10 Oscar Snubs From The 2000s


Welcome to the aughts. The new century started out with the terror of 9-11 and it ended with the collapse of the world’s economy. In between, a lot of films were released. Some of them were really good. A few of them were nominated for Best Picture. Most of them were not.  As always, there were snubs aplenty.

2000: Michael Douglas Is Not Nominated For Wonder Boys

I recently saw someone online bemoaning the fact that Michael Douglas appears to be fated to end his career as a supporting character in the MCU as opposed to playing the type of “mature” roles with which he made his reputation.  And I actually think that person had a good point.  Michael Douglas, whose performances once epitomized the last few decades of the 20th Century, does seem a bit out of place surrounded by CGI and responding to the overly quippy dialogue of the MCU.  If you want to see a truly good Michael Douglas performance that doesn’t involve anyone shrinking, check him out in Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys.  Though Wonder Boys won the Oscar for Best Original Song and picked up nominations for Editing and Adapted Screenplay, Michael Douglas’s wonderful lead performance was overlooked.

2001: Mulholland Drive Is Almost Totally Ignored

Considering the reverence with which it is now viewed, it’s interesting to note that Mulholland Drive only received one Oscar nomination, for David Lynch’s direction.  The film was not nominated for Best Picture.  Naomi Watts and Laura Harring both went unnominated.  At the time, I imagine the film was too strange for Academy voters and its origin as a television pilot probably worked against it.  Today, it is regularly cited as one of the best films ever made.

2002: Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks Are Not Nominated For Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me If You Can was that rarest of movies, an underrated Steven Spielberg production.  Christopher Walken was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and the film’s score was nominated as well.  But both Leonard DiCaprio and Tom Hanks went unnominated, despite doing some of the best work of their careers.

2002: Robin Williams Is Not Nominated For One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo featured what I consider to be Robin Williams’s best and most poignant performance.  It was also perhaps his most frightening performance, which probably explains why the Academy shied away from honoring it.

2003: Scarlet Johansson Is Not Nominated For Best Actress For Lost In Translation

Though Bill Murray got most of the awards attention, Scarlet Johansson’s performance was just as important to the success of Lost In Translation.

2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Is Not Nominated For Best Picture or Best Actor

Even before he decided to present himself as being an expert on vaccines and modern art, I wasn’t a huge fan of Jim Carrey’s.  That said, even I have to admit that he deserved a nomination for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  The film itself was only nominated for two Oscars.  Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress and Charlie Kaufman won the Oscar for Original Screenplay.  The film deserved quite a bit more.

2007: Once Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

This is one snub that I haven’t quite gotten over.  Once, a beautiful independent film from Ireland, deserved far more love than it received from the Academy.  That said, it did win the Oscar for Best Original Song and Glen Hansard gave one of the best acceptance speeches in Oscar history.  So, there is a little justice.

2008: The Dark Knight Is Not Nominated For Best Picture

If ever there was a comic book movie that deserved to be nominated for Best Picture, it was this one. To me, I think the main reason why The Dark Knight is superior to so many other comic book movies is because, even with Batman and the Joker running around, it still feels as if it’s taking place in the real world.  The smartest decision that Christopher Nolan made was to use a real city for Gotham instead of constructing a phony-looking set.  The fact that The Dark Knight received 8 nominations without also receiving a nomination for Best Picture leaves little doubt that the film’s lack of a nomination was due to its origins as a comic book movie.  There was such an uproar about The Dark Knight failing to pick up a Best Picture nomination that the Academy increased the number of Best Picture nominees to ten.  (Of course, that’s didn’t do much to help anything.)

2008: Robert Downey, Jr. Is Not Nominated For Best Actor For Iron Man

The MCU is now so big that it’s easy to forget that, if Robert Downey, Jr. hadn’t been a convincing Tony Stark in 2008, the whole thing would have never happened.  Going back and watching the early MCU films, before they got bogged down in their own formula, can be an eye-opening experience.  Downey’s performance in the first Iron Man holds up extremely well.  He goes from being an irresponsible businessman to being a hero and he’s convincing at every turn.  He gave such a good performance that it convinced even those of us who weren’t comic book readers to stick around and see what was coming up next in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

2009: George Wyner Is Not Nominated For Best Supporting Actor For A Serious Man

Not all snubs involve big stars or famous actors.  Some of them involve talented character actors like George Wyner who totally knock their one scene out of the park but who still don’t get the recognition that they deserve.  In A Serious Man, Wyner plays the rabbi who tells Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) the parable of the dentist who found Hebrew phrases on the teeth of one of his patients.  It’s a mesmerizing scene, thanks to George Wyner’s skill as a storyteller.

