‘The Boss Baby’ Nominated for an Oscar Alongside Some Great Films No One Has Seen

Hey, Oscar season officially kicked off this morning as the lists of nominees were released. Like most years, the awards will be given to critically-acclaimed films no one has actually seen.

So let’s get to it. Here are your nominees.

Best Picture

Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

I haven’t heard of half of these movies. Phantom Thread has been out of limited release for about four days and I wouldn’t exactly call it a wide release. Darkest Hour, the Winston Churchill biopic starring Gary Oldman, has likewise barely had a wide release. That’s one of them problems with the Oscars, it’s largely a celebration of arthouse cinema and films that the average person hasn’t seen yet. It’s not that these movies aren’t great films, it’s just that they’re entirely out of step with the general public.

Best Director

Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

That’s the actual short list for best picture. I think there’s only been one instance of a split between best picture and best director. Dunkirk and Get Out were hits, so they probably won’t win.

Best Actor In A Leading Role

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

You know, they say the Golden Globes are predictive of the Oscars, but I don’t see Golden Globe winner James Franco even nominated for an Oscar. That’s kind of weird because these awards are given for the best performance and not based on any sort of Hollywood politics, right?

Best Actress In A Leading Role

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

Hmm, both Golden Globes winners are nominated here. Weird.

Best Actor In A Supporting Role

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Actress In A Supporting Role

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

So Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney are going to win, right? We all agree on that, I’m sure. Definitely Allison Janney, the Academy loves her. She could play Eva Braun in a film called Hitler was Great and she’d get a dozen trophies for it. Though to be fair to Janney, I’m sure she’d knock it out of the park.

So I’ve given the Oscar voters a bit of a hard time for the way the awards lean heavily towards arthouse faire and not movies that people actually see, and that’s because it’s absolutely true. Star Wars: The Last Jedi was nominated for a few minor technical awards, and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, which despite being a comic book action film, was probably on every decent critic’s short list for best film of the year, got one nomination, for Best Visual Effects.

But perhaps the only thing I have to say about how terrible the Oscar nomination process is would be that The Boss Baby is nominated for Best Animated Feature. I watched The Boss Baby to see if it was as bad as it looked, and it was. Someone pitched movie like “Okay, remember Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock? We make a movie about him, only he’s a baby. And he comes to Earth from a baby company to try and stop puppies.” And that got made and then it got nominated for an Academy Award despite the fact that there were dozens of actually good movies released. Hell, even Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale would be a step up. But they nominated The Boss Baby. And they can’t figure out why ratings for the awards show is plummeting. The Boss Baby.