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Ever gracious, Hillary Clinton has posted a nice consolation note to Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie over their not being nominated for Oscars.
Clinton knows what it’s like to lose an election but be vindicated in the end. Gerwig and Robbie are wildly rich because of “Barbie” and their movie will last forever. That does take the sting of out of yesterday.
I still feel that the international voting bloc of the Academy had more to do with the nominations than outright sexism. Gerwig has been nominated for Best Director before, for “Ladybird.” She is loved and respected. Robbie, on the other hand, is taken for granted. She deserves a special award for all her hard work.
Netflix is going all out for Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro.”
They’re taking over David Geffen Hall — aka Avery Fisher Hall — on February 14th.
The invite is to see members of the New York Philharmonic and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin play selections from the “Maestro” soundtrack. This will be followed by an onstage Q&A.
They don’t say this, but my guess is Bradley Cooper will step to the podium even briefly to conduct that orchestra. After all, he spent six years training for this moment.
This sensational idea takes a page from the “Oppenheimer” playbook. I just saw the movie played along with a live orchestra of music from composer Ludwig Goransson.
But this a notch up even from that exciting night. Leonard Bernstein’s life was spent in Geffen Hall — then known as Philharmonic Hall. I hope Geffen himself puts in an appearance. This is not to be missed!
He’s going to host The Daily Show every Monday. It’s a deal not unlike Rachel Maddow’s on MSNBC.
The rest of the week he’ll be an Executive Producer and very involved with the show.
The Daily Show has struggled to find a host ever since Trevor Noah left last year.
Stewart hosted the show for years, from 1999 to 2015, until he finally stepped away — mostly, I always thought, because he lost the David Letterman spot on CBS to Stephen Colbert. Since then, Stewart has been an activist and filmmaker. An Apple TV show ran for one season.
The Daily Show airs on Comedy Central, owned by Paramount/Viacom. It’s actually the only show on that channel that I know of, so Stewart’s return — which must be expensive — shows a sign of commitment from the company. It’s particularly important in this election year, although who knows what the new Jon Stewart will be like politically — he’s seemed to have become much more conservative.
EXCLUSIVE Stop the presses! Justin Timberlake has set a one night only show for January 31st in New York.
The show will be at the small, famous Irving Plaza. Watch the scalpers lose their minds charging for this one! Tickets go on sale this Friday. A digital line has already formed on Ticketmaster with over 1,000 people waiting. That’s the capacity of the club.
JT is on a publicity breakout for his “Selfish” single that launches tomorrow — Thursday with an appearance on Jimmy Fallon followed by “SNL” on Saturday. The “Selfish” song is a well coordinated marketing plan, with I Heart Radio all in on promotion.
Will it all lead to JT on the Grammys? Where else will be pop up? The album, “Everything I Thought It Was,” follows very shortly.
For everyone who’s unhappy that Greta Gerwig didn’t get an Oscar nomination today, I have a good theory for what happened.
Gerwig also didn’t get a BAFTA nomination. But guess who did? Justine Triet, the French director of “Anatomy of a Fall,” who received a surprise Oscar nomination today. BAFTA — repping lots of non American voters — has quietly become a bellwether.
Triet’s BAFTA nom should have been a good predictor for the Oscars. There is now a huge foreign membership for the Academy Awards. And they are voting in foreign films for Best Picture and Director nominations.
How else to explain the big changes in the last few years? “Parasite” won, then “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” No one you know voted for the latter film. No one you know even liked it. But outside the US, I’ll bet those Academy members would have a different story. “EEAAO” was a ‘foreign film.’
This year, three of the nine Best Picture nominees are technically “foreign films” — “Past Lives,” “Anatomy,” and “Zone of Interest.” They are somewhat in English, but about Americans. This is extremely unusual, but it’s been a trend coming for a long time.
Greta lost her spot to Justin Triet. We knew three of the five Best Directors slots were already locked up with Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, and Yorgos Lanthimos (who morphed from being a Greek filmmaker to an American/British one 9 years ago).
That left two spots, and they each went to “foreign films” — Triet for “Anatomy” and Jonathan Glazer for “Zone of Interest” (which I think is ridiculous). Those two cut out Gerwig and probably Alexander Payne. Those two– Triet and Glazer — overlap with the Oscars.