Agree?  Disagree?  Have a snub of your own that you’d like to mention?  Let us know in the comments!

Coming up next, we go from the 2010s to the present day!

Film Review: Don’s Plum (dir by R.D. Robb)


Filmed in 1996 and given a very limited European release in 2001, Don’s Plum is a micro-budget indie film.  It’s about a group of young friends who meet up at a diner called Don’s Plum and spend the entire night talking to each other.  It’s filmed in grainy black-and-white and the majority of the dialogue is improvised.  The main characters continually let us know that they’re friends by referring to each other as “bro.”  There’s a lot of conversations but none of it adds up to much.  In many ways, it feels typical of the type of indie films that were inspired by the early work of Richard Linklater and Kevin Smith.  Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly good or interesting film.

That said, Don’s Plum has achieved a certainly level of infamy due to the fact that two of the talkative friends are played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire.  DiCaprio plays Derek, an arrogant, abrasive, and manipulative womanizer.  Tobey Magurie plays Ian, a weirdo with a spacey smile.  DiCaprio and Maguire were both up-and-coming stars when they filmed Don’s Plum.  DiCaprio, who had already received his first Oscar nomination and who had just finished shooting William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, was a year away from Titanic.  Maguire was also a year away from his breakthrough role in The Ice Storm.  DiCaprio and Maguire not only starred in Don’s Plum but they’re also responsible for the film having never been commercially released in North America.

There’s a lot of conflicting stories about why DiCaprio and Maguire have both attempted to keep the film from being released.  DiCaprio’s story is that neither he nor Maguire were aware that they were shooting a feature film.  Instead, they thought they were making a short film and the only reason that they even showed up during the two nights of filming was because they were friends with the director, R.D. Robb.  The film’s producers, on the other hand, claimed that DiCaprio and Maguire always knew that they were making a feature film and that the reason they objected to the film’s release was because they were embarrassed by how much personal information they revealed while improving.  The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Of course, it’s also possible that DiCaprio and Maguire didn’t want the film to be seen because the film kind of sucks.  The dialogue is tedious, the film’s pace is painfully slow, the grainy black-and-white cinematography is dull, and the film’s soundtrack is so muddy that it’s difficult to understand what the characters are actually talking about.  Playing a total douchebag, DiCaprio does get to show off his natural charisma but Tobey Maguire appears to be dazed and confused in the role of Ian.  To be honest, both DiCaprio and Magurie are outacted by Kevin Connolly, who plays one of their friends and who would later go on to play the only vaguely likable character on Entourage.  (Connolly also directed the Brechtian gangster movie, Gotti.)  Connolly may not be as showy as DiCaprio or Maguire but his steady presence provides a nice contrast to Maguire’s fidgety mannerisms and DiCaprio’s need to always be the center of attention.

DiCaprio, Maguire, and Connolly are joined by Scott Bloom, playing the boring friend who will sleep with anyone.  Jenny Lewis gives a good performance in the role of DiCaprio’s quasi-girlfriend.  Amber Benson plays a hitchhiker who is abruptly chased out of the diner (and the movie) by an incredibly obnoxious DiCaprio.  At one point, Ethan Suplee wanders through the diner, playing a character who is identified in the credits as being “Big Bum.”  Everyone gets their chance to improv a monologue, often while staring at the bathroom mirror.  Eventually, DiCaprio’s character reveals a tragic secret from his past and it would have been an effective scene if not for the fact that it comes out of nowhere.

