2019 Oscar Nominations

It’s been an interesting season – even though a lot of the names and films that made the nomination list today are the same ones that have been bandied about for a while, there aren’t too many categories with obvious frontrunners, Best Picture perhaps least of all.  Today’s nominations, for me, feature some predictable entries, some that make me happy, and some that disappoint me.

First up, it’s nice to go into the Oscar home-stretch already having seen six of the eight Best Picture nominees.  I don’t plan on seeing Green Book (I really like Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, but it looks so blatantly like a Black movie for white people, and I’m trying to get away from giving my dollars to those stories) and I can get Roma on streaming, so I’m already pretty ahead of the game.

I’m thrilled to see Black Panther take a Best Picture nomination, but while it received six other nods, I’m disappointed that all the rest were in technical, music, and design categories.  I’d really been pulling for its direction, screenplay, and maybe acting – Michael B. Jordan for Best Supporting Actor at least.  As it is, it’s strange to see the Academy acknowledge it as one of the best films of the year without really demonstrating why via the other categories.  I’m also generally happy for Vice (especially the director and screenplay nods,) the actresses in The Favourite, and BlacKkKlansman (though I wish John David Washington could’ve gotten in there too.)

A Star is Born made a good showing, although I’m surprised it didn’t pull in a Best Director nomination (it looks like Cold War may have taken Bradley Cooper’s “spot” – interesting to have two foreign-language films nominated in some big categories.)  Bohemian Rhapsody’s Best Picture nod seems dubious to me, even though I did enjoy it.  Rami Malek’s acting nomination and the sound editing/mixing nods, though, are very well deserved. 

On the flipside, the biggest snub for me was probably the small showing for If Beale Street Could Talk.  I just got back from seeing that film today, and it bowled me over.  Yes, I’m happy for the three nominations it did receive, including Regina King’s supporting-actress nods and the screenplay recognition, but in my opinion, there’s no way this shouldn’t have been a Best Picture contender.

Other than Roma, there are a handful of movies with nominations in the major categories that I still need to try and see.  I’m hoping hard for Can You Ever Forgive Me? – that one was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it at my local theater, and I’m not sure if it’ll come back somewhere close-ish now that it has a few nominations or if it’ll be available on DVD/streaming soon, but I really want to see it.  What I’ve heard about Glenn Close in The Wife also has me looking forward to that one, and I like Vincent van Gogh, so I’d like to see At Eternity’s Gate as well.  And Cold War?  It’s honestly a movie I’d never even heard of before I started looking at last-minute prediction lists, but I’m intrigued by a foreign film making such a strong showing.  Not that it’s never happened before, of course, but it’s definitely something that catches my eye.