Thursday, January 16, 2014

CALL THE FOLKS AT PRICE WATERHOUSE: So, Oscar nominations are out, and we have things both non-shocking (lead nominees include Gravity, American Hustle, and 12 Years A Slave), and things more surprising (not a single nomination for one-time frontrunner Lee Daniels' The Butler, and only lower category recognition for Saving Mr. Banks (just a score nomination), and Prisoners (just a cinematography nomination)).  A few other things of note:
  • If one could have bet in September on Captain Phillips getting a Supporting Actor nomination for Abdi, as well as picture and screenplay nominations, but Hanks not being in, I expect one would have made a pretty penny today.
  • The power of Meryl compels you to nominate her, even for the not-particularly well-received August: Osage County (and her power is strong enough to get Roberts a nomination as well), and the power of Marty Scorsese is powerful enough to get the highly polarizing Wolf of Wall Street in for all the major categories it had a shot at.
  • Her was clearly much more of a darling of the writers than it was of the actors--no acting nomination for Phoenix, but a Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay nomination.
  • Most competitive category?  Supporting Actress, where I can plausibly see 4/5 nominees winning--the one exception would be Sally Hawkins, for whom a win would shock me.
  • I think it's likely we're going to see a pretty spread out year, with Gravity (rightly) dominating the technical awards and Director, but the acting awards going all over the place (my best guess would be McConaughey, Blanchett, Leto, Lawrence at this point).

37 comments:

  1. Adam B.9:21 AM

    EGOT Watch: Robert Lopez completes the cycle before age 40 if "Let It Go" wins under the Whoopi Rule, which states that Daytime Emmys (both for Wonder Pets) count. ht: @lauren2tweet

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  2. Benner10:00 AM

    Once again, they need "adapted score," clever use of prerecorded material, whether it's the Jonny Greenwood music re-purposed for There Will Be Blood, the Goodfellas Layla scene, or Inside Llewyn Davis.

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  3. Devin McCullen10:28 AM

    In the "Five years ago" post, I was going to make a comment about Jonah Hill going for his second Oscar nomination, but I double-checked some predictions and he was being left out. Ah well.
    And I get why 20 Feet From Stardom is popular, but ahead of Stories We Tell? Nope.

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  4. Adam B.10:44 AM

    24 Hour Party People? Trainspotting?

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  5. To review: "Jackass: Bad Grandpa", one Oscar nomination; "Lee Daniels' The Butler", zero.
    (ht - Three 6 Mafia - 2006)

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  6. Also, "The Lone Ranger," two nominations.

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  7. Pretty much every Cameron Crowe film? Boogie Nights? Magnolia?

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  8. Adam B.11:30 AM

    How were none of the original songs in Almost Famous nominated? The guitar sound in "Fever Dog" was ... incindiary? incendiary?

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  9. Not sure if The Butler was ever "one-time frontrunner" - it was met with mostly snickers of derision and disbelief when it came out. I guess it seems like the type of movie that often gets lots of nominations (a Sweeping Historical Drama About Important Issues with a great cast), but that's what they said about Bobby a few years ago.


    Regarding some big snubs, I'm fine with Inside Llewyn Davis being almost completely ignored, especially if it came down to a choice between it and Nebraska for Moody Americana Movie. Though I definitely would have picked it over American Hustle, the biggest scam of the year.


    My biggest snub is Robert Redford for All Is Lost. He's a legend who's never won for acting and it's an incredible, mesmerizing performance - just the sort of thing the Academy would reward more often than not. Yes, it's a deep field for Best Actor this year, but come on: he's ROBERT EFFING REDFORD.

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  10. Butler still has 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, was a big commercial hit, and had Weinstein pushing it. It was absolutely on the fairly short list.

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  11. Those are rather compelling points, actually. I'm just glad it got ignored so I don't have to see it.

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  12. Joseph Finn12:01 PM

    Hell, I loved 20 Feet From Stardom, but Stories We Tell and Good Old Freda kicked it's ass as documentaries (it was a GREAT year for docs).

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  13. Joseph Finn12:07 PM

    1 big snub for Julie Delpy not getting an acting nod for Before Midnight. (But I'm rooting for Adams out of that list.)

    And there's snub that's a fault of submitting studio putting in Bruce Dern's supporting performance in Nebraska as a lead performance (which it's so egregiously not). Sorry Will Forte, you got hosed. Also hosed, Ejiofor who could lose this based on an "its his time" vote.

    Look, I'm just rooting for Before MIdnight for screenplay.

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  14. Maret Orliss12:33 PM

    My first world problem is that I haven't seen a good number of the films yet so can't comment with any accuracy as to whether something or someone deserved to be nominated over someone else but yet I find myself getting irate on behalf of the people who didn't receive nomns that I've met and liked. From that completely biased POV I'm SO MAD that Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson didn't get nominations. They are as awesome as you want them to be IRL. (And I did see Captain Phillips and so I feel justifiably mad about the Hanks omission.)

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  15. Jordan12:43 PM

    Wolf is the only Best Picture nominee I've seen so far, and I thought it was great and DiCaprio's best work. I don't really understand how it's highly polarizing, but I don't think it got nominated on Scorsese's power alone.