The Academy is changing, kids. You better change with it!
It’s been a day of digesting the Oscar nominations in a very competitive year.
If only there were eight slots in each acting category! That would make this all so much easier.
And if only the SAG nominations or anything else were an actual sign of what Academy voters were thinking. With these Oscars you can throw out the playbook!
Three actresses I’d have liked to see in the Best Category: Penelope Cruz, Fantasia, Margot Robbie. How could they not have made it? Cruz’s performance in “Ferrari” is like its own opera. She’s amazing. Fantasia is incredibly moving as Celie, singing out her heart in “The Color Purple.”
And then there’s Margot Robbie. There’s no other actress as hard working and consistently good. She made “Barbie” the movie happen, then created the character. She was also outstanding in the second “Suicide Squad” movie. In “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” she gave light to a dark film.
Another big miss: Leonardo DiCaprio in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Ernest as Leo played him is a befuddled character, torn between loving his family and being loyal to his uncle. I still think this one of Leo’s three best acting jobs ever, just a shade behind “Wolf of Wall Street.” But Academy voters may see him apart from regular actors at this point. He’s sort of a Special Case who has his Oscar, millions of dollars, gorgeous girlfriends, and a life of fantasy.
The other glaring omission, that I can’t explain, is Greta Gerwig for Best Director. She had a singular vision for “Barbie” and executed it like a 5 star chef. “Barbie” is a complete movie from top to bottom. The Directors Guild got that, they included her without fail. So what happened? Justine Triet’s surprise nomination, I think, owes more to the international additions to the Academy. They really embraced “Anatomy of a Fall,” despite France not choosing it as their official selection.
There are some proper choices, too. Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” got a lot of nods, with good reason. “Maestro” isn’t perfect — too much about the love life. But those performances by Cooper and Carey Mulligan are soaring. Like “Barbie,” this is a singular vision and you can feel it. If there were a 7th slot for directing, Cooper would have had it.
Of course, in directing, you always run into this problem. Five slots and at least two marquee names are a given — Scorsese and Nolan. So that limits the field. And Yorgos Lanthimos — he was a given this year because “Poor Things” is an off the wall creation. (I loved it.) That leaves two spots. The one I don’t get is Jonathan Glazer. I found “Zone of Interest” a monotonous dead end. Cooper or Alexander Payne would have been my choices.
Sidebar: congrats to Annette Bening. Her portrayal of Diana Nyad is exceptional. She’s never won an Oscar. Boy, does she deserve it!
Still, all the films that were launched in a timely fashion got something. Some studios should learn a lesson — if you wait until mid November, nothing will happen. We who write about these things sit and scratch our heads when by Halloween the buzz isn’t there for a film we saw in September and liked. How many times did we say “What happened to Origin?” for example. By that point, it’s just too late.
Kanye West, the world’s most infamous antisemite, has dropped a trailer for his “Vultures” project.
The film was made by a Montreal artist named Jon Rafman, who is Jewish, and who was accused on social media of such serious sexual misconduct that the New York Times reported the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC cancelled his show in 2020. (Two other museums cancelled shows also. Currently Rafman does have projects at other Canadian galleries.)
Only Kanye could come up with this combination. I’ve emailed Rafman to ask him about the fact that he’s Jewish. How could he be involved with West?
Rafman did issue a statement about his other accusations, denying everything. The link has since been removed from the web. He also filed a legal complaint against the newspaper and Twitter account that first reported the sexual misconduct complaints.
“Vultures” is an audio and visual experience. The original audio, still widely available, contains an antisemitic lyric that I’m not going to repeat here. But it’s as disgusting as anything West has said in the past. The album may be released this week, or may not.
Rafman obviously has his own issues and we can’t judge them. The museum showings, however, were never rescheduled. As for Rafman taking on a job with Kanye West, that’s another story. According to his bio, Rafman was educated in Jewish schools. It’s not possible that he’s missed all the controversies surrounding West and his antisemitism.
As for West hiring an artist with serious accusations of sexual misconduct, well, why not? West is currently suffering criticism on social for featuring photos of his presumed wife, Bianca Censori, nearly naked.
