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      Who Will Win This Year’s Wild Best Actress Race?

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      There are cases to be made for and against every contender, and no one has an obvious advantage in this upended season.The best actress category is doing the most.Without a strong front-runner to dominate the field, nearly every awards show is offering a different lineup of ladies as we hurtle toward the March 27 Oscar telecast. Will that make it hard to predict the ultimate winner? Yes, but I’m choosing to revel in the chaos.After all, the only actress who hit every notable awards precursor was the “House of Gucci” star Lady Gaga, who wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. And while you’d normally look to this weekend’s BAFTA ceremony, the EE British Academy Film Awards, to offer some sort of clarity — as it did last year, when the organization picked the eventual Oscar winner, Frances McDormand for “Nomadland” — not a single one of BAFTA’s best actress nominees made the Oscar lineup this year.Like I said, chaos! But fluid races are often more fun, and each of the five Oscar nominees has some notable pluses and minuses that could keep us guessing until the very end. Here’s my rundown.Jessica Chastain, ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’The case for her: A big, prosthetics-laden performance in a biopic is exactly the sort of thing that awards voters tend to go for, but even Chastain seemed shocked when she prevailed over a tough field at last month’s Screen Actors Guild Awards. Another win in the best actress category at the Critics Choice Awards this Sunday could give her some serious momentum, and it doesn’t hurt that she recently starred in the HBO series “Scenes From a Marriage,” offering a prestige-TV display of her range that can help contextualize the work she did as the lavish-lashed evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. Also, after two previous nominations, you could argue that she’s due for a win.The case against her: “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” came out all the way back in September and failed to make much of a splash with critics or moviegoers. And though that SAG victory gave Chastain a nice, televised bump, only one of the last three best actress winners there also prevailed with Oscar, suggesting a recent trend of academy members going their own way.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.Olivia Colman, ‘The Lost Daughter’The case for her: It isn’t easy to win a pair of best actress Oscars in short succession, but after Frances McDormand snagged two of the past four trophies in this race, why shouldn’t Colman add another to the Oscar she won for “The Favourite”? (I suspect she came very close to winning a best supporting actress Oscar last year for her sympathetic performance in “The Father,” and that will only raise her chances.) It helps, too, that she’s the only best actress candidate from a film with a screenplay that was also nominated — in fact, “The Lost Daughter,” about a conflicted mother, took the screenplay award and two more this past week at the Independent Spirit Awards, including the show-closing trophy for best film.The case against her: Despite all of that love from the Indie Spirits, Colman’s performance wasn’t even nominated by the group, and she was snubbed again by BAFTA even though British actors are ostensibly her main constituency. (I told you this best actress race was screwball!) Some Oscar voters simply aren’t sympathetic to her character’s doll-stealing arc, and there’s always the chance that her co-star Jessie Buckley’s presence in the supporting actress category might dilute Colman’s candidacy, since they play the same woman at different ages.Penélope Cruz, ‘Parallel Mothers’The case for her: The membership of the academy is growing ever more international, which probably helped Cruz leap into this lineup and may even push her toward a win. Sony Pictures Classics is handling “Parallel Mothers,” and Cruz’s late-breaking momentum recalls the studio’s “The Father,” which netted a lead-actor win for Anthony Hopkins last year after it peaked just as his competitors’ films began to fade. And in a field of polarizing performances, Cruz’s well-reviewed work offers a chic choice that Oscar voters can feel good about taking.The case against her: Cruz is the only actress on this list who was snubbed by SAG, BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and the Critics Choice Awards, and though it’s harder to score with those groups when you’re delivering a performance that’s not in English, that still leaves her with no real place to pop before the Oscars.Nicole Kidman, ‘Being the Ricardos’The case for her: Doesn’t Nicole Kidman seem like the sort of movie star who should have two Oscars by now? Her only win came almost 20 years ago, for “The Hours,” and when Colman and Cruz are also vying for a second statuette, Kidman could credibly claim that she’s been waiting the longest for her pair. Kidman’s “Ricardos” co-stars Javier Bardem and J.K. Simmons were nominated, too, suggesting that the academy’s sizable actors branch has real affection for the film. And of all of the best actress candidates who transformed themselves to play a real person, Kidman may have had the highest difficulty curve to overcome, since her character, Lucille Ball, was a once-in-a-lifetime comic genius.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

