When the Oscar nominations were announced Thursday morning, “Emilia Pérez” and other movies had plenty to sing about. But which would-be contenders were instead greeted with sad trombones? As your Projectionist, here’s my analysis of the morning’s biggest surprises and omissions.
Daniel Craig misses a best-actor nomination.
What does Daniel Craig have to do to receive his first Oscar nomination? Typically, academy members love it when a well-respected movie star plays against type, but Craig’s portrayal of a lovesick drug addict in “Queer” was still overlooked: In a tight race for the final best-actor slot, Sebastian Stan (“The Apprentice”) nabbed the position instead. The first sign that Craig was in trouble came when his British contemporaries in their academy, BAFTA, failed to nominate him. Oscar voters failed to pick up the slack. Perhaps the surreal, sexually charged “Queer” was just too challenging for awards season.
Oscar voters pick Trump.
Initially, it was a rough road for the Donald J. Trump biopic, “The Apprentice,” which failed to earn a major studio buyer after its Cannes Film Festival premiere despite the presence of two stars, Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. Though threatened lawsuits from Trump’s team failed to materialize, American moviegoers didn’t seen eager to turn out for “The Apprentice”: The film did much better abroad, taking in $13 million overseas compared with a paltry $4 million stateside. Still, the movie bounced back on Thursday, earning a lead-actor Oscar nomination for Stan’s Trump and a supporting-actor one for Jeremy Strong as his mentor, the lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn. How soon will it be before Trump himself weighs in on the results?
The best-picture race had some last-minute surprises.
Just when it seemed like the best-picture field was settled, Oscar voters sought to mix things up. Contenders like “A Real Pain,” “Sing Sing” and “September 5” were presumed to be vying for the last two best-picture slots, which instead went to the Brazilian film “I’m Still Here” and the critically acclaimed “Nickel Boys,” even though the latter film was passed over for a cinematography nomination despite its astonishing first-person perspective. Still, at least the three movies snubbed for best picture showed up elsewhere: All were nominated in the screenplay categories, while “Sing Sing” star Colman Domingo and “A Real Pain” supporting actor Kieran Culkin also scored nominations.
The Golden Globes really are back.
After a scandal-ridden few years that had the Golden Globes on the ropes, that awards body’s influence could be felt all over the Oscar nominations. Would “I’m Still Here” have overperformed — picking up nominations for picture, international film and lead actress Fernanda Torres — if Torres hadn’t won a Golden Globe for best actress in a drama just before the extended Oscar-voting process began? Would Demi Moore be considered an Oscar front-runner instead of an on-the-bubble contender if she hadn’t delivered such a dynamite Golden Globe speech? Though the Globes don’t always get it right, it’s hard to beat the impact of a televised awards moment, and Oscar strategists will be eager to repeat these victories next season. Not bad for a ceremony that Hollywood banded together to drive off the air in 2022.
A hard truth to swallow.
In “Hard Truths,” Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, an unhappy woman with a never-ending list of grievances. Well, you can add one more to the list: Even though Jean-Baptiste took top honors from critics groups in New York and Los Angeles as well as the National Society of Film Critics, the academy paid her dust. What gives? Though I predicted that Jean-Baptiste would just barely make the best-actress lineup, it was hard to shake the number of male voters I spoke to who simply didn’t like the character. When a woman suffers nobly, it’s Oscar bait. But when she makes others suffer, not so much.
A supporting-actress race, reshuffled.
Over the last decade, actors who have been nominated at no other major precursors besides the Screen Actors Guild Awards don’t typically make the Oscar lineup. Good on Monica Barbaro, then, for beating those steep odds: The 34-year-old actress, who plays Joan Baez in “A Complete Unknown,” earned a supporting-actress nomination over tough competition that included Jamie Lee Curtis (“The Last Showgirl”), Danielle Deadwyler (“The Piano Lesson”), Margaret Qualley (“The Substance”), and Selena Gomez (“Emilia Pérez”).
‘Challengers’ loses its biggest match.
Though it was one of my favorite films of the year, I wasn’t bullish on “Challengers” earning any Oscar nominations: The movie was simply too fun and came out way too early in the year. Still, you might have hoped for at least one nomination for original score, since the thrumming techno beats composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross gave us the year’s most distinctive film music. Alas, the Oscars snubbed their score entirely, even though Reznor and Ross won the Golden Globe for it just weeks ago. (OK, maybe the Golden Globes’ renewed influence only extends so far.)
‘Emilia Pérez’ makes history.
How well did “Emilia Pérez” do? With 13 Oscar nominations, the movie led the field on Thursday, and if Gomez had managed to snag that supporting-actress nomination, it would have tied the record of 14 nominations held by “All About Eve,” “Titanic” and “La La Land.” But the movie still made Oscar history with its leading woman Karla Sofía Gascón, who became the first openly trans actress to be nominated for an Academy Award. Two cisgender actors have won Oscars for playing trans roles, Jared Leto (“Dallas Buyers Club”) and Hilary Swank (“Boys Don’t Cry”), but if Gascón prevails, she will become the first trans actor to have done so.
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