Black comedy “The Favourite” and Netflix drama “Roma” have topped the list for the most nominations at this year’s Academy Awards, but some great movies from the past year have been overlooked according to CTV’s film critic.
As preparations build for the biggest night in show business, CTV’s film contributor and Pop Life host Richard Crouse gives his pick of the talent and movies snubbed by the academy.
DIRECTORS
“A Star Is Born” was a huge hit with fans and critics alike, but its director Bradley Cooper is conspicuously absent in the best director category, according to Crouse.
“From the very second people started seeing this at film festivals they were talking about Bradley Cooper making one of the great changeovers from actor to director,” he said. “So that he wasn’t nominated feels like a big misstep for me.”
Ryan Coogler, the director of Marvel Studios’ smash hit “Black Panther,” was also snubbed by the academy, according to Crouse.
“It’s been winning awards all over the place and whenever this kind of thing happens there’s an old joke that everybody makes, ‘I guess the movie directed itself,’” he said.
“Ryan Coogler is a big misstep I think.”
Nominees in the best director category are Spike Lee for “BlacKkKlansman,” Pawel Pawlikowski for “Cold War,” Yorgos Lanthimos for “The Favourite,” Alfonso Cuaron for “Roma” and Adam McKay for “Vice.”
DOCUMENTARIES
The best documentary category has a wide range of subjects, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, contemporary black life in Alabama, terrorism, rock climbing in “Free Solo” and a love of skateboarding in “Minding The Gap.”
But a documentary about the life of children’s TV host Fred Rogers, “Won’t You Be My Neighbour?” has been unfairly overlooked, according to Crouse.
“That’s a movie that got people interested in going to see documentaries in the theatre again,” he said. “Everyone, before the nominations came out, just assumed that it was going to win. To see it not on the list is kind of shocking.”
OTHER SNUBS
Crouse also lamented the lack of a nomination for smaller independent movie “Eighth Grade” in the best original screenplay category.
The film, which depicts the challenges of growing up in the age of constant phone use, won the outstanding original screenplay prize at the Writers Guild Of America Awards last week.
“It’s not even nominated in any category, let alone best original screenplay, so that was a surprise,” he said.
Romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians,” the first big Hollywood film in a quarter century to feature an all-Asian cast, is also nowhere to be seen in the prestige award categories.
“It was a very popular movie the world over and it didn’t get a single nomination,” Crouse said.
“It probably was never going to get nominated for best picture, but there had to be some of what they call the craft categories, make-up, hair, something like that, that it could have been slotted into, but nothing.”
Probably the most ironic non-nomination was for a movie called “The Quiet Place,” Crouse said.
The sci-fi thriller, which has minimal dialogue, features a family of four navigating their lives in silence to avoid mysterious creatures that hunt by sound.
“That it wasn’t nominated for sound design is kind of shocking as well,” he said.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Meanwhile, Twitter users have slammed “Bohemian Rhapsody” nomination for best editing, spawning a number of memes online.
Critics have been mixed in their reviews of the wildly popular biopic about rock band Queen and its lead singer Freddie Mercury.
One scene in the movie, which sees the band seated with their manager in a pub beer garden, has gone viral for its rapid fire editing, with one viewer on Twitter counting 52 cuts in the 82 second clip.
“To see it nominated as heavily as it is, in a time when there are really good films that aren’t getting the same kind of attention, I think that’s what people are surprised about,” Crouse said.
“It is essentially a concert for the last 20 minutes of the running time, you walk out of the theatre pumping your fist in the air, you’re excited, you’ve just seen a rock and roll show. And you forget that the movie that came before it, leading up to the Live Aid recreation at the end, isn’t particularly well made, it’s not particularly well written, but people have a fondness for the music and for Freddie Mercury and are willing to forgive a lot and that’s OK.”
PAST QUESTIONABLE AWARDS
The academy has also made some questionable awards decisions over the years.
The 2006 Oscar for best picture went to “Crash,” a drama about race relations in Los Angeles, upsetting heavy favourite “Brokeback Mountain,” a romance about two men set over 20 years.
“Crash was a movie that people were talking about and I think that momentum swept forward into the Academy Awards that year,” Crouse said.
“I would also think that there was probably no small amount of homophobia involved in Brokeback Mountain not getting an award. If you look at the two movies now back-to-back you’ll see that ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is a movie that really stands the test of time, where ‘Crash’ feels a little of its moment.”
The victory of “Shakespeare in Love” over Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” for the best picture award in 1999 is also seen as a shocking misjudgment.
“Saving Private Ryan has one of the single greatest war scenes ever committed to film,” Grouse said.
“For some reason the academy doesn’t really like to honour Steven Spielberg. If you watch that film today it’s a film that stands up, it’s an achievement.”
“Shakepeare in Love” is a really “nice” movie, Crouse said.
“People like it, but is it part of the big conversation on film? I don’t think so,” he said.
