with so many nominations. Granted, none of them are undeserving. Joaquin Phoenix has certainly earned his Best Actor nomination, as did Todd Phillips for his Best Director nomination. Besides those nominations, Joker is also nominated for Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Costume Design, Sound Editing, and Mixing.
Following up Joker with 10 nominations is the Sam Mendes WWI drama 1917, the Martin Scorsese gangster epic The Irishman, and the hotshot Quentin Tarantino love letter to 60s cinema Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Again, none of these Best Picture nominees are surprising in the least. The Academy laps up Martin Scorsese just about as many times as they do Meryl Streep, and war pictures have a great track record with getting nominated by the Academy as well. Pay attention to 1917 and The Irishman in the technical categories especially. They stand a really good chance at snagging a few of those awards.
The biggest surprise out of those three films was how many nominations Once Upon A Time In Hollywood racked up. With 10 nominations, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is officially Tarantino’s most nominated film, right after Inglorious Basterds with eight nominations. Not that it wasn’t deserving. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt alike were both spitfires in the movie, and Tarantino was arguably at his best behind both the script and the director’s chair. But sweeping the technical nominations was especially unexpected. A few of them, such as cinematography and costume design, were a given. But sound editing, mixing, and production design? That came from left field out of nowhere.
Next up with six nominations apiece is the WWII satire film Jojo Rabbit, the coming-of-age drama Little Women, the heartbreaking divorce homily Marriage Story, and the eerie yet entertaining Parasite. Parasite is certain to have the newly-named International Feature Film award on lockdown, and director Bong Joon-Ho is an early favorite in the directing category as well. Little Women was a little unexpected for best leading and supporting actress, adapted screenplay, costume design and original score, but since no female directors are nominated for Best Director this year, it’s kind of necessary to give this much love to a female empowerment film. Marriage Story, meanwhile, swept in most of the acting categories, with Scarlett Johannson even being nominated twice for both Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit. Do any of these films stand a chance against the heavyweight titans of Joker, 1917, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and The Irishman? We can only wait until Oscar night to find out.
And the last, but certainly not least, Best Picture nominee is the racing drama Ford v Ferrari, which is also nominated in the sound and film editing categories. The most shocking thing about this nominee isn’t that it only has four nominations (against everything else, that’s more or less to be expected). What’s shocking is that Christian Bale, who gave a stellar performance as Ken Miles, isn’t nominated for Best Actor. And to be fair to the other nominees, I haven’t seen Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory or Jonathan Pryce in The Two Popes. But they don’t stand a snowballs chance against their peers, so you have to wonder why Bale wasn’t even being considered over them?
Speaking of snubs, this year has no shortage of them just like with any other given year. The biggest snub Disney fans will notice is that Frozen 2 isn’t nominated for Best Animated Feature, although it is still nominated for Best Original Song with “Into The Unknown.” Jordan Peele’s thoughtful and observant horror film Us was given a resounding zero nominations, not even for Lupita Nyong’o for her hypnotizing dual performance as a petrified mother and her murderous doppelganger. Perhaps most shockingly, Uncut Gems was nominated for a big, fat “nothing” for this year’s ceremony, not even a Best Actor nomination for Adam Sandler’s mesmerizingly brazen performance. Thanks a lot, Academy. We’re going to get Grown Ups 3 now because of you.
But the most maddening has to be the absence of Rian Johnson’s masterful murder-mystery Knives Out, a movie that challenges us socially and politically as much as it does narratively and thematically. Knives Out was brilliant in just about every which way it could be, from the performances and the cinematography to the music and the editing. Even the bloody costumes and set designs were among the most colorful and stylish production jobs of the year. But nope, no nominations for those categories either. I get that five nominations limit what you can include in these categories and where. Still, I would have been fine to knock down a few nominations from Joker if it meant a few more nominations for Knives Out. At least Rian Johnson was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, so he can now call himself an Academy Award nominee at the very least.
Overall, this is a decent year for the Oscars. I’m glad to see comic-book movies like Joker get a little more love this time around, even if it is arguably a little too much love. Regardless, we have a lot to look forward to and many more surprises and snubs coming our way. Get ready, folks. At least there won’t be a host on February 9.
– David Dunn
DAVID DUNN 