Vanity Fair bases its whole year on the Oscar party. But their coverage today of Oscar nominations is limited by the one day Conde Nast strike by journalists. The union is protesting the huge layoffs at the company.
So what to do? VF put up a list of nominees without a byline. None of their film people will be writing about the Oscars all day on their website.
Vogue is in the same boat. Their list was put up by the British Vogue movies editor since no US staffer could do it.
The union’s Twitter account wrote:
“Over 400 of our members have walked off the job over @CondeNast’s unlawful handling of layoff negotiations and bad-faith bargaining. Instead of covering the #Oscars2024 nominations, we’ll be out at the picket line.”
Starting at midnight EST for 24 hours, DON’T CROSS OUR CLICK-IT LINE, that means no clicks, likes, reshares on:
There are two rounds of announcements this morning. The first group comes at 8;30am and includes Best Supporting Actress and Actor, and Original and Adapted Screenplay. The second round, with Best Picture, is set for 8:41am. Keep refreshing…
Snubs:
Greta Gerwig didn’t get Best Director for “Barbie.” Did the movie direct itself? Margot Robbie, the heart of the movie, wasn’t nominated for Best Actress! The woman who made it was a shock: Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall.” Huh?
“The Color Purple” was iced out except for Danielle Brooks. Fantasia was also ignored– a mistake!
Leonardo DiCaprio was ignored for one of his best performances in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
“May December” failed to get acting announcements or director. Charles Melton, who was great in the film and received other nods, was iced out.
Big shock: Lenny Kravitz’s song for “Rustin” wasn’t nominated. It was on every list.
Of course, the Michael J. Fox doc “Still” wasn’t nominated because it was sideswiped by the Emmys.
And where is Jon Batiste’s documentary, “American Symphony”? What????
“Air,” my guilty pleasure, got nothing. “Saltburn,” with all of its kookiness, is out completely.
Good news: Annette Bening nominated for “Nyad” — spectacular performance. There’s also the power of popularity in the Academy. Beloved cinematographer Ed Lachman is in for “El Conde.” Diane Warren got her 15th nomination, for “The Flame Inside.”
Nominations for the 96th Academy Awards
Performance by an actor in a leading role
Bradley Cooper in “Maestro”
Colman Domingo in “Rustin”
Paul Giamatti in “The Holdovers”
Cillian Murphy in “Oppenheimer”
Jeffrey Wright in “American Fiction”
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Sterling K. Brown in “American Fiction”
Robert De Niro in “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Robert Downey Jr. in “Oppenheimer”
Ryan Gosling in “Barbie”
Mark Ruffalo in “Poor Things”
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Annette Bening in “Nyad”
Lily Gladstone in “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Sandra Hüller in “Anatomy of a Fall”
Carey Mulligan in “Maestro”
Emma Stone in “Poor Things”
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Emily Blunt in “Oppenheimer”
Danielle Brooks in “The Color Purple”
America Ferrera in “Barbie”
Jodie Foster in “Nyad”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph in “The Holdovers”
Best animated feature film of the year
“The Boy and the Heron” Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki
“Elemental” Peter Sohn and Denise Ream
“Nimona” Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Karen Ryan and Julie Zackary
“Robot Dreams” Pablo Berger, Ibon Cormenzana, Ignasi Estapé and Sandra Tapia Díaz
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal
Achievement in cinematography
“El Conde” Edward Lachman
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Rodrigo Prieto
“Maestro” Matthew Libatique
“Oppenheimer” Hoyte van Hoytema
“Poor Things” Robbie Ryan
Achievement in costume design
“Barbie” Jacqueline Durran
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Jacqueline West
“Napoleon” Janty Yates and Dave Crossman
“Oppenheimer” Ellen Mirojnick
“Poor Things” Holly Waddington
Achievement in directing
“Anatomy of a Fall” Justine Triet
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Martin Scorsese
“Oppenheimer” Christopher Nolan
“Poor Things” Yorgos Lanthimos
“The Zone of Interest” Jonathan Glazer
Best documentary feature film
“Bobi Wine: The People’s President” Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp and John Battsek
“The Eternal Memory” Nominees to be determined
“Four Daughters” Kaouther Ben Hania and Nadim Cheikhrouha
“To Kill a Tiger” Nisha Pahuja, Cornelia Principe and David Oppenheim
“20 Days in Mariupol” Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath
Best documentary short film
“The ABCs of Book Banning” Sheila Nevins and Trish Adlesic
“The Barber of Little Rock” John Hoffman and Christine Turner
“Island in Between” S. Leo Chiang and Jean Tsien
“The Last Repair Shop” Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers
“Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó” Sean Wang and Sam Davis
