2018 Oscar Nominations: Snubs & Surprises

Surprises

“Phantom Thread”: Paul Thomas Anderson and Lesley Manville
The hugest surprise, and a pleasant one for sure, was the bevy of nominations for “Phantom Thread.” Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie looked like an arthouse hit at best, and it missed out on pretty much all of the pre-Oscar awards and nominations (outside of some Critics Circles, which don’t really mean so much to Academy voters). Was the film too mysterious and enigmatic for the Academy? Color everyone dead wrong, “Phantom Thread” earned six Oscar nominations, tying “Darkest Hour” for the fourth most nominations. Daniel Day-Lewis was obviously a shoo-in, but no one was expecting Lesley Manville to sneak in there and steal the fifth slot for Best Supporting Actress. And while “Phantom Thread” is gorgeously directed, Anderson missed out on the DGA, Globes, and more, so no one expected a nod here. But Focus Features has surely uncorked the champagne for this one in a major way.

In hindsight, “Phantom Thread,” while opaque on the surface, is also very classical, ravishing and elegant — qualities that the older Academy block love. Coupled with a younger section of the Academy already in love with “Phantom Thread” and you have an explanation why this film came out of nowhere to charge into some major categories. But face it, none of us called this one at all.

Daniel Kaluuya for Best Actor
While there is no voting by committee – though people tend to forget that when they do their punditry— Oscars are a bit of musical chairs. If one actor “falls out” of a category, i.e., doesn’t receive enough votes, someone else slips in. And with James Franco missing out on a Best Actor nomination — the sexual harassment allegations didn’t help — that left room for Daniel Kaluuya to get in for his excellent performance in Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.” To be fair, Kaluuya did earn a SAG nomination too, so this nom wasn’t entirely out of nowhere.

“Mudbound”
It was touch and go for “Mudbound” all year. What was once seemed to be a major contender appeared to lose steam midway through the awards season. Many thought it would eventually score a Best Picture nomination, but it was unclear how it would travel in the other categories. And “Mudbound” did sadly miss out on Best Picture, confirming pundits’ feelings that it had lost support, but the Dee Rees directed film still pleasantly surprised overall, earning four nominations total including the first-ever nomination for a female cinematographer (Rachel Morris), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress for Mary J. Blige and Best Original Song (for Blige as well, making her a double nominee).

More Surprises: While some predicted it, Woody Harrelson scoring a Best Supporting Actor nod for ‘Three Billboards’ (thus shutting Armie Hammer out), was a bit of a shock to many, especially when you consider Sam Rockwell, the frontrunner, also earned a nomination for the same category. “The Boss Baby” taking an Animated Feature nomination was a bit of a strange head-scratcher and composer Carter Burwell winning a nod for ‘Three Billboards’ was also unexpected (we actually think his “Wonderstruck” score is much better, but we’ll take what we can get). Jonny Greenwood often gets shut out of the Best Score category despite writing music that are often looked back on as classics, but the Radiohead multi-instrumentalist finally received his first Academy Award nomination for his excellent “Phantom Thread” compositions. It did net a WGA nomination which boded well, but “Logan” scoring a nomination for Best Adapted screenplay was an eye-brow raiser and a huge boon for superhero fans. “Logan” is the first superhero comic book movie to be nominated in any writing category. We’re also still figuring out how on Earth “Victoria & Abdul” managed two nominations.

Your thoughts? Angered? Infuriated? Tears? Depression? In Denial? Acceptance yet? Let us know in the comments section below.