Round Up the Usual Suspects
For all the Academy’s efforts in the last couple of years to shake up its voters and nominate divergent, worthy movies, Some habits are hard to break.
As mentioned, Streep snagged a nomination for her work in The Post. That’s her 21st nod, by the way, padding her already formidable record. And while I loved her in The Post, it sometimes does feel like her reputation is such now that Streep would get an Oscar nomination if she read a bicycle assembly manual for two hours.
Ditto Daniel Day-Lewis. Granted, he doesn’t come out and play that often: Day-Lewis has appeared in 16 films in the last 30 years—and just seven since 2002. And how many Oscars has he been nominated for for those seven roles? Four! And he won twice during that same seven year period! It was almost a lock that, as he allegedly heads into retirement, Day-Lewis would be saluted for his work one last time.
Denzel Washington scored his eighth acting nomination, this one for starring in the otherwise only-OK Roman J. Israel, Esq. Deserved? Arguably, but his work this year doesn’t, in my opinion, hold a candle to his blistering work in Fences.
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