The Oscar nominations for the weirdest year in cinema are here, and they are a Mank of Chicago 7s. There are some big inclusions worth noting—and we will—but the most nominated film of 2020 isMANK, which is so on-the-nose for 2020 it feels satirical.Mankbagged ten nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for David Fincher, Best Actor for Gary Oldman, and Best Supporting Actress for Amanda Seyfried.The Trial of the Chicago 7is next most nominated film, with six including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Sacha Baron Cohen, and Best Original Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin (Molly’s Game). None of that is surprising, I guessed all of those things, but a year afterParasite’s historic and feel-good win—the best movie actually won best movie!—we have gone FULL MANK and I am SO afraid we will follow up theParasiteyear with theMank-7year.
Speaking of my guesses, for my firstfull Oscars prognosticationI did okay. I got 73% of my guesses right (assuming my math is correct, which we never should do), but it doesn’t FEEL good because I was TOO RIGHT aboutMankandChicago 7. (The category I whiffed on the most is Best Documentary, where they includedMy Octopus Teacher, a film about an entitled man who won’t leave a poor octopus alone.) To quote Lainey, who put it perfectly, “I’m worriedChicago 7会Argo.”Mankis an obvious Oscar movie because it’s a contemporary black-and-white film from a master filmmaker about a legendary Old Hollywood figure, butChicago 7is the MOST Oscar movie because it’s a movie about social change meant to make white people feel good (at the expense of acknowledging all the ways in which white supremacy inhibits social change). There are excellent works from Black filmmakers in 2020 addressing social change, but I am afraid the Academy is not yet diverse enough for those films to rise to the top at the expense of something as pedestrian asChicago 7,which is basically what happened this year. We’ll talk about snubs in a separate post, but this mediocrity getting more nominations than films likeDa 5 Bloods,One Night In Miami, andMa Rainey’s Black Bottomis embarrassing and will age like milk.
That said, some of these nominations are actually good.Promising Young Womanscored five nominations, including Best Director for Emerald Fennell, who, along with Chloe Zhao, marks the first time two women are simultaneously nominated in the category.Nomadlandscored six nominations, as didMinari, including Best Actor for Steven Yeun, Best Supporting Actress for Youn Yuh-jung, and Emile Mosseri did come through in Best Score for his delicate work.犹大and the Black Messiahalso got six nominations, including a late-breaking nomination for LaKeith Stanfield in Best Supporting Actor, which says a lot about how his peers regard his work, since he had little momentum going into this morning. Also, Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round) got nominated for Best Director, taking a spot that could have gone to Aaron Sorkin but mercifully did not. I am SO glad to be wrong about that one. The Oscar nominations are not total garbage across the board, butMankbeing the most nominated film andChicago 7ranking equally alongside superior works likeMinari, Nomadland, and犹大feels like the bad old days.
See the full list of nomineeshere.
