‘La La Land’ on song with 14 Oscar nods
ROMANTIC showbiz musical La La Land topped the Oscars nominations list this week with a whopping 14 nods, tying an all-time record, as black actors were honoured in all acting categories for the first time.
Damien Chazelle’s whimsical tribute to Hollywood’s Golden Age of musicals scored nods for best picture, best director and for its two stars – Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Its 10 other nominations came in nine categories.
The haul ties the film with Titanic and All About Eve for the most nominations ever.
“When you mention those movies, it makes my head spin even more than it’s spinning. I’m a little speechless,” Chazelle, in Beijing to promote his film, told trade magazine Variety.
In second place were sci-fi thriller Arrival and coming-of-age drama Moonlight, tied at eight nominations each.
The 89th Academy Awards will be held on February 26 – the climax of Hollywood’s awards season, to be hosted by late night funnyman Jimmy Kimmel.
With a record six black actors nominated, this year’s crop clearly reflected a push by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters to show more diversity after the #OscarsSoWhite controversy of the past two years that had prompted calls for a boycott of the annual bash.
Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris are firsttime nominees for Moonlight, while two-time winner Denzel Washington and multiple nominee Viola Davis are in the running again for their performance in Fences.
Also nominated are past winner Octavia Spencer, a best supporting actress candidate for Hidden Figures, and Ruth Negga, in the best actress category for Loving.
Industry watchers had predicted that Chazelle’s La La Land – buoyed by a record seven Golden Globe awards earlier this month – would triumph at the nominations, but few thought it would tie for the all-time record.
Titanic went on to win 11 Oscars, while All About Eve – starring Bette Davis – won six.
La La Land will vie for best picture honours with eight other films, including Arrival, family drama Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight, the coming-of-age tale of a black man in Miami.
Others in the coveted top category are the film adaptation of August Wilson’s play Fences, Mel Gibson’s bloody World War 2 drama Hacksaw Ridge, the western crime drama Hell or High Water, the real-life tale of Nasa’s black female mathematicians Hidden Figures and Garth Davis’s family drama Lion.
For best actor, Gosling will battle for a golden statuette with Golden Globe winner Casey Affleck ( Manchester by the Sea), Andrew Garfield ( Hacksaw Ridge), Viggo Mortensen ( Captain Fantastic ) and Washington.
In the best actress category, France’s Golden Globe winner Isabelle Huppert was nominated for her performance in the rape-revenge thriller Elle, along with Stone, Negga, Natalie Portman ( Jackie) and Meryl Streep, who earned her record-breaking 20th nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins.
Streep’s nod delighted social media users, who called it a fitting rebuke to President Donald Trump, who described her as “overrated” after she denounced him at the Golden Globes.
In the best supporting actress category, Davis, Spencer and Harris will compete against past Oscar winner Nicole Kidman ( Lion) and Michelle Williams ( Manchester by the Sea), who was nominated three times before.
In the best supporting actor category, Ali will take on Jeff Bridges ( Hell or High Water), Lucas Hedges ( Manchester by the Sea), Michael Shannon ( Nocturnal Animals) and Dev Patel ( Lion) – a British actor of Indian descent.
The foreign films nominated are Land of Mine (Denmark), A Man Called Ove (Sweden), The Salesman (Iran), Tanna (Australia) and Toni Erdmann (Germany).
In the best director category, Mel Gibson’s surprise nomination for the critically acclaimed World War 2 biopic Hacksaw Ridge marks his comeback a decade after being ostracised by Hollywood for an anti-Semitic tirade.
The nominations were also notable in that they marked the first time a streaming service – Amazon Studios – earned a best picture nod, for Manchester by the Sea. — AFP