One Last Hurrah for the Unloved! (Our Post-Nomination Eulogies)
Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 1:20PM by staff
We asked Team Experience to share eulogies & tributes to their most beloved cinematic achievement that was left out on Oscar nom morning. Not everything can be nominated. Since we must now turn our attention to the actual nominations, please shed one last tear of appreciation for these great artists and films.
BEN MILLER: Leave No Trace - you were too beautiful and non-assuming to be truly embraced by an awards body like the Academy. Yes, Winter's Bone got a Best Picture nomination for Debra Granik's 2010 film, but you were rated PG and there was not a cliche, line of exposition, or bit of over-acting to be found. You are too perfect a creation to be lumped in with the Oscars. We will remember you when Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie and Granik eventually accept their future statues.
NATHANIEL R: Eighth Grade, you were too lovely and far far too young. Too humiliatingly real, too emotionally fragile and too comically pure for the heightened spectacle of Hollywood's back-patting event. You gave us hope for the future (Elsie Fisher and Bo Burnham have bright ones) while also transporting us back to our own childhood. You were a time machine even H.G. Wells would have marvelled at and cringed through... provided, of course, that he attended the British equivalent of junior high in the 19th century...
DANCIN' DAN: Today, I will be listening to the mournful yet hopeful theremin of Justin Hurwitz's brilliant score for First Man, to help process my emotions over that film's lack of nominations in Editing, Cinematography, and Score, all of which are among the two or three finest achievements of the year in their respective categories.
CHRIS FEIL: Greetings, friends and fellow mourners. I stand before you today, a widow of Widows. My body-length veil is a symbolic representation of my long suffering of the dismissive treatment of this film, and also a metaphoric representation of the depths of my anger. The candles we light in its honor represent the nominations we could have given it: the immaculate Viola Davis, the exacting Steve McQueen, Joe Walker's exhaustive editing, and lest we not forget: an original song by Sade. None of us deserved what Widows gave us, but especially not the ungrateful Academy. I know Olivia the Dog will agree with me when I say this, but Widows will never be dead to us - it will go on in repeated viewings, "what should have been" memorials, and of course, the ascension of Cynthia Erivo's film career.
SPENCER COILE: Suspiria, I should’ve known I was not living in a world as fantastical as your final 30 minutes if I thought for one second you’d actually be nominated for Makeup and Hairstyling. But never forget the body-contorting, leg snapping, maniacal good times we had together.
JASON ADAMS: I've seen a few horror movies in my day (that is, uh, an understatement) and Toni Collette's work as the grieving and conflicted Annie in Hereditary is the stuff we dream of every time we turn on another midnight howler. Every slashing and decapitation, every masked nightmare bumbling about a forest with co-eds on the brain, we wade through them all in hopes that somebody will bring their everything to the table - all their dedication and craft and humanity to tear open their insides and show us pain, real emotional devastation, real grief and confusion in a grieving and confusing and devastated world. Toni gave us myth, she gave us firelight on a cave's wall. It's a towering achievement, her terror-stricken face, just a single year in, is already iconic for an entire genre. Annie lives forever.
JORGE MOLINA: Whenever Toni Collette gets a Lifetime Achievement Award in the future, the "I am your mother!" scene in Hereditary will be the showcase focus. It will be remembered as a "Can you believe that wasn't nominated?" Oscar overlook. Let us also send thoughts and prayers to the Blunt-Krasinski household and all the bottles of wine they will go through this week. At least we will be happy Emily is slowy but surely starting to build an overdue narrative that will get her a statue eventually.
EUROCHEESE: RIP Toni Collette, whose twisted scream and ferocious tenacity was just another reminder that her surprise nomination almost two decades ago was such a blessing. For those of you who are sad for her loss, I can only imagine she'd ask that you stop wearing that fucking face on your face.
ERIC BLUME: Was it too much, too soon for Damien Chazelle? He followed his brilliant, Oscar-winning work on La La Land with the equally demanding First Man, which scored a few technical nods but not much else. Chazelle had one of the most difficult directing assignments of the year, which he nailed with beautiful subtlety and soaring panache, and his name should certainly have replaced Adam McKay's. And it's a true curiosity that Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Justin Hurwitz's score, and the film itself aren't among our nominees. No worries, though: time will be extraordinarily kind to First Man.
TIM BRAYTON: In a generally not-too-horrifying morning, the one sour note was Ethan Hawke failing to get in for his hushed, heavily interior performance as a turbulent priest in First Reformed. Given the film's Best Original Screenplay nod, we know that it was on the Academy's radar, but alas, this wonderfully subtle, haunting work was no match for fake teeth or a ludicrous Italian accent.
