23 Jan Telluride Film Fest & The Oscars: “Roma” & “The Favourite”
The New York Times recently pushed out Oscar news and two films that premiered at the Telluride Film Festival share the honor of the most nominations – 10 in all – for the celebration, this year scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 24.
Read my review of the 45th annual Telluride Film Festival here, with observations about “Roma” and “The Favourite.”
Read Manohla Dargis review of “Roma” here. And a beautiful spin on the movie from The New York Review of Books.
After years of aggressive maneuvering, the streaming service received its first-ever nomination for best picture on Tuesday, with Oscar voters naming “Roma” as one of the best movies of 2018. The meditative black-and-white film about life in Mexico in the 1970s — which officially has North American ticket sales of zero, since Netflix does not release its films in a traditional manner — amassed 10 nominations over all, including for Alfonso Cuarón’s direction, cinematography and original screenplay.
Yalitza Aparicio, who plays the lead role in “Roma,” received a best actress nomination, a rare recognition for an Indigenous woman that also gives the film a high-profile presence in the acting races, a crucial part of collecting the votes needed for a best picture win. Voters even found a spot for Marina de Tavira as supporting actress.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences allows the best picture category to have as many as 10 or as few as five nominees, depending on how the organization’s 8,200 voting members spread their support. This time around, eight movies were nominated, down from nine from last year. Rounding out the category were idiosyncratic indies (“The Favourite,” “Vice”), studio crowd-pleasers (“Black Panther,” “A Star Is Born,” “Bohemian Rhapsody”) and films about racism in America (“BlacKkKlansman,” “Green Book”).
A diverse set of nominees
Compared with years past, when academy voters came under repeated #OscarsSoWhite attack for failing to nominate films that focused on black characters, the best picture selections were remarkably diverse…
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