The 2025 Academy Award Nominations

From the Los Angeles Times:

The nominations for the 2025 Oscars were originally scheduled to be announced Jan. 17 but were postponed amid the multiple wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles. While the delay extended the voting period for the nominations, the 97th Oscars ceremony will still be held March 2 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with a live telecast on ABC and Hulu.

Best picture

“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“I’m Still Here”
“Nickel Boys”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”

Actress in a leading role

Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”
Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
Mikey Madison, “Anora”
Demi Moore, “The Substance”
Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”

Actor in a leading role

Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”

Actor in a supporting role

Yura Borisov, “Anora”
Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”
Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”
Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”

Actress in a supporting role

Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”
Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”
Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”
Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”

Directing

Sean Baker, “Anora”
Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”
Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”

Writing (Adapted screenplay)

“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nickel Boys”
“Sing Sing”

Writing (Original screenplay)

“Anora” 
“The Brutalist” 
“A Real Pain” 
“September 5”
“The Substance” 

Documentary feature

“Black Box Diaries”
“No Other Land”
“Porcelain War”
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”
“Sugarcane”

Documentary short subject

“Death by Numbers”
“I Am Ready, Warden”
“Incident”
“Instruments of a Beating Heart”
“The Only Girl in the Orchestra”

Animated feature film

“Flow”
“Inside Out 2”
“Memoir of a Snail”
“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
“The Wild Robot”

Animated short film

“Beautiful Men”
“In the Shadow of the Cypress”
“Magic Candies”
“Wander to Wonder”
“Yuck!”

Cinematography

“The Brutalist”
“Dune” Part Two
“Emilia Pérez”
“Maria”
“Nosferatu”

Costume design

“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Gladiator II”
“Nosferatu”
“Wicked”

Film editing

“Anora”
“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Wicked”

International feature film

“I’m Still Here”
“The Girl with the Needle”
“Emilia Pérez”
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”
“Flow”

Live-action short film

“A Lien”
“Anuja”
“I’m Not a Robot”
“The Last Ranger”
“The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”

Makeup and hairstyling

“A Different Man”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nosferatu”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”

Music (original score)

Daniel Blumberg, “The Brutalist”
Volker Bertelmann, “Conclave”
Clément Ducol and Camille, “Emilia Pérez”
John Powell and Stephen Schwartz, “Wicked”
Kris Bowers, “The Wild Robot”

Music (original song)

“El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez”
“The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight”
“Like A Bird” from “Sing Sing”
“Mi Camino” from “Emilia Pérez”
“Never Too Late” from “Elton John: Never Too Late”

Production design

“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Nosferatu”
“Wicked”

Sound

“A Complete Unknown”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Wicked”
“The Wild Robot”

Visual Effects

“Alien: Romulus”
“Better Man”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”
“Wicked”

Trump Is Giving His Middle Finger To America

From Robert Reich on the nomination of RFK, Jr to head the Department of Health and Human Services:

Nominating conspiracist and fabulist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the nation’s leading health job — overseeing the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health, among other sensitive positions — is an act of utter hubris. 

At a time when the truth is a precious common good, and the public’s health is already precarious, RFK Junior has made a name for himself spreading dangerous health lies.

He claimed that COVID-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and that “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” And that “the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons and we are developing ethnic bioweapons. They’re collecting Russian DNA. They’re collecting Chinese DNA so we can target people by race.”

He has promoted the baseless claim linking vaccines to autism. He’s been a leading proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, erroneously suggesting the vaccine has killed more people than it has saved.

In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, he alleged, without plausible evidence, that Dr. Fauci performed “genocidal experiments, sabotaged treatments for AIDS, and conspired with Bill Gates to suppress information about COVID-19.” 

All nonsense. 

Friends, I knew Robert F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy Junior is no Robert F. Kennedy. If not for his lustrous name, RFK Junior would be just another crackpot in the ever-growing pool of bottom-feeding fringe characters encircling Trump like ravenous slugs. 

So why nominate this collection of bozos?

 

If Trump wants to smoke out the Senate Republicans who aren’t fully behind him, he has easier ways of doing so than putting an entire Star Wars cantina of idiots up for Senate confirmation.

 

I can see why Trump might want total loyalists in key positions that would enable him to turn America into a police state — more on this tomorrow — but why nominate a nut job to run America’s health system?

 

What possible point is there to subjecting Americans to poisonous food or drugs? Why undermine the Centers for Disease Control when Americans and their children need the protections vaccines provide?