SEAN MCGOVERN: John. David. Washington. BlackKklansman scored some significant nominations and I'm absolutely thrilled about that. But while it's arguable that Adam Driver's role had more dramatic edge, the whole film hinges on JDW's ability to stay cool, be clever, deliver pithy dialogue and act a whole range of emotional beats. This is one thing about the Actor category that annoys me - with a few notable exceptions, young actors never receive their dues. Whereas over in Actress, it's so common to see a young, blonde (white) ingenue being coronated. We've seen a thankful shift in this recently, thank goodness. But year after year I find myself desperate to find the Best Actor category interesting.
WHO HAVE YOU BEEN MOURNING THESE PAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS?
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Related Articles:
• 12 things we learned from the noms
• Adams vs Weisz, Round Two
• Best Picture Silliness
• Deep Cut Oscar Trivia
• Mourning the Snubs
• How to Stage the Original Song Performances
• Nomination Index (individual charts still being updated)
Reader Comments (56)
You Were Never Really Here, Blindspotting, The Rider, The Death of Stalin, Leave No Trace, The Party.
Literally my current top 6 (tho I watched Cold War yesterday and that, along with The Favourite, may jump).
Damn.
Toni especially and it's so true it's already turning into one of those they didn't nominate her,also the supporting men and women who couldn't get a foot in the door due to them not being in a big flashy Oscar pictures but Dafoes nod gives me a ray of light that they do watch screeners.
An idea for "you saw this so why" Rachel Getting married deserves it's own post,Winger forever!!!
I cried reading the text to Leave no Trace and Eighth Grade. :(
I mourning Leave no Trace, The Rider, Suspiria, Nicholas Hoult, Alessandro Nivola, Tom Yorke, Fantastic Beasts at Production Design, M:I Fallout, Tully, Charlize Théron, TILDA, TILDA, TILDA! T.T
I even make a game... "Replacement Oscars":
Which nominations do you change if you could?
Just name the movie and their nomination replacement. Go!
GREEN BOOK
Best Picture - to Leave no Trace
Original Screenplay - to The Rider
Editing - to Leave no Trace
A STAR IS BORN
Best Picture - to The Rider
Actress - to Charlize Theron (Tully)
Supporting Actor - to Nicholas Hoult (The Favourite)
Cinematography - to The Rider
Adapted Screenplay - to Leave no Trace
BLACK PANTHER
Original Score - to Fantastic Beasts 2
Production Design - to Fantastic Beasts 2
Sound Editing - to M:I Fallout
Sound Mixing - to M:I Fallout
BOHEMIAN RAPSODY
Best Picture - to If Beale Street Could Talk
Editing - If Beale Street Could Talk
Sound Editing - to Ready Player One
Sound Mixing - to Ready Player One
ROMA
Original Screenplay - to Tully
Supporting Actress - to Tilda Swinton (Suspiria)
BLACKKKLASMAN
Supporting Actor - to Alessandro Nivola (Disobedience)
VICE
Directing - to Debra Granik (Leave no Trace)
Makeup - to Suspiria
MARY POPPINS RETURNS
Song - to Suspirium (Suspiria)
Costume Design -To If Beale Street Could Talk
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN
Visual Effects - to M:I Fallout
NEVER LOOK AWAY
Foreign Language Film - to BURNING
Ethan Hawke, Ethan Hawke, Ethan Hawke.
There just wasn't room for a second actor portraying a fictitious character in the Best Actor line-up this year, apparently. (And color me disappointed that two actors in their early 60s were nominated for playing roles that they were far too old for.)
That Viggo nod baffles me and I support his first 2,Bale baffles me to as he was better in Hostiles last year but he's like a Day Lewis to them,Cooper i totally get and he is giving a real performance of a non famous person,Malek tries but the shoes were to large for any1 to fill properly,Dafoe I haven't seen.
The Academy does have an aversion not only to young actors (so many over the years) or movie stars (Gosling), but to "movie star filmmakers."
Think about all of the great young filmmakers who have had difficulty getting nominated this year and in the past: Nolan, Coogler, now Chazelle this year. On occasion they spring for one of them like Chazelle on La La Land or Mendes on American Beauty, but more often than not the director's branch go for old guys and European artists.
The dismissal of Widows and the underwhelming response to Beale Street. Suspiria (2018) you're the female centered Darron Aronofsky movie he fails to make every time he attempts to make one. I love Timothee Chalamet. So adorable French and fresh face. Give him nominations because he's pretty. Give him his things.
