Oscar's Elimination Round: Points Scored & TKOs
Oscar's Elimination Round: Points Scored & TKOs
'Barbie' hits big, 'Napoleon' escapes Waterloo in the shortlist
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The road to the 96th Academy Awards is getting narrower — at least in 10 of the 23 categories in which Oscars will be awarded on March 10. With 88 international films, 167 documentary features, 148 film scores and 94 original songs all competing for attention, members of their respective branches have begun to cull the herd. The result: 10 shortlists, announced this week, from which the eventual nominees, to be unveiled Jan. 23, will be chosen. Overnight, those somewhat forbidding lists of contenders shrank to 15 international films, 15 feature docs, 15 scores and 15 songs. Similar pruning took place in the makeup and hairstyling, sound and visual effects categories, as well as the three short film categories.
When the dust settles, the various shortlists provide hints about what movies this season have the sort of momentum that could take them all the way to the bigger best picture prize — and, in business terms, the long tail of (hopeful) revenue and renown that follow for the filmmakers and films themselves.
Barbie had plenty to sing about. All three of the songs from the candy-colored Warners release that were submitted — the maximum number of songs that any one film can submit — made it onto the list of 15 songs moving forward. And since the Academy’s rules allow for two songs from any one film to be among the five nominees, Barbie stands a chance to score a double nom in the song category once voters choose among Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?,” Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and the earworm, “I’m Just Ken,” the Mark Ronson/Andrew Wyatt tune Ryan Gosling performs in the movie.
All things being equal, a double song nom could, in turn, help Barbie in its quest to capture the most nominations for any one film, outnumbering its close competitors like Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon by a nom or two. But Oscar shouldn’t trade in its red carpet for a pink runway just yet, because all things aren’t equal after all.
Giving Barbie a race for its money in the song category, both the musicals The Color Purple, from Warners, and Flora and Son, from Apple, got two song mentions each. And while Barbie also made it into the shortlists for score and sound, it failed to secure spots on the lists for visual effects and makeup and hairstyling. Apple/Paramount’s Killers, on the other hand, not only earned a place on the song list — for “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” by the Osage Tribe — but also popped up on the lists for score, sound and make-up. And Universal’s Oppenheimer — which, somewhat inexplicably, failed to make the earlier list of 20 films from which the 10 VFX shortlisted films were chosen — figured in the lists for score, sound and makeup. Nipping at their heels, Searchlight’s Poor Things racked up mentions for visuals effects, score and make-up. And Apple/Sony’s Napoleon proved that it shouldn’t be counted out. Although Ridley Scott’s historical epic has been a critical stinker, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 58 percent, it isn’t headed to Waterloo just yet since it made the lists for visual effects, sound and makeup.
In the other categories, Netflix’s American Symphony has to be considered something of a frontrunner in the feature documentary contest. Matthew Heineman’s film follows musician Jon Batiste — already an Oscar winner for the score for the animated Soul — as he composes new music and cares for his wife Suleika Jaouad as she undergoes treatment for leukemia, and in addition to feature doc it was also cited for its score and song.
Similarly, on the international feature film list, Spain’s Society of the Snow, the Netflix feature about a plane crash in the Andes, directed by J.A. Bayona, demonstrated its popularity by also registering on the lists for visual effects, score and makeup. And the United Kingdom’s The Zone of Interest has to be considered something of a standout, too, since Jonathan Glazer’s film about a Nazi camp commander and his family, released by A24, also appeared on the lists for score and sound, which suggests attention is being paid.
But while there were a few surprises along the way, the Academy being the Academy, there were also traditions to uphold.
Composer Diane Warren — an Academy favorite with 14 previous noms but no wins, although she was recognized with an honorary award in 2022 — appeared once again on the song list for a tune “The Fire Inside” she wrote for the feature Flamin’ Hot.
And the documentary committee continued its long tradition of ignoring the work of master documentarian Frederick Wiseman. Wiseman — who was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2016 — was once again left off the shortlist for his latest film, Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros, a study of a Michelin-starred restaurant in the French countryside. Mon Dieu!
IMAGE CREDITS
Barbie: Warner Bros.; Oppenheimer: Universal Pictures; American Symphony: Netflix; Poor Things: Searchlight; Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon: Apple TV+.
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