88th Academy Award Nominations (Films of 2015)

Alo Party Peoples.

To cinephiles, the Oscars are simultaneously the most and least important awards ceremony on the planet. Nobody takes them seriously as a measure of artistic merit, but they still lend legitimacy, and sometimes a box-office boost, to the nominees. As an example from last year, without seven Academy Award nominations, nobody would go to see a biography of Alan Turing.

This year's awards, at least on the surface, are a marked improvement over last year's. There's a lot more diversity as far as genre is concerned. Just looking at Picture, sure we've got the requisite period dramas; Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Revenant, it's debatable whether Spotlight and The Big Short count considering that they're both stories from this century. But then you have stuff like The Martian and-holy s***! Fury Road is a Best Picture nominee! Sure, there's no universe where it wins, but it's still amazing that it got nominated. Best Picture has been a two horse race for a long time, and this year is no different. The big contenders are Spotlight and The Revenant, but if you want to bet on an underdog I'd go with The Big Short, just don't blame me if you lose any money on it

Beast Director is a bit of a different game, I expect that they'll use it to "split" a Best Picture tie by giving it to the losing film's director. On one hand, I'd really rather not see Innaritu's ego get even bigger if he wins for The Revenant, but I expect him to win unless Spotlight turns out to be a surprise juggernaut. For my two cents, it's still amazing that George Miller was nominated for Fury Road, in a just competition he would win, but there's no universe where that happens.

The acting awards are a good place to address the elephant in the room, despite the big public controversy over it last year, once again every acting nominee is white. And this year there were in fact high profile minority performances, O'Shea Jackson Jr. in Straight Outta Compton, Michael B. Jordan in Creed, Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation, but most of them didn't have proper Oscar campaigns lined up, so they were mostly overlooked, and the only nomination Creed got was for the old white guy.

On one hand, it really sucks for this to happen again, on the other, if you can overlook that there are some good nominees in here. Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant, Matt Damon for The Martian, Christian Bale for The Big Short, Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs, there's nobody here that I'd say needs to be kicked out so someone else can get in. Well, maybe Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl, but only so Alicia Vikander can be nominated for her career redefining turn in Ex Machina.

In general, it'll be easy to call the winners here; Leonardo DiCaprio is going to win Best Actor for The Revenant, he's been nominated and lost so many times, he's earned it, but I can maybe see Eddie Redmayne giving him a run for his money with The Danish Girl Jennifer Lawrence is going to win Best Actress for Joy, and she'll be the least enthusiastic Oscar winner ever. Sylvester Stallone is going to win Best Supporting Actor for Creed, because the Academy always loves rewarding its own. Best Supporting Actress is the only one that it'll be difficult to call, except that Jennifer Jason-Leigh is not going to win for The Hateful Eight, Tarantino films are too intense for the Academy's delicate sensibilities.

The two screenplay awards are about as binary as Picture and Director. Original will likely be a tie between Bridge of Spies and Spotlight, it depends on which period drama they like more, maybe it goes to Straight Outta Compton so they can offset any outrage over the milquetoast acting nominees. Adapted Screenplay likely goes to The Big Short because it's still a serious period piece message movie, but it's got enough energy and bite for the Academy to feel edgy and relevant by handing it the prize, although it they really wanted to do that they could give Original Screenplay to Ex Machina or Inside Out, because they deserve it.

As for the technical awards, they'll be easy to call. The Revenant takes Cinematography, it's too self important and momentarily dazzling not to. It's bulls*** for Crimson Peak to be shut out of Costume Design, Makeup, and Production Design, The Revenant's likely to be a juggernaut here too. Inside Out might as well get Best Animated Feature now, they don't call it the Pixar Award for nothing. The Force Awakens almost definitely walks away with Effects, for a Star Wars film that's practically a birthright. Best Original Score is a bit frustrating for me, The Hateful Eight deserves it for Morricone's loving pastiche of his own iconic Western scores, I can see him winning pretty easily, but it would have been nice to see some love for Ex Machina and Steve Jobs' tasteful use of ambient synthesizers, or Fury Road's blast in the face of percussive rock. Maybe it's a generational thing, but it still would have been nice to see

You can find the list of nominees for the 88th Academy Awards on the Academy's website, the awards air February 28th on ABC, I'll see you there.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B