Three years ago, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper wowed Oscar audiences when they performed their award-winning hit song “Shallow” on stage at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.
This year, the only thing shallow by the end of the night of March 27 will be their martini glasses at home.
They were two of the biggest A-listers excluded from the 2022 Oscar nominations on Tuesday morning. The ad was a dramatic, school-like repudiation of popular kids.
Here’s who’s in custody.
Gaga certainly assumed she’d be included in the Best Actress list for “House of Gucci” alongside Oscar-winning Terminator Olivia Colman (“The Lost Daughter”), Nicole Kidman (“Being the Ricardos”), Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) and Penelope Cruz (“Parallel Mothers”). Mother Monster, after all, was on the SAG Awards, BAFTAs and Golden Globes lists.
However, the sensible adults in the room – the Oscar voters – knew the truth: As Patrizia Reggiani, who had her husband, fashion mogul Maurizio Gucci, murdered, Gaga was molto terrible.
It probably didn’t help that the ‘Bad Romance’ singer went on every talk show on Earth and acted like she was on the waiting list at Juilliard, bragging that she only spoke with an Italian accent for months and fearing for his life while filming in Italy.
Stewart — shot but not eliminated — stole Gaga’s spot to play Princess Diana in “Spencer.”
Speaking of the awful “Gucci”, the Academy also rightfully ruled out the Babadook – sorry, I mean Jared Leto – for his clownish turn as Paolo Gucci. How could it be when he so bravely wore a bald cap and talked like Luigi for three hours?
Gaga’s ‘A Star Is Born’ co-star and director Bradley Cooper fully cemented his awards season poison status by being (wrongly) snubbed for two roles: his fantastic supporting role in ‘Licorice Pizza ” and some of his best leading roles. never worked in “Nightmare Alley,” which earned a Best Picture nod, but sucked for director Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”). He got a producer name, but who cares?
The Best Actor category instead includes favorite Will Smith (“King Richard”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”), Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”), Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”) and, Smith’s only real competitor, Andrew Garfield (“Tick, Tick…Boom!”).
While most of these releases are snublic, one is irritating. Denis Villenueve, the visionary director of “Dune”, was excluded from the prize for best director in favor of Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”, a film that nobody went to see), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”) and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”). Spielberg did a good job, but let’s be honest: “West Side Story” was a facelift; for “Belfast,” Branagh pressed the black-and-white button; and “Dune” was an artistic—and popular!—achievement.
I also would have preferred to see “Tick, Tick… Boom!” of the golden boy Lin-Manual Miranda. with a best picture nod to “Don’t Look Up”, directed by Adam McKay, one of Hollywood’s most adequate talents.
In two months, I think we’ll be talking about another hot Oscar villain: Fido. The overrated western “The Power of the Dog” led the pack with 12 nominations, including Picture, Director (Jane Campion), Second Actor (Kirsten Dunst) and Second Actor (Jesse Plemons). [um, why?] and Kodi Smit-McPhee). With the exception of Campion and Smit-McPhee, expect Woof Woof to lose most of those awards to “Belfast” and other more worthy films. Unlike their golden retriever, the public did not appreciate the chilly critic’s darling.
And, as we saw with “Roma,” “The Irishman,” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” the Oscars love nothing more than doing a striptease for poor Netflix. The streaming giant has never won Best Picture before.
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