 

Or is all this just another manifestation of Trump becoming deranged?

Trump's Bad Picks Are Sending A Message To Congress (And The Country)

Donald Trump's picks for his administration are sending a message that he is serious about doing what he campaigned on - and serious about turning the presidency into an authoritarian institution.

His first picks (Homan/Miller/Noem) made it clear that he will be trying to deport millions of undocumented immigrants (and maybe even some with legal documentation).

His newest picks are even worse. They are totally unqualified and incompetent.

He has chosen a criminal and sex abuser to be Attorney General - Matt Gaetz. Gaetz immediately resigned from Congress upon being nominated in hopes of preventing the House Ethics Committee from releasing a scathing report on him. He has also said the federal policing agencies (FBI, ATF, etc.) should be defunded if they didn't stop "picking" on Trump. Now he will be in charge of all those agencies, and will likely turned them into a tool for retribution against Trump's detractors. His only qualification for the job is being a Trump sycophant - a person who will do whatever Trump wants (without regard to whether it's reasonable or legal).

For Director of National Intelligence, he has chosen Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard is known for opposing U.S. foreign policy. She is a Putin supporter and has been known to pass on Russian propaganda. She is a supporter of Bashar al-Assad (Syria's dictator). As DNI, she will be in charge of all of U.S. intelligence agencies. Intelligence officials don't trust her (both here and abroad), and it is likely our allies will now stop sharing intelligence with us. Like Gaetz, her only qualification is being a Trump sycophant who will do whatever he asks her to do.

Trump has to know neither of these two are qualified. But he doesn't care. He is using them to send a message to Congress (and the nation). The message is that he is in control and he's going to rule as an authoritarian (like his heroes - Putin and Hitler). With these picks, he is literally daring the Senate to try and stop him. They won't.

We are entering a dark time for our democracy. Can it survive? 

Trump Could Make An Ethically-Challenged Court Even Worse

 

The following post is by Dan Rather:

No one has ever cast their ballot  for Samuel Alito. Ditto Clarence Thomas. Or any Supreme Court justice. They are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, then guaranteed a job for life. And they are accountable to no one.

It’s a sweet deal as long as you can stay on the straight and narrow. Today that unwritten but implied requirement seems almost quaint.

We have taken for granted that justices should be impartial, should have sound judgment and their conduct should be beyond reproach. Unfortunately, “shoulds” leave a lot of room for interpretation.

And it was always understood that in order for the American people to have faith in the high court, the justices must display unimpeachable integrity. For the past 233 years, this has seldom been an issue. Now it is a major one. 

As you may have seen, Justice Samuel Alito has a flag problem. Well, two flags, actually. Flags flown at his homes in Virginia and New Jersey are symbols used by the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6. 

 

Justice Clarence Thomas has a billionaire problem. ProPublica has reported how Harlan Crow, a heavily monied Texan, paid for luxury vacations for Thomas and his wife and funded their nephew’s private school tuition, among other gifts. In addition, Mrs. Thomas was involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. 

 

Neither of these justices should be involved in cases dealing with the January 6 insurrection or Trump’s claim of absolute immunity. But they are, and there is no mechanism to stop them. Democrats’ demands that Alito and Thomas recuse themselves have been ignored.

The approval rating of the Supreme Court has never been lower. However, an approval rating for a group with lifetime tenure and no accountability is fairly meaningless. Historically, the Supreme Court has not had, nor needed, a code of ethics, going back to the first court in 1790. But after the revelations about Crow’s gifts to Thomas, Congress made it clear that something had to be done. 

 

That did not sit well with some Supreme Court justices, including a vociferous Justice Alito. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board last summer, he said, “Congress did not create the Supreme Court. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

Justice Elena Kagan vehemently disagreed with her colleague’s assertions, arguing that Congress can and does regulate the court. “Congress funds the Supreme Court. Congress historically has made changes to the court’s structure and composition. Congress has made changes to the court’s appellate jurisdiction. We’re not imperial.”

The high court, it seems, is not immune from the rancor and hostility overwhelming the rest of the country. 

Finally, late last year, Chief Justice John Roberts announced the court had agreed to a voluntary code of conduct. But because it is so full of loopholes and lacks an enforcement mechanism, critics say it’s toothless.

The court that Donald Trump packed with three far-right jurists is steering the country and setting the political agenda much more than Congress, despite the resounding unpopularity of many of those decisions, such as the one that overturned Roe v. Wade. 