Sure there are some great snubs but for me this is the best year Birdman's one. Roma is something above the heavens, Blackkklansman and The Favourite are wonderful, Cold War in directing. Three movies very divisive like A star is born, Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, but who loved (or hated) them truly did. A BLACK SUPERHERO movie. THREE foreign films in Cinematography. The best Willem Dafoe ever. Melissa Mccarthy and Richard E Grant. Sure not everybody get in, but there a lot of strong movies who fortunately made it.
I very badly wanted Eighth Grade to get the screenplay nomination that went to Vice. I would’ve also voted for it over Roma or Green Book.
I also regret the absence of Burning in Best Foreign Language Film, although if you made me choose between that and Shoplifters I’m glad the latter got in. Hirokazu Kore-eda is a favourite director of mine, and knowing the Academy Foreign branch’s middlebrow tastes and (yes) anti-Asian bias, it was between those two, so I’m happy for HKE. South Korea is up there with Thailand and Turkey on the list of countries not yet nominated whose national cinema I’m most excited about! I hope Apichatpong Weerasethakul or Nuri Bilge Ceylan sneaks up on us one day and nabs a nomination out of nowhere, like Aki Kaurismäki did in 2002.
I love Willem Dafoe too much to be upset that he stole a nomination from Ethan Hawke or John David Washington, but ideally all three of them would be there at the expense of Cooper, Malek, Mortensen, or Bale. (Any of the four of them, really.)
Either Leave No Trace or The Death of Stalin would’ve been preferable to the nomination of A Star Is Born’s screenplay. I’d have preferred for Black Panther to be nominated too, though I’m not sure what I’d cut. (I don’t think Black Klansman was especially well-written, but I love Spike too much to wantonly cut him out.)
Replace Adam McKay with either Paul Schrader, Debra Granik, or Ryan Coogler, and Best Director would’ve been perfect.
I’d have much, much preferred Michael B. Jordan to Sam Rockwell in Supporting Actor. (Russell Hornsby and Steven Yeun would both also have deserved the slot, although neither had a prayer.)
I love Amy Adams, but either Thomasin McKenzie or Michelle Yeoh would’ve been significantly more deserving this year.
I like Melissa McCarthy a lot, but had hoped that either Toni Collette or Elsie Fisher would be nominated in her place. (Elsie Fisher is the shit!)
I think that’s it? There’s likely more, but that’s all that immediately springs to mind.
Eventually more and more people will discover Wildlife and there will come a time when everybody will say, how did Carey Mulligan get so little attention and awards recognition for THAT performance?!
Nobody mentioned Elizabeth Debicki yet?
Timothee Chalamet x10, First Man and Ethan Hawke.
I'm bummed about all kinds of things every Oscar morning, but the one that stung the most for me this year was JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON. So effortless, relaxed and funny.
It's not the kind of performance that gets noticed, but I thought that at least if Ethan Hawke misses out, it would be to Washington's benefit. An actor category with neither of them has me feeling all 2014 when Jake, Ralph and David Oyelowo all managed to miss out.
Who cares about the age of the actors? Their age is not relevant in the film, so there's no reason to care that the real people were younger. Besides, fat and all, Mortenson doesn't look in his late 50s.
It's baffling that anyone is baffled by Bale's performance playing a known character, where all the ticks are right and the transformation itself is pretty exceptional. Worthy performance that's being criticized for being the very things it is not (along with the film being divisive). He misses my top 5, but worthy nonetheless.
Anyway, the whinging is unfortunate. Should be a thread focusing on the goods that were overlooked, not dwelling on what wasn't. Dwelling ain't even lamenting.
Patricia Clarkson so good in The Party.
Got to disagree about the Oscars still being anti young lead. They literally nominated Chalamet AND Kaluuya last year. And Malek is only a year or two older than JDW.
Washington's performance was an unconventional and understated one, and they always find it hard to get noticed alongside the BALES and MALEKS and MORTENSENS of the Oscar race.
It's actually distressing that performances of such quality (i.e. Hawke and Collette) can't even get nominated for any form of industry award whilst some (naming no names) piss poor impressions and lacklustre turns get Oscar nominated with surprising ease.
It was never going to happen but a shout out also to:
Elsie Fisher
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Kathryn Hahn
Charlize Theron
Thomasin Mackenzie
Ben Foster
John C. Reilly (The Sister's Brothers)
Paul Giamatti
Joaquin Phoenix
Alessandro Nivola
Rafael Casal
Steven Yeun
Alex Wolff
Tom Waits
Michelle Yeoh
Sissy Spacek
Claire Foy
Jong-seo Jeon
Kayli Carter
Me but you shouldn't see the ticks etc and Bale you know this is him doing Cheney and very obviously,nothing felt grounded or true in his performance.
me--
what's happening to Vice and Green Book is the left wing version of the right wing reactionary response to First Man. None of those movies made spectacular money (viewership low so discussion malleable) but the conversations are driven by the most incensed people.
