Top 5 Oscar Snubs and Surprises
With the Academy Award nominations released this week, we take a look at five of the biggest snubs and surprises for Oscar glory this year.
There weren’t too many shocking pronouncements with the Oscar nominations this week, though there were a few snubs and surprises worth mentioning. Here’s our rundown of some of the most noticeable snubs and surprises from the starting line of the 2017 Oscar race.
Snub: Amy Adams. Look, I’ve never really thought that Adams had a lot of talent. She was a cute, one-note actress (that had somehow managed to garner five previous nominations). But even I had to turn my head this year with her performances in both Arrival and Nocturnal Animals, where she started to show that there might be more going on there. So it came as a pretty big surprise that she was snubbed for Arrival, which was nominated for Best Picture (also sort of strange, being that it’s a sci-fi/genre picture, which generally get the snub).
Surprise: Isabelle Huppert. If Adams was a sad snub, then Huppert was a thrilling surprise. Her amazing turn in Elle should have been curtailed by the movie itself being passed over for Best Foreign Language Film. That said, she did also have a surprise Golden Globe win, which didn’t hurt in securing the Oscar nomination.
Surprise: Mel Gibson. Are we really ready for a Hollywood redemption story yet for this notorious racist and anti-semite? I’d say no, though Hacksaw Ridge was a decent movie, where is Scorsese’s Silence or even Clint Eastwood for Sully? The odds of Gibson winning either Best Director or Best Picture are remote, but it’s still a bit of a surprise.
Snub: Finding Dory. It’s probably a surprise to many that this is a snub, yet, I don’t think it really is. It was a watered down sequel that failed to capture the magic of the first film. And in a year with animated fare like Kubo and the Two Strings and Zootopia, you needed to try harder than that. They don’t automatically get handed a little gold man for being Pixar.
Bonus Surprise: Five Black Directors. We see a curtailing of the #oscarsowhite trend this year. Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is the 4th black director in history to be nominated for Best Director (John Singleton, Lee Daniels, and Steve McQueen are the others). In addition to Jenkins, Ava DuVernay, Ezra Edelman, Raoul Peck, and Roger Ross Williams are each up for their documentaries.
About the Author
Craig Silliphant is a D-level celebrity with delusions of grandeur. A writer, critic, creative director, editor, broadcaster, and occasional filmmaker, his thoughts have appeared on radio, television, in print, and on the web. He is a juror on the Polaris Music Prize and the Juno Awards. He loves Saskatoon. He has horrible night terrors and apocalyptic dreams.
