Official 2023 Oscar Nominations And Discussions Thread (1 Viewer)

[SD_Brian]

Hollywood has nobody to blame except themselves.

That is true, but even with Hollywood's vanity, I'm guessing this is one mirror they aren't quite ready to look into.

 

[Wayne_j]

My local arthouse theater is bringing back Everything Everywhere, Tar, Triangle of Sadness, All Quiet on the Western Front, and is bringing for the first time Living. They are already playing The Whale, Women Talking, The Fabelmans, and Banshees.

 

[Jake Lipson]

My local arthouse theater is bringing for the first time Living.

I saw this last week and thought it was excellent.

Yeah no. Its losing to the Donkey movie.

No film which has ever been nominated for Best Picture and Best Foreign or International Film has ever lost in the latter category before. Therefore, it would be highly unusual if EO won. It is also worth noting that EO has only one nomination compared to nine for All Quiet. This indicates wide support for All Quiet from across the Academy, which gives it an advantage. Only Everything Everywhere All At Once has more nominations (Banshees is tied with All Quiet.)

I don't think this makes it impossible for EO to win because the awards are voted on separately. But it does make things much harder for any film hoping to make a run at All Quiet.

 

[SDave]

My local arthouse theater is bringing back Everything Everywhere, Tar, Triangle of Sadness, All Quiet on the Western Front, and is bringing for the first time Living. They are already playing The Whale, Women Talking, The Fabelmans, and Banshees.

The local AMC is also bringing back Tar and Triangle of Sadness on Friday as well as opening Living. I’m pleasantly surprised.

 

[Matt Hough]

Hopkins's role was really a supporting one. Rainer won simply because Garbo's Camille, though technically a 1936 film, wasn't nominated until '37 (why?). Garbo would have undoubtedly won.

Rainer beat her the next year anyway, in The Good Earth.

 

[Joe Wong]

I clicked on another Daily Beast article extolling the nomination for Stephanie Hsu:

Oscar Nominee Stephanie Hsu Is Finally Getting Her Due

Tuesday’s Oscar nominations recognized several Asian American actors, but no one sparked more excitement than Hsu, whose exceptional, emotional performance anchors the film.

www.thedailybeast.com

However, the author described Yeoh as an Asian American actress - which is incorrect as she was born in Malaysia and remains (I believe) a Malaysian citizen. A nitpick perhaps, but accuracy matters, especially as she's being celebrated for her Asian background. I would not call Cate Blanchett an Australian American actress, for example.

 

[Jake Lipson]

And no Polley nom for directing???

Oh well - she's just one of the dozen or so greatest directors on the planet...

This is part of the problem with having only five directing nominees while Best Picture has ten. It is impossible for all of the Best Picture directors to have corresponding directing nominations. At least half of them are going to get left out. It's math.

I have said it before and I will say it again. The directing category should be adjusted to have the same number of nominees as Best Picture does. This does not mean that they have to be the same; they should continue to be voted on separately, and if the directors branch feels that the director of a Best Picture contender does not deserve to be in the directing category, they should go with someone else. However, given the strong historical correlation between the two categories, I feel that there should be the same number of spaces available, so that all directors of Best Picture nominees could be nominated if the directors branch deems that to be appropriate.

In discussing the lack of women directors nominated this year, I think it is important to remember that the Academy did give the award to women in both of the last two years. This does not mean that great work by women should be ignored or that the Academy has met any kind of theoretical recent quota by having two female winners in a row. That is absolutely not the case. Ideally, great films by all kinds of different directors with unique voices should be recognized. But I do think the back-to-back wins by Zhao and Campion clearly prove that the Academy has recently been willing to recognize the work of female directors.

The directing category is always a very competitive one, especially with fewer spaces available than in Best Picture. I have seen three of the five films nominated for Best Director and will see a fourth this weekend. Based on the ones I have seen so far, I would have a very difficult time choosing one who should be taken out in order to include a woman. I would have included Gina Prince-Blythewood if I made the nominations, but I can't say that the Daniels, McDonagh or Spielberg should clearly be removed to put her there. This is another reason that expanding the directing category is a good idea. Sarah Polley would very probably be in there this year with ten spaces. Prince-Blythewood probably would not because the Academy didn't recognize her film at all, but my point stands.

Given the backlash surrounding the Best Actress noms, where Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler were both left out, even though they had been talked up in the last couple of months, I enjoyed this scathing article:

This article is inaccurate. There are two women of color nominated for Best Actress. Whether the author would like to admit it or not, Ana de Armas is in fact Latina. In addition, three nominees in Supporting Actress are women of color and two men of color are in Supporting Actor.