And more are coming. In the weeks ahead, decisions on controversial cases from bump stock bans to medication abortion to Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution are expected. 

Three of the current justices are in their 70s. There’s a good chance whoever wins the presidency in November will fill more than one court vacancy. A strategy for Democrats would be to hammer home the long-term effects of this election on all three branches of government. 

This, among many other reasons, is why defeating Donald Trump matters well beyond the four years he would occupy the Oval Office. 

Trump Has Put The GOP Between A Rock And A Hard Place

Donald Trump, whether he wants to admit it or not, lost the 2020 election by more than 7 million votes. If he had even a tiny bit of statesmanship, he would have exited the political arena (as other losing candidates have done), and let the leadership of the party go to someone else.

If he had done that, inflation would probably have given a different Republican candidate a chance to win the 2024 presidential race. But Trump has no statesmanship. He only has a giant ego -- and that ego can't stomach the fact that he lost in 2024.

Since 2020, Trump has been repeating his biggest lie -- that he was cheated out of the presidency by millions of fraudulent votes engineered by Democrats. It isn't true, but he has convinced millions of his supporters that it is. 

In refusing to stop telling that Big Lie, and clinging to party leadership, Trump caused his party to blow their chance of a red wave in the 2022 midterms. They barely won the House and could not win the Senate.

He didn't care though. His ego demanded that he continue. And he announced that he is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

That has created a serious dilemma for the Republican Party. Do they give Trump the nomination, or not? Either way, they are probably in trouble.

If they give him the nomination, they will probably lose the presidency again. He's been indicted for 91 separate crimes (felonies). Most voters believe he broke the law by trying to overturn the 2020 election, and he intentionally stole and shared secret U.S. government documents. 

That's not going to allow him to make up that 7 million vote deficit. While his base will stick with him, he won't be able to appeal to most moderates and Independents.

But the other option (nominating someone else) is just as bad for the GOP. Trump has enough die-hard supporters to hurt the party. Whether they try to write-in Trump, or just stay at home on Election Day, the result is the same -- millions of votes lost and another presidential loss for the Republican Party.

Trump has refused to sign a loyalty pledge to support the nominee if it isn't him. And since he's never shown the ability to be a good loser, it is highly unlikely that he would support the nominee. And that means millions of his supporters won't either.

To Trump or not to Trump? There is no good (or winning) answer to that question.

The Silver Lining (For Democrats) In A Trump Candidacy

Most Americans rightly fear the thought of Donald Trump winning another presidential term. But a Trump nomination by the GOP could well have a silver lining for Democrats. Paul Waldman explains in this post at MSNBC.com:

If we are stuck with a third election with Trump as the GOP standard bearer, we might as well consider the silver linings of a Trump nomination, because they are enormous.

Begin with this undeniable fact: Any election in which Donald Trump is involved will be almost entirely about Donald Trump. And that is not good for his party. Republicans fared poorly in all three elections since he won the presidency in 2016, and each poor performance can be attributed in large part to Trump’s malign influence. 

Just look at what happened in 2022. Republicans nominated the Trumpiest candidate they could find in many of the most important races — and lost again and again, precisely because voters clearly rejected election conspiracists and candidates defined solely by inexperience and fury. In one vital, winnable race after another, in key states including Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan, reasonable Democrats beat outrageous Republicans. It could happen again in 2024.

In between elections, Trumpism has been a poison to Republican state parties. In some cases, loony election deniers have taken over and in some cases crippled their organizations with mismanagement; the Arizona and Michigan parties are practically bankrupt. That’s a trend Democrats should be only too happy to see continue. 

Over the period of Trump’s dominance, Democrats also made significant gains in state legislatures. At the beginning of 2016, Republicans had full control of 30 state legislatures, Democrats controlled just 11, and eight were divided between the two parties (one state, Nebraska, has a nonpartisan unicameral Legislature). Today, Republicans still control 28 legislatures and two are divided, but the number of states in which Democrats have total control has almost doubled, to 19. The states with both Democratic state legislatures and governors have more than doubled, from seven to 17. The result in those states, including Washington, Colorado and Minnesota, has been a wave of progressive legislation.

