2021's Oscar Nominees

And (ugh) Dune.

campion now the only woman to nominated for best director more than once

I thought Kathyrn Bigelow's two big films would have got her two nominations.

Huh. Yeah, there are actually a couple directors I'm surprised didn't pull it off first. Bigelow, Penny Marshall, Streisand ...

Marshall and Streisand have never earned director nods.

Yeah, that was part of my surprise.

God, Being the Ricardos was so bad. So relieved it didn't get a BP nom. Did it ever occur to Sorkin to cast a comedian in the roll of Lucy?

As a Sorkin joint it's his most entertaining; I'd watched a couple hours of boozy, bitter Lucy on '70s morning talk shows, and Kidman suggested that side. Bardem was fine, even the Cuban accent. But the film has no reason to exist except awards.

I wish I shared your generous take. Felt joyless to me. Would have preferred to watch a film that celebrated her talents more (along with the bitter, boozy bits).

I gave up 45 minutes into that, the only parts I enjoyed were the ones with the writers' table sniping at each other.

I only resent that I found it as watchable as I did. But I will never watch it again or anything.

I only resent that I found it as watchable as I did.

This.

Make no mistake, had it crashed the BP line-up at (likely) Drive My Car's expense, I'd be whistling a different tune.

His complete disinterest in showing Lucy actually deliver jokes and be funny was galling, and made the extended sequences of Sorkin-as-Lucy explaining How Comedy Works particularly painful.

ROBBED pic.twitter.com/G6178HrxPw

— Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Deebo! (@CarmanTse) February 8, 2022

Every time a movie gets a best picture nomination but doesn’t also get a best director nod i think of this pic.twitter.com/I1Gpfilpnw

— Justin🦩Boldaji بلداجي (@justinboldaji) February 8, 2022

I voted for Dune because it’s the only one of these movies I’ve seen. (Between now and the deadline I probably won’t see the others.)

Many streaming services to which you might be subscribed offer them fwiw.

Overall, I’m just not that enthusiastic about a lot of these, and can be very slow on the draw. (Didn’t see Parasite until a few months after its big night, for instance.) I’m turning into the kind of person who spends more time with older movies he never saw or obscure modern ones that won’t win these awards or be nominated for them.

Of the remaining movies on this list I’d want to maybe see Licorice Pizza, West Side Story, and Drive My Car. If I’m honest; I don’t wanna see King Richard at all. The others: no interest based on what I know.

Which reminds me that I need to go see No Way Home this weekend before it exits theaters, or my son will never forgive me.

I'd write him out of the will.

how many minutes of drive my car's 3 hours feature spaghetti?

Saw Nightmare Alley in theatre yesterday with my mom and we were the only ones there. A movie can't get viewers the day after it gets nominated? sigh

thought it was bad though

the whole thing seemed cartoonish and false

Carnivale, HBO's two-season show about a grungy hardscrabble dust-bowl traveling carnival, was so much better

Saw Jackass 4 in an empty theater yesterday - even the best movies can’t fill seats rn

Introducing this year’s #Oscars hosts: Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes will emcee the Academy Awards. https://t.co/KugEfMo0a3 pic.twitter.com/e30Ar2AnkL

— Variety (@Variety) February 14, 2022

Meanwhile...

Am I doing this right https://t.co/CHqoOnQMR3 pic.twitter.com/FQbZJGQhdT

— Justin Chang (@JustinCChang) February 14, 2022

Wanda Sykes seems like a good choice for co-host.

I'm happy with Regina Hall in the mix. I'd be happier still if she already had Oscar nominations for Support the Girls and Scary Movie.

I watched over half of Belfast yesterday. It's the worst BP nom I've seen since Crash. Branagh can't write or direct.

CODA is feel-good pap. I liked the lead actress, and I wasn't terribly bored or annoyed, but this thing does not miss a single expected plot beat: there's the tough-as-nails coach who turns out to want what's best, the boyfriend who enacts a betrayal that exists only to be forgiven, the mid-film crisis (which goes curiously unresolved), the audition that begins disastrously before being turned around, and on and on and on. The boomer-sanctified soundtrack--Joni, Marvin-feels about three decades out of date, as well.

It's terrible. I saw it mid August during a fallow period, was amazed anyone remembered it years end.

I really loved Licorice Pizza, Power of the Dog and Drive My Car. Nightmare Alley was p good too

I can't see myself watching Coda (sappy), King Richard (sappy), Don't Look Up (discourse-poisoned), Dune (long nerd shit) or West Side Story (reboot)

WSS the best of that batch by far

yeah, I'm sure it's fine, but there's already a great West Side Story that I can watch anytime!

When we watched CODA, for the first third or so we just could not stop giggling at all the cliches, but by the end it won us over. Never transcended, mind, but we liked it fine.

Yeah, CODA might not be the worst of the nominees, but it's my least favorite or at least tied with Belfast.