Oh, improv.  Improv has led so many directors and performers down the wrong path.  It’s an attractive idea, I suppose.  Get a camera.  Get some of your best friends to visit for the weekend.  Shoot a movie!  Who needs a script when you can just make it up as you go along.  Unfortunately, what’s often forgotten is that improv only works if you have a solid story idea or theme that you can continually return to if and when the improv itself starts to lose focus.  Curb Your Enthusiasm is a famous for being improved but all of the improvisations are based on a plot that’s discussed and set in stone ahead of time.  Don’s Plum feels more like one of those weird shows that George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh came up with for HBO in the mid-aughts.  (Remember that one with the acting class?  Frank Langella played a pompous acting teacher named Goddard Fulton and one of his students got a role on One Tree Hill.)  Don’s Plum meanders without any real direction, with none of the actors really trying to challenge each other.  An improved film like this needs a force of chaos, like Rip Torn provided for Norman Mailer’s Maidstone.  Instead, this film can only offer DiCaprio caricaturing his pre-Aviator persona as a hard-partying and often abrasive movie star.  (If nothing else, this film shows just how much DiCaprio has benefitted, as both an actor and a public personality, from collaborating with Scorsese.)

Don’s Plum is one of those films that is only well-known because of how difficult it is to see it.  But now you can see it on YouTube!  You can watch it and then you can ask yourself what all the controversy was about.  At this point, I think both DiCaprio and Maguire have proven themselves as actors and allowing for Don’s Plum to get, at the very least, a proper video release wouldn’t hurt the reputation of either one of them.  If anything, the best way to get people to forget about Don’s Plum would be to give them to the chance to try to sit through it.  There’s nothing about this film that sticks with the viewer, beyond the fact that neither Leo nor Tobey want anyone to watch it.

Lisa Marie’s Way Too Early Oscar Predictions for May


It’s that time of the month again!

It’s time for me to once again try to predict what will be nominated for the Oscars.  If you had to told me, at this time last year, that Top Gun: Maverick would emerge as an Oscar contender, I would have said that you were crazy but here we are.  Admittedly, it is early in the year and I think there’s always going to be some ambivalence towards honoring Tom Cruise.  (You just know that someone is having nightmares about him thanking David Miscavige in his Oscar speech.)  But with the reviews and the box office success that Top Gun: Maverick is getting, it would be a mistake to dismiss it.  After all, Mad Max: Fury Road came out around this same time of year in 2015.  As well, one can be sure that A24 will be giving Everything Everywhere All At Once a heavy awards push as well.  This could very well be the year of the genre blockbuster as far as the Oscars are concerned.

As for Cannes, it’s come and gone.  George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing got some good reviews, even if those reviews didn’t translate into awards at the end of the Festival.  David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future sounds like it’s going to be too divisive for the Academy and really, the thought of Cronenberg winning an Oscar has always been a bit implausible, regardless of how much he may or may not deserve one.  As for James Gray’s Armageddon Time, Gray has always been more popular with critics than with audiences or Academy voters.  If Gray couldn’t break through with something like The Lost City of Z, I doubt he’s going to do so with an autobiographical film about his life in private school.  Steven Spielberg already has the autobiography slot wrapped up with The Fabelmans. 

Of course, there’s still many films left to see and many more film festivals to be held.  Let us not forget that Martin Scorsese is bringing us Killers of the Flower Moon.  Personally, I’m looking forward to Damien Chazelle’s Babylon.  In short, nothing has been settled yet.  For all the acclaim that Top Gun and Everything are getting, who knows how the race is going to look at the start of the Fall season?

Anyway, here are my predictions for May.  Be sure to check out my predictions for February and March and April as well!

Best Picture

Amsterdam

Babylon

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

I Want To Dance With Somebody

Killers of the Flower Moon

Next Goal Wins

Rustin

She Said

Top Gun: Maverick

Best Director

Damien Chazelle for Babylon

Kasi Lemmons for I Want To Dance With Somebody

Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans

Taika Waititi for Next Goal Wins

Best Actor

Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick

Colman Domingo in Rustin

Idris Elba in Three Thousand Years of Longing

Brendan Fraser in The Whale

Brad Pitt in Babylon

Best Actress

Naomi Ackie in I Want To Dance With Somebody

Cate Blanchett in Tar

Margot Robie in Babylon

Tilda Swinton in Three Thousand Years of Longing

Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once

Best Supporting Actor

John Boyega in The Woman King

Leonardo DiCaprio in Flowers of the Killer Moon

Tom Hanks in Elvis

David Lynch in The Fabelmans

Tobey Maguire in Babylon

Best Supporting Actress

Jessie Buckley in Women Talking

Tantoo Cardinal in Flowers of the Killer Moon

Li Jun Li in Babylon

Samantha Morton in She Said

Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans

Lisa Marie’s Way Too Early Oscar Predictions For March


Now that the awards for last year’s films have been given out and everyone has already started to forget who won, we can start to concentrate on the next batch of Oscar contenders….

