Oscars, 2019: Random Thoughts & Trivial Pursuits

Best Picture Nominees, Class of 2019

It seems that the drill the last few years following the announcement of the Oscar nominations is to spill a lot of ink (virtual or actual) on who or what wasn't nominated as opposed to who or what was nominated. Much righteous indignation is expressed, "hashtags" are created, boycotts are threatened... it all gets a little repetitive and more than a little tedious. So there will be no talks of "snubs" here (we'll save that for our "Egregiously Overlooked" section in our annual "If We Picked the Oscars" piece next month), just some general observations, trivia and the like on the artists and films that did receive nominations for the 92nd Academy Awards.

Best Picture Spotlight:

• At 209 minutes, The Irishman is the longest Best Picture nominee this year and the sixth longest Best Picture nominee of all time.
• Joker is the second movie based on a comic book to be nominated for Best Picture, following Black Panther last year.
• 1917 is the only Best Picture nominee with a number for its full title. If it wins, it will join Gigi (1958) and Argo (2012) as the Best Picture winners with the shortest titles.
• Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is the only Best Picture nominee to have... an ellipsis in its title.
• Parasite is the first South Korean film to be nominated for Best Picture as well as the first to be nominated for the International Feature category, a.k.a. the category formerly known as Foreign Language Film. It is also only the 6th movie to be nominated in both of those categories and the 11th non-English-language film to be nominated for Best Picture.
• Every Best Picture nominee this year has at least four nominations, while every other nominated movie this year has less than four nominations, a feat that has never happened before in Oscar history.

Five guys, a girl and a pizza

Acting Spotlight:

• This year's first time acting nominees are Antonio Banderas, Cynthia Erivo, Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Pryce and Florence Pugh.
• Adam Driver is the only nominee this year (for Marriage Story) who was also nominated last year (for BlacKkKlansman).
• With her two nominations (Best Actress for Marriage Story and Best Supporting Actress for Jojo Rabbit), Scarlett Johansson becomes the 12th actor to be nominated in two acting categories in the same year. The odds are in her favor to win; seven of the the 11 previous actors in this scenario won.
• The Irishman's Al Pacino and Joe Pesci are the 19th co-stars from the same movie to both be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The odds of one of them winning aren't very high though; only six times in the past has one of the actors in this scenario won.
• All five of this year's nominees for Supporting Actor are previous Oscar winners. Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino all won for Best Actor (Hanks twice), while Joe Pesci won for Supporting Actor. The only nominee who has not won an acting award is Brad Pitt; his Oscar win was as one of the producers of 2013 Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave.
• In addition to the five Supporting Actor nominees, previous winners in the acting categories are Kathy Bates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron and Renée Zellweger.
• Nine of the twenty acting nominees played real people: one Best Actor nominee (Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio in The Two Popes), three Best Actress nominees (Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman in Harriet, Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly in Bombshell and Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland in Judy), four Supporting Actor nominees (Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI in The Two Popes, Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa and Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino in The Irishman) and one Supporting Actress nominee (Kathy Bates as Bobi Jewell in Richard Jewell).

Scarlett fever

Double Features:
In addition to double acting nominee Scarlett Johansson, who starred in Avengers: Endgame as well as Marriage Story and Jojo Rabbit, several other of this year's Oscar nominated artists acted in more than one nominated movie this year, including:

• Laura Dern in Marriage Story and Little Women (both Best Picture nominees)
• Adam Driver in Marriage Story and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
• Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Toy Story 4
• Al Pacino in The Irishman and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (both Best Picture nominees)
• Brad Pitt in Ad Astra and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
• Margot Robbie in Bombshell and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
• Taika Waititi in Avengers: Endgame and Jojo Rabbit

Milestones:

• Martin Scorsese is now the most nominated living director with his nomination for The Irishman, his ninth nomination for Best Director.
• With his 52nd nomination this year (his 47th in a score category) for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, John Williams extends his own record as the living person with the most Oscar nominations. The all-time nominations record is held by Walt Disney, with 59 nominations.
• With the nomination for How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, the How To Train Your Dragon series is the only animated trilogy to receive a nomination for Animated Feature for each of its three parts.
• Honeyland is the first movie to be nominated for both Documentary Feature and International Feature, a.k.a. the category formerly known as Foreign Language Film. 
• 63 women are nominees this year, a new record.