Branagh made Jamie Dornan a sexy dad, so there's that.

in CODA regarding expected plot beats: "the audition that begins disastrously before being turned around"

that is one of my favorite moments. her teacher purposely flubs the piano part to get her to stop and look around at him so he can silently remind her that she is great and needs to have more confidence

Tony Kotsur deserves the Oscar imo - his very vivid ASL expressions in the hilarious visit to the doctor’s office, his holding his hands over his daughter’s throat in an effort to feel her singing so he can understand her, the goodbye

*Troy not Tony

I guess I sorta liked Don't Look Up--or at least I was able to just go along with it once I stopped expecting it to be any good, which was pretty early on (probably the first Blanchett/Perry appearance). It is useless as satire for all of the reasons that have already been stated, though it plays straight enough, at times, that I wonder if the Academy thinks it is nominating it in the tradition of Dr. Strangelove and Network, or of Airport and The Towering Inferno (it feels more, to me, like a descendent of all-star comedy duds like 1941 and Mars Attacks! anyhow). But I dunno--I liked Leo's uncharacteristically mousy performance (as full of actorly ticks as any of his other performances, but a nice break from those particular ticks nonetheless), Ron Perlman's John Wayne/G.I. Joe parody, Ariana Grande's "We're Sending Our Love Down the Well" ballad, and the audacity/stupidity of the (first) mid-credits sequence. I also found the whole dinner table sequence unexpectedly graceful and moving, especially appearing, as it does, after two hours of sledgehammer comedy.

Putting it alongside Airport among Oscar players is probably astute. I like both better than the average Film Twitterer.

Oscars: Several Awards Won’t Be Telecast Live This Year (Exclusive) https://t.co/qPBYwPWr3Y

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 22, 2022

Long overdue. Because long.

Sound twins got screwed twice -- combined into one award last year and that award removed from live broadcast this year.

Get rid of every last thing but the handing out of the Oscars. Starting with the two Twitter Oscars.

it still always amazes me how many people are uninterested in the actual "oscars" part of the oscars, the only actual unique thing about the oscars

the nominated songs are mostly bad and the performances of them are cringey and take up a lot of time. I'd rather watch the acceptance speeches for the shorts and tech awards

it's like a summary of the worst twitter takes cf.

As for the damage to show business, Smith’s violence is an implied threat to all comedians who now have to worry that an edgy or insulting joke might be met with violence. Good thing Don Rickles, Bill Burr, or Ricky Gervais weren’t there. As comedian Kathy Griffin tweeted: “Now we all have to worry about who wants to be the next Will Smith in comedy clubs and theaters.”

an implied threat to all comedians, heavens

As someone who previously eye-rolled at Griffin's take, I probably sound like a bit of a hypocrite by endorsing this piece, but I felt that overall, he was coming from a place more sincere and nuanced than her "Won't someone please think of the comedians?!"

i suppose i’m not coming from a position where i could read a paragraph like that evenly

also need to stop reading about this at all

Fair. I felt like I was done talking/thinking about this some time around Monday afternoon, so I should probably just stop engaging with it, whether the source is reasonable (Kareem) or batshit (Armond).

should've figured that was who "AW" was

Kareem's take was sensible imo

I agree.

also, this growing Twitter consensus that no other celebrities (let alone people in general) should be allowed to voice an opinion about this is fucking weird to me.

The Smith Stan Army turned out to be more dangerous than the K-Hive or Swifties.

BTS Army could still probably take them though

The incident was way beneath the oscars - it was really disheartening and it cast a pall on everything that came after it, in retrospect even more so

but the whole ceremony was also beneath the oscars: the shocking disregard for and dismissal of films, the horrible sound quality of the musical numbers, the relegation of multiple categories to pre-taped segments, the allowance of random non-film people to banter at length while winners like Hamaguchi were played off the stage (three times!)

Too many sex criminals have won Oscars for anything to be beneath them.

wait Jessica Chastain won best actress for Eyes of Tammy Faye? it felt like she was doing a bad SNL character that whole movie.

Wait 'til you see what took the two screenplay awards...

I think this was the worst bunch of nominated best pictures in decades.

Yea these flicks just don't slap

Hard to compare 10 films against 10, but scanning the last few years, some of them look just as mediocre to me.

I've seen far worse years.

what was the Crash year

really incredibly great:
power of the dog
drive my car
west side story
licorice pizza

good but wandered into the wrong class:
dune
nightmare alley

no:
king richard
don't look up
coda

absolutely fucking not:
belfast

better than most years for me idk

I only saw five of the 10, but four of them were somewhere between okay and good, and that's about a normal year.

2018 was waaay worse.

2018's Oscar Nominees

Haven't seen Drive My Car or Licorice Pizza yet, but on the whole this year's batch looked to be just about as decent-to-mediocre, on the whole, as most other recent years. The Power of the Dog is better than anything from the 2020 lineup, but even though I really disliked King Richard, I don't think it is really a whole lot worse than, say, Mank.

guess i agree with BradNelson here at least w/r/t to things I saw with the exception that I thought Belfast was good (though not great). finally watched Nightmare Alley this weekend and enjoyed it but it's no best picture fare.

Good to Great

Drive My Car
The Power of the Dog

Sound, Solid

Licorice Pizza
Dune
West Side Story

Meh

Nightmare Alley
Belfast
King Richard
Don't Look Up

The Hague

Coda

I give you 2008:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Slumdog Millionaires
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader

Oh, come on: I'm no fan of CODA, but King Richard is definitely worse (for reasons I've gone on about upthread).

And yeah, 2008 is the all-time worst. That 2018 list at least had BlackKklansman.

CODA is shorter though.

2008 was the slate that made us all irate.

1975

Barry Lyndon
Dog Day Afternoon
Jaws
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Nashville

Personally, there's probably more there for me than the last decade of BP nominees.

I've heard 1975 held up as the best BP lineup ever, and it is hard to disagree.

It's got two all-time top 10 movies, so it scarcely matters that I run pretty cool on the other three.

Cuckoo's Nest (the winner) might actually be my least favorite of the five, and that is about the strongest thing that I can say against that film.

Well, 2021 may not be the worst year, but I think it's going to be the most forgettable.

There are 4 or 5 decent choices. I think Drive My Car will be remembered as the rare foreign film that got a worthy nomination.