Oh, stop yelling.  It’s not that early!

Well, actually, it is way too early.  I mean, we’re still not really sure what is even going to be released this year.  Due to all the COVID delays, we went into 2021 knowing which films we could look forward to, mostly because all of those films were originally supposed to be released in 2020.  Compared to 2021, we’re going into 2022 blind.  The majority of the films that we do know about don’t really sound like Oscar contenders, either.

So, really, the only solution to how to predict the Oscar nominees when you know nothing is to guess.  The films and actors listed below are not there because I have any inside information.  Instead, they are there as a result of some wishful thinking and some educated guesses.  Killers of the Flower Moon was directed by Martin Scorsese, so of course it’s there.  The Fabelmans is there because a lot of people feel that the Academy didn’t show Spielberg and West Side Story enough love this year and I think the fact that the film is autobiographical will make it irresistible to same voters who nominated BelfastNapoleon is there because there might be some lingering guilt over how both Ridley Scott and The Last Duel were utterly ignored this year.  Rustin is there because it’s an Obama production and Hollywood loves the Obamas.  Chris Rock is listed as a supporting actor nominee because it would be the perfect conclusion to the saga of the Oscar Slap.  David Lynch is listed because …. well, I like David Lynch.  Personally, it’s doubtful that Tom Hanks will be able to pull off two nominations in one year but if anyone could do it, it’s Tom!

In other words, don’t take any of these predictions too seriously.  As of now, there are no definite contenders.  These are just some guesses.

Be sure to check out my even more random predictions for February as well!

Best Picture

Babylon

The Fabelmans

Killers of the Flower Moon

Napoleon

Rustin

She Said

TAR

Thirteen Lives

Till

The Woman King

Best Director

Damien Chazelle for Babylon

Chinonye Chukwu for Till

Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon

Ridley Scott for Napoleon

Steven Spielberg for The Fabelmans

Best Actor

Colman Domingo in Rustin

Brendan Fraser in The Whale

Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto

Joaquin Phoenix in The Whale

Brad Pitt in Babylon

Best Actress

Naomi Ackie for I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Cate Blanchett in TAR

Viola Davis in The Woman King

Danielle Deadwyler in Till

Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans

Best Supporting Actor

John Boyega in The Woman King

Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon

Tom Hanks in Elvis

David Lynch in The Fabelmans

Chris Rock in Rustin

Best Supporting Actress

Laura Dern in The Son

Sally Field in Spoiler Alert

Greta Gerwig in White Noise

Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon

Li Jun Li in Babylon

*Sigh* Here’s The Trailer for Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up


Adam McKay has a new movie coming out.  It’s called Don’t Look Up and the cast is packed with stars.  It’s apparently a comedy about two astronomers who discover that a comet is about to collide with Earth, potentially ending all life as we know it.

Here’s the teaser:

I’m not really a big Adam McKay fan.  In fact, I think the last Adam McKay film that I really liked was AnchormanThe Big Short was overrated and smug.  Vice was an attempt to destroy Dick Cheney that, instead, rehabilitated the former vice president’s image in the eyes of many.  (I mean, seriously, it takes a certain amount of effort to screw up a film that’s only reason for existing was to portray Dick Cheney as being a sinister figure.)  Both Vice and The Big Short were victims of McKay’s tendency to try too hard to prove that he’s capable of more than just Anchorman.  (Let’s be honest, though.  If you had to pick between Anchorman and either of McKay’s Oscar-nominated films, which one are you going for?)

