Nominations for the 87th Academy Awards came out today, and I should have been on the edge of my seat. I normally completely buy into all the Oscars hype. But this awards season just hasn’t been doing it for me, and now that the Oscar noms are out the stage is set for the Boringest Academy Awards In History (or at least since that year Lord of the Rings won everything).
Honestly, the most exciting nomination to me is “Everything is Awesome” getting a nod for Best Original Song. But everything is not awesome on this nominees list:
- Eight out of the nine Best Picture nominees are primarily about white dudes. Two of them are historical dramas about real life white dude geniuses.
- Selma, the only Best Picture nominee about people of color, was shut out in all the other major categories (its director Ava DuVernay would have been the first Black woman nominated in the category).
- All of the acting nominees are white.
- There are no women nominated for best director or in either screenplay category.
- Only one of the Best Actress nominations is from one of the Best Picture nominees, whereas four of the five Best Actor nominations are for Best Picture-nominated films. As I wrote in 2013, this trend suggests that movies with significant roles for women aren’t considered as great or important by the Academy. This year, it is even worse: four of the five Best Actresses were in movies not nominated outside of the acting categories.
- Note that the one Best Actress nominee from a Best Picture nominee is Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything, as the love interest to White Dude Genius #2.
And aside from my disappointment at the total lack of representation in the slate of nominees, I’m also just BORED by these movies. The Grand Budapest Hotel tied with Birdman for total number of nominations. The Grand Budapest Hotel was released all the way back in February, before last year’s Oscars even aired, and I had no idea it was even in contention. And I still have no idea why. I fell asleep trying to watch that movie no less than three times. I thought Boyhood was mediocre (although I’m glad Patricia Arquette was nominated). Birdman was great, but I’d rather be rooting for it as an offbeat dark horse instead of a front runner in an incredibly weak field.
The past few years I’ve mounted my own attempts at what Sarah D. Bunting calls the “Oscars Death Race” by trying to see every nominated film. I’ve never even come close to succeeding (it is hard to do in any circumstance, but basically impossible in South Africa), but through the effort I’ve seen a lot of great movies I would have otherwise missed. (I also subjected myself to The Wolf of Wall Street, but it has still been a net positive.)
I’m not sure I’m going to even bother this year. I mean, maybe one or both of the White Dude Genius Period Piece movies will actually turn out to be lovely. Maybe American Sniper will be this year’s Captain Phillips, a “dad movie” that is actually an incredibly well-crafted piece of cinema. Maybe Whiplash, which I honestly had not even heard of before today, will be my favorite movie of the year.
But I’m not optimistic. My love of Awards Season pomp and circumstance is waning in the face of my growing cynicism about Hollywood. Do I really want to throw more money at movies about white dudes just because the white dudes in the Academy voted for them? Maybe I should save my Oscars Death Race bib for next year.
How do you feel about the Oscar nominations? What would you have rather seen get recognition this year?
Being in France, I won’t be able to see most of the nominated films until at least March. However, here are my favourite films of the year so far: 5) White Bird In A Blizzard, 4) The Babadook, 3) The Homesman, 2) The Grand Budapest Hotel & 1) Under The Skin. The latter especially is one of the most unforgettable filmwatching experiences I’ve ever had. If the Oscars were artistically relevant, the Academy would have nominated it for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role (a show-stopping turn from amateur actor Adam Pearson), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score (holy SHIT do I want to hear more from Mica Levi!), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing & Best Sound Mixing.
Essie Davis, Hilary Swank & Jenny Slate also deserved nominations for “The Babadook”, “The Homesman” & “Obvious Child”.
“I thought Boyhood was mediocre”
To be fair, your reasons for not liking it were also mediocre. Even more so actually. Seriously, your review was laughable. Then again, I believe you’re also the one that tore apart Before Midnight(your interpretation of Celine in that movie was beyond stupid), so maybe Richard Linklater movies just aren’t your thing.
But regardless of all that, I agree with pretty much everything else. Not sure what was going through the Academy’s minds. Hell, there are movies about white men that weren’t nominated that were better than some of these nominees. Nightcrawler for example was a masterclass in directing, acting, writing, etc. Somehow, movies like American Sniper and The Imitation Game get more nominations. Makes no sense. I don’t even know why American Sniper is even in the running at all. Aside from Bradley Cooper(who admittedly, went full on method and was great), the movie was utter shit.
Top Five should have been nominated. That was one of the funniest movies of the year. But it’s a comedy. A comedy about Black people. Academy was never going to go for it. I would have even given Chris Rock a directing nomination if I was a voter.
Also, no science fiction films were nominated this year for Best Picture. I hate that.
I think you’re right not to be optimistic about “Whiplash” being great. I watched it last week, and the first thing I noticed was that there were no women in the higher level band. There was one woman in the freshman band, who was soundly mocked for and shown as being less competent than her male co-saxophone players, despite being first chair. And I think I remember one woman in the final band, but she didn’t have any lines, and no more than a few seconds of screen time. The whole thing felt very much like a love song to the old white guy who does the right thing in all the wrong ways.
There was no mention of Big Eyes either! True story about a woman who was manipulated by a man and had to reclaim credit for her work…apparently not worthy of a nomination.
Big Eyes was a decent film, a nice slow but steady return to form for Tim Burton, carried by a terrific performance from Amy Adams that, I felt, typified internalized misogyny very well. More importantly, it’s an interesting reflection on the Relationship between quality and authenticity in art. However, I don’t think I would have gone so far as to give it any nominations. One of the elements that worked in its disfavour, I felt, was Christoph Waltz’s annoyingly histrionic performance as Walter Keane, and the general treatment of the man. If you’re trying to ground your film about domestic abuse in reality, it’s generally not a good idea to otherize abusers in such a manner that they become removed from common mortals, and thus make you feel safe as there’s little chance for you to Wonder if maybe, at least potentially, you might be that person.
It’s the history of art to diminish women’s work, a reality that anyone who does even a little research on it will find, which I’d say makes this a very important story to be told and it was well executed. It wasn’t perfect, but I felt it deserved some sort of recognition.
I’m not sure what you mean by “otherize” abusers. If you mean they wrote him too over the top, the writers have said that they actually toned him down some because it wouldn’t have seemed believable. I definitely didn’t feel like “maybe i might be that person” at all. I identified much more with Margaret. I do think though that he came off as likable in an uncomfortable way. He was a creep, but he was so “entertaining” in the film that it was kind of disturbing, if that’s what you mean.