As I’m sure I mentioned once upon a time, I pay attention to the Academy Awards nominations. In the early 1990s, I’d listen to the radio at work and jot down the major selections. Now I can wait ten minutes and find it online.
The issue of an awards snub currently seems particularly energized. Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg denies it happened this year but one of her The View costars says otherwise. A guy on my Facebook feed says no, and is accused of mansplaining.
THR writes: “One irony of the backlash to the Barbie snubs is that it has attempted to pit women against women. (Barbie Land would never!) One column has been excoriated for appearing to diminish the performances of the nominated actresses in defense of [Margot] Robbie.”
For me, it’s clear I need to see more performances. There are five women Best Actress in a Leading Role:
Annette Bening (Nyad)
Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall)
Carey Mulligan (Maestro)
Emma Stone (Poor Things)
I’ve seen only Mulligan.
Likewise, these folks were nominated for Best Directing:
Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall)
Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)
Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer)
Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)
I’ve seen only Oppy, so I can’t say of Greta Gerwig was snubbed or not.
Best pics
Ten films were selected as Best Picture nominees. The ones I’ve seen I’ve starred:
*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)
Time to get to the theater, where these films have either shown up for the first time or have made an Oscar nom return.
I won’t be seeing these films, though. Razzie Awards: ‘Expend4bles’ Leads Nominations. ‘Exorcist: Believer’ and ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ also nabbed multiple mentions.
MLB HOF
I’m happy Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, and Joe Mauer were selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame. But I’m sad that, in his 9th try out of ten chances, reliever Billy Wagner came up five votes short.
Gary Sheffield: HE was snubbed, falling off the ballot after receiving 63.9% of the vote, with 75% needed.
Next year’s ballot will include Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia. Both should get in on the first ballot, with Ichiro, the only MLB player I know to have his first name on the back of his jersey, a mortal lock.
I’m sad to read that Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame infielder Ryne Sandberg has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and has begun treatment. Part of it is that my father died of the disease.
NFL playoffs
Go, Detroit Lions! General Motors is delaying a shift on Sunday so that their workers can see the Lions’ NFC title game completion against the San Francisco 49ers.
Like the return of Michael Jordan to the Bulls
I’m glad Jon Stewart is back on The Daily Show, even if it’s once a week on air, plus serving as executive producer, at least through the election. TDS veterans are thrilled. I liked the top-secret intrigue in luring him back.
J!
To my surprise, I found this season’s Celebrity JEOPARDY more interesting than the previous iteration. It’s also a lot more fun than the regular game’s interminable Champions Wildcard, where they bring back players from the past three seasons. That said, I’m rooting for Martha Bath, who won back in 1972 when Art Fleming was the host and then won again a couple of years ago.
Celebrity J! fans criticized ABC for revealing the winner ahead of the final tournament: ‘Thanks for the spoiler.’ An ad for Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night program featured the winner. (If you’ve recorded it without watching it, I’M not going to provide a spoiler.) Luckily for me, I watched it fast-forwarding through the commercials.
I haven’t seen any of the movies, so I have no actual interest in the current Oscar discourse, but I have noticed that THIS year the usual discussion of who was “snubbed”–Greta Gerwig, in this case–there’s a lot of people responding by posing some version of this question: “Well, fine. So who of the current nominees would you strip of their nomination, then?” I asked on social media where this comes from, because I’ve never heard this question asked this much in response to previous “snub” controversies. Of course, some folks insist that they ALWAYS ask that, but I sure haven’t heard it as much THIS year. Some other people come back with “There are only FIVE spots! Someone’s getting snubbed!” in which case I say, “Y’all know that the number of nominations is arbitrary, right? We could have eleven if we wanted.” In fact, I’ve suggested that: making the number of nominees float, like the number of players inducted into various sports Halls of Fame every year. There’s no rule that baseball MUST enshrine, say, six players every year; sometimes they don’t do it at all. (Not that that would happen in the case of the Oscars.) But some people get really irritated when I suggest that there’s nothing sacrosanct about any of this, and that makes me laugh. People defending the honor of…the Oscars! Really!