Big Sister

Shorts and Soundtracks:

• Two of the short film nominees have practically identical titles: Sister in Best Animated Short and A Sister in Best Live Action Short.
• Two of the Best Picture nominees feature Stephen Sondheim songs: "Send in the Clowns" from A Little Night Music in Joker and "Being Alive" and "You Can Drive a Person Crazy" from Company in Marriage Story.
• Meanwhile, two nominated movies — The Irishman and Pain and Glory — feature Édith Piaf singing "La Vie en Rose" on the soundtrack.

A Little Woman Is Born:
Believe it or not, Little Women is this year's A Star Is Born, as it is the third remake of a Best Picture nominee from the 1930s that is also nominated for Best Picture in the 2010s. In fact, there are several similarities between the four Oscar nominated versions each of both stories:

• Both of the original versions, 1933's Little Women and 1937's A Star Is Born, were nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, and both won a Writing Oscar.
• The generally regarded "worst" versions, 1949's Little Women and 1976's A Star Is Born, each won one Oscar, while the widely regarded "best" versions (at least prior to this century, arguably), 1994's Little Women and 1954's A Star Is Born, both received multiple nominations but didn't win any Oscars.
• The newest versions, this year's Little Women and last year's A Star Is Born, are/were both nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress and Adapted Screenplay. This A Star Is Born won one Oscar; we'll have to wait and see if this Little Women matches or bests that on February 9th.

Jo, Jo, rabbit

And speaking of Little Women:

• Of the four actresses who have played Jo March — 1933's Katharine Hepburn, 1949's June Allyson, 1994's Winona Ryder and 2019's Saoirse Ronan — only the latter two were nominated for Best Actress. However, Hepburn did win her first Best Actress Oscar in 1933, for her performance in Morning Glory.
• The 1994 Little Women received three nominations — Best Actress, Costume Design and Original Score — which are three of the six categories that the 2019 version is nominated in.
• Thomas Newman was nominated for his score to the 1994 Little Women and is also nominated for Original Score this year for 1917, competing with the 2019 Little Women score by Alexandre Desplat. In 1994 the Original Score Oscar didn't go to Newman, it went to The Lion King, which was also remade in 2019.

And speaking of A Star Is Born:
Wait, Bradley Cooper is a producer of Joker? It actually isn't that unusual once you remember that Joker director Todd Phillips directed all three Hangover movies, starring Cooper, and Warner Bros. is the studio behind both A Star Is Born and Joker (not to mention all three Hangover movies).

And speaking of Little Women and Joker:
In addition to Saoirse Ronan being nominated for playing Jo March, a character that was previously played by Winona Ryder in an Oscar nominated performance, this year also sees Joaquin Phoenix  nominated for playing the Joker, a character that was previously played by Heath Ledger in an Oscar winning performance.

A pair of jokers

And furthermore... because Phoenix is nominated in the Best Actor category and Ledger won in the Supporting Actor category, if Phoenix wins the Oscar it will be the opposite of the only other time two actors won Oscars for playing the same character. In 1972, Marlon Brando won Best Actor for playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather, followed two years later by Robert De Niro winning  Supporting Actor for playing a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II. Interestingly, both Joker and Corleone are "criminal masterminds" and, bringing it full circle, De Niro co-starred alongside Phoenix in Joker.

All in the family:
Cousins Randy Newman and Thomas Newman are competing with each other in the Best Original Score category, for their work in Marriage Story and 1917, respectively. And indie power couple Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig directed two of the Best Picture nominees, Marriage Story and Little Women; and while neither were nominated for Best Director, they are both nominated for Writing Awards, Baumbach for Original Screenplay and Gerwig for Adapted Screenplay.

"Over the Rainbow", 80 years apart

Original Songs Redux:
Twelve previous nominees for Original Song (including four winners) were reprised in nominated films this year:

• "Over the Rainbow" (winner) from The Wizard of Oz (1939) and "The Trolley Song" from Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) in Judy
• "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" from Orchestra Wives (1942) in Ad Astra
• "Unchained Melody" from Unchained (1955) in Walk Run Cha-Cha
• "A Time for Love" from An American Dream (1966) in Marriage Story
• "Take My Breath Away" (winner) from Top Gun (1986) in Corpus Christi
• "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast (1991) and "Circle of Life", "Hakuna Matata" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" (winner) from The Lion King (1994) in The Lion King
• "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story (1995) in Toy Story 4
• "Let It Go" (winner) from Frozen (2013) in Frozen II

And speaking of Original Song:

• With "You've Got a Friend in Me", "When She Loved Me", "We Belong Together" and now "I Won't Let You Throw Yourself Away", Randy Newman has had a Toy Story tune from each of the four  movies nominated for Original Song.
• For the past three years, three actress/songwriters have received two nominations – in an acting category and for Original Song –for the same movie: Mary J. Blige for Mudbound, Lady Gaga for A Star Is Born, and now Cynthia Erivo for Harriet.
• And listen to this year's nominees here...