A Republican Party with Trump at its head is a divided Republican Party, and a general election with Trump in it will feature many prominent Republicans working to convince their co-partisans not to vote for him. Chris Sununu, the popular outgoing governor of New Hampshire, recently wrote that if Trump is the GOP nominee, “Republicans will lose again. Just as we did in 2018, 2020 and 2022. This is indisputable, and I am not willing to let it happen without a fight.” The outcome may be unclear, but the divisions are indisputable. 

Then there’s Trump’s obsession with the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him, which he still rambles on about at every rally. He will not only remind independent voters of one of the things they dislike most about him, but will force other Republicans up and down the ballot to back him up — and keep answering questions about it. While most Republican voters agree with this lie, those independents do not, nor are they likely to warm to defenses of the Jan. 6 insurrection — something else Trump will keep reminding everyone about. The fact that Trump could be facing as many as four separate criminal trials during the campaign guarantees that his alleged misdeeds will be an inescapable election topic.

In short, few down-ballot Republican candidates would be hurt by a ticket led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but many will be hurt by their association with Trump. All that will help make it more likely that Democrats take back the House and retain the Senate.

Then there are the likely long-term effects of extending Trump’s control of the GOP. Trump is deeply unpopular with younger voters, more of whom come of voting age every day. If Democrats can secure their partisan loyalties now, they’ll be likely to keep voting for Democrats in the future. Biden may not exactly thrill young voters, but if he could pick one opponent who would pull more millennial and Gen Z votes into the Democratic camp, it would be Trump. 

And young voters — who have moved left on issues such as guns and climate change in recent years — will be absolutely essential next year. According to some analyses, those two generations will make up more than a third of the electorate in 2024, the same proportion as the far more conservative (and whiter) baby boomers and Silent Generation. 

None of these factors mean it would be anything less than a catastrophe if Trump were to win the White House next November. But Democrats have no control over which candidate their opponents select. So in the highly likely event that Republicans choose him yet again, Democrats can temper their fear by looking at all the potential benefits of a Trump nomination. This might just work out splendidly. 

Support For Biden's Renomination Is Growing Among Dems

 New York Times / Siena College Poll

Neither Trump Nor Biden Has Strong Support For 2024

These charts reflect the results of a new CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between January 10th and February 6th of a national sample of 1,527 adults, with a 3.3 margin of error for the entire sample (it would be slightly higher for just Republicans or Democrats).

It shows that neither President Joe Biden nor Donald Trump has really strong support for the 2024 presidential nomination. Only about half of their respective parties want them re-nominates.
 

2022 Academy Award Nominations

Here are the 2022 Academy Award nominations (from People.com): 

Best Picture

Belfast
CODA
Don't Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story

Best Actress

Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
Kristen Stewart, Spencer

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Andrew Garfield, Tick, Tick... Boom!
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

Best Supporting Actress

Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Judi Dench, Belfast
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard

Best Supporting Actor

Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
Troy Kotsur, CODA
Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

Best Director

Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story

Best Adapted Screenplay

CODA
Drive My Car
Dune
The Lost Daughter
The Power of the Dog

Best Original Screenplay

Belfast
Don't Look Up
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
The Worst Person in the World

Best Cinematography

Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story

Best Animated Film

Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon

Best Original Score

Don't Look Up, Nicholas Britell
Dune, Hans Zimmer
Encanto, Germaine Franco
Parallel Mothers, Alberto Iglesias
The Power of the Dog, Jonny Greenwood

Best Original Song

"Be Alive" from King Richard, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Dixson
"Dos Oruguitas" from Encanto, Lin-Manuel Miranda
"Down to Joy" from Belfast, Van Morrison
"No Time to Die" from No Time to Die, Billie Eilish, Finneas O'Connell
"Somehow You Do" from Four Good Days, Diane Warren

Best Costume Design

Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Coming 2 America
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci

Best Editing

Don't Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Tick, Tick… Boom!

Best Visual Effects

Dune
Free Guy
No Time to Die
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Spider-Man: No Way Home

Best Production Design

Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story

Best Sound

Belfast
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story

Best International Film

Drive My Car
Flee
The Hand of God
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
The Worst Person in the World

Best Documentary

Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul
Writing with Fire

Best Documentary Short Subject

Audible
Lead Me Home
The Queen of Basketball
Three Songs for Benazir
When We Were Bullies

Best Animated Short Film

Affairs of the Art
Bestia
Boxballet
Robin Robin
The Windshield Wiper

Best Live-Action Short Film

Ala Kachuu — Take and Run
The Dress
The Long Goodbye
On My Mind
Please Hold