This year’s Oscars nominees are mostly deserving, except one.
Nominations for the 97th Academy Awards are out, with musicals taking centerstage. Wicked - my personal favorite to win Best Picture - received 10 nominations. Bafflingly, Emilia Perez, which Forbes declared “as bad as audiences say,” got 13 nominations.
Emilia Perez, a Spanish-language French musical about a cartel leader who faked their death to transition into a woman, is filled with music that sounds like it was written by AI and sung by a cast who can’t sing. It is not a movie that deserves 13 Oscar nominations.
Thankfully, the Academy got the nominations for the Actor and Actresses categories correct.
Nominees for Actor in a Leading Role are Adrien Brody, Timothee Chalamet, Colman Domingo, Ralph Fiennes and Sebastian Stan. All these men deserved being rewarded for their work this year. Timothee Chalamet got his second nomination in this category, making him the first actor since James Dean to get two of these nominations before the age of 30.
The Actress in a Leading Role Category also got all its nominations correct, minus one. No surprises: Emilia Perez’s Karla Sofia Gascon should not be on that list. Wicked boasts nominations for Cynthia Erivo (Actress in Leading Role) and Ariana Grande (Actress in Supporting Role).
There were many great animated movies that came out last year, and the Best Animated Feature Film nominees show that. My personal pick for winner in that category is The Wild Robot, but I can see any of the other films – Flow, Inside Out 2, Memoir of a Snail, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl – winning that award.
Cinematography and Costume design nominations were also excellent, again minus Emilia Perez. If the Academy wanted a musical in that spot, then Wicked would have been the better choice.
Music (Original Score) category nominees are The Brutalist, Conclave, Emilia Perez, Wicked and The Wild Robot. All except Emilia Perez gets my vote. Emilia Perez received two nominations in the Music (Original Song) category. Any other movie could have filled those spots, and Wicked should have gotten at least one of those 2 spots.
Time for the big category – Best Picture. Apart from last year, this year’s nominations feature some of the best we have had for Best Picture in a while:
- Anora
- The Brutalist
- A Complete Unknown
- Conclave
- Dune: Part Two
- Emilia Perez
- I’m still here
- Nickel Boys
- The Substance
- Wicked
With so movies out-shadowing Emilia Perez, I don’t think it has a chance to win, and I’m not that worried about it.
I am going to reserve my judgement and opinion for who I think will win until around the Oscars themselves. In the coming weeks, I will be watching and reviewing every Best Picture nominee, capping off a big piece reviewing the actual Oscars themselves on March 2nd.