My favorite nominations this year:
The three that made me go "yes!" when they were announced were: Scarlett Johansson in Jojo Rabbit for Best Supporting Actress, Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory for Best Actor and Little Women for Best Picture.

Thanks for playing:
Several high profile contenders were surprisingly left empty handed post-Oscar Nomination Morning, including Apollo 11, Dolemite Is My Name, Downton Abbey, The Farewell, Hustlers, Just Mercy, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Uncut Gems, Us and Waves. Parting gifts will include a bag of sour grapes, a Starbucks gift card and/or an Independent Spirit Award.

And finally, I'd like to thank the Academy:
For not nominating Dark Waters, Gemini Man, Her Smell, A Hidden Life, Motherless Brooklyn and The Painted Bird, films I really had no desire to see and if they had been nominated I would have been forced to watch them. Having to sit through Breakthrough will be hard enough.

Stay tuned to Movie Dearest for more Oscars, 2019.

Random Thoughts: 2017 Oscar Nominations, Part 2

More reactions to the 2017 Oscar nominations....

Click here for Part 1

Oscar's favorite character actors: With her third nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Best Picture nominee The Shape of Water, sassy sidekick Octavia Spencer cements her status as this century's Thelma Ritter. Of course Thelma, who was nominated six times in the same category (including her first for 1950 Best Picture winner All About Eve) never won, while Octavia was victorious her first time out, for 2011's The Help.

And while he wasn't singled out for his role as the supportive father in Call Me By Your Name, Michael Stuhlbarg can claim bragging rights for appearing in a third of this year's nine Best Picture nominees; in addition to Call Me, he also co-starred in The Post and The Shape of Water. The last actor to pull off a triple like this was John C. Reilly in 2002's The Hours, Gangs of New York and that year's Best Picture winner Chicago.

Octavia, supporting Sally

Best of Times, Worst of Times for the Streamers: Previously only recognized in the documentary categories, Netflix broke into the mainstream races this year with their acclaimed drama Mudbound, which also set a few records with its four nominations: Rachel Morrison became the first female cinematographer to be nominated, the film's director Dee Rees is the first African-American woman to be nominated for Adapted Screenplay, and Mary J. Blige is the only person to be nominated for acting and songwriting for the same film. The streaming giant also added three more documentary nominations (the short Heroin(e) and the features Icarus and Strong Island) to its haul, as well as its first Foreign Language Film nominee, On Body and Soul from Hungary (which starts streaming on February 2nd).

That's an impressive eight nominations total for Netflix. Meanwhile, the news wasn't so good for its rival, Amazon. After becoming the first streaming service to garner a Best Picture nomination and to win Oscars in the major categories last year for Manchester by the Sea, Amazon landed only a single nod this year, for The Big Sick's Original Screenplay. All its other potential contenders — The Lost City of Z, Last Flag Flying, Wonder Wheel and (sadly) Wonderstruck — never quite broke through.

Proud Mary

Great Song Selections: There's not much to gripe about for a change when it comes to the Original Song category. First off: No documentary songs! Although I'm not crazy about "Stand Up for Something" from Marshall (it tries way too hard to be both inspirational and hip and winds up being neither), the remaining four are exceptional, with two thematically strong soundtrack tunes — "Mighty River" from Mudbound and "Mystery of Love" from Call Me By Your Name — and two narratively rich show tunes — "Remember Me" from Coco and "This Is Me" from The Greatest Showman. Plus, all of them have the potential of adding memorable musical moments to the telecast, especially a show-stopper like the Gay Pride anthem in-the-making "This Is Me" (see lyrics below), which Keala Settle has already confirmed she will be performing on the Big Night. Let's hope they can book as many of the other original singers as they can, although I'm pretty sure that Supporting Actress nominee Mary J. Blige will be on hand to belt out her mighty "Mighty River".

