In a tumultuous and unpredictable awards season, “The Revenant” – which also landed nominations for best-actor favorite Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy and Inarritu’s long-take maverick cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki – has emerged as a heavyweight, taking top honors at the Golden Globes and scoring a $38 million debut.
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Best actor looked about as expected: DiCaprio (The Revenant), Redmayne (The Danish Girl), Fassbender (Steve Jobs), Cranston (Trumbo), Damon (The Martian).
While the best picture nominees can number anywhere from five to 10, best director nominations are limited to five: Adam McKay, “The Big Short”; George Miller, “Mad Max: Fury Road”; Alejandro G. Inarritu, “The Revenant”; Lenny Abrahamson, “Room”; and Tom McCarthy, “Spotlight”. The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, picked up 12 nominations including Best Picture, more than any other film this year.
“American Hustle” earned her a best supporting actress nomination in 2014, and she returns to the best actress category this year with a nomination for “Joy”.
Also in the mix are Saoirse Ronan for “Brooklyn” and with her first career nomination, veteran actress Charlotte Rampling for “45 Years”.
There are always snubs, and this year the talk is about racial bias. This year, it went with eight: “The Revenant”, “Mad Max”, “Spotlight”, “The Martian”, “Brooklyn”, “Room”, “The Big Short” and “Bridge of Spies“.
Maybe Academy Award voters just wanted to make sure Oscars host Chris Rock had something to talk about?
It wasn’t to be: This crop of eight best-picture nominees, while an eclectic mix, fits comfortably into the pattern of Academy Awards past.
“Inside Out” was nominated for both animated feature and original screenplay.
Cheryl Boone Isaacs announces the nominees during the 88th Oscars Nominations Announcement.
Hip-hop hit movie “Straight Outta Compton” failed to get a place in the best picture category, and the Twitter hashtag #Oscarssowhite, which sprung up a year ago, was quickly revived. Bear Story has won numerous awards at other Oscar-qualifying festivals. “They are: “Anomalisa”, “Boy and the World”, “Inside Out”, Shaun the Sheep Movie” and “When Marnie Was There“. (“Bridge of Spies”), Paramount Pictures (“The Big Short”), Universal (“Straight Outta Compton”) and Warner Bros. In the supporting role category I believe Sylvester Stallone’s lovable portrayal of the timeless Rocky Balboa in Creed will win him his first Oscar after nearly forty years of not even being nominated. Netflix had a solid chance of establishing itself as a major player with its narrative feature debut Beasts of No Nation, but the tale of a child soldier in West Africa was completely shut out of the Oscar noms – especially surprising for director Cary Fukunaga, and supporting star Idris Elba.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens was not excluded from the nominations.
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Winners will be announced at the star-studded Oscars in Los Angeles on February 28.
