Article by Marcus Siu

Due to the devastation caused by the L.A. fires, it’s been a very difficult time for the film industry to focus on campaigning for the Awards season rather than their own livelihood. Just two days after the Golden Globes were handed out, thousands of homes and structures were destroyed in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena fires the following week, affecting so many peoples lives, including many of the filmmakers that we know and love, but as we know…the show must go on.

Lining up their aces in high gear in time for the Awards season, movie studios and publicists are all prepped up to campaign their films at this time of year. Their aces, or their “FYC” films are shown throughout major film festivals, winning awards, and limited screenings and heavily promoted in trade magazines generating buzz within the industry and eventually on to the public.

Unfortunately, some films get neglected, such as “The Bikeriders” and “Daddio” which were released earlier during the year, which I thought at the time were a shoo-in for the writing and acting categories. I was very wrong.

This years distinguished class of Best Picture Oscar nominees are quite in a class of their own, even though there was nothing comparable to the “Barbenheimer” cultural phenomenon from a year ago, as none of the nominees grossed over a billion dollars. “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” combined to earn $2.4 billion, accounting for nearly 90% of the box office earnings of the entire best picture slate from a year ago.

However, 2024 did have two respectable box office winners with “Dune: Part Two” and “Wicked” that was nominated for Best Picture. These two movies made up over $1.4 billion of the $1.6 billion, representing 84% of the ten nominated films for Best Picture. In contrast, the recently released “Nickel Boys” has only grossed $1.2 million so far, which is an amazing feat for a Best Picture nominee.

The higher the box office numbers; the more viewers will want to watch the Awards. With “Dune: Part Two” and “Wicked”, you will at least have the younger audiences wanting to watch and root for their favorite stars at the Oscars with the likes of Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet, which should boost its rating significantly compared to the last few years.

Best Picture winners these days don’t need the epic big screen experience to win the coveted Oscar. One just has to remember three years ago with “CODA”. Most people watched and streamed it at home on Apple Plus in August 2021. After winning the Screen Actors Guild Ensemble awards, Writers Guild and Producers Guild Awards, Apple decided to release the film in theaters a month before the Academy Awards ceremony, but it only grossed $2.2 million at the box office after winning the gold.

The same fate could happen with Netflix and “Emilia Pérez”. Ironically, the movie hasn’t even been among the streamer’s top watches before the nominations were announced. Its leading 13 nominations set a record for a non-English-language film, surpassing the previous record holders, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Roma”, which each earned 10. Only three films other films, “All About Eve”, “Titanic” and “La La Land”, have scored more nominations in Academy Awards history.

Next in line with the second most nominations is “The Brutalist”, Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic about a Hungarian architect, played by Adrien Brody, who moves to the US after the second world war, took 10 nominations, as did Wicked, the box office smash adaptation of the Broadway show.

Amazingly, “The Brutalist” was made for a mere $10 million dollars.

Three of the actors from the “The Brutalist” received nominations, including Golden Globe winner, Adrien Brody. However, there is some controversy lurking in the industry that Adrien Brody’s voice utilized A.I. to make him sound more authentic. In fact, both Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’s Hungarian dialogue in “The Brutalist” was enhanced using AI tools, according to the film’s editor Dávid Jancsó.

That would definitely affect Brody’s chance of winning his second Oscar. My assumption is the majority of actors out there think that using A.I. in any form is like using steroids. It is considered artificial and not authentic and should be frowned upon, even if it makes their performances and even the movie better.

Brody holds the record for being the youngest actor to ever receive an Oscar at the age of 29 for “The Pianist” in 2002. Perhaps, Timothée Chalamet portraying Bob Dylan for “A Complete Unknown” will break that record March 3rd.

There has been absolutely no reports that Chalamet took steroids for portraying or singing Bob Dylan. Just tobacco.

