The 2016 Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday and those who know me well know this is always a very exciting time for me. While most of the noms I expected, there were some very odd omissions. See the complete list of nominations here.
Step 1: Expect the expected. The intense The Revenant picked up the most nominations, 12 in total, including Best Picture, Director (Alejandro G. Inarritu), Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Supporting Actor (Tom Hardy). Mad Max: Fury Road came in second with nine nominations, including Best Picture and Director (George Miller), and both films garnered a bunch of technical noms. Others films I knew would show up on the Best Pic list included The Big Short, Room, The Martian, Spotlight. All high quality films.
Step 2: Tilt your head in puzzlement. One of the biggest snubs was Todd Haynes’ lush love story Carol not getting a Best Picture nod. It’s been on every Oscar prognosticator’s list, and has been picking up many critic awards, so it seemed like a lock. But alas, it was not to be, despite the fact both actresses Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara picked up nominations, as did the screenplay and a few other nods. Instead, a Best Picture nod went to the sweet Brooklyn, about an Irish girl immigrating to New York in the 1950s. And no Best Pic nod for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but the film is definitely represented in some key visual and sound areas.
Step 3: Now tilt it the other way. Other surprises included Room director Lenny Abrahamson getting a Best Director nod over The Martian‘s Ridley Scott, who didn’t make the cut. Now I fully support Abrahamson’s inclusion on this list for the tremendous job he did with Room. But I really thought Ridley would get a nod and even thought he might finally win his career Oscar because The Martian was really a combo effort between Drew Goddard’s screenplay (which got nominated), Matt Damon’s performance (which was also recognized in the Best Actor category) and Ridley’s expert direction. So this one really had me scratching my head. Also Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant Steve Jobs didn’t receive an Original Screenplay nomination. Huh? Maybe there’s a backlash against the prolific writer that I don’t know about because leaving that unbelievably whip-smart script off the table doesn’t make any sense.
Anyhow, I discussed in further detail with my fellow ScreenPicks colleagues in the podcast below:
The 88th Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, February 28, with host Chris Rock.