Part 1: Roma, The Favourite, Vice, A Star Is Born.
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4:
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4:
3 Nominations
- Actress: Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
- Adapted Screenplay: Nicole Holofcener & Jeff Whitty
- Supporting Actor: Richard E. Grant
Director: Marielle Heller
Cast: McCarthy, Grant, Dolly Wells, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Ben Falcone, Christian Navarro, Gregory Korostishevsky, Anna Deavere Smith, Erik LaRay Harvey, Pun Bandhu, Brandon Scott Jones, Marc Evan Jackson
This movie is so good! I thought from the trailer that this movie had no idea what it wanted to be – is it a comedy? A serious drama? A true story? What's kind of amazing is that it is all of these things and that it is still so balanced, so lovely. Marielle Heller has done superb work here, and she probably ought to have been nominated in the director category this year. It's rather a shame she wasn't. Can You Ever Forgive Me? is just such a good movie. I hope more people see this movie now that it has three Oscar nominations. I have to say, also, that I have long been skeptical of Melissa McCarthy. I thought she was hilarious in Funny People, but I think that's because Funny People is so unfunny, so she was a bright spot. But in this movie she is both hilarious and also really, really beautifully moving. She's excellent, and she was one of my top 5 performances of the year. This nomination is completely deserved. Shout out, too, to Nicole Holofcener, who, for some reason has never been nominated for best original screenplay but got her first writing nomination for a) a movie she didn't direct and b) an adapted screenplay! So strange. Oh! last note: this is a film about two queer people in New York in the 1980s. Queerness is not a problematic in the film, but the film's perspective is very queer. It's delightful.
Will Win: N/A
This movie is so good! I thought from the trailer that this movie had no idea what it wanted to be – is it a comedy? A serious drama? A true story? What's kind of amazing is that it is all of these things and that it is still so balanced, so lovely. Marielle Heller has done superb work here, and she probably ought to have been nominated in the director category this year. It's rather a shame she wasn't. Can You Ever Forgive Me? is just such a good movie. I hope more people see this movie now that it has three Oscar nominations. I have to say, also, that I have long been skeptical of Melissa McCarthy. I thought she was hilarious in Funny People, but I think that's because Funny People is so unfunny, so she was a bright spot. But in this movie she is both hilarious and also really, really beautifully moving. She's excellent, and she was one of my top 5 performances of the year. This nomination is completely deserved. Shout out, too, to Nicole Holofcener, who, for some reason has never been nominated for best original screenplay but got her first writing nomination for a) a movie she didn't direct and b) an adapted screenplay! So strange. Oh! last note: this is a film about two queer people in New York in the 1980s. Queerness is not a problematic in the film, but the film's perspective is very queer. It's delightful.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #17 out of 67
If Beale Street Could Talk
This is the best ensemble work of the year. Every actor is fabulous in it. Every single one. Stephan James is incredible in this movie, and Regina King will deserve her Oscar when she wins it. I loved this movie. It isn't quite the book (a book I love), but it's doing its own rather magical thing instead of trying to do the book. I felt near tears through most of it. Now... I have heard talk that some people think this movie got robbed when the nominations came out. I can't say I agree. It was released way too late, and the studio really didn't do the work it needed to do to get the nominations happening. Regina King's omission from the SAG awards is a good example of this. The SAGs skew heavily toward stuff that's been released in theatres – thus the popularity of movies like A Quiet Place and even Mary Queen of Scots. If a poetic movie like Beale Street is going to land with the Screen Actors Guild, it simply needs to be released earlier. In any case, three nominations is nothing to sneeze at. And this is pretty much exactly what happened with Call Me by Your Name last year. It was a movie popular with critics that everyone thought would get more nominations than it did, and it ended up with only three. Still, I think Beale Street could win two Oscars on Feb. 24th. It will definitely win supporting actress, but it may also win Jenkins his second writing Oscar, as well. (It is worth saying that Beale Street also is not perfect. Because Jenkins' style is so insistently poetic, the film's treatment of the appalling incarceration rates for black men in the U.S. don't quite work. Jenkins' film doesn't really take place in the real world, so if you're whole film is going to be a kind of poetic meditation, you can't also attempt to address real world consequences and issues, well maybe you can do this, but Jenkins' film doesn't quite manage it.)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
This feels like a sort of minor Coen Brothers movie, but it's so funny, and it's such a pleasure to watch all of these little stories. Each one is excellent. Each works very well on its own terms, but as a group, these stories are pretty wonderful. And they're so well made that this film is completely enjoyable. Also it's on Netflix, so that just makes everything easier. For me, Bill Heck, who played the intended husband in the "girl who got rattled" segment, was truly the best in the film, His portrayal is so sensitive and vulnerable. I found him quite moving. I also loved Tyne Daly in the final segment. She's perfect. And the score. It's nice that the cute Gillian Welch song got nominated; that's really fun. But Carter Burwell's score is memorable and haunting, and I love it so much. I am very sad that it didn't get nominated.