The Spanish-born star of “Emilia Pérez” Karla Sofía Gascón, was nominated for Best Actress, making her the first openly transgender performer ever to be nominated. Writer/Director Jacques Audiard picked up two nominations for the film, for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, while Zoe Saldaña landed a supporting acting nomination for her performance.

I know the Oscars isn’t a sports competition, but if Gascón ends up winning, will there be an uproar with all the actresses who were originally born a woman?

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!

No Angelina Jolie for “Maria”...no Nicole Kidman for “Baby Girl”…no Daniel Craig for “Queer”…

Some other notable surprises include the horror film, “The Substance”, which received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Demi Moore, who just recently won the Golden Globe for Best Actress (Musical or Comedy). This is only the sixth time in history that a horror film was nominated for Best Picture.

Another huge surprise is that Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong got Oscar nominations for portraying Donald Trump and his lawyer Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice” about the future U.S. president. Initially, not much of Hollywood wanted to even want to see anything related to Donald Trump, and the “real” Donald Trump, meanwhile, described the film as a “defamatory, politically disgusting hatchet job” probably thinking it would harm his 2024 Presidential campaign. Obviously, it didn’t.

The Academy couldn’t resist nominating these fine performances, though many believe Stan should not have been nominated for playing Trump but should have been nominated for “A Different Man”, instead. I definitely would have voted for a different man myself.

TRIVIAL NOTES

Brazil’s “I’m Still Here”, directed by Walter Salles, scored an impressive three nominations, including Best Picture, Best International Language Film and Best Actress for Fernanda Torres, who recently took Best Actress (Drama) at the Golden Globes.

What makes this even more special is Torres’ real life 95-year-old mother, Oscar nominated Fernanda Montenegro (Central Station) also appears playing the same character at the end of the film.

Another note of interest: out of all the actresses nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Monica Barbaro, Ariana Grande, Isabella Rossellini, and Zoe Saldaña none of them have been nominated before. 

The Latvian cat movie “Flow” was not only nominated for Best Animated Feature, but also for Best International Feature. This is not a first for an animated movie to get into the international category, though: “Waltz with Bashir” and “Flee” had done so before “Flow”, but neither ended up winning. This trend may end since “Flow” took the award for Best Animated Motion Picture at the Golden Globes.

Of course, every time the nominations come out, there is always some backlash about who was “snubbed”. I don’t like to use the word “snub” since it’s a four letter word, but if I had to choose some notable performances that were overlooked by the Academy in the acting category, I would like to give an honorable mention to Sean Penn in “Daddio”, Tom Hardy and Jody Comer in “The Bikeriders”, Danielle Deadwyler in “The Piano Lesson”, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste in “Hard Truths”.

Interestingly, this year’s ten Best Picture films come from ten different studios. Netflix leading the pack with 18 nominations, followed by A24 with 14 nominations, Universal with 13 and Focus with 12.

Here is the full list of nominees for the 97th Academy Awards, which will be hosted by Conan O’Brien, on ABC on March 2, live from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood.

Best picture

• “Anora” (Neon)
• “The Brutalist” (A24)
• “A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight)
• “Conclave” (Focus)
• “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.)
• “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix)
• “I’m Still Here” (Sony Classics)
• “Nickel Boys” (Amazon/MGM)
• “The Substance” (Mubi)
• “Wicked” (Universal)

Best director

• Sean Baker, “Anora”
• Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
• James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”
• Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
• Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”

Best actress

• Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”
• Karla Sofia Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
• Mikey Madison, “Anora”
• Demi Moore, “The Substance”
• Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”

Best actor

• Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
• Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
• Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
• Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
• Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”

Best supporting actress

• Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”
• Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
• Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”
• Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”
• Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”

Best supporting actor

• Yura Borisov, “Anora”
• Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
• Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”
• Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”
• Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”

Best original screenplay

• “Anora,” Sean Baker
• “The Brutalist,” Brady Corbet & Mona Fastvold
• “A Real Pain,” Jesse Eisenberg
• “September 5,” Tim Fehlbaum & Moritz Binder
• “The Substance,” Coralie Fargeat

