Oscar hopes are high in Hollywood – but – first come the Oscar nominations. Ballots have gone out to all members of the 17 branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and the results will be announced early next Tuesday, February 8th.
Right now, there are 9,487 active Oscar voters eligible to nominate and vote in the 94th annual Academy Awards, plus an additional 914 Emeritus members, making the total 10,487. All members can nominate Best Picture…and the Board has declared there will be 10 nominees this year.
276 feature films are eligible for Best Picture, a significant drop from last year, when 366 qualifying films set a 50-year record. In 2021, the eligibility period was only 10 months – between March 1st and December 31 – because of the near-shutdown of movie theaters during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Feature films must run more than 40 minutes in length and be shown to the public in a commercial movie theater for seven consecutive days in one of the following areas: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and/or Atlanta.
The Academy also stipulated: “Films intended for theatrical release but initially made available through commercial streaming, VOD service or other broadcast may qualify if the film is made available on the secure Academy Screening Room member site within 60 days of its broadcast.”
To be eligible for Best Picture consideration, films must also submit a confidential Academy Representation and Inclusion Standards entry as part of the requirement. The Academy noted, however, that meeting those standards won’t be required until the 2024 Oscars.
Under the Oscars’ preferential or ranked-choice system, a voter lists his/her top five choices in order of preference. After those first-place votes are totaled, the lowest ranking films are eliminated and ballots proceed to the film ranked second. This restructuring continues until the final 10 are selected.
As for Best Actor/Actress and Supporting Actor/Actress, those nominations come exclusively from the 1,336 members of the Actors Branch. Only actors can nominate actors. No other branch members can participate in the nomination process in this category.
In the same vein, only the 568 members of the Directors branch can nominate Best Director. Other categories work the same way. There are 171 Costume Designers who can nominate for Costume Design. There are 375 Film Editors, who choose their nominees. There are 504 writers who choose Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplays.
The Short Films and Animation Branch has 844 voting members, making it the second-largest Academy branch. In this particular category, voting is open not only to branch members but also to all Academy members who volunteer to see the required number of entries out of the 26 films that initially qualified.
For Best Foreign-Language or International Film, the Academy seeks volunteers from all branches to screen the short-listed films, which are available on the Academy’s website.
The Oscars are set to air live on Sunday, March 27 on ABC from the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.
Based on the 2017 best-seller by British novelist Robert Harris, Ben Power’s revisionist historical thriller “Munich: The Edge of War” revolves around two estranged Oxford University colleagues and their efforts to halt Hitler’s intended invasion of Europe.
Their sinister, somewhat aloof WWII story begins in 1932, when we first glimpse champagne-drenched best pals Hugh Legat (George McKay), Paul von Hartman (Jannis Niewohner) and Paul’s carefree Jewish girl-friend Lena (Liv Lisa Fries) cavorting at a garden party.
Shortly afterward, Hugh and Paul have a volatile disagreement when Paul becomes increasingly adamant about his romanticized, pro-Nazi political view of the Fatherland.
Six years later, as Hitler threatens to invade the Czech region known as the Sudetenland, Hugh has become a private secretary to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Jeremy Irons). But Hugh’s devotion to duty has taken its toll on his marriage to Pamela (Jessica Brown Findlay), affecting their young son.
Meanwhile, now-disillusioned Paul is working in the German Foreign Service office while becoming secretly involved in an underground resistance effort.
When Chamberlain agrees to travel to Munich to meet with Hitler, along with French Prime Minister Daladier and Italy’s Benito Mussolini, to try to work out a peace agreement, Hugh becomes part of the British entourage when Paul indicates he is in possession of a top-secret document that proves Hitler’s duplicity and real global domination intentions.
FYI: Director Christian Schwochow filmed the ‘meeting’ sequence at the building where the infamous Munich Conference took place, creating a vivid feeling of authenticity.
Once perceived as a weak-willed politician, Jeremy Irons’ Neville Chamberlain reminds his entourage, “You’ve got to play the game with the hands you’re dealt.”
In interviews, novelist Robert Harris noted that Paul’s character was inspired by anti-Nazi German diplomat Adam von Trott zu Solz, executed in 1944 for his role in Claus on Stauffenberg’s failed plot to assassinate Hitler.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Munich: The Edge of War” is a suspenseful, speculative 7, streaming on Netflix.
Just like the collapse of that corroded bridge in Pittsburgh, the cancellation of “American Rust” – filmed in and around that same city – demonstrates the ruination or what can happen when a crime drama isn’t properly developed or cared for, making it of little use to anyone.
Based on the 2009 stream-of-consciousness novel by Philipp Meyer and developed by showrunner Dan Futterman, the TV series is set in the small, fictional town of Buell, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, where the chief of police, Del Harris (Jeff Daniels), becomes involved in the murder investigation of Steve Novick, a corrupt ex-cop.
When first introduced, stoic Del Harris is taking his morning meds, crushing pills before meticulously weighing them and mixing them with coffee. He still suffers from PTSD that’s related to his stint in the military.
The melancholy, good-people-making-bad-choices plot becomes murky when it’s revealed that the prime suspect in the case is Billy Poe (Alex Neustaedter), the son of Grace (Maura Tierney), the local seamstress with whom Del is in love.
That contrived complication strains Del’s struggles to maintain his morality in the midst of the unsolved murder mystery. Further complicating the plot, there’s also Billy’s desperately disturbed pal Isaac (David Alvarez) and, as it happens, Steve Novick was selling drugs alongside Bobby Jesus (William Apps) and Jackson Berg (Dallas Roberts).
And, finally, there’s the unexpected arrival of two detectives from Pittsburgh who question Del about the death of his former partner Chuck (Danny Mastrogiorgio), who committed suicide.
FYI: The term ‘Rust Belt’ indicates that the bleak town of Buell was once a powerful industrial sector city that’s now in serious economic decline and decay. And – here – the dark times just get darker.
Problem is: “American Rust” always seemed like a slow-paced, diluted version of HBO’s seven-part mini-series “Mare of Easttown,” starring Kate Winslet, Guy Pearce and Jean Smart…complete with working-class financial angst, drug addiction, miserable marriages and troubled children.
So it’s not surprising that Showtime’s “American Rust” got axed after only one season.
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