2018 Awards Season: Oscar Nominations

January 23, 2019

The Favourite

The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year for reasons no one has been able to adequately explain to me. Because it was the day after a long weekend, it took a bit of time to get all the normal work done and digest the results. And there were some interesting results to digest. No one film led the way with total nominations, as two films, The Favourite and Roma tied with 10 nominations each.

The categories and nominations are...

BEST PICTURE

DIRECTING

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

BEST WRITING - ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

BEST WRITING - ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

BEST DOCUMENTARY - FEATURE LENGTH

BEST DOCUMENTARY - SHORT FILM

  • Black Sheep
  • End Game
  • Lifeboat
  • A Night at the Garden
  • Period. End of Sentence.
SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION

  • Detainment
  • Fauve
  • Marguerite
  • Mother
  • Skin
SHORT FILM - ANIMATED

  • Animal Behaviour
  • Bao
  • Late Afternoon
  • One Small Step
  • Weekends
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION DESIGN

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITING

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SCORE

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SONG

Notes and Reactions...

Going category by category, my initial reactions were.

    Best Picture:

  • There are eight Best Picture nominees and I would be happy if four them won: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite and Roma.
  • Black Panther became the first comic book movie to earn a Best Picture nomination.
  • Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book are likely the two favorites.

    • Directing:
  • Spike Lee finally got his first Best Director for BlacKkKlansman. I think Alfonso Cuarón will win for Roma, but I’m glad Spike Lee was nominated.
  • Ryan Coogler was definitely snubbed here and he deserved a nomination.

    • Best Actress in a Lead Role:
  • Yalitza Aparicio is the biggest surprise in this category, but I think Glenn Close is finally going to get her Oscar.

    • Best Actor in a Lead Role:
  • Christian Bale is the favorite here, but Rami Malek could also win and it wouldn’t be a surprise.

    • Best Actor in a Supporting Role:
  • There’s no real surprise here, so there’s less to talk about.
  • Mahershala Ali is the favorite to win.

    • Best Actress in a Supporting Role:
  • Maria de Tavira is the biggest surprise in this category and I think she’s the longest long shot.
  • However, any of the other four could win and I wouldn’t really be surprised.

    • Original Screenplay:
  • I think Green Book is going to win here, but I’m not happy about it, not with the accusations of historical revisionism aimed at the script by the family of the actual person the film is supposed to be about.

    • Adapted Screenplay:
  • I really don’t know who is going to win here, but I’m rooting for Spike Lee et al for BlacKkKlansman.
  • Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler were snubbed for Black Panther. That’s disappointing.

    • Feature-Length Animated Film:
  • I don’t have a single complaint about these five nominees. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the overwhelming favorite.

    • Foreign-Language Film:
  • Cold War earned three nominations. Normally when a foreign-language film earns more than one nomination, it is a shoe-in for Best Foreign-language film; however... Roma earned ten nominations.

    • Documentary: Feature Length:
  • Won’t You Be My Neighbor? didn’t even get an Oscar nomination. What the ... ?! I had assumed this film would win the Oscar. Now I have no idea which film is going to win. (Yes, this is a cut and paste from last year, as there was a major snub in this category last year as well.)
  • With this snub, RBG becomes the favorite, at least in my mind.

    • Documentary: Short Film
    Short Film: Live Action
    Short Film: Animated
  • These three categories are notoriously difficult to predict. It will take a bit of research to come up with even an educated guess.

    • Cinematography:
  • This is a tough category this year. I would guess it’s either The Favourite or Roma, whichever is winning Oscar night.

    • Production Design:
  • I don’t think Black Panther will be a major winner on Oscar night, but I think this will be one of their wins.

    • Costume Design:
  • The Favourite is the favorite here. It earned the most nominations and this category tends to reward costume dramas.

    • Makeup:
  • No comment. This category has been baffling for the past few years and I have no idea what will happen this year.

    • Visual Effects:
  • I want Avengers: Infinity War to win, but I think First Man will win. It is Oscar-bait, but it didn’t do much else.

    • Editing:
  • I think The Favourite is the favorite here. It could be a really good night for the film if it does win a lot of these technical awards.

    • Sound Editing:
  • Every single year, I have to research the difference between the two sound categories. It's like I have a hole in my brain where that information is supposed to be stored. If I'm correct, Sound Editing is for creating sound effects, while Sound Mixing is for placing those effects in the audio track to maximize the effect.
  • ... Yes, I cut and paste that part every year. It saves time.
  • If you are wondering why I haven’t memorized this information after more than a decade of doing these stories, it’s because doing these stories is literally the only time I need this information.

    • Sound Mixing:
  • Both list of nominations are nearly identical and I think First Man will win both categories.

    • Original Score:
  • The buzz has If Beale Street Could Talk winning here. It could be the film’s only win.

    • Original Song:
  • I don’t think A Star is Born is going to have a good night, but I think it will win here.

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Filed under: Awards Season, Mary Queen of Scots, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Incredibles 2, Christopher Robin, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Ready Player One, Mary Poppins Returns, A Star is Born, Vice, Isle of Dogs, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, First Man, Roma, A Quiet Place, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, If Beale Street Could Talk, BlacKkKlansman, First Reformed, The Favourite, The Wife, Green Book, Kinder des Kalifats, At Eternity’s Gate, Mirai no Mirai, Cafarnaúm, Minding the Gap, Gräns, Zimna wojna, Manbiki kazoku, Free Solo, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Werk ohne Autor, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Glenn Close, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Olivia Colman, Bradley Cooper, Alfonso Cuarón, Willem Dafoe, Sam Elliott, Peter Farrelly, Richard E. Grant, Regina King, Spike Lee, Rami Malek, Melissa McCarthy, Adam McKay, Viggo Mortensen, Sam Rockwell, Paul Schrader, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Eric Roth, Paweł Pawlikowski, Will Fetters, Adam Driver, Brian Currie, Yorgos Lanthimos, Mahershala Ali, Lady Gaga, Nicole Holofcener, Ryan Coogler, Nick Vallelonga, Tony McNamara, Kevin Willmott, Joe Robert Cole, Barry Jenkins, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Jeff Whitty, Deborah Davis, Yalitza Aparicio, Maria de Tavira