McKay is not a particularly good or clever political satirist but there are people who love his work, largely because they already agree with him.  His films are like the progressive, secular version of God’s Not Dead, heavy-handed, predictable, and beloved by people who exist in a very specific social and cultural bubble.  Of course, both The Big Short and Vice received several Oscar nominations but that due more to Hollywood agreeing with the film’s politics than the films themselves.

Anyway, the teaser features Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep, and Jennifer Lawrence, all acting up a storm.  (These are four talented actors, all of whom really need a director who is willing to say, “Okay, let’s dial it back a little.”  Subtlety, of course, is not really a McKay specialty.)  I’m not looking forward to this film but I’ll still watch it when it shows up on Netflix.  Who knows?  Maybe it’ll feel more like Anchorman than Vice.  One can only hope!

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: The Wolf of Wall Street (dir by Martin Scorsese)


Suck it, The Big Short The Wolf of Wall Street is the best film to be made about Wall Street this century.

Martin Scorsese’s 2013 financial epic tells the true story of a group of rather sleazy people who got rich and who basically, to quote Robert De Niro from an earlier Scorsese film, “fucked it all up.”  Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio, giving what I still consider to be the best performance of his career) is the son of an accountant named Max (Rob Reiner).  Fresh out of college, Jordan gets a job on Wall Street.  Under the mentorship of the eccentric (but rich) Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey), Jordan discovers that the job of a stock broker is to dupe people into buying stock that they might not need while, at the same time, making a ton of money for himself.  With the money comes the cocaine and the prostitutes and everything else that fuels the absurdly aggressive and hyper-masculine world of Wall Street.  Jordan is intrigued but, after the stock market crashes in 1987, he’s also out of a job.

Fortunately, Jordan is never one to give up.  He may no longer be employed on Wall Street but that doesn’t mean that he can’t sell stocks.  He gets a job pushing “penny stocks,” which are low-priced stocks for very small companies.  Because the price of the stock is so low, the brokers get a 50% commission on everything they sell.  Because Jordan is such an aggressive salesman, he manages to make a fortune by convincing people to buy stock in otherwise worthless companies.  As Jordan’s boss (played, in an amusing cameo, by Spike Jonze) explains it, what they’re doing isn’t exactly regulated by the government, which just means more money for everyone!  Yay!

Working with his neighbor, Donny Azoff (Jonah Hill, at his most eccentric), Jordan starts his own brokerage company.  Recruiting all of his friends (the majority of whom are weed dealers who never graduated from high school), Jordan starts Stratton Oakmont.  Using high-pressure sales tactics and a whole lot of other unethical and occasionally illegal techniques, Jordan soon makes a fortune.  When Forbes Magazine publishes an expose that portrays Jordan as being little more than a greedy con man, Stratton Oakmont is flooded by aspiring stock brokers who all want to work for “the wolf of Wall Street.”

And, for a while, Jordan has everything that he wants.  While the Stratton Oakmont offices become a den of nonstop drugs and sex, Jordan buys a huge mansion, a nice car, and marries a model named Naomi (Margot Robbie).  His employees literally worship Jordan as he begins and ends every working day with inspirational (and often hilariously profane) sermons, encouraging his people to get out there and sell no matter what.  Of course, making that much money, Jordan has to find a way to hide it from the IRS.  Soon, with the help of Naomi’s aunt (Joanna Lumley), he is smuggling millions of dollars into Switzerland where a banker (Jean Dujardin, who is both hilariously suave and hilariously sleazy a the time) helps him hide it all.

When Jordan learns that the FBI and SEC are looking into his dealings, Jordan invites Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) to come visit him on his yacht and, in a scene that launched a thousand memes, the two of them have a friendly conversation that’s largely made up of passive aggressive insults.  Jordan taunts Denham over the fact that Denham washed out when he tried to get a job on Wall Street.  Denham laughingly asks Jordan to repeat something that sounded like it may have been a bribe.  When Denham leaves the boat, Jordan taunts him by tossing a wad of hundred dollars bills into the wind….

