First of all, let me also say congratulations to all the nominees. Regardless of my or anyone else’s opinion, it must be a tremendous feeling to be nominated for your first, second, third or whatever nomination. It will be fun to see who takes home the gold come February. Check out the complete list of nominations here on the Academy’s website.
Second, unrelated to my thoughts, I predicted 95 of the 122 nominations correctly this year (almost 78% correct). Since 100% is literally impossible and I almost never make it above 80%, I’m content just to get that percent.
With that out of the way, here are ten thoughts both good and bad that I had while watching the nominations this morning:
1. “La La Land” tying the all-time nomination record!
Yup! “La La Land,” “Titanic” and “All About Eve” are tied for the most Oscar nominations for a single film with fourteen nominations. That’s nothing to shrug at, so a huge congrats to the team for making history! Now the question is whether that will translate to wins, as we’ve seen examples in the past where double digit nominees can either dominate a night or go completely empty-handed.
2. No Amy Adams love?
I knew something was wrong when I saw Isabelle Huppert’s name show up first on the Best Actress list and I soon realized why. I was happy to see Ruth Negga make the cut, but I truly loved Amy Adams in “Arrival,” so it was a shame to see her not make it. The woman is a treasure and deserves to win the Oscar someday.
3. Mel Gibson is officially back!
I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW IT! I thought I was crazy hedging my bets on Mel Gibson for Best Director, but I knew that this was going to be the year when Mel broke back into the scene. I really loved “Hacksaw Ridge” too, so that’s fine by me.
4. “20 Century Women” made the list
I also knew that I should have stuck to my guns when I chose to leave off “20th Century Women” for the original screenplay nomination. That fifth slot was going to be a surprise for a lot of people, but I thought I had backed the right horse. Oh well. At least it wasn’t “Zootopia.”
5. “Suicide Squad” is an Oscar nominated movie…
Ladies and gentlemen, “Suicide Squad” now has more Oscar nominations than “Deadpool,” “Captain America: Civil War” and all the other superior blockbusters that came out this year. It was just for makeup to be fair, but still!
6. An animated movie is up for Best Visual Effects!
Technically, this was a totally valid nomination since there is A TON of visual effect work that goes on in crafting an animated film. And there were A TON of visual effects clearly on display in “Kubo and the Two Strings” that were eyepopping, so it deserved the nomination. I believe this is the first time an animated movie has been up for this award since “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” but correct me if I’m wrong.
7. Surprise “Passengers” love
Man, the Academy was a lot more generous to “Passengers” than people predicted. I thought the movie was fine overall (I feel the ‘rapey’ accusations are overdramatic in my opinion), but I wouldn’t have guessed it would walk away with two nominations this morning. To be fair, those sets are pretty incredible!
8. Poor Martin Scorsese
The guy spent twenty years working on a passion project he fought hard to get made and has such a reputation behind him. Yet when it came to Oscar love, “Silence” walked away with only one nomination for its cinematography. Granted, as I said in my predictions, that was the one thing even its detractors agreed was one of the film’s single greatest qualities. Still, it’s sad to see a legend’s passion project be neglected.
9. Another Michael Bay film at the Oscars
That’s right, people. “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” got a nomination for Best Sound Mixing. You cannot escape Michael Bay movies even if you try!
10. This year was fairly predictable
For all the question marks going into the nominations and a couple surprise picks, I didn’t expect to be right on so many categories. Part of me is proud for being a good guesser, but there’s also that part of me that feels a little unfulfilled. It’s fun when there are a lot of wild and unpredictable selections in a category, even when I don’t agree with them. It makes the competition more fulfilling. So when you see a ton of categories where you are like ‘Yup, I called all those nominations’ (I literally guessed every Best Picture nominee this year and that almost never happens), there’s a slight sensation of disappointment mingled with the excitement. Oh well. I can’t complain much with the choices.
Anyway, the nominations are here and we have a good month until Jimmy Kimmel helps unveil the winners on February 26th. I look forward to seeing everyone’s guesses for the winners. And for anyone interested, here are the total nominations for all the films selected:
La La Land – 14
Arrival – 8
Moonlight – 8
Hacksaw Ridge – 6
Manchest by the Sea – 6
Lion – 6
Fences – 4
Hell or High Water – 4
Hidden Figures – 3
Jackie – 3
Deepwater Horizon – 2
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – 2
Florence Foster Jenkins – 2
Kubo and the Two Strings – 2
A Man Called Ove – 2
Moana – 2
Passengers – 2
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – 2
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi – 1
20th Century Women – 1
Allied – 1
Captain Fantastic – 1
Doctor Strange – 1
Elle – 1
Hail, Caesar! – 1
Jim: The James Foley Story – 1
The Jungle Book – 1
Land of Mine – 1
The Lobster – 1
Loving – 1
My Life as a Zucchini – 1
Nocturnal Animals – 1
The Red Turtle – 1
The Salesman – 1
Silence – 1
Star Trek Beyond – 1
Suicide Squad – 1
Sully – 1
Tanna – 1
Toni Erdmann – 1
Trolls – 1
Zootopia – 1
All Short and Documentary Category Nominees- 1 a piece
What do you think? Are you happy with the nominations? What films or performers did you feel were snubbed? Feel free to comment below.