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      Bong Joon Ho and Ryusuke Hamaguchi on Oscar Surprise ‘Drive My Car’

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      The Korean filmmaker and the Japanese director have long admired each other. The two explain why Hamaguchi’s best-picture nominee resonates.In January 2020, just weeks before his film “Parasite” would make Oscar history, the director Bong Joon Ho was in Tokyo doing a magazine interview. By that point in what had become a very long press tour, Bong had dutifully sat for dozens of profiles, but at least this one offered a little bit of intrigue: Bong’s interviewer was Ryusuke Hamaguchi, a rising director in his own right.For Bong, a fan of Hamaguchi’s films “Asako I & II” and “Happy Hour,” this was a welcome chance to mix things up. “I had many questions that I wanted to ask him,” Bong recalled, “especially since I’d been doing many months of promotion and I was very sick of talking about my own film.”But Hamaguchi would not be deterred. He was a man on a mission — “pleasantly stubborn and persistent,” as Bong remembered him — and every time a playful Bong tried to turn the tables and ask the younger director some questions about his career, Hamaguchi grew ever more serious and insisted that they speak only about “Parasite.”“I really wanted to know how he made such an incredible film, even though I knew how tired he was of talking about ‘Parasite,’” Hamaguchi said. “I felt sorry for him, but I still wanted to ask him questions!”Now, two years later, Bong has finally gotten his wish: The 43-year-old Hamaguchi is the man of the moment, and Bong is only too happy to jump on the phone and discuss him. Hamaguchi’s film “Drive My Car,” a three-hour Japanese drama about grief and art, has become the season’s most unlikely Oscar smash, receiving nominations for best picture and international film in addition to nods for screenplay and directing.Hidetoshi Nishijima, left, and Toko Miura in “Drive My Car.”Bitters EndThose happen to be the same things “Parasite” was honored for two years ago, when that South Korean class-struggle thriller collected four Oscars and became the first film not in the English language to win best picture.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.“‘Parasite’ pushed open that very heavy door that had remained closed,” Hamaguchi told me through an interpreter this week. “Without ‘Parasite’ and its wins, I don’t think our film would have been received well in this way.”Called a “quiet masterpiece” by the Times critic Manohla Dargis, “Drive My Car” follows Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a theater director grappling with the death of his wife, as he mounts a production of “Uncle Vanya” in Hiroshima. The theater company assigns him a chauffeur, Misaki (Toko Miura), who ferries him to and from work in a red Saab while holding back vast emotional reserves of her own. Though Yusuke at first resents Misaki’s presence, a connection — and then a confession — is finally made.“There are many directors that are great at portraying characters, but there is something peculiar and unique about Hamaguchi,” Bong said via an interpreter by phone from Seoul. “He’s very intense in his approach to the characters, very focused, and he never rushes things.”And though that unhurried approach can result in a long running time, Bong felt that the three-hour length of “Drive My Car” only enriched its eventual emotional impact.“I would compare this to the sound of a bell that resonates for a long time,” he said.Perhaps it’s fitting that the film’s awards-season journey has been slowly building, too. Unlike “Parasite,” which rocketed out of the Cannes Film Festival after winning the Palme d’Or, the intimate “Drive My Car” (adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami) emerged from Cannes last summer with a screenplay trophy and little Oscar buzz. But after critics groups in New York and Los Angeles both gave their top film award to Hamaguchi, the movie’s profile began to steadily rise.From left, Choi Woo Shik, Song Kang Ho, Chang Hyae Jin and Park So Dam  in “Parasite.”NeonStill, the road to Oscar is littered with plenty of critical favorites that couldn’t go the distance. When I asked Hamaguchi why “Drive My Car” had proved to be his breakthrough, the director was at a loss.