And here’s the thing.  Yes, the media and our political class tells us that we’re supposed to hate that Jordan Belforts of the world.  One can imagine Bernie Sanders having a fit while watching Jordan brag about how he cheated the IRS.  If Adam McKay or Jay Roach had directed this film, one can imagine that they would have used the yacht scene to portray Jordan Belfort as pure evil.  (McKay probably would have tossed in Alfred Molina as a waiter, asking Belfort if he wants to feast on the lost future of the children of America.)  But the truth of the matter is that most viewers, even if they aren’t willing to admit it, will secretly be cheering for Jordan when he throws away that money.  DiCaprio is so flamboyantly charismatic and Scorsese, as director, so perfectly captures the adrenaline high of Jordan’s lifestyle that you can’t help but be sucked in.  He may be greedy and unethical but he just seems to be having so much fun!  Just as how Goodfellas and Casino portrayed life in the mafia as being an intoxicating high (as well as being more than a little bit dangerous), The Wolf of Wall Street refrains from passing easy judgment and it steadfastly refuses to climb onto a moral high horse.  Jordan narrates his own story, often talking directly to the camera and almost always defending his actions.  As a director, Scorsese is smart enough to let us make up own minds about how we feel about Jordan and his story.

Of course, when Jordan falls, it’s a dramatic fall.  That said, it’s not quite as dramatic of a fall as what happened to Ray Liotta in Goodfellas or Robert De Niro in Casino.  No one gets blown up, for instance.  But Jordan does lose everything that gave his life meaning.  By the end of the film, he’s been reduced to giving seminars and challenging attendees to sell him a pen.  (“Well,” one hapless gentleman begins, “it’s a very nice pen…..”)  During the film’s final scenes, it’s not so much a question of whether Jordan has learned anything from his fall.  Instead, the movie leaves you wondering if he’s even capable of learning.  At heart, he’s the wolf of Wall Street.  That’s his nature and it’s really the only thing that he knows how to do.  He’s a bit like Ray Liotta living in the suburbs at the end of Goodfellas.  He’s alive.  He has his freedom and a future.  But he’s still doesn’t quite fit in.  Much like Moses being denied the opportunity to physically enter the Promised Land, Jordan’s punishment for his hubris is to spend his life in exile from where he truly belongs.  And yet, you know that Jordan — much like Henry Hill — probably wouldn’t change a thing if he had the chance to live it all over again.  He’d just hope that he could somehow get a better ending while making the same decisions.

Unlike something like The Big Short, which got bogged down in Adam McKay’s vapid Marxism, The Wolf of Wall Street works precisely because it refuses to pass judgment.  It refuses to tell us what to think.  I imagine that a lot of people watched The Wolf of Wall Street and were outraged by the way Jordan Belfort made his money.  I imagine that an equal number of people watched the film and started thinking about how much they would love to be Jordan Belfort.  The Wolf of Wall Street is a big, long, and sometimes excessive film that dares the audience to think of themselves.  That’s one reason why it’ll be remembered after so many other Wall Street films are forgotten.

The Wolf of Wall Street was nominated for best picture of the year.  It lost to 12 Years A Slave.

Lisa Marie’s Oscar Predictions For December


Well, here we go!

This is my last set of Oscar predictions for the year.  With the critics groups and some of the guilds having now announced their picks for the best of 2019, the Oscar picture is now a lot more clear.  Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Parasite, The Irishman, 1917, and Marriage Story all seem to be guaranteed to pick up a nomination.    

I am going to go out on a limb and predict that, despite being ignored at SAG and by the Golden Globes, Uncut Gems will get some nominations as well.  Right now, the film just seems to have momentum on its side.  Realistically, I’m not a 100% convinced that it’ll be nominated, not the way I am with some other films.  It’s divisive film and I’m sure that some people think that rewarding Adam Sandler will just lead to him using his newfound respect to get a theatrical release for the next Grown Ups sequel.  But I’m going to take a chance and go with it.

(Of course, Nightcrawler and Jake Gyllenhaal also had a lot of momentum a few years ago and ended up getting totally shut out of the Oscars.)

Below are my predictions for December.  If you want to see how my thinking has evolved, be sure to check out my predictions for January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, and November!