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  16. I don't understand - how is Before Midnight a best ADAPTED screenplay? Is it because the characters were created in the earlier movies?

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  17. Adam C.1:33 PM

    You might call it Best Achievement in Music Supervision, but yeah, this has long been an overlooked field.

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  18. Adam C.1:35 PM

    I believe that's exactly why.

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  19. The Pathetic Earthling1:46 PM

    I really think there ought to be a Best Casting award, too. It might work well as a Best Ensemble proxy, and would likely be an award that gets logged rolled whenever you have a big hit (Titanic, the third LorR), but I've always thought it was an underappreciated discipline.

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  20. Jenn C2:21 PM

    Yes, I think all sequels are considered "adapted" since they are based on another, original story.

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  21. Becca3:39 PM

    There's a good story in there, under all the Forrest Gump-ification, and Forrest Whitaker is great in the role. It's an important story for people to be aware of, but I don't think the movie is great. Good, but not great.

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  22. Adam C.4:04 PM

    And don't forget Best Stunt Supervision! (Although sadly less necessary in our CGI world.)

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  23. Adam C.4:54 PM

    Y'know, I could live with that. Those stuntpeople work awfully hard doing some incredibly dangerous shit that thankfully they usually manage to do safely and convincingly, and they are rarely (if ever) acknowledged on a national/global stage.

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  24. Joseph Finn5:18 PM

    So if Lopez wins, he gets the EGOT before Whoopi, since his Daytime Emmy is in a competitive category (oh wait, that's my rule of thumb); Whoopi's Emmys are for hosting and I just can't go with that.

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  25. Adam B.5:56 PM

    How is hosting non-competitive? It wasn't an honorary award.

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  26. Joseph Finn6:03 PM

    It's being a member of the View and hosting a Hattie McDaniel special. Sure, it might be technically competitive, but you might as well say Jeff Probst has one leg of an EGOT.

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  27. Joseph Finn6:03 PM

    I have zero problem with that, based on the stunt work.

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  28. Joseph Finn6:06 PM

    Casting Director should have been an award long, long ago but the DGA keeps blocking it (on the silly idea that it, unlike the various other technical awards, somehow takes away from director's authorship of the movie). See the 2012 movie "Casting By" if you want to get enraged by Taylor Hackford arguing against it (heck, see it anyway as it's really good).

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  29. Adam B.6:09 PM

    He does. It's a competitive award. As Matt has suggested, if you want to attack Whoopi's EGOT, the real attack is that her Tony is for producing and not performing.

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  30. victoria6:12 PM

    Pretty much every Wes Anderson film?

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  31. Joseph Finn7:50 PM

    See, that's another one.

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  32. Marsha8:26 PM

    I'm very proud that my Day O'Movies this year went 5 for 5 for BP - Hustle, Nebraska, Dallas, 12 Years, Philomena.

    Once again, I am bothered by the fact that the vast majority of movies worth seeing (I mean the wide releases, not docs and foreign) each year come out in the space of about a week. When I did my Day O'Movies on January 3, August Osage County wasn't even out in Chicago yet. The only BP nominee that anyone (other than those with screeners) will be able to see on DVD before the Oscars is Captain Phillips. For contenders for big awards, you can add Blue Jasmine to the DVD list. That's it. Gravity came out a while ago, but is still in theaters. It's 11 months of famine, and 1 of feast, and it's annoying.

    The icing on the annoying cake? Alone is Not Alone, which has a nomination for Best Song, says RIGHT ON THE POSTER that it is "In Theaters June 13, 2014." http://oscar.go.com/nominees

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  33. It follows Oscar rules--the movie had the limited release to qualify it by year end, and that's always been the rule. (Indeed, if wide release/poster dates were significant, Lone Survivor and August: Osage wouldn't have been eligible.)

    My bigger problem is that the song is terrible. "Atlas" (from Catching Fire) and "Last Mile Home" (from August: Osage) are both much better pieces of work. (And that doesn't include the other "Frozen" songs Disney chose not to submit to avoid vote-splitting.)

    Given that the other four songs all have names attached to them and could make for fun/interesting performances (you assume they try and get Scarlett to do "Moon Song," right?), they may want to perform them, but they can't say "well, you don't get to perform" to just one of the nominees.

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  34. Adam B.12:35 AM

    As Mark Harris noted, "I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that the song was composed by Bruce Broughton, who represents the music branch on the Academy’s Board of Governors."

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  35. Marsha10:15 AM

    I am completely aware of the rules. I'm not saying any rules were broken, I'm saying it's ANNOYING. Particularly to those of us outside of NY and LA who would like the chance to see nominated movies BEFORE the Oscars. And everyone who would like to see anything decent outside the range of December 20th tot he end of January.

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  36. Genevieve1:12 PM

    And I bet the omission from the nominations of highly regarded movies that came out earlier in the year, like Fruitvale Station, will reinforce to studios that if they want a shot at nominations, they need to open in that narrow window.

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  37. Emily4:27 PM

    No nominations for Fruitvale Station surprised me. I know the acting categories are super competitive this year, but still.

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