“I honestly really don’t know,” Hamaguchi said. “I want to ask you. Why do you think this is the case?”I suggested that during the pandemic, it affects us even more to watch characters who yearn to connect but cannot. Even when the characters in “Drive My Car” share the same bed, the same room or the same Saab, there’s a gulf between them that can’t always be closed.Hamaguchi agreed. “We are physically separated and yet we’re able to connect online,” he said. “It’s that thing of being connected and yet, at the same time, not.”To illustrate what he meant, Hamaguchi recalled that 10 years ago, while working on a documentary about the aftermath of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, he traveled through eastern Japan interviewing survivors. As he lent those people a camera and his trust, deeply buried thoughts came spilling out of them.“After the interviews, I wrote out the words, and I realized that the ones that really shook me were the words that were quite normal or ordinary,” he said. “They were things that perhaps these people had already thought but had never thought to verbalize until that moment.”The same is true when it comes to the “Drive My Car” characters, whose internal struggles can only reach the level of epiphany when they find someone to confide in.“It’s possible that when the characters say what they’re thinking, the audience could think, ‘Oh, they didn’t actually know this?’ But it’s about the journey of being able to get to a place to verbalize that, and for that journey to happen, it’s because someone is there to witness it,” Hamaguchi said. “Somebody being there to listen has an incredible power.”And Hamaguchi wouldn’t mind some company himself, if only to help him process all those Oscar nominations. When I spoke to him last week, he was quarantining in a Tokyo hotel after returning from the Berlin Film Festival. “I haven’t seen anyone, so no celebration for me,” he said.As the Oscar nominations were announced on Feb. 8, Hamaguchi was flying to Berlin; when the plane landed hours later, he turned on his phone and was flooded with text messages. Even now, recounting the story, he remains in a state of disbelief.“To be honest, I don’t think I’ll feel like all of this is real until I’m actually at the awards ceremony,” he said. “No matter how many congratulations I get, it’s hard to believe, especially when I’m confined to a narrow, small hotel room. Perhaps when I’m at the awards ceremony and I see directors like Spielberg there, reality might kick in.”Bong, center, onstage at the Oscars when “Parasite” won best picture in 2020.Noel West for The New York TimesBong was less gobsmacked by Hamaguchi’s nominations. “I knew ‘Drive My Car’ was a great film, and I didn’t find it surprising,” he said. “And since the academy lately has been showing more interest in non-English films, I expect that the film will do well at the awards.”His own Oscar ceremony was a whirlwind experience — “I can’t believe it’s been two years already,” Bong mused — but he declined to offer advice to Hamaguchi on how to navigate the night.“I’m sure he will do well,” Bong said. “He is someone who is like an ancient stone — he has a very strong center.”Instead, Bong extended a request. When they first met in Tokyo, and again last year during a panel discussion at the Busan Film Festival in South Korea, there wasn’t much time for the two men to hang out. “So this year, I hope we will be able to get together either in Seoul or Tokyo and have a delicious meal,” Bong said. And after the Oscars, surely they would have plenty of notes to compare.Hamaguchi was eager to accept the invitation. “I’m truly delighted to hear that,” he said, though he cautioned that Bong might not like the topic of dinner conversation: “I would really love to keep asking questions about how he makes such amazing films. I want to keep asking him until he’s sick of me asking!” More

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      ‘The 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films’ Review: Small Tales, Big Ideas

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      From near-future nightmares to inspirational sports narratives, this year’s shorts are an eclectic bunch.This year, the Oscar-nominated short films are being presented in three programs: live action, animation and documentary. Each program is reviewed below by a separate critic.Live ActionRarely is it the case that every nominee in a particular Oscar category feels equally deserving of attention, but this year’s program of live action shorts is particularly strong. All show situations range from mildly uncomfortable to downright terrifying, yet the quality of the filmmaking takes center stage.Anchored by a wise and wonderful lead performance from Anna Dzieduszycka, the Polish film “The Dress” follows Julia, a motel maid with dwarfism, as she tries to ease her loneliness and lose her virginity. A date with a handsome truck driver promises to do both, with troubling consequences. Filmed in beautifully soft light and directed by Tadeusz Lysiak in artful close-ups, this affecting and upsetting look at sex and disability reminds us that tall, dark strangers aren’t always a romantic prize.