Fun fact: Three of this year's Best Picture nominees feature previous Oscar winning and nominated songs on their soundtracks, most notably the dreamy "You'll Never Know" from 1943's Hello Frisco, Hello in The Shape of Water, where it is heard several times. Dirty Dancing's iconic "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" is used ironically in a memorable scene in Get Out. And you'd have to be a true connoisseur of classic movie music (like, oh, yours truly) to recognize "My Foolish Heart" (a nominee from the 1949 film of the same name) as a lovely instrumental in an early scene in Phantom Thread.

One can assume Keala will shave before the big night...

And the rest...:

• It's pretty much a given at this point that Coco will (rightfully) win for Best Animated Feature, but did we really need the phrase "Academy Award nominee The Boss Baby" to be a reality? And what does the Academy have against Lego?
• Speaking of animation, where's the super-cute gay boys in love story In a Heartbeat in Best Animated Short?
• Great to see well-deserved multiple nominations for genre faves Blade Runner 2049, Baby Driver and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, including one each in the two redundant sound award categories (the five films nominated in both categories are exactly the same). 
• As for the Foreign Language Film category, Germany's Golden Globe and Critics' Choice winner In the Fade was criminally overlooked. Instead, they picked Sweden's ridiculously pretentious so-called "satire" The Square, the epitome of the type of foreign language film that make people hate foreign language films.
• How can the beautifully made Jane not be a finalist for Best Documentary Feature, for which it was not only expected to be nominated but also the winner? This one is arguably the biggest snub (there, I said it) of this year's nominations.
• On the other hand: yeah for Agnès Varda, nominated for her very first Oscar for her delightful doc Faces Places. But if she wins it won't be her first Oscar: she received an Honorary Oscar at this year's Governor's Awards. Oh, and she's also the oldest Oscar nominee like ever, with fellow 2017 nominees James Ivory (Adapted Screenplay, Call Me By Your Name) and Christopher Plummer (Supporting Actor, All the Money in the World) right behind her. In other words, no #OscarSoYoung.

Strong man

And last but certainly not least: In yet another Oscar milestone in a year of Oscar milestones, congratulations to Yance Ford, director of the riveting Best Documentary Feature nominee Strong Island, the first transgender filmmaker to be nominated for an Academy Award.


Coming soon: my reviews of this year's short film nominees and a Movie Dearest annual tradition, "If We Picked the Oscars".

By Kirby Holt, Movie Dearest creator, editor and head writer.

Random Thoughts: 2017 Oscar Nominations, Part 1

9 for the 90th

The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced yesterday, and all things considered they are a pretty good batch, with a few surprise "ins" and "outs" (I loathe the term "snub") that proves that the Academy does have a (collective) mind of their own despite what all the Oscar pundits out there have to say about it. But that doesn't mean that we can't keep talking about it...

 To wit, some random thoughts on the 2017* Oscar nominations:

Nine Best Picture nominees: It's supposedly statistically nearly impossible for ten nominees, and we've only had eight nominees twice since this whole "sliding scale" thing started seven years ago (after just two years of a solid top ten). So it looks like nine will be the norm, even if that means that includes a fading Best Picture contender like The Post that has just one other nomination (yep, Meryl Streep got another one). This expanded slate of Best Picture nominations was originally intended to include all the films that Academy members are "passionate" about, but how strong is that passion for a film that only generates one other nomination?

See you on the OBT, beotches

Over- and under-performers: Speaking of The Post, it was not the only presumed front runner that came up short when all was said and done. Both The Big Sick and The Florida Project could only squeeze in with one nomination each (thankfully in the case of the latter), while Call Me By Your Name managed only four, totally missing out in the Supporting Actor category even with two contenders (Armie Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg) in that race. And then of course is the long list of those favorites that were totally left out in the cold, chief among them being the beloved blockbuster Wonder Woman, which I sadly expected would happen.

On the other hand, both Darkest Hour and Phantom Thread surged ahead, netting six nominations each, including Best Picture. For Darkest Hour, one should remember to never count out those who love so-called "old fashioned" filmmaking (myself included), while Phantom Thread shows that being the last to the party (its release date was exactly a month ago today) can still reap big rewards.

"I did not **** her, it's not true! It's bullshit! I did not **** her! I did naaahttt! Oh, bye Oscar."

