2017 Academy Award Nominations: La La Land goes for the 14
The Academy Award nominations were announced this morning, and for the most part, my predictions were pretty good. There’s a few surprises here and there, for sure, and of course I didn’t get everything perfect, so we’ll go through the major categories and kind of sugarcoat through those other weird categories, so let’s get started.
Best Visual Effects
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book
Kubo and the Two Strings
Star Wars: Rogue One
This was a four out of five category. I had Best Picture nominee Arrival in as well, but Kubo took its spot in a weird spot. Thought with all that love they’d award it here, too.
Best Film Editing
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight
Another four out of five for me. Just had Hell or High Water swapped with Manchester by the Sea. Still a great list though.
Best Costume Design
Allied
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land
Another four out of five for me. Just had Silence in instead of Allied.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad
Wow, a piece of crap like Suicide Squad gets nominated here instead of PGA and WGA nominee Deadpool? Wow! Just wow! Plus Florence Foster Jenkins was left off the list as well, so that’s only one out of three for this stupid category.
Best Cinematography
Arrival
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Silence
Another four out of five, which is just my score today, isn’t it? Just swapped out Lion for Nocturnal Animals. Still good work in this category though.
Best Production Design
Arrival
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
La La Land
Passengers
Three out of five this time, but one of those is a pleasant surprise: Passengers. Instead of that and Arrival I had Jackie and Silence, but both of those movies under-performed this morning.
Best Sound Mixing
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Arrival
La La Land
Hacksaw Ridge
Star Wars: Rogue One
Another four out of five. All but that Michael Bay movie, 13 Hours. I had another big manly explosion movie, Deepwater Horizon, instead.
Best Sound Editing
Arrival
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Sully
Another four out of five, just missed Sully in favor of Star Wars: Rogue One.
Best Original Song
“Audition” from La La Land
“Can’t Stop the Feeling” from Trolls
“City of Stars” from La La Land
“The Empty Chair” from Jim: The James Foley Story
“How Far I’ll Go” from Moana
Another four out of five. Man, few weren’t that number this morning. Anyways, the real surprise is “The Empty Chair”, which nobody saw coming, and frankly I don’t think anybody knew existed. Just had “Try Everything” from Zootopia in instead.
Best Original Score
Jackie
La La Land
Lion
Moonlight
Passengers
Well, I actually shouldn’t have been surprised when Passengers was nominated here because composer Thomas Newman always gets in. Just missed Star Wars: Rogue One.
Best Animated Feature
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia
Three out of five for this one, had Finding Dory and The Little Prince in my predictions versus Zucchini and Red Turtle.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Arrival
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Moonlight
So this was another four out of five, but it should have been five out of five. Just had Nocturnal Animals in instead of Fences. That prediction looks silly now though.
Best Original Screenplay
20th Century Women
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Manchester by the Sea
The Lobster
Four out of five once again. This time I had Jackie instead of The Lobster, but I told you so on 20th Century Women, which wasn’t a favorite to be nominated.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea
Five out of five, finally. So yes, one of two perfect categories for me this morning.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals
Good for Michael Shannon, the only nominee for Nocturnal Animals, though it’s painful to see Hugh Grant overlooked for Florence Foster Jenkins.
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
So the big surprise here was seeing Amy Adams overlooked for one of the more nominated movies of the morning, Arrival. I guess the acting branch wasn’t as enthralled with this one. Still, for me personally, Ruth Negga in Loving was a great performance very worthy of this nomination.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences
Another five out of five, and it’s a good lineup.
Best Director
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Four out of five, but damn I wish I had gotten Mel Gibson! I had him as the fifth in this list just days ago, and panicked at the last minute and took him out. Oh well.
Best Picture
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Since they do go up to ten here, I put Nocturnal Animals in just in case, but still I count that as nine out of nine. Good to see the Academy go with nine nominees and not something like seven or eight when we’ve had a good year for movies, for the most part, that is.
So there you have it, the 89th Academy Awards show will be Sunday, February 26th, so from now until then we’ll see if frontrunner La La Land can hold out.
