The Oscar nominations were announced earlier this week and, as usual, there are more than a few talking points regarding who deserves to be there, but isn’t, and who doesn’t deserve it, but is anyway. I must say that this year’s Best Picture nominees are probably the most boring lot we’ve had in recent history: only “The Favourite” and “Roma” deserve to be up there, perhaps even “BlacKkKlansman”, the rest are just your usual Oscar fare, including the most by-the-numbers biopic of a celebrated artist, an uninspired musical drama, your usual biopic of a political figure, a classic feel-good dramedy with two beloved actors, and an above average superhero film. The inclusion of “Black Panther” is in fact something new, but honestly, as a fan of superhero and comic book movies myself, I am not happy with the inclusion of “Black Panther”. There have been way better films of the genre released in recent years that deserved a nomination, just last yera we had the masterpiece that “Logan” was, but since “Black Panther” goes all political on its message, has a predominantly african-american cast and superficially throws african traditions into the mix, that means it must be good, right? That’s how the Oscars work.

That being said, beyond the main category there are a few positives to take out of the nominations. “Roma” leads the way and is probably now the frontrunner to win Best Picture, we’ll have to wait and see if the Academy will give it to a foreign film. Speaking of which, foreign language films received a total of 19 nominations (I think, could be wrong, but its around those numbers), which must be a record in and of itself. There are three foreign directors in the run for Best Director, two of which were nominated for non-english language films, and three out of five Best Cinematography nominees are foreign films as well. I do hope this might be the start of a more open and less USA-centric Oscars, though we’ll have to wait and see.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the nominations overall. I’ll post my predictions a little later, as usual, as of now its still too early to tell. Now I want to do something different: seeing the huge amount of snubs we got this year, and they were plenty, given that 2018 was such a great year for film and the Academy went for the most uninspired choices as usual, instead of simply listing out who got snubbed I’ll go for an entirely alternative line up. Notice that to qualify for this the films had to not be nominated for the particular Oscar in question, this doesn’t necessarily reflect how I would give awards to 2018 cinema (I’ll also be doing that later). Also, I’m taking into account films I’ve already seen, so most likely many other great movies will get left out. I focused on the acting, screenplay and directing categories, as well as Best Picture. Anyway, these are my alternative Oscar nominations for 2018:

Best Picture:

Annihilation

Bad Times at the El Royale

First Reformed

Hereditary

The House that Jack Built

Shoplifters

Sorry to Bother You

You Were Never Really Here

Winner: You Were Never Really Here

Best Director:

Panos Cosmatos – Mandy

Drew Goddard – Bad Times at the El Royale

Lynne Ramsay – You Were Never Really Here

Boots Riley – Sorry to Bother You

Lars von Trier – The House that Jack Built

Winner: Lynne Ramsay

Best Actress:

Emily Blunt – A Quiet Place

Toni Colette – Hereditary

Viola Davis – Widows

Joanna Kulig – Cold War

Natalie Portman – Annihilation

Winner: Toni Colette

Best Actor:

Nicolas Cage – Mandy

Matt Dillon – The House that Jack Built

Ethan Hawke – First Reformed

Joaquin Phoenix – You Were Never Really Here

Lakeith Stanfield – Sorry to Bother You

Winner: Joaquin Phoenix

Best Supporting Actress:

Jennifer Jason Leigh – Annihilation

Amanda Seyfried – First Reformed

Millicent Simmonds – A Quiet Place

Tilda Swinton – Suspiria

Tessa Thompson – Sorry to Bother You

Winner: Tilda Swinton

Best Supporting Actor:

Michael B. Jordan – Black Panther

Liam Neeson – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Jeffrey Tambor – The Death of Stalin

Anton Yelchin – Thoroughbreds

Steven Yeun – Burning

Winner: Steven Yeun

Best Original Screenplay:

Isle of Dogs

Leave no Trace

A Quiet Place

Shoplifters

Sorry to Bother You

Winner: Sorry to Bother You

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Annihilation

Burning

The Death of Stalin

Suspiria

You Were Never Really Here

Winner: You Were Never Really Here

So that’s that. As you can see, I really liked “You Were Never Really Here” and I’m really disappointed it didn’t land a single nomination, then again I wasn’t expecting it to happen. Now, if I were to give a couple of alternative Oscars for technical categories, I’d probably go with something like this:

Best Cinematography: Climax

Best Sound Editing: A Quiet Place

Best Sound Mixing: Bad Times at the El Royale

Best Editing: Annihilation

Best Visual Effects: Annihilation

Best Production Design: Hereditary

Best Costume Design: Suspiria

Best Make Up: Suspiria

Best Original Score: Cold War

There you have it. Like I said, this might not be exactly how I would give out awards for 2018 personally, but rather a set of alternative nominees to the ones the Academy announced. Maybe not all of them deserve to be up there (though probably more than many who did achieve it), but for the “winners” here I do consider should have been nominated 100%. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you liked it. Please take a minute to share this with friends and family, it really helps. And click that follow button to stay up to date with this blog’s contents, there’s a lot more Oscar content coming soon and more interesting stuff around film coming soon, so stay tuned! Until next time!