As usual, this year’s Academy Award nominations are filled with snubs and surprises. Here’s my 2019 Oscar Nominations react:
8 nominees for Best Picture. “If Beale Street Could Talk” isn’t one of them, which is likely a huge disappointment to studio Annapurna. At least Regina King (a SAG nominee snub) is up for Best Supporting Actress.
In the Best Director category, Adam McKay (“Vice”) and Pawel Pawlikowski (“Cold War”) likely got the slots that would’ve been taken up by Bradley Cooper (“A Star Is Born”) and Peter Farrelly (“Green Book”). If either of those two films wins Best Picture without a Best Director nom, it’s Ben Affleck “Argo” all over again. Interestingly, “Born” and “Roma” are not in the Film Editing race.
Willem Dafoe (“At Eternity’s Gate”) got that fifth Best Actor slot that could’ve gone to Ethan Hawke (“First Reformed”), John David Washington (“BlacKkKlansman”) or Ryan Gosling (“First Man”). In Best Actress, it was a 50/50 toss-up between Yalitza Aparicio (“Roma”) and Emily Blunt (“Mary Poppins Returns”) for that competitive fifth position. Aparicio got it, but Blunt could still perform Original Song nominee “The Place Where Lost Things Go” on the Oscar stage.
No Timothee Chalamet (“Beautiful Boy”) in Supporting Actor. Last year’s winner Sam Rockwell got in again for “Vice”. As for Supporting Actress, “Roma”‘s Marina de Tavira is your big surprise nominee – preventing possible contenders such as Blunt (“A Quiet Place”), Margot Robbie (“Mary Queen of Scots”), Nicole Kidman (“Boy Erased”) and Claire Foy (“First Man”) from emerging.
As usual, the Documentary Feature list will divide people, with “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and “Three Identical Strangers” both not making the cut. Both DreamWorks Animation shorts “Bilby” and “Bird Karma” – and the great “Age of Sail” – are not on the Animated Short ballot. Justin Hurwitz got snubbed for his excellent “First Man” score. And Dolly Parton’s terrific tune “Girl in the Movies” isn’t an Original Song finalist.
But three cheers for “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” – a fantastic film largely ignored up until this point in Awards Season – for its three nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay for the Coen Brothers. The Animated Feature top 5, for once, is surprise and snub-free. And the Visual Effects category may be the most satisfying of the year, with the likes of “Christopher Robin”, “Ready Player One” and (even though a box office disappointment) “Solo: A Star Wars Story”.
The 91st Annual Academy Awards… hosted by NO ONE… will air LIVE Sunday February 24th at 8pmET on ABC. For more, visit Oscars.com.