Welcome back to the 2025 Oscars blog! Today I wondered how long I have been doing this, and I was shocked to discover that this is my 12th year reviewing every film and giving you a guide to which are the ones you MUST see, and which are the ones you MUST skip. I hope I've helped, and with this year's smaller batch of 50 nominated films, I have a lot to say. (Shocking!)
For today, I always like to begin with some of my reflections on the year's nominees, snubs, movies not to miss which had no noms, and the occasional fist in the air for nominations that utterly don't deserve it. Tomorrow we get to the films!
The Snubs:
The Double Snub (a dub? a snubble?): Two excellent Lin Manuel Miranda works, first for Moana 2 (animated) and next for Mufasa: The Lion King for Visual Effects - and both for potential Best Song nominees. Do we ever see LMM fail to be nominated? I bear no outrage for either - I think the Animated Feature category got it about right, though the Visual Effects for Mufasa surely are as impressive as anything that Alien: Romulus or Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes haven't produced in their earlier thirty cabillion iterations.
The Double Washington snub: First for Denzel in Gladiator 2 (woof, G2 had a lot of snubs) and the complete shutout of The Piano Lesson - an August Wilson film adaptation filled with powerhouse performances (WHERE is Danielle Detwyler, AGAIN) and superb direction. The former may be attributed to DW's consistent high level of delivery that it may not be shocking people anymore with each spectacular performance (though comparing to Meryl Streep who sometimes gets noms for good because it's MERYL STREEP), one wonders what the difference between them might be in their accolades? Hmmmm. The latter can be attributed to a poor campaign by Netflix, and that's a shame because this was a magnificent work.
The Singing Snubs: I saw the film Maria and said, she's quite good but to be fair it's all lip sync. WRONG. AJ actually performed some of the opera pieces herself as Maria Callas, arguably one of the best opera singers of all time. You won't like my "replace" option, but surely this performance was far superior to Demi Moore's in The Substance. Then there's the Selina Gomez snub in the Supporting Actress category which ironically has a record THREE singing movie nominees. I don't know that much about Selina Gomez but I have to tell you, she was superb in Emilia Perez and her snub kept Emilia Perez from tying three other films for the all time nomination record of 14.
The only other real disappointment for me was in the International Feature category. There were some really fantastic films on the short list this year but by far the best of the ones I've seen was Kneecap from Ireland and mostly in the Irish language. Starring the actual members of the subversive band of the same name, this is an incredible film about embracing one's historic language, rejecting British occupiers (the one film this year that features ACTUAL occupiers without historic ties to the land, but that's a different disappointment from the same category), and making some pretty freakin' fantastic music, as well.
The Faves:
There are also some pretty fantastic nominees this year!
Triple Hoorays: I just absolutely have to celebrate every single nomination garnered by Sing Sing. Coleman Domingo (Best Actor), Adapted Screenplay, Best Song. Yes, yes, yes. I'll bet that at least half of you reading this never even knew about this film before right this moment. SEE IT. Wait for the review. You'll see.
Diane Warren... again: "The Journey" is another home run (The Six Triple Eight on Netflix, see it) from my beloved song writer and talent, Diane Warren. This is her 16th nomination for Original Song, she holds the record for 15 nominations and no wins (and will probably extend that this year, maybe?), and guess how many years IN A ROW she has had a song nominated? EIGHT. You read that right, Diane Warren has had a nominated song every year for the last eight years. She's won an Honorary Oscar but seriously, what does this woman have to do???? Diane, you deserved to win for "Til It Happens to You" from The Hunting Ground and so many times over (look up the list, it's a who's who of fantastic songs from movies), and I'm rooting for ya.
The World Cared About Hostages: Finally, I'll mention my delight that September 5 received a nomination. It was a tight and beautifully executed film, and it made me happy to be reminded that there was a time in our history that the world cared about Jews being taken hostage (and killed) by violent extremists, and people in the world were clear eyed about terrorists being the bad guys. Those were the days...
Ok, that's all you get today, tune in starting tomorrow where I'll take you through the list day by day. What a light in the darkness that I so needed - I can't breathe because of the fires, my family is displaced because of the fires, there are still nearly 100 hostages still being held captives by the terrorist organization Hamas (with idiot college students cheering them on), but among all of that... we still have the movies, we still have the Oscars.
Welcome back old friend, I needed you.
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