“The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro’s surreal, cross-species love story landed the most Academy Award nominations (13), including for Best Director, Picture and Original screenplay, as well as trio of acting categories. “Dunkirk” (8) was next, followed by “Three Billboards” (7), “Darkest Hour” (6) and “Phantom Thread” (6).
Up for Oscars are some familiar faces, like Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Jr.) and perennial-nominee Meryl Streep (The Post). Meanwhile, conspicuously absent from the roster are a number of disgraced Hollywood icons whose careers went up in flames in the wake of rape allegations.
There’s Harvey Weinstein who, for years, had been a fixture on the aisle on Oscar night. But this go-round, The Weinstein Company’s entire slate was snubbed, most notably, the critically-acclaimed and strategically-released “Wind River.”
Just a couple weeks ago, James Franco was the toast of Tinseltown after winning a Golden Globe for The Disaster Artist. Since then, several women stepped forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. Now, it’s his career that’s a disaster, suffering such a precipitous fall from grace that he didn’t even earn an Academy Award nomination.
The voters showed little love to “Baby Driver,” this critic’s pick for #1 film of the year, giving it only a handful of nominations in technical categories. In this case, you can blame #MeToo casualty Kevin Spacey for torpedoing the summer sleeper’s Oscar chances right along with his own.
At least that picture got released. The same can’t be said for Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy whose premiere was postponed indefinitely after he admitted to some pretty bizarre, unwanted behavior in front of five different women.
For those still in the running, the 90th Academy Awards will air on ABC on Sunday, March 4. The show will be staged at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. But don’t surprised if one or two nominees get knocked out of contention for sexual pecadilloes that come to the surface between now and Oscar night.
