It’s that time of the year again for us film fans. On Jan. 24, we were given the nominations for the 89th Academy Awards, along with speculations about what lucky film will get the chance to get in as the best of the best that 2016 has given us. This year has both surprises and snubs. But for the most part, these nominations are looking good. “La La Land” has a massive 14 nominations, including the top 5, being up for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. With that massive number of nominations, it’s now tied for the most nominations with “All About Eve” and “Titanic”. I absolutely loved “La La Land”, and I’m very pleased with a number of nominations it got. As a matter of fact, I predicted about 13 for the film. Other films like “Moonlight” and “Arrival” have 8 nominations. Both have grabbed Best Picture and Director respectively. Everybody does these predictions, like myself. So obviously some nominations are pretty easy to count on, with a few surprises. One of which is Mel Gibson being nominated for Best Director for his film “Hacksaw Ridge,” which was nominated for Best Picture, as well as Andrew Garfield for Best Actor. It seems like maybe Hollywood has forgiven Gibson for his antics over his rants and focused on how great of a director he is. Controversy aside, he gave it his best with this war film and it’s a great thing he’s been nominated. I mean, he did win an Oscar for “Braveheart”. Another surprise was in the Best Supporting Actor category as Michael Shannon was nominated for “Nocturnal Animals” instead of his co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Taylor- Johnson did win the Golden Globe for his role in the film, which was shocking and not deserved in my opinion. But from what I heard from people who have seen “Nocturnal Animals,” he was the best part. Martin Scorsese’s passion project, “Silence” failed to get more than one nomination as it was only got a Best Cinematography nomination. At this point, this isn’t a surprise for me since this came out in a few theaters and the studio hasn't been campaigning enough for it. And this was a movie I was very looking forward to seeing because I love Scorsese. But it only had one showing time at night, and was taken down in less than a week. There were a few snubs that were totally left out. The biggest one is definitely Amy Adams not getting a Best Actress nomination for her outstanding role in “Arrival”. Even though the film has multiple nominations, it’s sad that the Academy failed to acknowledge Adams’ best work in years. “Drive It Like You Stole It” from “Sing Street” was completely shut out of the Best Original Song category, which is madly confusing since it was one of the catchiest songs in any movie from this year. I believe that this song was perfect. The blame should be upon the studio, which hasn’t been campaigning the movie enough. And as for “Deadpool,” it’s really not shocking that it’s left out of Best Picture. While it was one of the best superhero movies of the year, it was odd that it was even being considered be nominated. It was talked because it got both WGA and PGA nominations, which are admittedly high standards. It would’ve had a shot to win Adapted Screenplay for sure. Best Picture:
- Arrival
- Fences
- Hacksaw Ridge
- Hell or High Water
- Hidden Figures
- La La Land
- Lion
- Manchester By the Sea
- Moonlight
- Denis Villeneuve- Arrival
- Mel Gibson- Hacksaw Ridge
- Damien Chazelle- La La Land
- Kenneth Lonergan- Manchester By the Sea
- Barry Jenkins- Moonlight
- Casey Affleck- Manchester By the Sea
- Andrew Garfield- Hacksaw Ridge
- Ryan Gosling- La La Land
- Viggo Mortensen- Captain Fantastic
- Denzel Washington- Fences
- Isabelle Huppert- Elle
- Ruth Negga- Loving
- Natalie Portman- Jackie
- Emma Stone- La La Land
- Meryl Streep- Florence Foster Jenkins
- Mahershala Ali- Moonlight
- Jeff Bridges- Hell or High Water
- Lucas Hedges- Manchester By the Sea
- Dev Patel- Lion
- Michael Shannon- Nocturnal Animals
- Viola Davis- Fences
- Naomie Harris- Moonlight
- Nicole Kidman- Lion
- Octavia Spencer- Hidden Figures
- Michelle Williams- Manchester By the Sea
- Hell or High Water
- La La Land
- The Lobster
- Manchester By the Sea
- 20th Century Women
- Arrival
- Fences
- Hidden Figures
- Lion
- Moonlight
- Kubo and the Two Strings
- Moana
- My Life as a Zucchini
- The Red Turtle
- Zootopia
- Arrival
- Hacksaw Ridge
- Hell or High Water
- La La Land
- Moonlight
- Arrival
- La La Land
- Moonlight
- Lion
- Silence
- Arrival
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
- Hail, Caesar!
- La La Land
- Passengers
- Allied
- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
- Florence Foster Jenkins
- Jackie
- La La Land
- A Man Called Ove
- Star Trek Beyond
- Suicide Squad
- Deepwater Horizon
- Doctor Strange
- The Jungle Book
- Kubo and the Two Strings
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Arrival
- Hacksaw Ridge
- La La Land
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- 13: Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
- Arrival
- Deepwater Horizon
- Hacksaw Ridge
- La La Land
- Sully
- Mica Levi- Jackie
- Justin Hurwitz- La La Land
- Nicholas Britell- Moonlight
- Hauschka and Dustin O’Halloran- Lion
- Thomas Newman- Passengers
- “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)”- La La Land
- “Can’t Stop the Feeling”- Trolls
- “City of Stars”- La La Land
- “The Empty Chair”- Jim: The James Foley Story
- “How Far I’ll Go”- Moana
- Land of Mine, Denmark
- A Man Called Ove, Sweden
- The Salesman, Iran
- Tanna, Australia
- Toni Erdmann, Germany
- Fire at Sea
- I Am Not Your Negro
- Life, Animated
- O.J.: Made in America
- 13th
- Blind Vaysha
- Borrowed Time
- Pear and Cider Cigarettes
- Pearl
- Piper
- Extremis
- 4.1 Miles
- Joe's Violin
- Watani: My Homeland
- The White Helmets
- Ennemis Interieurs
- La Femme et le TGV
- Silent Nights
- Sing
- Timecode
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