“On My Mind,” the sad-sweet entry from the Danish director Martin Strange-Hansen, doesn’t at first seem at all romantic, but just wait. When a strange, mournful man (Rasmus Hammerich) walks into a bar and begs to sing one special song on the karaoke machine, his deceptively simple request will soon be revealed as, quite literally, a matter of life or death.In the darkly humorous dystopia of “Please Hold,” a 19-minute nightmare set in a near-future world almost completely controlled by artificial intelligence, a young man (Erick Lopez) is arrested by a police drone and pressured to take a plea deal for an unknown crime. While he fumes in a hellscape of touch screens and disembodied voices — “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that!” — the Mexican American director KD Dávila delivers a shockingly clever satire of the privatized prison system and the elusiveness of justice.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.The Hosts: The comic actresses Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall are in final talks to take on the highly scrutinized role as a trio.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.Dreams of an education are dashed when Sezim (a terrific Alina Turdumamatova), the young Kyrgyz woman at the center of “Ala Kachuu (Take and Run),” is kidnapped and forced into marriage with a stranger. With empathy and energy, the German-Swiss director Maria Brendle uses Sezim’s youthful resilience as a cudgel against the repressive customs of rural Kyrgyzstan, a region where so-called bride kidnapping is believed to be a common practice.Preparations for a more joyful wedding open “The Long Goodbye,” Aneil Karia’s visceral film accompaniment to the actor and musician Riz Ahmed’s 2020 concept album of the same name. In a slight 12 minutes, Karia whisks us from scenes of happy chaos to abject horror, finally settling on fury as Ahmed, playing a brother of the bride, weaponizes his words and music to attack British racism. Powerful and tensely edited, this tiny movie says more in those few minutes than some movies manage in hours. JEANNETTE CATSOULISAnimationA scene from “Bestia,” a stop-motion chiller directed by Hugo Covarrubias.ShortsTV“Animation is not just for children,” Paul McCartney once said on an awards stage. “It is also for adults who take drugs.” The caution is apropos for the 2022 animated program of Oscar Nominated Shorts, although the “Yellow Submarine” star probably imagined more fun than what a doctor would prescribe for these anxiety-inducing films about heartbreak, resentment, torture and despair.“Bestia,” by Hugo Covarrubias, is a brutal and beautifully executed bit of payback against Chile’s Íngrid Olderöck, a paramilitary major who, according to survivors, trained dogs to sexually violate opponents of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. Made of deceptively cuddly felt, Covarrubias’s stop-motion chiller follows Olderöck and her German Shepard into her nightmares, revealing her as a husk of a human hiding under a tight-lipped ceramic mask. Note the hairline crack at the temple of Olderöck’s near-expressionless face — a nod to a 1981 assassination attempt.The Russian illustrator Anton Dyakov clearly admires “Rocky.” A poster of the Sylvester Stallone Oscar-winner pokes into the frame of Dyakov’s “Boxballet,” a simple, bittersweet tale about a declining boxer with a crush on a Swan Lake dancer under the thumb of a predatory male director. In this expressionistic fable, creeps have claws, limbs stretch like linguine noodles, and the would-be lovebirds must settle for much less than seven glitzy sequels.The chain-smoker at the start of Alberto Mielgo’s restless stunner “The Windshield Wiper” resembles the artist himself, a visual consultant on “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” whose streaks of color and startling use of light position him as one of the foremost artists designing digital animation’s future. “What is love?” the man asks. In response, the film races through cynical vignettes scattered across the globe, and in one case, on a satellite above it.For nearly 35 years, Joanna Quinn has pencil-sketched the adventures of Beryl, a raucous British factory worker who here reveals she always fancied herself an artist. “Affairs of the Art” finds Beryl stark nude and painting herself blue. But the spotlight is on Beryl’s macabre childhood and a string of dead pets. Yes, McCartney — even kids can be creeps. As a balm, Aardman Animations offers “Robin Robin,” the one cartoon suitable for families. This musical trifle celebrates an orphaned baby bird who must learn to use her wings. It’s saccharine fluff — and Oscar prognosticators have it as their front-runner. AMY NICHOLSONDocumentaryThe high school football player Amaree McKenstry in “Audible.” His senior year is eventful beyond the gridiron.ShortsTVWith three out of five nominees, Netflix is almost bigfooting this year’s documentary short category, but one of those three is a standout. “Audible,” directed by Matt Ogens, observes the high school football team at the Maryland School for the Deaf, zeroing in on one player, Amaree McKenstry. His senior year is eventful beyond the gridiron, as he navigates a tentative relationship and reconnects with the father who left him.McKenstry