What I Think of the Oscar Nominations

 I watched the Oscar nominations this past Tuesday, and there were the usual surprises.  But I want to focus on a few omissions in particular: Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson and Caitriona Balfe.

 The biggest shocker was no Best Actress nomination for Lady Gaga in The House of Gucci. With her status as the only Best Actress hopeful to be nominated in all four major precursors (Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, Screen Actors’ Guild and BAFTA), Lady Gaga was thought to be an absolute lock along with Nicole Kidman of Being the Ricardos. Plus, the Screen Actors’ Guild gave The House of Gucci three nominations for its awards: Best Actress for Lady Gaga, Best Supporting Actor for Jared Leto and Best Ensemble Cast.  Surely the actors were behind Gaga and her film, or so we thought.

Actors who are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences clearly didn’t share the love this year’s SAG-AFTRA Nominating Committee members had for The House of Gucci and Lady Gaga, who was, in NCAA Tournament Bracketology terms, one of the “first four out,” edged out by Penelope Cruz for Parallel Mothers, who was almost certainly the last Best Actress candidate to be nominated.  Lady Gaga also became the record fourth straight winner of the New York Film Critics’ Circle’s Best Actress award not to be Oscar nominated, after mostly out-of-left-field choices from much lower profile films with minimal Oscar prospects: Regina Hall (Support the Girls), Lupita Nyong’o (Us) and Sidney Flanigan (Never Rarely Sometimes Always).

Yet as shocking as Lady Gaga’s absence from the list of Oscar nominees was, it probably didn’t elicit as much anger as Jennifer Hudson not being nominated for playing Aretha Franklin in Respect.  Ms. Hudson’s absence meant another year with a virtually all-white roster of Best Actress nominees.

I suspect lack of precursor nods hurt Jennifer Hudson in the end.  Especially damaging to Ms. Hudson was losing out to surprise nominee Marion Cotillard for a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe Award nomination (assuming Ms. Hudson was entered in the Musical or Comedy classification).  If anyone can enlighten me about whether Jennifer Hudson was on the Drama or Musical/Comedy lead actress Golden Globe nominating ballot, please let me know in the comments section, but it’s clear to me that not getting a Golden Globe nomination did fatal damage to Ms. Hudson’s Oscar prospects that her SAG award nomination failed to overcome.

Then there’s the case of Caitriona Balfe of Belfast, who all awards season long was positioned as a Best Supporting Actress candidate.  Her failure to be nominated may be due to one unique feature of the Oscar nomination decision process:  Academy Actors’ Branch members being free to disregard the studios’ or producers’ preference.  When Academy members filled out their Oscar nominating ballots, hopefully after actually seeing the movies, I think quite a few of them thought to themselves, “Hey, wait a minute. Caitriona Balfe is not a Supporting Actress in Belfast.”  So maybe enough Academy members voted for Ms. Balfe in the Best Actress race to keep her from getting enough first choice votes to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress.  It was probably between Ms. Balfe and The Lost Daughter’s Jessie Buckley for that last Best Supporting Actress spot that remained to be filled.  Plus, I think Academy votes got behind Ms. Balfe’s Belfast co-star Judi Dench, who was an undisputed supporting actress in that movie in terms of screen time and plot importance.

In other Oscar nomination related tidbits, I believe Belfast, with no Film Editing nomination, and Dune, with no Best Director nomination, saw their Oscar Night victory hopes sustain serious damage.  As for how I did in my Oscar nomination predictions, I went 3 for 5 in Best Supporting Actress, 4 for 5 in Best Supporting Actor, 3 for 5 in Best Actress, 4 for 5 in Best Actor, 4 for 5 in Best Director and 8 for 10 in Best Picture.