The Academy Award nominations for 2024 were just released this morning, and there really weren't any big surprises. The Academy's love of musicals (especially really popular ones) continued with "Wicked" getting 10 nominations. Also with 10 each are "Emilia Pérez" and "The Brutalist", both of which I found overrated. On top of that, "Emilia Perez" has suffered some blowback for its portrayal of both trans people and Mexico, but obviously that didn't stop the Academy.
While I was glad to see that my personal favorite movie of the year, "The Seed of the Sacred Fig", is up for Best International Feature, I was disappointed that "Babygirl", Halina Reijn's excellent look at sex, gender and power, was shut out. Interestingly, both the Academy and the Golden Globes seemed more taken by Coralie Fargeat's similar themed "The Substance." While both films deal with the issue of an aging woman's sexuality, Rejin's film remained rooted in reality, while Fargeat's lapsed into gross out surrealism and heavy handed satire. While I did enjoy Demi Moore's performance in "The Substance", I still think that "Babygirl" was a better overall film.
I was also glad to see that the Academy was willing to court controversy by nominating Sebastian Stan for Best Actor and Jeremy Strong for Best Supporting Actor for their roles in the Donald Trump bio pic film "The Apprentice". (Stan played Trump and Strong played Trump influencer Roy Cohn) I'm sure it won't take long for Trump himself to go after the Academy for honoring such a negative (but, in my opinion, honest) portrayal of him. Hopefully the nominations will open the film up to more people who can marvel at how such a loathsome man has become president again. But I digress...
With its themes of post war immigration and class imbalance, and its epic length and ambition, Brady Corbet's"The Brutalist" looks like it has a good chance of winning Best Picture. While looking at the rest of the nominations, I don't see anything else that plays to the usual Best Picture tropes: "The Substance" is too weird, "Dune Part 2" too action oriented, "Nickel Boys" too dark and unusual in style. And “Emilia Pérez” and "Conclave" too controversial. Really, the only competition I see for Corbet's film is "Wicked", even though its director, Jon M. Chu, was not nominated. Because of that snub, I still think the smart money is on "The Brutalist", even though I myself did not care for its second half. But I've been wrong about these kind of things before...
