A Disappointing Crop of Oscar Nominations

The oddsmakers have Roma winning, and I agree that it should - pure cinema, as Hitchcock would say - but Green Book will win because it has all those comfy, timely liberal sentiments the Academy loves: an American white man and an American black man together learn through helping each other that humanity transcends race on a journey, both literal and figurative, of self-discovery.  Alas, every single scene is completely predictable, and there is not one single interesting shot in the entire film, though one could easily be sucked in by the 101 nostalgic colours.

As compensation, Roma will win Best Foreign Film, and Alfonso Cuarón Best Director and for Cinematography - all unequivocally deserved.

Glenn Close will win Best Actress and Rami Malek will win Best Actor.

Mahershala Ali will win Best Supporting Actor, though it should go to Richard E. Grant for actually being a supporting actor. Shouldn’t Ali have been considered for a Best Actor since he was unequivocally co-driving the film’s narrative?

Regina King will win Best Supporting Actress.

The Favourite will win for Production Design.

Shouldn’t all three actresses in The Favourite have been nominated for Best Actress? Weisz and Stone were not supporters; they were co-drivers.

Ethan Hawke should have been nominated for Best Actor for his brilliant performance in First Reformed. Hopefully Schrader will win for Best Screenplay.

Contrary to what some have said, Lady Gaga cannot act. She has absolutely no screen presence, and in every single scene, we know she’s “ACTING.” [Yes, I’m referencing SNL from a few years back.] It remains astounding that she received a nomination for Best Actress. Ditto for her “co-star” Bradley Cooper as Best Actor. Of course neither really had meaningful dialogue or a half-decent script with which to work. Was everybody high when A Star is Born  got nominated for Best Picture or Cooper for directing? 

And It’s hard to believe that either A Star is Born or Green Book received nominations for their screenplays. Among many classic weaknesses such as telling rather than showing, gaps in character development, and highly predictable plot points, they both give us disappointing conventional sentimental Hollywood endings. I mean, really? Our hero nobly sacrifices himself by way of suicide so that his Star may continue her wondrous career ascension, having more or less been directed to do so by her agent and thereby ironically undermining the self-sufficiency and value of that very act. And do I really have to explain that white on black hug in the final scene of Green Book, or such dialogue as “Let’s get this man a plate?”

BlacKkKlansman undermines itself by its unnecessarily didactic coda. It is a film that does not have enough faith in viewers to draw their own conclusions about race and white supremacy.

In my judgment, with the exception of Roma and The Favourite, none of the nominated films compares to last year’s extraordinary crop in terms of either cinematic practice or storyline. What a falling off!

P.S. Stardate 25.02.2019

1) Sad to say, my prediction about Green Book was dead on. Of course the subtext here is the Academy's fear that a film produced by a streaming service and/or a "foreign" film would win. The Academy has always felt that it owns film, but the game has indeed changed. Films are less and less being "consumed" in movie theatres, and hard media (blu-rays) are on their way out.
2) Olivia Coleman's win for Best Actress in The Favourite could be seen as compensation for a film that had 10 nominations, this being its only win. She was great, but no better than either Weisz and Stone. Close is now 7 times nominated with no win.
3) It pains a bit to see a CGI production design win out over a "real" production design.