Best adapted screenplay

• “A Complete Unknown,” Jay Cocks & James Mangold
• “Conclave,” Peter Straughan
• “Emilia Pérez,” Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain & Nicolas Livecchi
• “Nickel Boys,” RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes
• “Sing Sing,” Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin & John “Divine G” Whitfield

Best international feature

• “I’m Still Here,” Walter Salles (Brazil)
• “The Girl with the Needle,” Magnus von Horn (Denmark)
• “Emilia Pérez,” Jacques Audiard (France)
• “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof (Germany)
• “Flow,” Miguel Gomes (Latvia)

Best documentary feature

• “Black Box Diaries,” Shiori Itō (MTV)
• “No Other Land,” Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor (No distributor)
• “Porcelain War,” Brendan Bellomo & Slava Leontyev (Picturehouse)
• “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,” Johan Grimonprez (Kino Lorber)
• “Sugarcane,” Julian Brave NoiseCat & Emily Kassie (Nat Geo)

Best animated feature

• “Flow” (Janus Films/Sideshow)
• “Inside Out 2” (Disney/Pixar)
• “Memoir of a Snail” (IFC Films)
• “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” (Aardman/Netflix)
• “The Wild Robot” (Dreamworks/Universal)

Best cinematography

• “The Brutalist,” Lol Crawley
• “Dune: Part Two,” Greig Fraser
• “Emilia Pérez,” Paul Guillaume
• “Maria,” Edward Lachman
• “Nosferatu,” Jarin Blaschke

Best costume design

• “A Complete Unknown,” Arianne Phillips
• “Conclave,” Lisy Christl
• “Gladiator II,” Janty Yates
• “Nosferatu,” Linda Muir
• “Wicked,” Paul Tazewell

Best film editing

• “Anora,” Sean Baker
• “The Brutalist,” Dávid Jancsó
• “Conclave,” Nick Emerson
• “Emilia Pérez,” Juliette Welfling
• “Wicked,” Myron Kerstein

Best production design

• “The Brutalist,” Judy Becker
• “Conclave,” Suzie Davies
• “Dune: Part Two,” Patrice Vermette
• “Nosferatu,” Craig Lathrop
• “Wicked,” Nathan Crowley

Best original score

• “The Brutalist,” Daniel Blumberg
• “Conclave,” Volker Bertelmann
• “Emilia Pérez,” Clément Ducol & Camille
• “Wicked,” John Powell & Stephen Schwartz
• “The Wild Robot,” Kris Bowers

Best original song

• “Never Too Late,” “Elton John: Never Too Late” (Elton John & Brandi Carlile)
• “El Mal,” “Emilia Pérez” (Clement Ducol, Camille & Jacques Audiard)
• “Mi Camino,” “Emilia Pérez” (Clement Ducol & Camille)
• “Like a Bird,” “Sing Sing” (Adrian Quesada & Abraham Alexander)
• “The Journey,” “The Six Triple Eight” (Diane Warren)

Best sound

• “A Complete Unknown”
• “Dune: Part Two”
• “Emilia Pérez”
• “Wicked”
• “The Wild Robot”

Best visual effects

• “Alien: Romulus”
• “Better Man”
• “Dune: Part Two”
• “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”
• “Wicked”

Best makeup and hairstyling

• “A Different Man”
• “Emilia Pérez”
• “Nosferatu”
• “The Substance”
• “Wicked”

Best documentary short

• “Death by Numbers”
• “I Am Ready, Warden”
• “Incident”
• “Instruments of a Beating Heart”
• “The Only Girl in the Orchestra”

Best animated short

• “Beautiful Men”
• “In the Shadow of the Cypress”
• “Magic Candies”
• “Wander to Wonder”
• “Yuck!”

Best live-action short

• “A Lien”
• “Anuja”
• “I’m Not a Robot”
• “The Last Ranger”
• “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”