Welcome Back! (You can check me out on Substack!)

It’s another glorious year for the Oscars.

As so many of you know, I’ve been writing this blog since 2014. That’s 468 posts and over 300,000 views. I write for about 40 days a year and then go back to my normal life as a regular person who just loves watching movies. Blogger has a limited way for people to subscribe and it’s pretty hard to get the blog if one isn’t on social media, so this is a way for it to be delivered right to your inbox, though you’ll still be able to find it on Facebook and Instagram. Please subscribe if you’ve enjoyed the content over the years, and of course I’ll continue to post my picks the day of, hoping to help you win your Oscars pool.

And on to the stats, snubs and surprises!

First the stats. It’s a relatively low number of nominees this year - 49 total films have garnered the 120 available nominations. We’ve added a Casting category, bringing us to 24 categories (with another expected in 2 years for the 100th Oscars), and if you’d like to learn a little bit more about why, watch a GREAT documentary called “Casting By” which tells the story of casting through the lens of casting legend, Marion Dougherty (Midnight Cowboy, Urban Cowboy, Grease, Batman, The World According to Garp, etc.).

Some years, there have been as many as 60 films with nominations, but when you have one film making history with a total of 16 nominations (Sinners) and 5 more each taking 8 or more, that’s going to narrow the available nomination options for the rest of the pool.

My Joys and Oys and Whoas

You can certainly google all of the regular articles about snubs and surprises, but here are a few that I’m marinating on.

Oy: Wicked was totally snubbed. Not production design nor costume design. Not original song. Not the two female leads. NOT THE COSTUME DESIGN. (Did I mention the costume design???)

Joy: Mission Impossible 7 was totally snubbed. In fairness, I haven’t seen it, I’ve only seen the ones with nominations over the years. But it’s not my jam and I don’t have to watch another one of these films.

Whoa: F1 got a Best Picture nomination! Excellent and exciting film but I sure didn’t call this one. I do love a sports movie, even if a bit formulaic.

Oy: Nothing for Hugh Jackman (Song Sung Blue), Jesse Plemmons (Bugonia), both of whom were outstanding and without whom either film would have been nearly so good. The parts seemed written for both and in each, their female lead counterparts were nominated. My general rule is that I don’t allow complaining about snubs if you can’t say who was nominated who you would have excluded, then you don’t get to complain. I still have one movie to see in the Lead Actor category but so far, I can’t eliminate anyone, so I won’t complain.

Joy: Diane DING DANG Warren has been nominated for her 17th Oscar for Original Song, and this is her NINTH nomination in a row. That means that for almost a decade, Diane has never been snubbed. I can’t find a single person in history who has been nominated for 9 years in a row. Once again, I don’t think she will win, but I can’t wait to see the documentary.

Oy (and a little bit Joy/Whoa): In the International Feature Film category, No Other Choice was snubbed and that’s a shame both because it was an excellent film and because it was one of the few Oscars contenders that was funny. Readers of the blog will know that this is my husband’s chief complaint with the Oscars - very little recognition for the funny ones - and I would happily eliminate The Voice of Hind Rijab (not having seen it yet) from the category. On the upside, there was an awful lot of anti-Israel hate on the short lists, and I was thrilled to see only the one propaganda adjacent film break through. (I’ll say more after I’ve actually seen it, this take is admittedly after just reading up on the film.) I’m happy to see the Academy focusing on more interesting and relevant issues in the documentary and International Language categories, but do see No Other Choice. You’ll be happy you did.

If you'd like the blog delivered to your inbox, you can check me out on Substack!