Welcome to Oscar nomination week, when nominees party hard and the unchosen fire their agents and publicists and tell their sympathetic friends that awards are meaningless. Never mind that most of them campaign like Olympic challengers. Hypocrisy thrives during award season with everyone blowing air kisses at the other nominees in their category. The truth is that competition is how the game is played in Hollywood and, frankly, everywhere else. And the fun, for me at least, is telling the prestigious and often gallingly pretentious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences where it royally effed up. So here we go with this year’s biggest snubs and surprises.
Surprise: “Sinners”
It’s no shock to see the love for Ryan Coogler’s superb takedown of bigotry in America, using the Jim Crow era to speak to right this minute. The astonishment is how much the Academy really really liked “Sinners,” bestowing a record 16 nominations on the surprise box office juggernaut. The Academy has been around for nearly a century, so let that number sink in. “Sinners” didn’t just tie the previous Oscar record of 14 held by “Titanic,” “La La Land” and “All About Eve”—it surpassed it by two. It couldn’t have happened to a worthier contender. I know from the comments that some of you think I was wrong to rank “Sinners” above “Hamnet,” the film that beat it for the Golden Globe drama prize. But I raise you on that bet and say that “Sinners” is now the only film with the stuff to pull ahead of frontrunner “One Battle After Another” with 13 nominations, in the Best Picture race. I love a squeaker. How about you?
Snub: “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
Look, no one, especially me, thinks James Cameron’s third chapter in his “Avatar” franchise matched the other two, which did compete for Best Picture. But where’s the sense in giving the cold shoulder to the guy who’s keeping the lights on in theaters these days with his billion-dollar moneymakers? For me, the reason Brad Pitt’s racing epic “F1” pulled ahead comes down to one thing: its originality. I have to cheer the Academy this year for keeping sequels and prequels out of the 10 nominees for Best Picture. Cameron will live without more Academy ass kissing. He’s still King of the World with a “Titanic” Oscar to prove it.
Surprise: Delroy Lindo as Best Supporting Actor for “Sinners”
It’s true Oscar, you do owe this guy. This is the first acting nomination for the 73-year-old actor who is magnificent in, let’s face it, everything. I’m still pissed that the Academy passed over Lindo for his career-best performance in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods.” His role isn’t as large or pivotal in “Sinners,” but watch the depth Lindo brings to Delta Slim, the Black bluesman who self-medicates with alcohol but whose blood ties to his music go straight to the film ‘s core and stated purpose.
Snub: Miles Cation as Best Supporting Actor for “Sinners”
Having already won the Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer and a nomination for the Actors Award, Caton, 20, was riding high on his debut performance as Sammie Moore, a talented blues musician and preacher's son. The role also called for Caton to sing and play guitar. Though he lacks the long experience of his costar Delory Lindo, Caton is clearly a newcomer with a limitless future. This won’t be the last you’ll hear of him.
Surprise: Four actors nominated for “Sentimental Value”
It’s rare indeed to see four actors nominated for the same film. And yet the superb Norwegian family drama “Sentimental Value” pulled it off with supremely well-deserved nods for Stellan Skarsgård, Renata Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning. I’m only surprised, delightfully so, because of the supremely idiotic decision of the Screen Actors Guild to deny inclusion of all four—and in fact all actors not speaking English—for the organization’s Actor Awards. As a longtime member of SAG, I bow my head in shame.
Snub: George Clooney and Adam Sandler for “Jay Kelly”
Even those who had problems with Noah Baumbach’s film about the inner workings of Hollywood found praise for Clooney’s bone-deep performances in the title of an actor much like himself who finally learns not to believe his own publicity. And Sandler, as Jay Kelly’s manager-handler, showed once again that comedy was not his only forte. Since Oscar also ignored Sandler for his breakthrough tour de force in “Uncut Gems,” I suppose I should have expected this snub. But I didn’t. This is me venting.
Surprise: The unexpected near total love for “Frankenstein”
Guillermo del Toro’s passion project received nine nominations, including for Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor Jacob Elordi as the Creature, along with nods for cinematography, original score, costume design, production design, sound, and makeup & hairstyling. Quite the haul for a horror film, a genre Oscar usually sniffs at.
Snub: Guillermo del Toro for directing “Frankenstein”
Note to Oscar voters: Who the hell do you think made all those nominations possible? Of all the boneheaded moves! Have you lost your minds? A nod for outstanding direction is the Oscar recognition “Frankenstein” fully merited above all others.
Surprise: Kate Hudson for Best Actress in “Song Sung Blue”
There weren’t too many songs sung in praise of this middlebrow tearjerker about a real-life couple, played by Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman, who formed a Neil Diamond tribute band. But audiences responded to the decency and emotional commitment that Hudson brought to the role of this wife and mother sidelined by a crippling accident. Not since Hudson’s first nomination as a groupie in her 2000 debut turn in “Almost Famous” have audiences held Hudson so closely to their hearts. Apparently, so has Oscar.
Snub: Chase Infiniti for Best Actress for “One Battle After Another”
The nomination was supposed to be in the bag for this relative newcomer who was born about the time Kate Hudson made her film debut in “Almost Famous.” Some argued that Infiniti was in the wrong category, that she wasn’t a lead actress but had a supporting role as the mixed-race child of the characters played by Teyana Taylor and Leonardo DiCaprio. Then maybe she coulda-shoulda-woulda won. We’ll never know. Any thoughts?
Surprise: The consequences of category fraud
Like Chase Infiniti, Paul Mescal also seems to be a victim of the right actor in the wrong category. As Shakespeare, the widely acclaimed Irish actor deserved his place as a Best Actor contender alongside leading lady Jessie Buckley as the grief-stricken parents of little Hamnet. Instead, the studio entered Mescal as a supporting actor. As a result, many confused Oscar voters could have split their support between two categories. The result? Chaos.
Snub: Paul Mescal ends up nowhere for “Hamnet”
I’m convinced this category mixup cost Mescal and his flawless performance their rightful place in the Oscar lineup. Apologies to the Bard, but the idea that all’s well that ends well doesn’t apply in every case, especially this one, leaving Mescal out in the cold.
Surprise: The “Wicked” shutout
Last year the first part of this smash Broadway musical adaptation took home 10 Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture and two for its stars, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. This year, the wicked wizards of Oscar turned their backs on everyone and everything, including the two new songs. Yikes! How the mighty have fallen.
Snub: Ariana Grande for Best Supporting Actress for “Wicked: For Good”
This is the one that hurt. I can buy that “For Good” did fall from grace. It disappointed in nearly every aspect. Except for one. And that was Grande, who actually developed her Glinda the Good character into something fierce, flawed and relatable. Why should she pay for the bad vibes that were built into the musical’s gloomy second half and then stretched beyond endurance on screen by director Jon Chu? I expected Ari to defy gravity and soar above the trainwreck around her. She did her best. Lazy Oscar did nothing.
Surprise: Go Big or Go Home really kicked in this year
The Oscar sun shone brightly on go-for-broke performances from Timothée Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”), Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”), Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn (“One Battle After Another”), Jessie Buckley (“Hamnet”), Rose Byrne (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”), Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”), and Amy Madigan (“Weapons”). A more subtle approach did no favors for Joel Edgerton (“Train Dreams”) and Jesse Plemons (“Bugonia”).
Worst Snub: Eva Victor as actor, writer and director of “Sorry Baby”
Critics raved. And so did Julia Roberts, who used her forum on the Golden Globes telecast to shoutout Eva Victor for her whisper-intimate tale of the aftermath of sexual abuse in “Sorry Baby.” You messed up on this one, Oscar. Forgiveness comes hard.