3 Nominations
- Adapted Screenplay: Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)
- Supporting Actress: Regina King
- Score: Nicholas Britell (Moonlight)
Director: Jenkins
Cast: KiKi Layne, King, Stephan James, Colman Domingo, Michael Beach, Teyonah Parris, Finn Wittrock, Bryan Tyree Henry, Aunjanue Ellis, Ebony Obsidian, Dominique Thorne, Dave Franco, Diego Luna, Ed Skrein, Emily Rios, Pietro Pascal, Marcia Jean Kurtz
This is the best ensemble work of the year. Every actor is fabulous in it. Every single one. Stephan James is incredible in this movie, and Regina King will deserve her Oscar when she wins it. I loved this movie. It isn't quite the book (a book I love), but it's doing its own rather magical thing instead of trying to do the book. I felt near tears through most of it. Now... I have heard talk that some people think this movie got robbed when the nominations came out. I can't say I agree. It was released way too late, and the studio really didn't do the work it needed to do to get the nominations happening. Regina King's omission from the SAG awards is a good example of this. The SAGs skew heavily toward stuff that's been released in theatres – thus the popularity of movies like A Quiet Place and even Mary Queen of Scots. If a poetic movie like Beale Street is going to land with the Screen Actors Guild, it simply needs to be released earlier. In any case, three nominations is nothing to sneeze at. And this is pretty much exactly what happened with Call Me by Your Name last year. It was a movie popular with critics that everyone thought would get more nominations than it did, and it ended up with only three. Still, I think Beale Street could win two Oscars on Feb. 24th. It will definitely win supporting actress, but it may also win Jenkins his second writing Oscar, as well. (It is worth saying that Beale Street also is not perfect. Because Jenkins' style is so insistently poetic, the film's treatment of the appalling incarceration rates for black men in the U.S. don't quite work. Jenkins' film doesn't really take place in the real world, so if you're whole film is going to be a kind of poetic meditation, you can't also attempt to address real world consequences and issues, well maybe you can do this, but Jenkins' film doesn't quite manage it.)
3 Nominations
- Adapted Screenplay: Ethan Coen (Bridge of Spies, True Grit, A Serious Man, No Country for Old Men, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo) & Joel Coen (Bridge of Spies, True Grit, A Serious Man, No Country for Old Men, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo)
- Costume Design: Mary Zophres (La La Land, True Grit)
- Song - "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings": David Rawlings & Gillian Welch
Director: Coen Brothers
Cast: Tim Blake Nelson, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Zoe Kazan, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson, James Franco, Harry Melling, Jonjo O'Neill, Saul Rubinek, Sam Dillon, Stephen Root, Chelcie Ross, Jefferson Mays, Paul Rae, Prudence Wright Holmes, David Krumholtz, Willie Watson,
This feels like a sort of minor Coen Brothers movie, but it's so funny, and it's such a pleasure to watch all of these little stories. Each one is excellent. Each works very well on its own terms, but as a group, these stories are pretty wonderful. And they're so well made that this film is completely enjoyable. Also it's on Netflix, so that just makes everything easier. For me, Bill Heck, who played the intended husband in the "girl who got rattled" segment, was truly the best in the film, His portrayal is so sensitive and vulnerable. I found him quite moving. I also loved Tyne Daly in the final segment. She's perfect. And the score. It's nice that the cute Gillian Welch song got nominated; that's really fun. But Carter Burwell's score is memorable and haunting, and I love it so much. I am very sad that it didn't get nominated.
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