Gary’s blood, toil, sweat and a few tears
AGLITZY Oscars ceremony with lots of famous faces, dramatic announcements and painful snubs. And that was just the nominees being announced!
The list of runners and riders for this year’s Oscars on March 3 were revealed last week, and there were a few surprises.
Steven Spielberg was snubbed as Best Director for The Post, while Wonder Woman was overlooked for Best Movie.
James Franco wasn’t nominated for Best Actor ,but neither was Tom Hanks . . . again. The last time one of the finest actors of this generation was nominated was all the way back in 2001!
Gary Oldman was weeping after winning a SAG Award for Best Actor for his performance of Winston Churchill last week – well he’d better bring his hankies with him in March.
He’s almost certainly going to win Best Actor. Not even three-time winner Daniel Day Lewis can stand between Gary and his finest hour – well, two hours and five minutes!
The brilliant Frances McDormand is nearly as certain to win Best Actress for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Christopher Nolan – who has made Hollywood about seventy squillion dollars in the past decade or so – has earned his first Best Director nomination, for Dunkirk.
It’s between him and Guillermo del Toro, for The Shape Of Water, in that category.
The Shape Of Water is an odd film – about a woman who falls in love with a sea creature. I like a fish supper as much as the next person, but that seems a bit drastic.
The Oscar ceremony this year will no doubt be dominated by stars highlighting the #MeToo movement, in which women are standing up and demanding an end to abuse and harassment in the industry.
Greta Gerwig has been nominated for her role as director of the drama Lady Bird. She’s only the fifth female Best Director nominee in 91 years – compared to 444 men. No wonder women are a bit scunnered! One thing we’ll be sure of is there won’t be a repeat of last year’s mess with La La Land wrongly being announced as winner of Best Picture.
The accountants who are in charge of the process will have a man in the control room who will memorise all the winners beforehand.
I don’t know if I’d like to be the guy who has to remember Best Live Action Short and Best Sound Design...