Lo and behold, Oscar nominations

I've been writing a heck of a lot on this blog lately, which also means thinking a heck of a lot about movies, yet it took a mention by a friend on Facebook to remember that the Oscar nominations were coming out today.

Maybe they're only an afterthought if they're not tied in directly to the release of my year-end movie rankings?

Actually they might have felt like a bit of an afterthought this year just because I really had no idea what was going to get nominated. It doesn't feel like The Power of the Dog would have been a frontrunner in most years, and in fact, when I first saw it I didn't think it had any chance of getting nominated. I liked it, of course -- my #17 of the year -- but best picture? Didn't even occur to me as a possibility.

Well Power of the Dog did lead with 12 nominations, meaning indeed, it is probably the frontrunner. 

In a year I was sure my top ten would be devoid of best picture nominees, it landed two with Drive My Car (#5) and Dune (#9). I suppose that means I am rooting for Drive My Car to win, but I'll happily take The Power of the Dog as the more realistic possibility. (In fact, Drive My Car even getting nominated is a bit of a surprise, what with its three-hour running time, and an extremely scant release thus far.) Though I guess you can't fully count out Dune, as its ten nominations were the second most.

My lowest-ranked best picture nominee was West Side Story at #74, narrowly edging out Belfast (#71) for that dishonor. I mean, it was good, but I kept asking myself why I was watching a new version of West Side Story in 2021. It was actually 2022 at the time I saw it. 

It's 1:02 a.m. in eastern Australia, so I won't give you an in-depth analysis of anything else right now. But if I wait until I wake up to post this, am I really doing a service to you, my dear readers? I mean, what does Variety have that I don't have?

I will say I was surprised by a full slate of ten nominees in the best picture category. Maybe they changed the rule on that again and I didn't notice.

I haven't seen two of those nominees, Nightmare Alley and CODA, though I should have seen both before I closed my list. A Nightmare Alley advanced screening was COVIDed out in my final week, and CODA was available on AppleTV+, though I failed to realize that. (Which makes me a bit surprised I could not find it for rental via iTunes. I guess they want to drive subscribers to AppleTV+ rather than making it available to any Tom, Dick or Harry.)

Surprise omissions? I'm sure there were some, but they did not immediately occur to me. I was hoping Mahershala Ali would get a best actor nomination for Swan Song, but that movie didn't end up getting a lot of buzz and was in fact shut out without the Ali nomination. Besides, Ali already has two and needs to learn to share.

I guess I was a bit surprised Jesse Plemons got nominated as that was the weakest of the four main performances in that movie, but it looks like the Power of the Dog sweep might be on. I mean, it probably won't win more than picture and director (Jane Campion seems like a shoo-in), though her screenplay could pick up an award and I wouldn't be surprised to see either the Batch or Kirsten Dunst take home an award.

The love for Don't Look Up surprised me a bit. I thought a fair number of people rejected that movie. I guess the right ones didn't.

Also it's a shame to see no nominees from Passing, as I thought either of the lead performances was a really good pick for best actress.

Oh and finally: Too many nominations for Being the Ricardos. Aaron Sorkin needs to calm down a bit. 

Okay, I guess I better go to bed before I join the chorus of people chiding Leslie Jordan for his pronunciation of Denis Villeneuve. Would have thought the last name would have been harder for him than the first.