Best Picture

1917

Bombshell

The Irishman

JoJo Rabbit

Little Women

Marriage Story

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Parasite

Uncut Gems

Best Director

Bong Joon-ho for Parasite

Sam Mendes for 1917

The Safdie Brothers for Uncut Gems

Martin Scorsese for The Irishman

Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Best Actor

Leonardo DiCaprio for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Adam Driver for Marriage Story

Taron Egerton for Rocketman

Joaquin Phoenix for Joker

Adam Sandler for Uncut Gems

Best Actress

Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story

Luptia Nyong’o for Us

Saoirse Ronan for Little Women

Charlize Theron for Bombshell

Renee Zellweger for Judy

Best Supporting Actor

Willem DaFoe in The Lighthouse

Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Al Pacino for The Irishman

Joe Pesci for The Irishman

Brad Pitt for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Best Supporting Actress

Laura Dern in Marriage Story

Scarlett Johansson in JoJo Rabbit

Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers

Florence Pugh in Little Women

Margot Robbie in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

 

The Oscar nominations will be announced on January 13th!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Oscar, in happier times

The Dallas-Ft. Worth Film Critics Association Names 1917 As The Best of 2019!


Reunion Tower (picture by Erin Nicole)

Here are the winners in Dallas!

BEST PICTURE

Winner: 1917

Runners-up: MARRIAGE STORY (2); PARASITE (3); THE IRISHMAN (4); ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (5); JOJO RABBIT (6); LITTLE WOMEN (7); THE FAREWELL (8); THE TWO POPES (9); KNIVES OUT (10)

BEST ACTOR

Winner: Adam Driver, MARRIAGE STORY

Runners-up: Joaquin Phoenix, JOKER (2); Antonio Banderas, PAIN AND GLORY (3); Leonardo DiCaprio, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (4); Robert De Niro, THE IRISHMAN (5)

BEST ACTRESS

Winner: Scarlett Johansson, MARRIAGE STORY

Runners-up: Renée Zellweger, JUDY (2); Charlize Theron, BOMBSHELL (3); Saoirse Ronan, LITTLE WOMEN (4); Awkwafina, THE FAREWELL (5, tie); Lupita Nyong’o, US (5, tie)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Winner: Brad Pitt, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

Runners-up: Willem Dafoe, THE LIGHTHOUSE (2); Joe Pesci, THE IRISHMAN (3); Al Pacino, THE IRISHMAN (4); Shia LaBeouf, HONEY BOY (5)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Winner: Laura Dern, MARRIAGE STORY

Runners-up: Margot Robbie, BOMBSHELL (2); Florence Pugh, LITTLE WOMEN (3); Jennifer Lopez, HUSTLERS (4); Annette Bening, THE REPORT (5)

BEST DIRECTOR

Winner: Sam Mendes, 1917

Runners-up: Bong Joon-ho, PARASITE (2); Martin Scorsese, THE IRISHMAN (3); Quentin Tarantino, ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (4); Noah Baumbach, MARRIAGE STORY (5)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Winner: PARASITE

Runners-up: PAIN AND GLORY (2); THE FAREWELL (3); LES MISÉRABLES (4); PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (5)

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Winner: APOLLO 11

Runners-up: ONE CHILD NATION (2); AMERICAN FACTORY (3); HONEYLAND (4); FOR SAMA (5)

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Winner: TOY STORY 4

Runner-up: I LOST MY BODY

BEST SCREENPLAY

Winner: Noah Baumbach, MARRIAGE STORY

Runner-up: Steven Zaillian, THE IRISHMAN

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Winner: Roger Deakins, 1917

Runner-up: Hong Kyung-pyo, PARASITE

BEST MUSICAL SCORE

Winner: Thomas Newman, 1917

Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, LITTLE WOMEN

RUSSELL SMITH AWARD (best low-budget or cutting-edge independent film)

Winner: THE LIGHTHOUSE

The North Texas Film Critics Association Selects The Irishman As The Best of 2019!


