I’ve just verbalized some reactions to this morning’s Oscar nominations. Click the arrow below — 20 minutes, give or take.
Suddenly and very much out of the blue, Edward Berger‘s All Quiet on the Western Front is the Best Picture frontrunner. Or so it seems to me. There’s no possible basis for a broad-based consensus on Everything Everywhere All At Once (it’s too hated), and The Banshees of Inisherin is respected but not loved…not with those finger stumps and that dead donkey. If I could wave a magic wand I would give the Best Picture Oscar to Top Gun:Maverick, but that’s me.
Friendo to HE: “All Quiet has a lot of noms but zero for acting, and actors are the largest branch of the Academy. Same thing as 1917, which also couldn’t go the distance. In fact, Parasite is the only recent Best Picture winner that didn’t have at least one nominated actor. Before that you have to go all the way back to Braveheart, which isn’t a bad comparison for All Quiet, except it at least had its director [Mel Gibson] nominated, which All Quiet doesn’t have either. Perhaps all meaningless, but I still smell an EEAAO win in the making.”
HE to friendo: “No!”