NEW YORK (AP) — It’s been a year since Hollywood became the first streaming service to win Best Picture for Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water.
Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Hoi Kuan of Comeback Kid, former child star of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” Released in March, the A24 film proved an unlikely Oscar executive, defying the expectations of its creators. Yeo is the first Asian actor to be nominated for Best Actress.
“Even just being nominated means recognition, love from your colleagues,” said an “overwhelmed” Yeo, who called from London. What that means is that we are seated at the table.
The ten films for Best Picture are: Elvis,” “Quiet on the Western Front,” “Women Talking,” and “Triangle of Sorrow.”
The nominations were announced Tuesday by Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. If last year’s Oscars were dominated by streaming — Apple TV+’s ‘CODA’ wins best work, Netflix wins top 27 nominations — films that lure moviegoers to multiplexes after two years of pandemic make up many of this year’s top contenders.
The first Best Picture nominees were two sequels, “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.” His two films grossed a combined $3.5 billion at the box office. Tom Cruise missed out on an acting nomination, but ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, which brought many moviegoers back to theaters, won Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound for Radha Gaga’s ‘Hold My Hand’. It was nominated for seven categories, including Best Song. Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which was produced in the wake of Chadwick Boseman’s death, also earned his five nominations. Among them, Angela Bassett, who was first nominated for her performance in a Marvel movie, is expected to be the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actress.
Nine of the ten films nominated for Best Picture were released theatrically. “Tar” filmmaker Todd Field, who was nominated for director and screenplay, welcomed it.
“I hope the faith and enthusiasm given to theatrical films will continue,” Field said by phone from Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Looking at previous Guild nominations, Martin McDonagh’s Irish-set dark comedy The Banshees of Inisherin may have the toughest competition for the Academy Award for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” And a quartet of screenplay and acting nominations: Colin Farrell was nominated for Best Actor, Kelly Condon for Best Supporting Actress, and Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan for Best Supporting Actor.
Baz Luhrmann’s dazzling biopic “Elvis,” another summer box office hit, grossed $287.3 million worldwide. Star Austin Butler was nominated for Best Actor, with eight nominations, including nominations for his designs for costumes, sound and production.
Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabermans” struggled to win over audiences, but the director’s autobiographical coming-of-age story earned him his 20th Oscar nomination and his ninth Best Director nomination. . Longtime composer John Williams broke his lifetime record for the most Oscar nominations, becoming the oldest nominee in history at age 90. His 53rd nomination for Williams is second only to his 59th nomination for Walt Disney.
In the highly competitive Best Actress race, “Fabelmans” star Michelle Williams was nominated after passing through the Screen Actors Guild. Ana de Armas, “Blonde”. Cate Blanchett, ‘Tar’, and Andrea Riseborough are late contenders after many celebrities rallied for her performance as an alcoholic West Texas mother in the little-seen ‘To Leslie’ surfaced as Viola Davis (“Woman King”) and Daniel Deadweiler (“Till”) were specifically excluded from this category.
Only one streaming title made it into the top-end video space. It’s a German World War I film, “Silence on the Western Front.” For the first time in years, Netflix is without a front-runner for best picture, but ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ garnered an unexpected nine nominations, including best international film and best adaptation. The streaming service also has top contenders for animated films like Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, as well as titles like Marcel the Crustacean in Shoes, Puss in Boots: Last Wish, and Sea Beast. It was also nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film. and “Turning Red”.
In addition to Butler and Pharrell, the best actor contenders are: Brendan Fraser was lauded for his comeback performance as an overweight recluse in “The Whale,” while Bill Nighy stunned in “Living,” and one of his most critically acclaimed. Winner of Paul Mescal’s Film of the Year award for Charlotte Wells’ father-daughter story Aftersun.
Brian Tyree Henry got his first Oscar nomination for his supporting role in ‘Causeway’ starring opposite Jennifer Lawrence. (Tyree said in a statement: “To the random guy in the elevator who saw me screaming on the news, thank you for holding me. All at Once” actor Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu were nominated, along with Hong Chau (“The Whale”), Condon and Bassett.
Quan and Chau, both children of Vietnam War refugees, and California-born Shu and Malaysian-born Yeo are the most acting nominations ever for an Asian or Asian-American actor. (Some count Merle Oberon, who hails from Sri Lanka and Wales and was the first Asian to be nominated for Best Actress in 1936, but she hid her ancestry.)
For Quan, who was much-loved in the 1980s for The Goonies and Temple of Doom, nominations were once an immeasurable pinnacle. After his acting opportunities dried up, Quan quit acting for years before being offered the role of Weymond. Quan, who called from Los Angeles, recalled that he dreamed of attending the Academy Awards as a child.
“It seemed very outrageous. I thought that dream died, especially when I had to step away from acting for so many years,” Kuan said. It was that I wanted.”
After a series of groundbreaking wins for female filmmakers in the Best Director category, including 2021’s Chloe Zhao (‘Nomadland’) and last year’s Jane Campion (‘The Power of the Dog’) , no woman was nominated for Best Director. But in the best picture group, one of the final slots for grabs went to Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking,” an allegory of sexual assault and justice, which she also credited for her most dramatized screenplays. Nominated.
Ultimately, the Oscar push for Indian action sensation ‘RRR’ landed the lone nomination. MM Keeravaani’s ‘Naatu Naatu’ is the best song. Palme d’Or-winning Swedish director Ruben Ostrund’s satirical film Triangle of Sadness earned him three nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Along with ‘Silence on the Western Front’, nominated for Best International Film were: “Argentina, 1985” (Argentina). “Close” (Belgium); “EO” (Poland); “The Quiet Girl” (Ireland first). The category has been criticized for allowing national governments to choose submissions, with Iranian director Jafar Panahi, whose “No Bears” was hailed as one of his best works of 2022. , was imprisoned earlier this year.
Current politics was also front and center in the documentary category. Candidates include “Navalny”, a close-up portrait of imprisoned Russian dissident Alexy Navalny. “A house made of debris” about a half-baked house in Ukraine. “All the Beauty and the Blood” by Laura Poitras about Nan Goldin’s opioid activism. The volcanologist’s romance “Fire of Love” and his Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” depict the efforts of his three men to save New Delhi’s pollution-ravaged raptors.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences certainly celebrates the best of blockbusters in the field of photography. The domestic box office gross of $1.574 billion was a record at the time of the nomination, according to data firm Comscore. Last year’s awards ceremony looked like a comeback edition before the “slap” began to define the ceremony. The Academy then banned Will Smith from attending for the next ten years. He could still have been nominated, but Smith’s performance as the runaway slave in “Emancipation” was not well received by voters.
But bigger concerns swirl in the film industry. The last year has seen flashes of theater-winning comebacks, like the success of Top Gun: Maverick, but few dramas have had stellar results. Majors ticket sales have only recovered about 70% of their pre-pandemic business this year, in part due to the inconsistent flow of his releases. Meanwhile, streaming service stock prices plummeted as Wall Street turned to streaming services not just to attract subscribers, but to make a profit.
Last year’s Oscar broadcast attracted 16.6 million viewers, up from a record-low audience of 10.5 million for the pandemic-damaged 2021 telecast, according to Nielsen. This year, ABC will bring back Jimmy Kimmel to host his March 12 ceremony.
For more information on this year’s Oscars, please visit http://www.apnews.com/academy-awards.
