‘The Revenant’ leads Oscar nominees; diversity an issue again

The best actress category is the most fearsome this year, with Larson, who many feel is a front-runner, going head to head with Saoirse Ronan in “Brooklyn”, Cate Blanchett in “Carol”, Charlotte Rampling in “45 Years”, and 2013’s best actress victor Jennifer Lawrence in “Joy”. The Academy only has so much kindness for genre movies and they had already bent over backwards to give accolades to the (let’s face it, far superior) Mad Max: Fury Road. (“Bridge of Spies”), Paramount Pictures (“The Big Short”), Universal (“Straight Outta Compton“) and Warner Bros. Barring a major surprise, the best actor, best actress and best supporting actress fields will be all white. For Alejandro (director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu), it was three or four years of his life.

Following the news that Mad Max: Fury Road has been nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, Miller is clarifying his position on the series. The miss for “Carol” meant one usual Oscar heavyweight – Harvey Weinstein – won’t have a horse in the best picture race for the first time since 2008.

The only best-picture contender without a white protagonist is “Straight Outta Compton“, which has an outside shot of joining the favourites.

Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” won the best song award at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards.

Though it should win attention in technical categories, Oscar prognosticators do not expect J.J. Abrams’ box-office juggernaut “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” to land a best picture nomination. Considering how well the forever-in-development Fury Road turned out, I’m willing to wait.

The semi-biographical western film set in 1823 and inspired by the experiences of frontiersman and fur trapper Hugh Glass will compete in a number of categories at the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 28, 2016.

Alongside DiCaprio and Damon, the best actor nominees were: Michael Fassbender (“Steve Jobs”), Eddie Redmayne (“The Danish Girl”) and Bryan Cranston (“Trumbo”).

The Oscar nominees for best supporting actor are: Christian Bale, “The Big Short”; Tom Hardy, “The Revenant”; Mark Ruffalo, “Spotlight”; Mark Rylance, “Bridge of Spies”; Sylvester Stallone, “Creed“.

Reporters, publicists and industry insiders are packing into a theater in Beverly Hills, California, where the Oscar nominations will be announced Thursday morning.

Academy president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, expressed disappointment about the reveal, and stated that the Academy has been making an attempt to increase the diversity of voters, but it has been “moving too slowly”.

The 25-year-old actress was first nominated in 2011 for best actress for “Winter’s Bone”.

April Reign, managing editor of BroadwayBlack.com, who identifies herself as the creator of the #Oscarssowhite hashtag, tweeted on Thursday: “A five-minute opening by brilliant Chris Rock will not make up for over 80 years of erasure of marginalized communities”.