It is fair to be disappointed that Davis and Deadwyler are not included. I loved The Woman King and would have included Davis. (I didn't see Till so can't fairly comment on Deadwyler's work, but have heard from others that she was great.) But it is incorrect to suggest that the Academy is not nominating multiple people of color when they clearly are doing that.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Wow - no actors from Women Talking?

I feel like the awards campaign for this movie got started too late. I didn't even know about it until this month.

And no Polley nom for directing???

There's been a lot of kvetching already because of another year with an all male directing slate. But who that got nominated deserves to lose their slot for her? I don't know much about [i}Triangle of Sadness[/i], but there's little question that the other four directorial nominations were essential to their movies' successes.

Polley will likely win for best adapted screenplay, and the Black Panther song will win a little stauette as well, but I don't know that BP will win anything else, as I think some of those noms petained to the first flick.

I think Women Talking may fall victim to the #MeToo backlash, given the average age and demographics of the Academy membership.

I don't know that "Lift Me Up" has entered the cultural consciousness in a way that would make it a sure thing to win.

I've been a fan of Stephanie Hsu since BE MORE CHILL, so I am glad she got in. She is great in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE.

Even though Michelle Yeoh is at the center of Everything Everywhere All at Once, the movie wouldn't work without Hsu's performance, and it's one that I think a relatively small pool of actresses is capable of giving. I wouldn't be mad at all if she won.

The biggest disappointment for me is the lack of any nominations in any category at all for THE WOMAN KING. I guess the voters didn't respond to that film, but I think it is a masterpiece and time will be kind to it.

Dahomey was one of the biggest supplier of slaves for the African slave trade, arguably an essential component, and the decision to make a movie creating a fictional Agoije general who is portrayed in a heroic light in a movie marketed as black empowerment left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

If I made the nominations, I would take out ELVIS in order to put BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER in Best Picture contention.

There's a lot I really admire about Wakanda Forever but I think Elvis is the better movie.

And a Best Actress Nomination from the movie that leads the pack at the Razzies.

It's possible to give a great performance in a shitty film. I haven't seen Blonde, so I'm not saying that's the case here. But it's certainly something that's happened before.

I never even heard of "To Leslie".

The only reason I'd heard of it is because Marc Maron co-starred in it, and I'm a regular listener of his WTF podcast.

Interesting that they went with Top Gun for a BP nom, but snubbed Wakanda Forever which seems to have the more prestigious noms in other categories, including Best (Supporting) Actress.

Top Gun: Maverick's a movie that doesn't feel at all like a Best Picture nominee, but it was unquestionably beloved by both critics and audiences. I don't know anybody who didn't have a great time at the movies with it.

While Wakanda Forever got good reviews, and is staggeringly ambitious at times, I don't feel like it connected with audiences as well as the first movie did.

After two years of movies everyone immediately forgot existed once they won, the Oscars have got their primo heavyweight matchup: Everything Everywhere All At Once vs. The Fablemans. The Daniels vs. Spielberg. The Indie vs. the Legacy. The surprise smash vs the awards season darling that bellyflopped.

I'm sure ABC is just relieved that so many of the nominees are movies that audiences have actually seen.

I disagree. I loved Wakanda Forever overall, but if there is one Oscar that the movie absolutely deserves to win, it's Angela Bassett for Best Supporting Actress. Whether she'll get it instead of the other worthy nominees is a different issue, but Bassett's nomination is not a holdover from the first BP.

She's second only to Hsu for me in the category, but I wouldn't be mad if she won either. And I think Bassett's far and away the favorite, both on the merits of this specific performance and as a Lifetime Achievement recognition for her immense body of work.

Just realized zero noms for The Menu.

I really liked the movie, but it didn't feel like Oscar bait to me. A fun little black comedy.

Judd Hirsch was great in The Fabelmans but it's more like a Best One Scene Performance rather than Best Supporting Actor.

It wouldn't be the first time, and I don't think it's necessarily a problem. Supporting performances are by their nature limited. I'd rather someone win who only had a scene or two but was really great over an actor who was basically a co-lead but got nominated in the Supporting category.

EW's list of their picks for surprises and snubs:

2023 Oscar Noms Surprises & Snubs

I disagree that Tom Cruise was a snub. He's the reason the movie succeeds, but it's just another movie where he's playing the Tom Cruise persona. Maverick arguably was one of the roles that helped define the Tom Cruise persona. He's great in the movie, but it's the kind of role he can do in his sleep.

Jamie Lee Curtis is nominated for her first ever Oscar and it is LONG OVERDUE!

Her performance in that movie is her delivering everything a character actress should. She's practically unrecognizable in that role. Of the two nominees in the category from that film, I'm rooting for Hsu. But I'm glad Curtis's work was nominated.

