THB #81: Oscar Nominations 2022

Good morning, Hollywoodnam!!!

As expected, the Oscar nominations were… expected.

If there was a real surprise, it was the revenge of the theatrical release. Power of the Dog is the same likely winner that it has been for months. There just hasn’t been a movie that has stepped up and demanded the win over Power. The only real way to take it down will be to tear it down… and I don’t see how you do that to a movie with a a legendary female director of enormous standing with a movie that deals with sexual orientation and an abused woman.

But… only 3 nominations for the streamers. Power, CODA, and Don’t Look Up. And neither CODA or Don’t Look Up is likely to take home anything. Warner Bros got as many Best Picture nominations as Netflix. Fox also got 2 Best Picture nominations, though Disney has killed off the part of Fox that brought us West Side Story… Searchlight lives!!!

Why is this?

Good question. I don’t think there is a clever answer. I don’t think it is anti-streamer bias. It’s the movies. Tick Tick… Boom and The Lost Daughter are strong niche players, but not broad enough to get Best Picture nods. Same at MGM/UA. by the way, where House of Gucci got abused and pushed aside early, Respect and Cyrano were too niche to go Academy wide, and Bond is Bond.

Which film stuck the landing for MGM/UA? The one with that took over the giant old theater in Westwood for over a month and showed the film in 70mm every day, first to voters, then to the public, Licorice Pizza.

Drive My Car is the movie that people will - and probably should - look at as the result of influence of the new wave of international voters. And critics. Congrats to NYFCC and LAFCA and National Society of Film Critics, because this was highly unlikely if it wasn’t for their united position on the film.

The nomination for Nightmare Alley is almost a bigger surprise than the Drive My Car nomination. I saw the film in Black and White last night - yeah… took a while - and that experience was a big step up from the color version for reasons I will write about later this week. But I will say now that all four categories it got nominated for were enhanced by the black & white, as were the performances.

Could there be a more interesting nomination than Dune? A movie that should have been a $650 million worldwide hit, at minimum, did $400 million, in great part because Warner Media dumped it to streaming day-n-date. The sequel will surely get a proper theatrical release before landing in 46 days on HBO Max.

And I must note… I believe that The Power of the Dog is at a bigger advantage if it was seen by the majority of voters on a big screen. It is a meditative (aka, slow) movie drama with masterful cinematography, that feels old fashioned in the best of ways. As I already wrote, I expect them to win anyway. But doubters would likely have their heads turned - literally and figuratively - by a big screen experience.

The advantage to streamers in Oscar season is significant. So the kinda-rebuke is significant. Don’t Look Up got the “2nd most popular film in the history of Netflix” spin, combined with a lot of complaining by Adam McKay about being misunderstood, to shove its way into Best Picture, but it appropriately couldn’t make any other noise, really… because it’s not really a very good movie.

Likewise, Amazon did a full press for their very popular actors who already have Oscars on Being The Ricardos. But no screenplay or anything else. For a reason. The movie. (Bardem is the only one of the 3 who should really be a serious contender to win. Nicole Kidman is a great actor who was miscast. JK Simmons is a great actor who is perfect in the film - as is Nina Arianda - but it’s not enough of a role to win.)

Lady Gaga and Jared Leto were under attack since House of Gucci premiered. It worked. Killing them killed the movie, which got one nom for make-up. R.I.P.

West Side Story, a 7 nomination winner this morning, also showed its weakness, failing to land Adapted Screenplay or any other acting nomination except the unavoidable Anita, a role that is never not-nominated and almost always wins. I still feel that Spielberg and Kushner undercut the role in the adaptation and this might actually cause Ariana DuBose the walk-away win. (The original won every category that the new one is nominated for… plus one for Bernardo and one for editing. Did 3-time Oscar winner Michael Kahn fail to get a nom because he shared credit? Maybe)

In other categories…

The absence of Denis Villeneuve in Director is a bit of a surprise and a disappointment, given that Dune managed 10 nominations… but Ryusuke Hamaguchi got the Directors’ embrace for a classic character piece. And in many ways, PTA got the same embrace. McKay and Sorkin didn’t belong there. They will.

Jesse Buckley finally found her awards moment in The Lost Daughter, as did the great Ciarán Hinds in Belfast. Voters went for the veterans in Belfast, which was really the only legit choice. Caitríona Balfe gives a nice performance, but that’s a tough group to crack.

I love The Tragedy of Macbeth, but the absence of Kathryn Hunter is one of the real embarrassments of the season and Denzel got nominated for a nice performance and being Denzel in a soft category.

Encanto will win Best Animated Feature, lapping the early frontrunner The Mitchells vs. the Machines in spite of Disney’s failures in releasing their film.

I am disappointed that the Doc branch left out both The Rescue and The First Wave, even though the nominees list is strong. I hold both of those films above the nominated field, as good as these films are.

The International nominees are the highest profile 5… never bet against outdoor animals inside buildings.

Diane Warren got her nomination again… which she is likely to lose to the 2nd or 3rd most popular song from Encanto.

I’m glad Maggie Gyllenhaal got her nomination.

David Michôd’s editor, Peter Sciberras, got his first nom for Campion. Andrew Weisblum, who has long bounced between Aronofsky and Wes Anderson, had a remarkable year, with editing credits on tick, tick...BOOM!, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and The French Dispatch, grabbing the nod for tick. Joe Walker is the best at what he does.

So there it is… all well within the lines drawn for the Oscar season six months ago.

A bunch of movies that are good… but like The Wizard of Oz, almost all short of one thing or another to make them undeniable. Dune would be the movie I was worried about at Netflix… except that Denis didn’t get a nod and the large format screens they really need to make the case all get sucked by The Batman in 3 weeks.

I’d say The Power of the Dog, Encanto, Drive My Car, and Summer of Soul take the 4 Picture awards.

Until tomorrow…