The North Texas Film Critics Association announced their picks for the best of 2019 earlier today.  Speaking as a North Texas film critic, I’m a bit annoyed that I wasn’t consulted but oh well!  (To quote King of the Hill, “North Texas?  More like South Oklahoma!”)  Here are their winners:

BEST FILM

Winner: THE IRISHMAN

Runners-up: 1917; PARASITE; THE FAREWELL; MARRIAGE STORY; JOJO RABBIT; THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON; A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD; ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD; FORD V FERRARI; JOKER

BEST ACTOR

Winner: Joaquin Phoenix, JOKER

Runners-up: Robert De Niro, THE IRISHMAN; Adam Driver, MARRIAGE STORY; Adam Sandler, UNCUT GEMS and Leonardo DiCaprio, ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

BEST ACTRESS

Winner: Charlize Theron, BOMBSHELL

Runners-up: Scarlett Johansson, MARRIAGE STORY; Renée Zellweger, JUDY; Awkwafina, THE FAREWELL and Lupita Nyong’o, US

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Winner: Tom Hanks, A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Runners-up: Joe Pesci, THE IRISHMAN; Brad Pitt, ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD; Al Pacino, THE IRISHMAN and Song Kang-Ho, PARASITE

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Winner: Zhao Shuzhen, THE FAREWELL

Runners-up: Laura Dern, MARRIAGE STORY; Scarlett Johansson, JOJO RABBIT; Kathy Bates, RICHARD JEWELL and Annette Bening, THE REPORT

BEST DIRECTOR

Winner: Sam Mendes, 1917

Runners-up: Martin Scorsese, THE IRISHMAN; Quentin Tarantino, ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD; Noah Baumbach, MARRIAGE STORY and Lulu Wang, THE FAREWELL

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Winner: PARASITE (South Korea)

Runners-up: PAIN AND GLORY (Spain) and LES MISÉRABLES (France)

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Winner: APOLLO 11

Runners-up: AMERICAN FACTORY; ONE CHILD NATION; DAVID CROSBY: REMEMBER MY NAME and ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Winner: TOY STORY 4

Runners-up: ABOMINABLE and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Winner: Roger Deakins, 1917,

Runner-ups: Jarin Blaschke, THE LIGHTHOUSE; Rodrigo Prieto, THE IRISHMAN; Hoyte Van Hoytema, AD ASTRA; Robert Richardson, ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD and Phedon Papamichael, FORD V FERRARI

BEST NEWCOMER

Winner: Roman Griffin Davis was awarded Best Newcomer for JOJO RABBIT

GARY MURRAY AWARD (Best Ensemble)

Winner: KNIVES OUT

Here Are The SAG Nominations!


The SAG nominations were announced this morning.

For those of you keeping track of precursors and using them to shape your own predictions, the SAG nominations are usually a pretty big deal.  It’s rare that every film that gets a best ensemble nomination also gets a best picture nominations.  (In the past, The Big Sick, Trumbo, and Beasts of No Nation all got ensemble noms without also getting a best picture nomination.)  But, at the same time, the SAG is full of Academy members (the Actor’s Division is the largest part of the Academy) so their nominations are definitely a good sign of the way the winds are blowing.

So, a look at the nominations below — very bad news for Adam Sandler.  I have a hard time seeing how he can get an Oscar nomination without also a Golden Globe or SAG nomination.  Good news for Christian Bale, who is rapidly becoming the male Meryl Streep as far as automatic nominations are concerned.  Good news for Bombshell.  Good news for me, because I predicted that the liberals in Hollywood would embrace Bombshell for the same reason that they embraced films like Vice and The Big Short (i,e., “honoring Jay Roach and Adam McKay movies to own the cons”).  Potentially bad news for Kathy Bates, who received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Richard Jewell but not one from SAG.  Bad news for 1917, which was totally rejected by the SAG.  Potentially good news for Joker, which may have missed out on Ensemble but still picked up nominations for Joaquin Phoenix and the stunts crew.

Anyway, here are the SAG film nominees:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:

Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari”)
Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”)
Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”)
Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role:

Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”)
Lupita Nyong’o (“Us”)
Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”)
Renée Zellweger (“Judy”)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role:

Jamie Foxx (“Just Mercy”)
Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”)
Al Pacino (“The Irishman”)
Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role:

Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Nicole Kidman (“Bombshell”)
Jennifer Lopez (“Hustlers”)
Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture:

“Bombshell” (Lionsgate)
“The Irishman” (Netflix)
“Jojo Rabbit” (Fox)
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Sony)
“Parasite” (Neon)

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture:

“Avengers: Endgame”
“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“Joker”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”