Surprises, confirmations and rebuffs at the Oscars: no nominated director and failure of “Babylon”

There are always some big surprises and disappointments in Oscar nominations, no matter how hard the strategists of global cinema’s biggest award try to mitigate them. But the batch of nominees for the 95th Academy Awards seems to have more than its fair share of surprises, good and bad.

These are some of the main surprises and snubs that make the talk in Hollywood.

Angela Bassett Gives Marvel a Push

There are 30 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and no actor had been nominated for their performance in one until now, when Angela Bassett broke the mold by earning a supporting actress nomination for playing a grieving queen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. bassett she had already been nominated before –in 1994, for her personification of Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It– and now she’s joined a small group of African-American women with multiple acting nominations: Whoopi Goldberg, Octavia Spencer Y Viola Davis.

dethroned the king woman

the king womanof Gina Prince Bythewood, has been totally excluded from the nominations. A surprising twist for a well-reviewed blockbuster, which at the time had many predicting a best actress nomination for Viola Davis in the role of the fierce leader Agojie. The forecast (failed) included a nomination for best picture and another for best director. No black woman has ever been nominated for best directing, a deplorable statistic that, sadly, hasn’t changed this year.

Women excluded from management

We should have seen it coming after the directors’ and producers’ guilds picked out movies directed solely by men, but the Academy has a different makeup. There was hope that members would recognize some of this year’s extraordinary movies that just happened to have a woman behind the camera, especially after two straight years of women winning the award (jane campion Y Chloe Zhao). Among the potential nominees were Prince-Bythewood, Sarah Polley for Women Talking Y charlotte wells for aftersun. Nor is it certain that no one expected that Ruben Östlund (sadness triangle) got one of the five management positions ahead of James Cameron (Avatar: The Shape of Water), Baz Luhrmann (Elvis) either joseph kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick).

The campaign for Andrea Riseborough worked

This year was a good reminder that actors often appreciate acting outside of or even despite the film that surrounds it. Campaigns and awards strategists work all year to narrow the number of nominees, but this year there was a last-minute twist: A popular celebrity-driven social media campaign appeared to emerge in favor of Andrea Riseborough for his performance in the rarely seen indie film To Leslie. Riseborough got the nomination after Charlize Theron, Jennifer Aniston, Edward Norton, Gwyneth Paltrow and a few other stars praised her portrayal of a West Texas single mom looking for redemption.

Best Surprise Actress

riseborough It was not the only surprise: Ana de Armas also earned a coveted nomination for the generally poorly received Blonde. But the biggest surprise was the total exclusion of black women from the category, including Davis for The Woman King Already Danielle Deadwyler for his universally acclaimed portrayal of Mamie Till-Bradley in till. At least one of those positions was filled by Michelle Williams for The Fabelmanswhich was not a guarantee given his snubbing by the actors union, the SAG.

Some international surprises

The international feature film category always has its share of oversights. After all, why are there only five nominees to represent the whole world? But this year one of the biggest surprises has been the exclusion of the acclaimed South Korean romantic film noir Decision to leaveof Park Chan Wook. personal epic Bardo, false chronicle of a handful of truthsfrom the four-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu, also fell out of the category. Also, all the nominated movies were directed by men, which was disappointing in a year that featured movies like Saint Omer Y corset.

a failure of Babylon

The dream of Babylon ended today, since the ode of Damien Chazelle Back to the Wild Days of Silent Film only garnered three below-the-line nominations for costumes, music, and production design. The $80 million film has so far grossed less than $30 million at the box office and has divided critics. But this could also be his own origin story to be re-evaluated in a few years. Even Ishtar is now a cult classic.

Paul Mescal enters the acting career

Maybe aftersunof charlotte wells, has topped many critics’ best-of lists, but hasn’t gotten much love from the Academy. The happy exception is that Paul Mescal he crashed into the best actor race for his harrowing portrayal of a single father vacationing with his 11-year-old daughter.

RRR only get one nomination

RRRthe maximalist action epic of HH RajamouliThe three-hour-long movie looked like it might garner a best film nomination, but the beloved Telugu film only garnered one nomination, for best song for “Naatu Naatu,” from MM Keeravaani. It was not eligible for the international film category, as India submitted another film.

Diane Warren in, Taylor Swift out

Speaking of the best song, the switfies – still angry that the short film did not make the shortlist – received another blow when “Carolina” from Taylor Swiftof Where the Crawdads Sing, was left out of the race for the original song. Nevertheless, Diane Warren got his 14th nomination for another song from a movie few have ever heard of (in this case it’s “Applause” from the movie Tell It Like a Woman).

Judd Hirsch over Paul Dano

The race for the role of supporting actor may not be so close after the official nomination of Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All At Once. But the category still has some wild cards, like nominations for Brian Tyree Henry for Causeway (entitled resurface in Latin America) Y Judd Hirschwhich comes in for basically a standout scene in The Fabelmans of Steven Spielbergfacing the moving interpretation of Paul Dano as a semi-fictional version of the father of Spielberg.

nothing for nope

You have to recognize that nopeof Jordan Peele, had a good chance of being nominated for best picture or director. But on Tuesday morning, many were surprised that she got nothing.

Source: AP

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