1. Is Cillian Murphy about to become the first Irish winner of best actor?
Well, no, obviously. Daniel Day-Lewis was an Irish citizen when he won the best actor Oscar for There Will be Blood and Lincoln (though not when he triumphed for My Left Foot). Cillian Murphy could, however, become the first person born in Ireland to get that prize. If he gets past Paul Giamatti he will certainly be the first winner from Cork. That will matter a lot at the bottom of the country. After a strong start, Bradley Cooper, up for Maestro, seems to have lost the crowd.
2. What is up with the French and best international picture?
France has not won in this category – formerly best foreign language – for an astonishing 32 years. This year, the French committee, which can pick just one film for this race, chose Trần Anh Hùng’s foodie drama The Taste of Things over Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall. The Triet film is up for best picture. Taste of Things did not make the international film corral. No title has ever landed in both lists without winning in international. Were they maybe worried too much dialogue in Anatomy of a Fall was in English?
3. Have the Oscars finally got over their insularity?
On question two, it is worth adding that had Anatomy of a Fall made it into international picture – ahead of say, Italy’s Io Capitano – it would have meant, for the first time, two films competing in both international picture and best picture. Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest is the other. A full three films in best picture are largely in a language other than English. Mind you, Past Lives, which completes the list, is mostly set in New York, and Zone of Interest is a British release. So let’s not get overexcited.
4. Were Barry Keoghan and Andrew Scott ever in the race?
There have been bigger upsets, but, by the time the nominations arrived, both seemed just outside the bubble. Keoghan did get a Bafta nomination for Saltburn, but that is a very British picture. Scott, after landing ecstatic reviews for All of Us Strangers on premiere in Telluride, always seemed the more likely to sneak in. But other ceremonies didn’t bite. Scott missed out at the Screen Actors Guild and Bafta. Keoghan didn’t hit at SAG either. Paul Mescal, nominated last year, had a smidgen more momentum behind him.
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5. So what makes it first on to This Had Oscar Buzz?
The popular US podcast dedicates itself to running autopsies on those films that had heavy Oscar buzz, but which ended up landing not a single nomination. The first entry from the previous year is always treated with particular ceremony. Todd Haynes’s May December seemed a likely contender, but it snuck into best original screenplay. The Color Purple was once very heavily buzzed about before going stone-cold. It saved face when Danielle Brooks got into best supporting actress. The winning (losing?) films have thus to be Saltburn and All of Us Strangers.
6. What records did John Williams and Martin Scorsese just break?
A few. At 91, up in best original score for Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny, John Williams breaks his own record to become the most nominated person alive. This is his 54th time on a shortlist. Only the late Walt Disney has more. Martin Scorsese – 81 years young – becomes the oldest ever nominee for best director. He passes out the great John Huston, 79 when he scored for Prizzi’s Honor in 1985. Scorsese, on his 10th, becomes – passing Spielberg – the most nominated in best director alive and, two short of William Wyler, the second most nominated ever.
7. Was Greta Gerwig snubbed for a best director nomination?
The Barbenheimer Wars are drawing to a close. At one point, Greta Gerwig and the Barbie team would have been delighted with eight nominations including one for best picture. Indeed, America Ferrera’s nod here was something of a surprise. But they will be bitterly disappointed to miss out on best director for Gerwig – she had earned best director nominations from the Golden Globes and Directors Guild of America – and, for Margot Robbie, best actress. So what was it Mad Men’s Don Draper said when asked why he never said thank you? “That’s what the money is for!” Barbie is easily the highest grossing films of the year.
8. How close did Oppenheimer come to equalling the nomination record?
Just one away from the 14 scored by joint holders La La Land, Titanic and All About Eve. But could it have made it? Well, it somehow missed out on the longlist (technically shortlist) for visual effects. So we knew that wasn’t happening. To make it over the line it would probably have needed another acting nomination. Maybe Matt Damon? Or Florence Pugh? Neither was totally out of the conversation, but it would have been a surprise. The film’s 13 nominations puts it alongside such titles as Gone With the Wind, Mary Poppins and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Not too shabby.
9. Will this selection draw in the viewers to the awards ceremony?
The good news from last year is that the figures are on the way up. Mind you, after the post-Covid slump, they could hardly do anything else. The theory always used to be that people tune in when the nominated films do well at the box office. That may help explain last year’s upturn with two enormous hits – Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick – competing in best picture. Both halves of Barbenheimer are in the highest profile race this year. So that augers well. Then again, nobody knows anything.
10. Where was this year’s Andrea Riseborough?
Remember that? Last year, a “grass roots” campaign helped get the English actress a hugely unexpected best actress nomination for To Leslie. There was much chatter that this would change the Oscars forever. Not yet it hasn’t. Some of the same team this year got behind Ava DuVernay’s Origin, an odd attempt to turn Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents into a quasi-drama, but the film ended up without a single nomination. Perhaps another candidate for This Had Oscar Buzz.
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