2016 Oscar Nominees Announced

2016 Oscar Nominees Announced

The Oscars are always an event I look forward to every year. I love seeing how much I can disagree with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when it comes to not only their winners, but their nominations as well.

If you want a sense of what I enjoyed this year, here are my top movies from the previous year.

All in all, there are gripes in various categories, but the movies that should be nominated for lots of things are indeed nominated for lots of things. Although La La Land will probably clean up, Arrival and Moonlight should win some too hopefully.

The biggest snub though is leaving Amy Adams out of best actress when she should not only be nominated but 100% be the winner. Another snub was 10 Cloverfield Lane being completely left out. I feel like John Goodman could have been nominated at least. Also, Weiner not being nominated for best documentary.

The dumbest nomination is Suicide Squad getting literally anything. Worst. Movie. Ever.

Best Picture

Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

I’m not going to disagree with any of the choices here.

Best Actor

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)
Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)
Ryan Gosling (La La Land)
Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)
Denzel Washington (Fences)

Captain Fantastic looks weird. Also, I know it’s hard to choose one of the portrayals of the main character in Moonlight, which makes it where none of them get nominated, but they should collectively win an Oscar for the way they all portrayed the same kid, yet never saw the others perform until the movie was done.

Best Actress

Isabelle Huppert (Elle)
Ruth Negga (Loving)
Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Emma Stone (La La Land)
Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

This is the biggest snub of the entire list. Amy Adams not being nominated for Arrival is an injustice. She was in two movies this year that were well received and didn’t get touched for either of them. I still think Alicia Vikander won the supporting actress award last year not only because of The Danish Girl, but also because of her successful year with that and Ex Machina which was a brilliant movie, but not much of an Oscar film. I see Amy Adams in the same light this year with both of her movies. Absolutely wrong.

Best Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)
Dev Patel (Lion)
Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals)

Glad Mahershala Ali is nominated, that dude is a fantastic actor. I really hope he gets nominated for an Emmy for playing Cottonmouth in Luke Cage too. Also, wasn’t Dev Patel the lead Actor in Lion? I know he is the older version of the main guy from it and a kid plays a good part in it, but still. I also wish that John Goodman would have been nominated for 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Best Supporting Actress

Viola Davis (Fences)
Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Nicole Kidman (Lion)
Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)
Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

Have to assume Viola Davis runs away with this one, but all of them are good. This is a stacked category.

Best Director

Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)
Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge)
Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)
Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

Nothing against the other directors, and I know it sounds like I’m all in on Moonlight (and I kind of am), but Barry Jenkins deserves this hands down for what I said above about the three boys not being able to really be nominated for playing the main guy in Moonlight. If you haven’t seen it, go see it, and then watch some of the interviews about the movie where they reveal that they had never met each other before, and had not seen the other’s portrayals of the main character, yet you would be convinced that it was the same guy but older in every act. It was brilliant and I think that falls on Barry Jenkins.

Best Original Screenplay

Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water)
Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Fillippou (The Lobster)
Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)
Mike Mills (20th Century Women)

I’m sure La La Land will clean up every category, but The Lobster is a hell of a concept.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Eric Heisserer (Arrival)
August Wilson (Fences)
Allison Schroeder & Theodore Melfi (Hidden Figures)
Luke Davies (Lion)
Barry Jenkins & Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight)

Best Documentary – Feature

Fire at Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated
OJ: Made in America
13th

No Weiner? Shouldn’t that be considered for this year? It was one of my top 10 movies of the year. That’s a snub to me.

Best Documentary – Short Subject

Extremis
4.1 Miles
Joe’s Violin
Watani: My Homeland
The White Helmets

Best Animated Feature Film

Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia

I still need to see Kubo and the Two Strings, but just watching the behind the scenes on how it was made, it deserves this.

Best Animated Short Film

Blind Vaysha
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper

I’ve only seen Piper, but holy cow that was one of the best visual short films I’ve ever seen.

Best Live Action Short Film

Ennemis Interieurs
Le Femme er le TGV
Silent Nights
Sing
Timecode

Best Foreign Language Film

Land of Mine (Denmark)
A Man Called Ove (Sweden)
The Salesman (Iran)
Tanna (Australia)
Tony Erdmann (Germany)

Best Original Score

Jackie
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Passengers

Once again, it’s hard to beat La La Land in any category this year, much less a musical one, but I thought Moonlight’s music was excellent.

Best Original Song

Audition (The Fools Who Dream) from La La Land
Can’t Stop The Feeling! from Trolls
City of Stars from La La Land
How Far I’ll Go from Moana
The Empty Chair from Jim: The James Foley Story

When I saw “Audition” up for the nomination I was so glad. That’s the best song from the movie no doubt. Then they STILL nominated City of Stars. The jingle behind it is a central theme played in the movie over and over so I get it, but Audition and Start a Fire (the John Legend song in the movie) should be the only two nominated, and being very different, I could have seen those two nominated instead.

Best Sound Editing

Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
La La Land
Sully
Hacksaw Ridge

Best Sound Mixing

Arrival
La La Land
Hacksaw Ridge
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Best Production Design

Arrival
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
La La Land
Passengers

Best Cinematography

Arrival
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Silence

The one nomination for Silence. I still haven’t seen it (just haven’t had time), but I still applaud Martin Scorcese for putting everything else on hold and doing his passion project. It’s not like he hasn’t been nominated a ton before. That said, of the others, Moonlight definitely.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad

The one category that only chooses three movies instead of five, and one of the three is the worst movie ever created? Oh hell no. I get that these categories are down here to throw a bone to movies that don’t get much otherwise, but if Star Trek is here, why not Star Wars? Why not literally anything else? The makeup and hairstyling is not what anyone remembers about this movie and so much of it was CG anyway.

Best Costume Design

Allied
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land

Best Film Editing

Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight

Best Visual Effects

Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

All of these movies belong here except Deepwater Horizon. This is the one category that Warcraft should be nominated for. Despite the fact that most people didn’t like the actual movie, it was a beautiful movie when it comes to the visual effects. I could get Suicide Squad here, but even still, there are much better films. Warcraft should be one of them. In the sense that The Jungle Book was mostly animated, a good majority of Warcraft was animated too.

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