In my opinion nominations are earned, not deserved. Wouldn’t you agree?

I don't know that they're "earned", either. There are a lot of factors that go into the Academy voters' choices, and many of them are very subjective. A bad performance can certainly prevent you from getting nominated, but a great performance doesn't guarantee you getting nominated if it's not seen by the right eyeballs in the right context at the right time.

I have said it before and I will say it again. The directing category should be adjusted to have the same number of nominees as Best Picture does. This does not mean that they have to be the same; they should continue to be voted on separately, and if the directors branch feels that the director of a Best Picture contender does not deserve to be in the directing category, they should go with someone else. However, given the strong historical correlation between the two categories, I feel that there should be the same number of spaces available, so that all directors of Best Picture nominees could be nominated if the directors branch deems that to be appropriate.

Sometimes I feel like the correlation between the two is too strong, and driven by how ingrained the auteur theory is in so many people's minds. In my opinion, the Best Directing award should go to the nominee whose direction most contributed to the film's success, even if the end result isn't the best film of the year.

 

[Jake Lipson]

In my opinion, the Best Directing award should go to the nominee whose direction most contributed to the film's success, even if the end result isn't the best film of the year.

Yes, absolutely. But great directors often end up making the best films of the year, and therefore there is usually the correlation.

Everything Everywhere All At Once vs. The Fablemans. The Daniels vs. Spielberg. The Indie vs. the Legacy. The surprise smash vs the awards season darling that bellyflopped.

Respectfully, I think that's ridiculous. Obviously the situation requires them to be compared to each other because something has to win, but I don't see any animosity between these films. I doubt anybody is going to be tuning in just to see these two movies square off. EEAAO wouldn't exist in its current form without Spielberg. I doubt very much that Ke Huy Quan would have been in the movie if Spielberg hadn't cast him first. He will probably thank Spielberg in his acceptance speech again, as he has before.

Oh yeah seven other movies got nominated too, but nobody cares about them.

It is incorrect to claim that nobody cares about the other films. Although Everything Everywhere has done exceptionally well and resonated with audiences, there is no question that the two most widely-seen Best Picture nominees are Avatar and Maverick. Elvis was a big hit too.

 

[jayembee]

Dahomey was one of the biggest supplier of slaves for the African slave trade, arguably an essential component, and the decision to make a movie creating a fictional Agoije general who is portrayed in a heroic light in a movie marketed as black empowerment left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

I'd be surprised if many Academy members nominating for the Oscars know or care about the historical realities (or lack thereof) of The Woman King.

 

[Tino]

I'd be surprised if many Academy members nominating for the Oscars know or care about the historical realities (or lack thereof) of The Woman King.

And yet it wasn’t nominated for any Oscars. I think that the backlash, especially from the African-American community, certainly had an impact.

 

[JoeStemme]

And to be clear, my opinion has nothing to do with She Said. I just feel that Oscar nominations shouldn’t be expected for any film I or others like. That just then brings out that dumb “snubbed” word when it’s not nominated.

And, where did I write that? It was quite clearly me expressing a personal opinion that I felt it worthy. Silly word play on your part.

TO LESLIE got a very limited release. Did the producers self-distribute in October?

 

[bujaki]

Rainer beat her the next year anyway, in The Good Earth.

But with a more substantial role.

 

[Tino]

And, where did I write that?

I never said you did. Chill.

 

[Tino]

It was quite clearly me expressing a personal opinion that I felt it worthy.

Ditto.

 

[Tino]

Dupe

 

[Robert Crawford]

Let's break clean and back to each corner of the ring.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I disagree that Tom Cruise was a snub. He's the reason the movie succeeds, but it's just another movie where he's playing the Tom Cruise persona. Maverick arguably was one of the roles that helped define the Tom Cruise persona. He's great in the movie, but it's the kind of role he can do in his sleep.

-------

Yep. His 3 roles that missed Oscar gold were from "Born on the Fourth of July", "Rain Man", and "Magnolia".

Her performance in that movie is her delivering everything a character actress should. She's practically unrecognizable in that role. Of the two nominees in the category from that film, I'm rooting for Hsu. But I'm glad Curtis's work was nominated.

While sitting on the back row of the theater, with no one else on the row, I actually did a search to see if that was indeed Jamie Lee Curtis while watching EEAAO.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I thought Condon was better than both Hsu and JLC, even though I liked both movies.

I don't think the ratings will be any better, even with two massive blockbusters nominated for Best Picture. The kids don't actually care, and anyone that does care knows neither will actually win anything other than technical awards. Even if one of them had a real chance, though, I still think the ratings battle is lost.

 

[Tino]

I think this year will be the biggest test in recent memory. If rating don’t improve with this list if nominees, they should just give up.