Scandals can help as much as hurt: With James Franco dropped from the Best Actor lineup, it looks like poor Tommy Wiseau, the cult movie icon played by Franco in the biopic The Disaster Artist, won't be coming to the Oscars after all (unless he crashes or, even better, is asked to present). Since news of the sexual misconduct allegations against Franco broke right at the end of the Oscar nomination voting period, we'll never really know if that was the reason he didn't make the cut or if, let's be honest, the Acting Branch just didn't like his performance enough to be nominated; remember, comedic roles rarely get nominated, especially in the lead acting categories when not attached to a Best Picture contender. (Personally, I was perplexed that he was even in the conversation in the first place.) In the end, Denzel Washington benefited, nabbing Franco's perceived slot and his ninth career nomination for his lawyer role in Roman J. Israel, Esq., a development that shouldn't have been so surprising considering his Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations.

But then there's Christopher Plummer, now the oldest acting nominee ever at age 88 for his supporting turn as millionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World. By now I'm sure you all know that, due to the Kevin Spacey sex scandal, Plummer was brought in to replace Spacey... in November. Plummer was cast on November 8th and then filmed his role from November 20th to the 29th. Cut to just over two months later and he gets nominated for an Oscar. That has got to be some kind of a record.

No, Kevin Spacey (right) did not go on to play Jacob Tremblay's grandfather in Wonder.

Lots of new faces in the acting and director categories: Call Me By Your Name's 22-year-old Timothée Chalamet became the third youngest Best Actor nominee, while Lady Bird's Saoirse Ronan landed her third nomination at age 23. Other newbies in the acting races are Mudbound's Mary J. Blige, Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya, Phantom Thread's Lesley Manville, Lady Bird's Laurie Metcalf, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri's Sam Rockwell and I, Tonya's Allison Janney and Margot Robbie.

Meanwhile in the director race, only Phantom Thread's Paul Thomas Anderson is a previous nominee in the category. Yep, both The Shape of Water's Guillermo Del Toro and Dunkirk's Christopher Nolan, who have been nominated in other categories before, are first timers for Best Director this year. And speaking of first timers, both Lady Bird's Greta Gerwig and Get Out's Jordan Peele are nominated for their debut features (solo debut, in Gerwig's case). Ironically, both are just the fifth nominated, respectively, female and black directors ever.

Three Golden Globes Outside the Beverly Hilton, California

And about those acting races...: In the three televised award shows to date (the Golden Globe, Critics' Choice and Screen Actors Guild Awards), all four acting winners have been the same: Best Actor Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour, Best Actress Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Best Supporting Actor Sam Rockwell also for Three Billboards, and Best Supporting Actress Allison Janney for I, Tonya. Not to say that any of these four fine actors aren't deserving of such accolades, but I personally prefer some variety in the winners across the board, especially in a year such as this that, until these four three-peats, was considered "wide open", for the most part at least. Yeah, not gonna lie: I kinda hope that at least two and maybe even three of the Oscar wins go to somebody other than this quartet. (Who? You'll have to wait for this year's "If We Picked the Oscars" to find out.)

More random thoughts on this year's nominations to come...

* I am of the school that the year that the films honored by Oscars were released, and not the year of the actual Oscar ceremony, is the proper way to denote the year of each annual Academy Awards. Why? Because I was raised that way, that's why.

By Kirby Holt, Movie Dearest creator, editor and head writer.

Random Thoughts: The 2016 Oscar Nominations

 

The announcement today of the nominations for the 89th Annual Academy Awards held a few surprises but was, for the most part, what was expected. And we can all breath a sigh of relief that this year's slate, which offers an ample dose of diversity across the board, will shut up all those "Oscar So White" complaints... at least for this year.

Some records were made or at least matched, the big one being La La Land's eye-opening haul of 14 nominations, tying the record with All About Eve and Titanic for the most Oscar nominations for a single film, a feat even the most ardent of La La-ers didn't see coming (Sound Editing, really?). Also of note is Viola Davis' Supporting Actress nod for Fences, her third career nomination, which makes her the most nominated black woman in Academy history (yes, really). And what is increasingly looking like overkill is the semi-annual nomination of Meryl Streep, who once again broke her own record and now has a total of 20 acting nominations. That she did it for a questionable performance (in that trifle Florence Foster Jenkins) in a highly competitive Best Actress field (which doesn't happen very often, mind you) is even more of a frustration. But hey, she did that speech at the Golden Globes, so... whatever.

"...Eighteen! Nineteen! TWENTY!!!"