says that while he cannot hear cheers, he is able to feel vibrations from running. The players approach football with a different perspective. (“A lot of the hearing teams don’t want to play us,” the coach says. “And most coaches don’t like to lose to deaf coaches.”) Ogens, without overdoing it, finds ways to appeal to viewers’ other senses, looking for tactile moments, like teenagers dancing to booming bass lines or team members slamming locker doors and flicking a light switch as they rev themselves to return to the field.School memories also suffuse “When We Were Bullies.” In the early 1990s, the filmmaker, Jay Rosenblatt, had a random encounter with a former fifth-grade classmate from the 1965-6 school year. Both had remembered an incident when they and others had ganged up on an ostracized student. Years later, haunted that he had been a bully, Rosenblatt seeks out other classmates and their 92-year-old teacher. Not all remember the dust up, and Rosenblatt consciously leads the movie into a dead end. Still, “When We Were Bullies” plays with structure and animation in ways that leaven it.Less successfully empathetic is “Lead Me Home,” a documentary on homelessness shot in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle from 2017 to 2020. It is simply too diffuse at this length; few of its 15 featured subjects emerge with clarity, although it has heart-rending moments, like when a mother explains why she shops for groceries and makes dinner for her children instead of accepting meals. The many aerial shots of encampments inadvertently call attention to the distant perspective of the filmmakers, Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk, whose overuse of time-lapse photography and unfortunate deployment of Coldplay’s “Midnight” suggest it’s easier to lyricize poverty than explore it.“Three Songs for Benazir,” from the directors Gulistan and Elizabeth Mirzaei, follows a father-to-be in a displaced-persons camp in Kabul who yearns to join the Afghan National Army, but others are convinced his place is in the poppy fields. A poignant epilogue set four years later confirms a downbeat fate, while also hinting at a great unrealized feature that might have been.Finally, the New York Times Op-Doc “The Queen of Basketball,” directed by Ben Proudfoot, puts a spotlight on Lusia Harris, who died in January. In close-up, she recalls her career as a pathbreaking basketball player, the first woman to be officially drafted by an N.B.A. team. Released before Harris’s death, the movie now makes for a simple but moving memorial, interspersing Harris’s recollections with clips of key games and headlines. BEN KENIGSBERGThe 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live ActionNot rated. In English and several other languages, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute. In theaters.The 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films: AnimatedNot rated. In English and several other languages, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters.The 2022 Oscar Nominated Short Films: DocumentaryNot rated. In English and several other languages, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 39 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Oscars Will Require Covid Tests for All, Vaccines for Most

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      After much internal discussion, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has come to an agreement on coronavirus safety measures for attendees of the 94th Oscars, which will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles: The audience of 2,500 invited guests — including all nominees — will be required to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus and at least two negative P.C.R. tests.Performers and presenters also must undergo rigorous testing — but those people will not need to show proof of vaccination, a decision that an academy spokeswoman said on Thursday was in keeping with virus safety protocols on some television sets and return-to-work standards set by Los Angeles County.Under an agreement last year between entertainment unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, production companies (in this case the academy) have the option to mandate vaccinations for cast and crew. But it is not a requirement, and some companies separate productions into zones, with different testing and social distancing requirements depending on how closely casts and crews need to work together.Face covering requirements also will vary, the academy said. Nominees and their guests will be seated in the orchestra and parterre areas of the Dolby Theater and will not be required to wear masks. These attendees will be seated with more spacing than usual. The Dolby seats 3,317 people and 2,500 people will be invited, the academy said.Those in the mezzanine may be required to wear masks, as they will sit shoulder-to-shoulder. Infections are declining rapidly in Los Angeles County, and the academy said it was consulting with government officials, infectious disease experts and an independent vendor, Cosmos