The Academy consensus has produced two blue-chip frontrunners, but passed over some exceptional films directed by women in the process
•Roma and The Favourite vie for glory
•Full list of nominations
•Guardian film Black Sheep nominated
Once again, the mysterious consensus-accretion of awards season has done its work and the Oscar nomination list has a big showing for Alfonso Cuarón’s magnificent Roma, with 10 nominations — and, notably, just as big a score for critics’ darling and perennial talking point Yorgos Lanthimos’s bizarre Restoration comedy The Favourite. This also has 10 nominations, including of course a best actress nomination for Olivia Colman, who this year has become (justly) catapulted to international treasure status. (An upgrade from national to international treasure status might also be due for Richard E Grant, who has a best supporting actor nomination for his venal Brit boozehound in Can You Ever Forgive Me?) These are the prestige products, the blue-chip movies that the Academy hivemind has decided are the headline successes.
As for the snubs, complaining about these has evolved to such an extent in recent years that they have become the pundits’ alternative refusenik fantasy league. But the lack of women directors in the best picture and best director lists is woeful, at least partly because they exclude one of the very best films: Debra Granik’s superb Leave No Trace. There is also the exclusion of Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, her excellent variation on the Taxi Driver theme starring Joaquin Phoenix. Barry Jenkins’s fine If Beale Street Could Talk has been largely overlooked, although I am confident that Regina King will win best supporting actress for her delicate, intelligently judged performance in that movie. Nicole Kidman deserved a shot at an Oscar for her very interesting performance in Destroyer, and Steve McQueen’s terrific thriller Widows is turning into this awards season’s Cinderella, bafflingly excluded from ball after ball. The biggest and most deplorable snub was however that Ari Aster’s brilliant scary movie Hereditary received nothing: with a lead performance from the wonderful Toni Collette which could go toe-to-toe with any of the current contenders.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2HAG59M
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