The 92nd Academy Awards: The Joker's Wild

I've got the award in the bag.

When the Academy Award nominations are announced the headlines usually trumpet the film that has received the most nominations, so this year it's Joker's eleven nominations that are getting the big ink. I don't think anyone anticipated that, from the conception of the film to right up until this morning, as most would have thought that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood or The Irishman would have been bragging about that. Of course, they also hit double digits in nominations, as did 1917, the first time that four films each got at least ten nominations. That either means that this a good year for great films, or voters are lazy.

The other big story on Oscar nomination morning is who got snubbed. This year there were snubs, and they don't help the Academy's trying to change their perception of being centered on white men. Only one acting nomination went to a person of color (Cynthia Erivo for Harriet) and there were no women in the Best Directing category. Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina, both representative of minority groups, were also left out of the acting categories. Less noticeable to general fans is that Apollo 11 was overlooked in the Best Documentary category, since it actually had a general release and received great reviews.

What are we to make of all this? The Best Picture category is wide open. Joker and The Irishman each got nominations in the important categories of screenplay, directing, and editing, but Once Upon A Time and 1917 missed out on editing, which can be a death knell to Best Picture aspirations. The last film to win Best Picture without getting an editing nod was Birdman, but that film was stitched together to resemble one long take. Ironically, this is also the case with 1917, so apparently the editing branch doesn't care for this. So, the film that may be hurt most by this is Once Upon A Time. Parasite, meanwhile, is the sixth film to be nominated for Best Picture and Best International Feature (formerly called Best Foreign Language Film) in the same year. No foreign language film has ever won the Best Picture Oscar.

As far as the business goes, Netflix lead all studios with 24 nominations, the first time a streaming service has done that. It remains to be seen if it can win the big prize, though.

Little Women is now the fourth film adaptation of that book to get Oscar nominations. With six, it has the most, but the 1933 nomination was also nominated for Best Picture, and won Best Screen Story, the only win that the Alcott book has gotten.

The acting categories each have a solid favorite, but a few things to note: Saoirse Ronan becomes the second person to get four acting nominations by the age of 25 (Jennifer Lawrence is the other, and was a tad younger than Ronan when she got her fourth). Erivo is one win away from an EGOT, as she already has a Tony, Grammy, and Emmy. She is also third person to get nominated for acting and song in the same year, which is a trend--the other two were in the last two years (Mary J. Blige for Mudbound and Lady Gaga for A Star Is Born). Scarlett Johansson, after never receiving a nomination, gets two this year, for Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story. She's the twelfth actor to do so.

In the director category, Martin Scorsese gets his ninth nomination, most for someone still alive. There will be some grumbling about Greta Gerwig not getting nominated, but she is the first woman to direct two Best Picture nominations. The Baumbach/Gerwig household must have mixed emotions today, as they both she and Noah were skunked for directing nominations (Noah directed Marriage Story), despite both pictures being nominated for Best Picture, but they were both nominated in writing categories.

Some with monkeys are on their back are back again. Diane Warren gets her eleventh nomination, and has never won (she is nominated for the little seen, faith-based drama Breakthrough, which means she probably won't win again). But she's still behind Thomas Newman, who just got his fifteenth in the Best Original Score category, for 1917, but has yet to win. This year he's nominated in the same category as his cousin Randy Newman (who is up for Marriage Story), but Randy, after a long snide, now has two Oscars. Randy also got nominated in the Best Song category--he has been nominated for every one of the Toy Story films.

On the obverse, John Williams, who got nominated for Best Original Score for Star Wars IX: The Rise Of Skywalker, picked up his 52nd nomination. He trails only Walt Disney in all-time nominations. Williams has won five times, so he's lost more nominations than anyone else has ever been nominated.

Over the next few weeks I'll be taking a look at the major categories in more depth. The Oscars will be awarded on February 9th.