Well, they're here. The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced today with the usual, early morning fanfare. We got nine Best Picture nominees, a wide variety of surprises and snubs and, of course, a million think pieces about what was and what could have been.
On the whole, though, the nominations were pretty darn good and that's kind of leaving us all in an odd place. Is there much to complain about? Of course, it's the Oscars! But generally they really captured the year that was damn well. We even had some history-making choices, with Jordan Peele being only the third person in history nominated for Director, Writer and Producer. Meanwhile, Greta Gerwig, Mary J. Blige and Rachel Morrison also achieved huge, ground-breaking gains for women in the industry. Hot damn!
Christopher Nolan received his first Best Director nomination, Willem Dafoe or Sam Rockwell are front-runners, Allison Janney is that much closer to an EGOT, Daniel Kaluuya is being recognized for his subtle and genius performance, even Sufjan freaking Stevens will be at the big show. These are some great choices! There is a lot to like here and that is surprising because, again, these are The Oscars. We should have spent all day complaining about the bad, predictable choices but instead we have been basking in the unique feeling of the Academy actually getting it right. What is this feeling we are experiencing? It feels like satisfaction but that just can't be, right? Not with the Academy Awards!
The show itself, once again hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will definitely have some snoozes and some major let-downs but we should acknowledge that there isn't too much to complain about here. For one bright, shining moment they actually got it mostly right.
Enjoy it while you can. With our luck Crash will somehow end up winning Best Picture again.