At 5:30 this morning (seriously Academy why do you do this so early?) the nominations for the 97^th Academy Awards were announced, and while I didn’t wake up early enough to watch it live, watching it was still the first thing I did when I eventually woke up. Now as much as I love Oscar season and my annual goal of watching every nominated film, I seldom agree 100% with The Academy, and this year is one of the most I’ve disagreed with them with only two of my top 10 films and 4 of my top 25 getting a best picture nod.

The big winner on the morning was unsurprisingly Emilia Pérez taking home a near record 13 nominations. This also coincidentally is my biggest frustration with the nominations. Emilia Pérez is Green Book for trans people. While it is nice that a trans woman has finally been nominated for an Oscar (Karla Sofía Gascón) the film has been nearly universally panned by trans critics. This very much feels like cis Hollywood patting themselves on the back for nominated a trans story (as told by a cis white French man) when actual trans stories like I Saw the TV Glow and The People’s Joker were likely never even in contention.

One film that was nominated for best picture that I want to call it is actually the only film in that category that I haven’t seen: I’m Still Here. The Brazilian film takes the international slot in best picture that seems to be more and more common in the past few years (technically I guess Emilia Pérez would count as well, but as it’s a Netflix movie it doesn’t feel the same.) I had personally been holding out hope that All We Imagine as Light would sneak into that slot since India failed to submit it for best international feature, but I am still looking forward to seeing I’m Still Here and welcome the diversity even if it wasn’t my first choice.

While it’s showing ended up being expected, I’m still really happy that Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance did so well this morning even if the film didn’t quite make my year end list. The Academy seldom recognizes genre filmmaking and has really been lagging behind in accepting the prestige horror era that we live in. This might actually be the rare case of The Golden Globes having an impact on the Oscars, as The Substance’s case really seemed to take off after Demi Moore won her award there.

One movie that did much better than I expected was A Complete Unknown. While I assumed it would receive a Best Picture nod, I assumed that it would be a beneficiary of the expanded field, but with 8 total nominations including director, adapted screenplay, and two acting categories it seems to be a real threat to win some awards.

Most of the remaining surprises came in the below the line categories. Flow was expected to make animated feature, but I did not anticipate it being a contender in international feature. It’s clearly a two-horse race in animated feature as both Flow and The Wild Robot received nominations in other categories, though my assumption is that The Wild Robot has the lead with its sound nomination.

Part of me was concerned that despite winning every single precursor, The Academy would get cold feet and sub No Other Land for documentary feature. The presumed frontrunner still does not have US distribution as our country shutters as the prospect of humanizing Palestinian people. While the lack of distribution means I have not seen the film, I still feel comfortable say that it winning and allowing the directors the chance to give an acceptance speech at the ceremony is the most important thing The Academy can do this year.

One nomination snub that I just don’t understand is how Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were left on the outside looking in for best original score for their film Challengers. In fact with Daniel Craig missing out on best actor for Queer, both Guadagnino films were goose egged at this year’s ceremony.

The other major snub that upsets me is Jomo Fray not being recognized for his cinematography for Nickel Boys. How The Academy can recognize the film as one of the 10 best of the year (and props to them as that was not a given) but not acknowledge the most impressive part of the film boggles the mind.

Possibly the most expected nomination for a film no one has ever heard of, Diane Warren Diane Warren picked up her 16^th nomination (and 8^th consecutive) for her song ‘The Journey’ in The Six Triple Eight.

Marvel continues to be shut out of The Oscars as Deadpool & Wolverine did not receive a nod for Visual Effects, a category which is very CGI monkey heavy between Better Man, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and Wicked.

I personally thought that Gladiator II would be shut out of the ceremony entirely, but the sequel to a previous best picture winner did receive a singular nomination in best costume.

Overall, I think I’m lower on this year’s Oscars because of the three films to receive double digit nominations, I strongly disliked two of them (Emilia Pérez and Wicked). And while I loved the other (The Brutalist) I feel like that film is likely to only win 1 award (best actor for Adrien Brody) while the other two may very well run away with the ceremony.