This Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) will release the nominations for the 98th Academy Awards. I, as always, am fucking psyched. You’ve heard me talk about the Oscars before so you know how I feel about them. They’re amazing and they try to get it right and, lately, they’ve been doing ok. No, I am not counting Green Book winning Best Picture. Or CODA.
This year, the big question seems to be if any movie will be able to stop the momentum that One Battle After Another has been, seemingly, building since its release. While Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest movie seems to currently be on pace to have a big Thursday as the front-runner for the top prize, there are some storylines which have popped up in the last few weeks.
This Thursday, we will learn the answers to these questions:
1. Is Sinners still poised for a big Oscars?
If would have asked anyone a few months ago, they would have said that Sinners was the one film which had a chance to derail the Oscars campaign that One Battle seemingly began before the movie came out. But something happened to Sinners that has happened to a lot of others films leading into the nominations: the buzz has slowly started to fade. A few weeks ago, predictions were made that Ryan Coogler’s film could rack up a record-setting fifteen nominations. And it is going to have a big day. But the real question is will it have a chance to really compete in any of the major categories. If Sinners has a big day Thursday, you have to consider it the biggest competition to One Battle, which would be good news for Warner Brothers, which distributed both films. But a day getting less than 7 nominations could spell out a lot of trouble for the vampire blockbuster.
2. If not Sinners, then what?
With Sinners seeming to lose luster, people are looking for the new film to play spoiler against P.T. Anderson. The best guess would be Hamnet, who picked up the Best Motion Picture (Drama) at the Golden Globes, but that film not been without its detractors. Marty Supreme doesn’t seem to have a lot of push past Best Actor nominee (and possible lock) Timothee Chalamet. And some of the possibilities from other countries don’t seem to have the firepower. But, when you think about the next question, I could be wrong.
3. How many international films will be nominated for Best Picture?
The most amount of foreign-language films which have been nominated for Best Picture happened two years ago when three films gunned for the top spot (and that is kind of a cheat as Celine Song’s Past Lives also had a lot of English and was half-set in America). But this year seems to be the year to best that record, thanks to a bevy of excellent films (almost all of them distributed by Neon). Sentimental Value, The Station Agent and It Was Just An Accident seem like locks, with films like No Other Choice and Sirat making strong cases that their names could be read.
4. Besides Sinners, do the blockbusters have any chance?
While Sinners is still a lock for a Best Picture nominee, the other films which performed well at the box office are in trouble. Both Avatar: Fire & Ash and Wicked: For Good seem to be on the outside looking in, despite having their previous entries in both franchises nominated for the big prize. Weapons is in contention for the final spot of the ten nominees, but seems to be in a dogfight with a lot of films that could make an equally strong case. F1 was a box office success that people liked with a director (Joseph Kosinski) who got Top Gun: Maverick a Best Picture nominee, but that campaign seems to be getting no headway. For conservative dipshits who always complain that mainstream successes are always ignored, they will be looking to have a banner day of clickbait.
5. Jesus Christ, can Adam Sandler catch a fucking break?
This one I can easily answer: No. He cannot. Despite giving a performance worthy of a nomination in Netflix’s Jay Kelly, Sandler will again be on the outside looking in. If you had told me that Jay Kelly would fail to just pick up any sort of forward momentum a few months ago, I would have called you crazy. But the Noah Baumbach release just never found an audience or got any sort of interest from voters. Sandler is a great actor, and deserved to be nominated like he did for Punch Drunk Love, Uncut Gems and Hustle. But the Sandman will have to comfort himself with his piles of money from his Netflix deal.
Fancy Boys Club 