Health Solutions, on a policy.Last week, following a report in The Hollywood Reporter that the academy was planning to forgo a vaccine mandate across the board, the organization was pummeled on social media by fans, stars, politicians and others for what appeared to be an effort to accommodate unvaccinated celebrities. Seth MacFarlane, who hosted the Oscars in 2013, was among those who criticized the academy on Twitter.The academy declined to say anything publicly about The Hollywood Reporter’s article, but officials insisted that no decisions had been made.Coronavirus safety protocols have been changing rapidly as infections have declined. On Tuesday, Disney eased its mask mandate for fully vaccinated theme park visitors in California and Florida. This week, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival said attendees (up to 125,000 fans a day in the prepandemic era) would not be required to be vaccinated, tested or masked.According to government data, 1,713 coronavirus-positive patients were hospitalized in Los Angeles County as of Thursday, a 54 percent decline since Feb. 1. Over the last week, the county has reported an average of about 4,100 new cases per day, a decline of 77 percent from two weeks ago.The academy’s decision puts it at odds with some award shows that are scheduled to take place in the weeks before the Oscars, including the Critics Choice Awards on March 13. Joey Berlin, the force behind the awards, told The Hollywood Reporter that everyone involved would be vaccinated. “I can’t invite people to a show where they’re not going to feel safe,” he said.The academy emphasized on Thursday that it would be in direct touch with nominees and studios to walk them through the various safety requirements. More

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      Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall to Host the Oscars

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      The comic actresses are in final talks for the job, which the producer Will Packer is adding back to the ceremony. The event had been hostless for the past three years.Wanda Sykes, left, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall are in final negotiations. Photographs by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images; Jamie Mccarthy/Getty Images; Jerod Harris/Getty Images The Oscars, seeking cultural relevance again after last year’s ceremony hit record low ratings, have a host again. Three, in fact.Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes are in final negotiations to host the 94th Academy Awards next month, according to six sources with knowledge of the discussions. The three comic actresses come to the gig with varying levels of expertise, including stints hosting the MTV Movie Awards (Schumer in 2015) and the BET Awards (Hall in 2019). Sykes also had her own talk show, which ran from 2009 to 2010, and has hosted ceremonies including the GLAAD Media Awards. The news was reported earlier by Variety.Will Packer, who was hired in October to produce the Oscars telecast, explored several unconventional ideas for structuring the show, including the option to pair two hosts for each hour. Until this weekend, Packer was also in discussions to add the actor Jon Hamm as a fourth Oscars host, and invitations were also extended to previous hosts, including Chris Rock and Steve Martin. Martin was pursued for the role alongside his “Only Murders in the Building” co-stars Selena Gomez and Martin Short. But that plan was scuttled because of scheduling conflicts.Schumer, Hall and Sykes will be taking on one of the most high-profile jobs in town, and also one of the most scrutinized. Hosting the ceremony was once viewed as a feather in the cap by top comedians like Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg. But the Oscars have gone hostless for the last three years, which began as a matter of expediency when Kevin Hart dropped out of the 2019 ceremony after refusing to apologize for jokes and tweets that were considered homophobic.Since then, the academy has instead asked stars simply to open the show, including the comic trio of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph at the 2019 Oscars, as well as Regina King, who delivered an earnest monologue at the top of last year’s ceremony. Those kickoff positions have proved easier to book, since many stars are still leery about the time commitment and potential backlash that a solo hosting gig can bring. But without a host, there are fewer opportunities for the show to produce viral, talked-about moments like the star-packed selfie taken by the host Ellen DeGeneres in 2014.And in an era when television ratings are dwindling, the Oscars need all the buzz they can get: This year’s show is viewed as a make-or-break moment by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group that votes on the Oscars and recently opened a pricey museum in Los Angeles. After last year’s edition pulled record-low ratings, the academy has sought new ways to draw eyeballs, including a contest letting viewers vote on their favorite film of the year. That winner, which will be announced on the telecast, provides a potential berth for blockbusters like “Spider-Man: No Way Home” that failed to make the best-picture race when the nominations were unveiled last week.The academy is set to officially announce the hosts Tuesday on “Good Morning America.” The 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27.Brooks Barnes More

