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We had two films release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

First Man

With his debut film, Damien Chazelle received critical acclaim. Although Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench wasn’t an Oscar contender, it established him as an up-and-coming director. While it took four years to find his next projects, writing the poorly received films Grand Piano and The Last Exorcism Part II, it was his second film as a director that put him on the map.

Whiplash, based on his 2013 short film of the same name, starred Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons as student and teacher. The film picked up a surprisingly strong five Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Simmons), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. The film pulled in three total awards for Simmons, Film Editing, and Sound Mixing. This was 2014. In 2016 he made another stab at writing with the adept horror thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane, but it was his festival hit La La Land that made the Academy stand up and listen.

At a staggering fourteen nominations, Chazelle’s tribute to Los Angeles, jazz, and romance became only the third film in Oscar history to score that many nominations, tying All About Eve and Titanic. Claiming nominations in Best Picture, Directing, Actor, Actress, Original Score, two Original Songs, Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design, Sound Mixing, and Sound Editing, the film went into Oscar night the heavy favorite. As it picked up award after award, it’s tally heading into the final award was six with no other film close. As Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway opened the final envelope, the film was announced as the winner.

However, as fate would have it, the film had not won and had become the film with the most nominations to fail to win Best Picture. What happened? An inattentive accountant handed Beatty and Dunaway a duplicate envelope for Best Actress, which Emma Stone had just won. Without realizing the error, Beatty allowed Dunaway to announce the erroneous result. After the team of La La Land had begun their speech, a commotion behind them revealed that a snafu had occurred and the actual winner of Best Picture was Moonlight. Graciously passing the Oscars to that film’s producers, they left the stage.

The biggest blunder in Oscar history behind him, Chazelle began work on his next project, First Man, the story of Neil Armstrong’s journey to the moon. The first of his films he didn’t direct his own screenplay, First Man has received nearly universal critical acclaim (88% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes, an 8.1 average rating, and an 84 at MetaCritic). The problem is audiences didn’t respond nearly as well to the film. While the 7.7 on IMDb and B+ at CinemaScore are nothing to sneeze at, they point to a lesser appeal to mass audiences, and a box office failure, which will both make it harder to claim Oscar glory.

That said, the film is sure to pick up double-digit nominations. Best Picture, Directing, Actor (Ryan Gosling), Supporting Actress (Claire Foy), Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects all seem like solid prospects, while Best Costume Design is a lesser possibility. That would make this his second film in a row with more than 10 nominations. That’s quite an accomplishment for such a young director.

Beautiful Boy

In a film about a young son’s substance abuse and his father’s inability to connect with him, Beautiful Boy has a theme that could be catnip to Oscar voters, at least in terms of its performances.

Directed by Felix Van Groeningen (Oscar-nominated foreign language film The Broken Circle Breakdown), the film centers around Steve Carell as the father and Timothรฉe Chalamet as his son. The film also stars Emmy nominee Maura Tierney and Oscar nominee Amy Ryan. Carell has been chasing a movie career since his early days on television with varying degrees of success. While his focus was on ribald comedies, dramatic efforts weren’t uncommon. with well received performances in Foxcatcher (for which he received his first Oscar nomination) and Battle of the Sexes. He’s gotten solid marks for his work in Beautiful Boy even if the film itself has gotten solid, but inconsequential reviews.

Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 64% with a 6.3 average rating while MetaCritic has it at 63. Also receiving solid marks for his performance is Chalamet who rose to prominence with his work in two films, Lady Bird and Call Me by Your Name, for which he was Oscar nominated, one of the youngest actors ever nominated in the lead category. He and Carell have both been in Oscar’s radar and may both be again for this film. While the movie itself might falter with voters, these two will certainly be in the conversation, though their positions are nowhere near guaranteed.

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