Truth is they're all pretty solid movies with very good qualities that are worth seeing and appreciating! guess that's less interesting than apoplexy.
It's not mourning because it never had a chance, but Sorry To Bother You was the cinematic experience of the year for me. An ingenious satire that to me rivals Dr. Strangelove and Brazil in its satiric brilliance. Give it time and hopefully a long, illustrious career for Boots Riley, and I believe we will look back on this as one of the great movies of the decade.
Academy voters need LensCrafters. They will ALWAYS go for the big performance, instead of really looking for the truth in a performance. Same thing last year. Hawke should be winning this thing and he's not even nominated. Cooper plays it in a lower register to make it real, and he's now No. 3 behind gimmicky Bale and Malek. So predictable and sad. Reminds me of three years ago when Michael Caine's sublime work in Youth was overlooked for Leo's histrionics. Sigh.
Toni, Ethan and Timothy...
The snubs of "First Man" are definitely the most galling. There was no 2018 film as technically virtuosic or artistically accomplished. Even if it was going to miss Editing and Cinematography - baffling as that is - HOW on earth did it miss SCORE? I think we all deserve a real explanation here. The omission is as egregious as "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" from Documentary.
And while we're on technical achievements, Laxton should have been a shoo-in for "Beale Street." Even ASC stiffed him. Beyond absurd.
"Their age is not relevant in the film, so there's no reason to care that the real people were younger."
Gauguin makes a reference to the fact that he and Van Gogh are the same age (maybe he even says that Van Gogh is younger? I don't recall, but there is some discussion of Van Gogh's age), but Dafoe looks old enough to be Oscar Isaac's father. Most people who go to a Van Gogh biopic are also aware that the artist didn't live to be an old man. Dafoe's casting was massively distracting in that film, and if he were a woman playing a real-life figure 26 years her junior, it would have been constantly joked about.
You're correct, Viggo is a lot younger looking than Dafoe, but that doesn't mean that his age is irrelevant to the film; in the early 1960s, it would have been unusual for a 60-year-old man to have tiny tots.
Joaquin Phoenix, Brady Jandreau, Chloe Zhao, Nic Hoult, and Boots Riley (for the script)
And apropos of Sorry to Bother You - it's too bad there's not a "Supporting Cast" category (sure Stanfield was good - but the people around him were a delight). Thinking about the debates over category fraud, maybe that would be another way to honor usually-supporting actors, since it seems almost any individual prize will often be carved out for a more traditional star or celebrity.
Blindspotting
Widows
Ethan Hawke
Toni Collette
I'll stop there.
Widows.
All year people tried to make space for popcorn movies (Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, Hereditary) on prestige lists with mixed success. To me, Widows most successfully merged broad entertainment with high art. It was right there, Academy!
Also a moment (just a moment) of sadness for Nicole Kidman.
Paddington 2. Sam Rockwell's spot should have gone to Hugh Grant.
Co-sing Eric Blume's piece plus Debicki and Kaaluya.
Suzanne, you're right. I love Dafoe, and he has a facial resemblance to Van Gogh. But the fact that he's so much older than the actual person fatally affects the storytelling. Van Gogh, as an artist, died young, and that is a different story than the passing of a 60-year-old. And the casting makes this painfully obvious.
I really thought that Roberts and Kidman would get there based on star power and excellent performances this year.
I'm mourning for Ethan Hawke... there are so many others I would have wanted to be nominated, but he is the one who seemed to stand the best chance and for whom there is no excuse that he is not nominated (with so many mentions from critics groups all over the country and the fact that First Reformed got an Original Screenplay nomination, no excuse!!!)... I will also mourn that Leave No Trace did not catch fire in time, that First Man was shut out of Cinematography, Score and Supporting Actress (and Picture for that matter, but I had made my peace with that one by now) and Blindpotting never having had a chance (such a brilliant piece of filmmaking)...
Toni. Toni. Toni.
Glad she's getting the mentions she deserves. Collette's performance was the highlight of the year for me. I still think about her in "Hereditary" daily and don't see that stopping anytime soon. Her work is surprising, exciting, moving, devastating - constantly taking us new, uncomfortable places. Awards are fun, but legacy is what really matters and Collette's brave work in this film will live on.
At least Burning made the shortlist, that's the first time since the Oscars publicized a 9-film list. There have been some really shameful snubs of that country's premium cinema like Spring Summer Fall Winter & Spring, Oasis, Mother, and Secret Sunshine. The quality of Korean submissions had gone down a bit recently until this year.
