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‘The Revenant,’ ‘Spotlight’ shine in Oscar nominations

Jennifer Lawrence, nominated again for best actress, at 25 is an Oscar victor and the youngest person ever to rack up four acting nominations.

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This year’s Oscar nominations are in.

On the other hand, the scope and moving parts of “The Martian” demanded a Best Director nomination for Ridley Scott.

Both films are nominated for best picture, along with The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, The Martian, Room and Spotlight.

Best director nominations were entirely welcome, with Adam McKay getting noticed for his unexpected and wonderful work on The Big Short, George Miller capping off an exceptional day for Mad Max: Fury Road, Alejandro G. Inarritu getting a chance at back-to-back wins for The Revenant, along with two highly worthy newcomers to the category, Tom McCarthy for Spotlight and Lenny Abrahamson for his marvel, Room.

Most notable in the acting categories: No minority actors.

“Missing from the list besides “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”: “The Hateful Eight”, “Carol“, Inside Out” and “Straight Outta Compton”, all considered contenders at one time. The movie opened last weekend to a better-than-expected $39.2 million when expanding nationwide before pulling ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Monday, the day following the Globes. Toronto-native the Weeknd had his song Earned It from the film Fifty Shades of Grey, nominated for the best original song Oscar.

“Amy”, the film about the late British singer Amy Winehouse, and “What Happened, Miss Simone?”, the story of singer Nina Simone, are competing in the Best Documentary category. The idea behind the expansion of best-picture nominees was to let acclaimed films that were also commercial fare into a category that often leaned on arthouse movies.

You could look at the directing nominations in a similar way.

The nominees for best supporting actor are: Christian Bale, “The Big Short”; Tom Hardy, “The Revenant”; Mark Ruffalo, “Spotlight”; Mark Rylance, “Bridge of Spies”; Sylvester Stallone, “Creed”. “Brooklyn” got only three nominations, which suggests it’s not going to be named Best Picture. Surprise Globe victor Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs), Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight) and Rachel McAdams (Spotlight) also received nods in the category.

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Specialty films Brooklyn, Room and Spotlight are trickier since they have been in theaters longer, even if they were never given wide, saturated releases.

Courtesy of Columbia