In no particular order - see the full list of nominations here.
1. BEST ACTRESS IS, TWO YEARS RUNNING NOW, A CHAOTIC NAIL-BITER
Last season provided us a rare nail-biter as different women kept winning lead actress at the televised shows: Andra Day, Viola Davis, Frances McDormand, Carey Mulligan. This year the nominations themselves have been routinely surprising. In fact the only woman to hit *every* key precursor was Lady Gaga but when the nominations were announced this morning she was the most shocking snub. Meanwhile, Penelope Cruz who'd only won the Volpi Cup and Kristen Stewart, who had struggled in the precursors despite year long "she's going to win!" hoopla both showed up. So we currently have NO idea who is going to win. You can make a case for any of the nominees. And, once again, none of them are in Best Picture nominated films.
2. QUALIFYING RELEASES ARE ALIVE AND WELL (SIGH)
Norway's incredible film The Worst Person in the World scored a surprise nomination in Best Original Screenplay (well deserved) despite only playing for a week unadvertised in theaters to qualify...
Thankfully it's officially out now in 2022). Cyrano, which could have been a major contender in multiple characters with an actual release, scored one nomination (Costume Design) despite perpetually stabbing itself in the foot by not actually coming out. Other qualifiers weren't as lucky (Compartment No 6, A Hero), but it would probably take a few consecutive years wherein every movie that tried this strategy came up black for the distributors to abandon it. (The media likes to argue about the Oscars being irrelevant and how they could stay relevant and one solution we've always offered -- and always been ignored about -- is doing away with the "qualifying" releases loophole. It's anti-moviegoer and anything anti-moviegoer is not good for the long term health of the industry or the Oscars. So even though we worship Worst Person in the World and hope you'll go see it now, we do not respect this particular Oscar strategy.)
3. THE POWER OF THE DOG IS THE UNDISPUTED FRONTRUNNER
While people have theories about Belfast and Don't Look Up winning... and formerly had theories about the ways in which West Side Story or Dune could triumph, The Power of the Dog netted an astounding 12 nominations, even outdoing the expected nomination leader, Dune. What's more with a surprising Jesse Plemons nomination in Best Supporting Actor, its entire quartet of principals is nominated meaning it has the support of the Acting branch, the largest branch in the Academy
4. THE BALANCE OF POWER HAS SHIFTED TO THE STREAMERS
COVID-19 was the world event that the industry couldn't have seen coming but it succeeded in thoroughly shifting the balance of power to the upstart streamers. Among the ten best picture nominees, only half of them (Belfast, Drive My Car, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, West Side Story) had traditional theatrical-only releases. Netflix has yet to secure 3 Best Picture nominees at once but they probably came close this year. Apple TV+ scored their first Best Picture nominee with CODA. And Warner Bros strategy of releasing everything day and date on HBOMax and in theaters only harmed one of their contenders (In the Heights, notably the first real contender out of the gate with this strategy) in terms of perception of success and thus Oscar viability.
5. TICK TICK...BOOM! SURELY JUST-MISSED THE TOP CATEGORY
Despite the three acting nods for Being the Ricards we suspect this lively musical was actually the film in that dread 11th place situation. The musical only received two nominations but the Editing nod suggests it had a lot of support. The Editing branch rarely strays outside of Best Picture style films unless it's for genre spectacle (usually action or sci-fi)... and tick, tick... BOOM! is not even a spectacle in the traditional musical sense. It's worth noting though that its editors Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum also edited In the Heights and The French Dispatch respectively, two films that were rudely completely shut out so we can pretend that their shared nomination is a tribute to those two lovely films.
6. BRADLEY COOPER IS THE NEW WARREN BEATTY?
The actor now has just as many producing nominations (Nightmare Alley, Joker, A Star is Born, American Sniper) as he does acting nominations (A Star is Born, American Sniper, American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook). Four and Four. That's the same tally as legendary Warren Beatty in those fields. Bradley Cooper also has one writing nomination (A Star is Born)... but Beatty still beats his record since he has multiple writing and directing nominations plus a win for Best Director (Reds).
7. KENNETH BRANAGH IS A WINNER... WITHOUT AN OSCAR YET
Kenneth Branagh scored three nominations for Belfast (Screenplay, Picture, and Director)... He has now been nominated in a total of SEVEN different Oscar categories (from his 8 nominations) ... how crazy is that? That's an all time record by the way. The previous record was six categories which both the late Walt Disney and George Clooney accomplished.
8. CRITICS DO HAVE POWER AFTER ALL... BUT ONLY IF THEY REALLY FOCUS IT AND DON'T SHUT UP ABOUT IT
Tiny if revered distributor Janus Films have their second biggest hit of all time with the three hour Japanese drama Drive My Car. That they managed FOUR nominations is entirely due to critical fervor and noise since the company couldn't foot the bill of a traditional Oscar campaign. Critics Awards came through and virtually ignored ALL OTHER foreign language films this year. You could also make a case that constant critical awards for Kristen Stewart helped her survive a rocky precursor season in which her premature frontrunner status got as uncomfortable to swallow as Princess Diana's pearl necklace in a bowl of soup.
9. THE SPECIALTY CATEGORIES ARE BEGINNING TO MERGE
With Flee's historical trio of nominations (Documentary Feature, International Feature, Animated Feature) following closely on the heels of a couple of doubles from Honeyland (2019 International Feature and Doc Feature nominees) and Romania's Collective (2020 International Feature and Doc Feature) we now have an official trend on our hands. Expect a lot more countries to start submitting docs in International Feature now that the Oscar's committees are so receptive to double and even triple-dipping.
10. BEST PICTURE (AND LEAD ACTOR) COATTAILS ARE THE WAY TO PREDICT SUPPORTING SURPRISES
We've known this to be true for some time so why didn't we predict Jessie Buckley, JK Simmons, Judi Dench, and Jesse Plemons? They were all mild surprises (if not shocks) in their categories given that they didn't have much precursor love.
11. SPAIN SHOULD REALLY SUBMIT PEDRO ALMODÓVAR ALL THE TIME
In theory we love the idea of spreading the wealth but when your country is home to the greatest living filmmaker maybe submit him every time and reap the benefits? Parallel Mothers with its nominations for Best Actress and Best Score would probably have scored a third nomination in International Feature, despite impressive competition.
12. TBA
Something else will come to us shortly...