Kidman needs to aim for prestigious PG-13 material because her R rated movies mean restricted from Academy voters' taste.
PG-13 Kidman
(2017) Lion
(2010) Rabbit Hole
(2002) The Hours
(2001) Moulin Rouge!
I grieve for Timothee Chalamet. Once again a deserving terrific young actor is ignored to give way for older actors. Nat dislikes his performance, but in my book, he gave an award worthy performance. I’ll take him over Rockwell anytime. As for him being a lead in the film, Ali is nominated, isn’t he.
To the one who said young actors are not ignored, look at the Oscar actor nominations from the very beginning and tell me how many of them have been nominated,
julia roberts for ben is back
one of her best performances, totally unrewarded. not even a nomination from the satellite awards. jesus.
The Rider for BP
Rosamund Pike for Best Actress.
Ethan Hawke (but happy about Schrader)...
'Annihilation' not being nominated for any of the below the line categories is sad. The sound was impeccable (that terrifying creature that can mimic humans), and while the visual look of the movie is credited to a combined effort of VFX, production design, and cinematography, it's still one of the most visually striking movies of the year.
NICOLE FUCKING KIDMAN
Oh WE THE ANIMALS, you were too arty, too impressionistic, too subtle, too working class, too brown and too queer for this year of hit-them-over-the-head messaging. (Happily, with ROMA, there's an arty, impressionistic, subtle, working class, brown -- though not queer -- masterwork in the mix.) Raul Castillo, you anchored the film with an unsettling combo of charisma, anger, energy, and failure, and held your own with a cast of untrained child actors. Sheila Vand, you beautifully expressed the impossibility of the situation for mothers living with domestic violence, paycheck to paycheck, using face and gesture to deliver a near silent-movie performance. Bravo all around.
Tully wasn't going to happen. I knew Tully wasn't going to happen. I'm still sad that Tully didn't happen. This was their chance to correct the wrong of ignoring Young Adult and somehow this film with a likable protagonist and more relatable story was further away than my beloved monster movie comedy.
Leave No Trace
Eighth Grade
First Man
Ethan Hawke
Timothee Chalamet
Alex Wolff (although he never had a chance)
Toni Collette
Rosamund Pike
Claire Foy
Nicole Kidman
Margot Robbie
@Robert G - yes to Tully, Charlize + Diablo - should have been nominated for this year and "Young Adult" as well.
Joaquin Phoenix and You Were Never Really Here.
Emily Blunt.
Claire Foy.
For me it’s Toni Collette. I assume she was close, but hopefully the attention she did get will lead to bigger roles for her.
I think the four biggest snubs - according to the critics - were Ethan Hawke, Toni Collette, Emily Blunt and Nicole Kidman ( for Boy Erased). The EXCESSIVE nominations were an historic error in the Acadeny. It is a good film but the fact it is screened on television will mean the death for movies playing on the big screen. Lets hope Roma DOES NOT WIN.
The Rider, Leave No Trace, The Death of Stalin, Lucas Hedges and the underperformances of First Man and Mary Poppins Returns
It was never going to happen, but Michelle Pfeiffer in 'Kyra'.
I thought Nicole would get a nod too.
And I was hoping for Collette too.
Oh wow, a lot to respond to!
markgordonuk;
I'm speaking after the fact. His character doesn't have huge moments, he just establishes himself and makes the movie at least respectable. And tho I think McKay did alright from behind the camera, his screenplay is bad. The movie is annoying and too in my face, but Bale carries it along, constantly developing, ultimately an enigma.
JF; Well said.
Suzanne;
To be fair, I missed At Eternity's Gate and was just annoyed enough to lump it in with Green Book. But Schnabel's film are impressionistic and I got the impression that the character was more isolated. If they reference his age, that's something. At the same time, if his age isn't a relevant factor throughout the movie, I'm not worried.
Mortenson looks like he's in his 40's, and he's beating up on everyone. So it's believable to me, as I honestly forgot how old he was and just assumed the character was in his 40's. Had I never seen Viggo before and they told me he was 39 I wouldn't lay in shock.
SanFranCinema; Maybe a lot of We The Animals is chalk full of subtlety or nuance, and maybe it's an oddly quiet film, but I don't know that the editing could ever allow it to be subtle. And I don't think it's too queer by any stretch. The queerness is a fact of the film, but in all honesty gay characters are not frowned upon. Nothing about the film reflects queerness in any overt or potentially (for those who are uncomfortable or resistant) assertive way.
In itself that's not meant as a criticism of the film, but I'm surprised people feel that (and sorry to pick on one thing you said).