Achievement in film editing
“Anatomy of a Fall” Laurent Sénéchal
“The Holdovers” Kevin Tent
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Thelma Schoonmaker
“Oppenheimer” Jennifer Lame
“Poor Things” Yorgos Mavropsaridis
Best international feature film of the year
“Io Capitano” Italy
“Perfect Days” Japan
“Society of the Snow” Spain
“The Teachers’ Lounge” Germany
“The Zone of Interest” United Kingdom
Achievement in makeup and hairstyling
“Golda” Karen Hartley Thomas, Suzi Battersby and Ashra Kelly-Blue
“Maestro” Kazu Hiro, Kay Georgiou and Lori McCoy-Bell
“Oppenheimer” Luisa Abel
“Poor Things” Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston
“Society of the Snow” Ana López-Puigcerver, David Martí and Montse Ribé
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“American Fiction” Laura Karpman
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” John Williams
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Robbie Robertson
“Oppenheimer” Ludwig Göransson
“Poor Things” Jerskin Fendrix
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot” Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
“I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” Music and Lyric by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt
“It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony” Music and Lyric by Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson
“Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon” Music and Lyric by Scott George
“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie” Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell
Best motion picture of the year
“American Fiction” Ben LeClair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson and Jermaine Johnson, Producers
“Anatomy of a Fall” Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion, Producers
“Barbie” David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner, Producers
“The Holdovers” Mark Johnson, Producer
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese and Daniel Lupi, Producers
“Maestro” Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers
“Oppenheimer” Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers
“Past Lives” David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, Producers
“Poor Things” Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, Producers
“The Zone of Interest” James Wilson, Producer
Achievement in production design
“Barbie” Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
“Killers of the Flower Moon” Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Adam Willis
“Napoleon” Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Elli Griff
“Oppenheimer” Production Design: Ruth De Jong; Set Decoration: Claire Kaufman
“Poor Things” Production Design: James Price and Shona Heath; Set Decoration: Zsuzsa Mihalek
Best animated short film
“Letter to a Pig” Tal Kantor and Amit R. Gicelter
“Ninety-Five Senses” Jerusha Hess and Jared Hess
“Our Uniform” Yegane Moghaddam
“Pachyderme” Stéphanie Clément and Marc Rius
“WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko” Dave Mullins and Brad Booker
Best live action short film
“The After” Misan Harriman and Nicky Bentham
“Invincible” Vincent René-Lortie and Samuel Caron
“Knight of Fortune” Lasse Lyskjær Noer and Christian Norlyk
“Red, White and Blue” Nazrin Choudhury and Sara McFarlane
“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” Wes Anderson and Steven Rales
Achievement in sound
“The Creator” Ian Voigt, Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn, Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic
“Maestro” Steven A. Morrow, Richard King, Jason Ruder, Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Chris Munro, James H. Mather, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor
“Oppenheimer” Willie Burton, Richard King, Gary A. Rizzo and Kevin O’Connell
“The Zone of Interest” Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn
Achievement in visual effects
“The Creator” Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts and Neil Corbould
“Godzilla Minus One” Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” Stephane Ceretti, Alexis Wajsbrot, Guy Williams and Theo Bialek
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Alex Wuttke, Simone Coco, Jeff Sutherland and Neil Corbould
“Napoleon” Charley Henley, Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet, Simone Coco and Neil Corbould
Adapted screenplay
“American Fiction” Written for the screen by Cord Jefferson
“Barbie” Written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach
“Oppenheimer” Written for the screen by Christopher Nolan
“Poor Things” Screenplay by Tony McNamara
“The Zone of Interest” Written by Jonathan Glazer
Original screenplay
“Anatomy of a Fall”Screenplay – Justine Triet and Arthur Harari
“The Holdovers”Written by David Hemingson
“Maestro”Written by Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer
“May December”Screenplay by Samy Burch; Story by Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik
