Have the Oscar nominations ever mattered less than they did Thursday morning, with Los Angeles distracted and beaten down by so much? Wildfires. The threat of withheld federal aid to California. A self-cannibalizing film industry in crisis.
But LA has also shown us a city big enough to care about its endless variety of neighbors. It’s inspiring even in the face of everything. And in a quirk of timing, the Oscars actually feel kind of … topical? Pertinent, even? That can’t be right.
The Academy of Motion Picture’s love for some of the less worthy 2024 nominees feels wrong enough as it is.
Yet from the standpoint of dialectical tension, in a culture divided against itself in ways far exceeding but never entirely free of politics, the 13 nominations for the Netflix offering “Emilia Pérez” — a faux-Mexican trans cartel musical melodrama directed by a Frenchman, Jacques Audiard — send a message. An executive order from the Academy, if you will.
Some recaps/opinions:
1. Big day for “Emilia Pérez,” top of the heap with 13 nominations, followed by “The Brutalist” and “Wicked” with 10 apiece. I’d nominate Cynthia Erivo for all 10 for “Wicked,” since she saves that film from its own shortcomings. Also eight nominations for both “Conclave” and “A Complete Unknown.” That’s three movies dominated by music and one dominated by the hawk-like stare of Ralph Fiennes, third-time Oscar nominee.
2. Big day for “The Substance.” To which I say, huh? For those reluctant to see “The Brutalist” because it’s 3½ hours long (and worth it), I’ll confine my remarks on a debut feature filmmaker’s one-note Hollywood samba to this: “The Substance” is shorter, but feels much longer. Cheers, however, to Demi Moore’s best actress nomination. She’s the latest valiant reminder that most everything has a chance to go wrong with a film months before the actors start filming.
3. Meantime, “Nickel Boys” got its richly deserved best picture and best adapted screenplay nods, but nothing for director RaMell Ross for his astounding feature debut. And nothing for Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine As Light”? Are these movies, what, too quiet? Too intimidating? Not grabby or pushy enough?
4. Minutes-wise, it runs in the family: Isabella Rossellini, supporting actress-nominated (deservedly) for her seven-minute, 51-second turn as Sister Agnes in “Conclave,” is the daughter of Ingrid Bergman, who won her third Oscar for her witty, 14-minutes-and-change cameo, and incidental group scenes, as the furtive Swedish missionary in “Murder on the Orient Express.” Some actors, though not these two, need more time to make an impression.
5. One of these days … the real-life subject of “The Apprentice,” the intriguing docudrama about Donald Trump’s mentorship at the hands of a ruthless Manhattan player, may break down and take a look at the film he tried to sue. Or maybe he has already. Both Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong picked up Oscar nominations for their performances as Trump and Roy Cohn, respectively, to the surprise of many. They do more to humanize the history of these two than most thought possible. Speaking of history …
6. We’re living it, even more than usual! The awards season momentum for “Emilia Pérez” gathered steam long before Jan. 20, when our new president signed an executive order having to do with gender identity. “It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” Trump said during his inaugural address. The same-week timing of the Oscar nominations announcement creates the image of an Academy rebuttal, with a record number of nominations for a film not primarily in English and a first lead-actress nomination for an openly transgender performer, Spanish actor Karla Sofia Gascón.
7. Keep an eye on the kid with the hair. Unencumbered by evidence, I wouldn’t rule out “A Complete Unknown” in one of its high-profile nomination categories. It’s a comforting throwback in so many ways: a smooth, uncritical big-budget Hollywood biopic of a megastar, directed by an industry favorite, James Mangold, with strong performances from Mangold’s fellow nominees Timothée Chalamet (as Bob Dylan), Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez) and, especially, Edward Norton (Pete Seeger). On the one hand …
8. “A Complete Unknown” does not feel like the Movie of The Moment. On the other hand: If there’s enough of an old-guard, middlebrow, tradition-minded Oscar voting bloc within the existing academy membership to hand us a surprise in a few weeks, who knows?
Meantime, some folks probably feel like they’ve read their fill about the trans drug lord musical on Netflix. Fine. Still, I’d love to be a fly on the wall for a few conversations probably underway right about now, somewhere in the world, sounding like:
“Hon, can we just watch something, you know, ‘regular’? A nice, old-fashioned mystery without any agendas to shove in my face?”
“Sure. Let’s try “Conclave.”
Two hours later:
“Wait. What?”
The 97th Academy Awards will be held in a ceremony on March 2 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and will air on ABC.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