Some random thoughts on the various categories:

The Best Picture race is back up to nine contenders after two years at just eight. Some things to ponder: if they had stayed at ten nominations, what would be the tenth? I'd say Jackie (the only film with more than two nominations that isn't already a BP nominee) or maybe Zootopia, although some were predicting everything from the epic documentary O.J.: Made in America to the box office superhero hit Deadpool. (A wise word to Oscar pundits out there: don't get all whipped into a frenzy by curveballs thrown by the precursor awards.) Also, if we were still at only five nominees, which ones would have made the cut? I'd say the three heavyweights (La La Land, Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight) for sure, plus Arrival and Lion. Your thoughts?

Speaking of Lion, it's a really shame that Garth Davis, who was nominated twice for the Directors Guild Award (which I believe is a first) got passed over for the often hamfisted direction of Hacksaw Ridge by Mel Gibson, who I guess is now officially back in the Hollywood fold. Of note: all the Best Director nominees except Gibson are first timers, and if Damien Chazelle wins he will be the youngest direction winner ever (he just turned 32).

His birthday party was wild.

As for the acting races, Best Actor and Supporting Actress went as planned, copied verbatim from the Screen Actors Guild nominations. Supporting Actor deviated slightly from most predictions, with Michael Shannon, not Aaron Taylor-Johnson, getting recognized for Nocturnal Animals (Shannon was an early favorite, but then things got all wonky with the Golden Globes, go figure).

And, as previously stated, Best Actress was a crowded race this year, with first timers, acting legend Isabelle Huppert (for Elle) and relative newcomer Ruth Negga (for Loving) in, previous nominees Amy Adams (for Arrival) and Annette Bening (for 20th Century Women) out.

What she said.

In addition to Huppert and Negga, the other first time acting nominees are Mahershala Ali, Andrew Garfield, Naomie Harris, Lucas Hedges and Dev Patel. And the Oscar winners among this year's acting class are Jeff Bridges, Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Octavia Spencer, Meryl Streep (three previous wins) and Denzel Washington (two previous wins).

I'm glad to see the quirky The Lobster and the otherwise sadly overlooked 20th Century Women up for Original Screenplay, especially over the anticipated (but highly overrated) Captain Fantastic. And is Tarell Alvin McCraney, author of the play that inspired Adapted Screenplay nominee Moonlight, the only openly LGBTQ person nominated this year...?*

I'm bummed that Hail, Caesar! didn't get recognized for its Old Hollywood costumes and the Sing Street showstopper "Drive It Like You Stole It" missed the cut for Original Song, it sure would have rocked the Kodak Theatre (and I'm still pissed that Disney didn't even submit The Rock and roll number "You're Welcome" from Moana). By the by, the song nominees are a definite improvement over last year's, and I'm sure the producers were ecstatic that the hit pop ditty "Can't Stop the Feeling" was chosen, ensuring a ratings-drawing Justin Timberlake performance.

Hopefully more impressive than this.

But did the music branch have to pick another documentary dirge? (That would be that Sting toe-tapper "The Empty Chair" from Jim: The James Foley Story.)

In closing, I would like to thank the Academy for not nominating The Birth of a Nation, The Founder and Sing as I really didn't want to have to watch them. And on a similar note: thanks Academy for forcing me to watch Deepwater Horizon, Passengers and Trolls.

The Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday February 26.

* Duh, Scott Rudin is one of the nominated producers of Best Picture contender Fences.

Random Thoughts: Justice League United

With the just released group image (minus Superman of course) of the Justice League, some Random Thoughts... 

... With the two big guys, Ben Affleck's Batman and Jason Momoa's Aquaman, on each end it's more of a beefcake sandwich than a hero...

... Why does Ezra Miller's Flash look like he's been eviscerated? I don't get these superhero costume deconstructions of late...

... Somewhere on the internet right this very minute, somebody is bitching that Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman is the least-clad. I only agree because I want Aquaman to look like this through the whole movie:

There's a lot that Warner hasn't got right about transferring the DC universe to the big screen, but you gotta give 'em props for turning some of the dorkiest comic characters into some tasty eye candy (see also: Jai Courtney in Suicide Squad).

Just think, it could have been "and starring Chuck Barris as Captain Boomerang".

 ... And is it just me, or do they look like they have just landed on a Star Trek planet of the week? Which makes the Flash the red shirt...

All will be revealed when Justice League opens (finally) on November 17.