Alternative Oscars 2018: Who & What Should Have Been Nominated

Another year, another Academy Awards ceremony is upon us. This year, the Academy have actually made most great choices for their major categories. Almost all the Best Picture nominees are well-deserved, there’s some nice surprises in the Screenplay categories like Logan and The Big Sick, and there’s a nice amount of diversity amongst the acting and directing categories. However, there’s always room for improvement, and here are, in my personal opinion, the people and films who were overlooked at this year’s Oscars for whatever reason. I want to stress again that these are my personal picks, and that I am only choosing picks for the major categories: Best Picture, Director, Actor/Actress and Supporting Actor/Actress.

 

Best Picture – Blade Runner 2049

When Blade Runner 2049 failed to perform well at the box office, I wasn’t surprised that it also failed to get major traction at this year’s Oscars. Nevertheless, Denis Villeneuve’s sequel, which I think actually surpasses Ridley Scott’s 1982 original, had the potential to be this year’s Mad Max: Fury Road.

Both are belated sci-fi sequels that transcend their blockbuster roots to become a prestige awards contender. While Fury Road embraced kinetic napalm bombast, 2049 embraced cerebral meditations on humanity and artificial intelligence as well as a visual landscape by Roger Deakins and Dennis Gassner that blew all other blockbusters out of the water. Blade Runner 2049 is the kind of sci-fi film Hollywood needs to make more often, and one that deserved proper acknowledgement at the Oscars.

 

Best Director – Denis Villeneuve

I’ll try not to repeat my last paragraph too much, but much of what made 2049 work so well was Denis Villeneuve, who has quickly established himself as one of the top directors working today. Although the Academy did acknowledge his work on Arrival, 2049 was an even greater showcase for just what Villeneuve is capable of when given the reins to a big tentpole feature, honestly surpassing what even Ridley Scott could have done had he been the one to direct the Blade Runner sequel.

In fairness to the Academy, though, it would be incredibly hard to say who out of their Best Director nominees should be taken out in favour of Villeneuve, all of whom deserve the nomination as well. Hopefully Villeneuve will be around long enough for the Academy to acknowledge him for a future film. Perhaps his Dune adaptation?

 

Best Actor – Hugh Jackman, Logan

I originally wanted to pick James Franco’s turn as Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist for my Best Actor snub, and I still agree that he was. However, considering the social and political climate of this year’s awards season and the allegations against Franco in the past month, I completely understand the Academy avoiding him. With that in mind, I too will instead give my nomination to Hugh Jackman’s woefully underrated final bow as the Wolverine in Logan. Not that the film itself was underrated, but considering that the film received a Best Adapted Screenplay nod this year, I would have loved for the Academy to extend that same olive branch to Jackman, who gives not only his best turn as Wolverine but one of his best performances period.

It’s a shame when a performance like Denzel Washington’s in Roman J. Israel, Esq. is nominated just for the sake of it, when there are performances this year that are overlooked and deserve that recognition. Jackman is easily one of the best leading men in Hollywood right now, but his skills as an actor I think have been somewhat forgotten about considering his blockbuster background. He has been nominated before for Les Misérables, and it would have been great to see that same recognition for Logan.

 

Best Actress – Vicky Krieps, Phantom Thread

Phantom Thread would have easily made my list of favourite films from 2017 had it been released in the UK last year, and one of those reasons would have been the great turn from Vicky Krieps as Daniel Day-Lewis’s ostensibly last leading lady. Those who haven’t seen the film will probably assume that Phantom Thread is a gothic romance a la Rebecca, with Day-Lewis playing the domineering patriarch with a dark past who controls Krieps’s character both emotionally and psychologically.

While that description is true to a point, Krieps’s Alma is in fact a force to be reckoned with in her own way, and her character is key in completely blindsiding your expectations as to what you think you are watching. While the Best Actress nominees this year are also very strong, I may have perhaps switched out Meryl Streep for Krieps.

 

Best Supporting Actor – Adam Sandler, The Meyerowitz Stories

Now putting the name Adam Sandler next to the phrase “Academy Award nominee” might seem like heresy to some people, and under many circumstances I would completely agree. However, similarly to how Nicolas Cage has been labelled a “bad actor” merely for being in bad films, so too has Adam Sandler, who I don’t think is at all given the credit he is due when he gives genuinely noteworthy performances. Punch-Drunk Love is one everybody calls out (and for good reason), but his turn in Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories was one of my favourite performances this year from any actor.

What makes Adam Sandler seem out of his depth in his worst comedies is what makes him fantastic in his more dramatic performances: the fact that he seems more like a guy on the street with emotional problems than he does leading man material. The weird bursts of anger, the schlubby persona, they all fit Danny Meyerowitz, a son whose wasted his life trying to please a father who resents him. As much as I love Woody Harrelson in Three Billboards, we all know Sam Rockwell is going to take home the Oscar this year, so I personally would have swapped Harrelson for Sandler and given him a chance to be seen as something more than just the man-child he insists on being in his other films.

 

Best Supporting Actress – Holly Hunter, The Big Sick

One of the sort-of-not-really surprises at this year’s Oscars was a Best Original Screenplay nod to The Big Sick, the autobiographical rom-com about the tumultuous beginnings of Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s real-life relationship. However, I would have gone the extra mile and nominated Holly Hunter for her fantastic turn as Emily’s mother who is initially suspicious of this random man claiming to be her daughter’s boyfriend.

While all the performances are great in this really sweet and thoughtful rom-com, Hunter’s stands out in particular, both in the dramatic and in the comedic scenes, such as when she verbally spars off against a bigoted frat boy at one of Kumail’s gigs. Like with Adam Sandler, comedy actors often get shafted at the nominations for Oscars, however considering the rather heavy subject matter that undercurrents the film, I was still a little surprised that Hunter was snubbed. Personally, I would have replaced Octavia Spencer from The Shape of Water, a good performance but nothing too different from what we have seen from her before.