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      'Lunana,' a Movie From Bhutan, Is Nominated for an Academy Award

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      “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. It’s now an Academy Award nominee, a first for Bhutan.THIMPHU, Bhutan — As a crew of 35 people prepared to make a movie in Bhutan’s remote Lunana Valley, they faced a slew of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.The valley had no electricity. It could only be reached by walking eight days from the nearest village. And the schoolchildren who were expected to star in the film knew nothing about acting or cinema.“They did not even know what a camera was or what it looked like,” Namgay Dorji, the village schoolteacher, said in a telephone interview.On Tuesday, the movie, “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom,” was nominated for an Academy Award — a first for Bhutan. Its director, Pawo Choyning Dorji, said he had been on an “improbable journey” ever since deciding to shoot the film, his first, in a Himalayan village about three miles above sea level.“It was so improbable that I thought I wouldn’t be able to finish,” said Mr. Dorji, 38, who is from a rural part of Bhutan that is east of Lunana.“Somehow we now find ourselves nominated for an Oscar,” he added. “When I found out, it was so unbelievable that I kept telling my friends: ‘What if I wake up tomorrow and I realize all this was a dream?’”The ‘dark valley’“Lunana,” which was released digitally on Friday, tells the story of a young teacher from Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu, who is assigned to work at a remote mountain school against his will. He dreams of quitting his government job, emigrating to Australia and pursuing a career as a singer.Yogesh Gurav, a boom operator, during the filming of “Lunana.” The crew sent their equipment into the mountain valley on mules.Pawo Choyning DorjiBut the teacher, Ugyen, is fascinated by the people he meets in Lunana — particularly 9-year-old Pem Zam, a radiant student with a difficult home life. As the months go by, he begins to take his job more seriously.Mr. Dorji, who wrote the script, said he made a teacher the protagonist after reading news reports about Bhutanese educators quitting their jobs. He saw that as a symbol of discontent in a poor, isolated country where globalization has caused profound social changes.Bhutan prides itself on measuring, and maximizing, the “gross national happiness” of its roughly 750,000 people. But Mr. Dorji said young Bhutanese increasingly believe that true happiness lies abroad, in places like Australia, Europe or New York City.He said he picked the Lunana Valley as the film’s setting because it presented a dramatic contrast with a “well-lit” foreign city. The area is isolated even by the standards of this remote Himalayan kingdom; in Dzongkha, the national language, lunana means “dark valley.”“My idea was: Can we discover in the shadows and darkness what we are so desperately seeking in the light?” Mr. Dorji, who divides his time among Bhutan, India and Taiwan, said in an interview from Taipei, Taiwan.Keeping it naturalTurning his vision into a movie was a giant undertaking. The Lunana Valley borders far western China, has glacial lakes and some of the world’s highest peaks, and cannot be reached by car. When health workers administered coronavirus vaccines there last year, they had to fly in by helicopter and walk from village to village through snow and ice.When Mr. Dorji’s film crew traveled to Lunana in the late summer of 2018, they transported their firewood, batteries, solar chargers and other essential gear on mules. They brought nonperishable rations, such as of dried pumpkin and mushrooms, because there was no refrigeration. And when they arrived, they had to build their own temporary housing.There was just enough solar power to shoot the movie on a single camera, but not enough for Mr. Dorji to review his footage each night after shooting, as most directors do. So he had to go by his instincts and hope for the best.His cast presented another challenge. The three main roles were played by nonprofessional actors from Thimphu. The others were all from Lunana — a place where families survive through subsistence agriculture and by harvesting a valuable alpine fungus — and had never even seen a movie.“The camera in front of them could have been a yak, for all they cared,” Mr. Dorji said.Pem Zam, left, and Sangay Lham in a scene from “Lunana.”Samuel Goldwyn PicturesMr. Dorji said he adapted to his characters’ lack of experience by tailoring the script to their lives, encouraging them to essentially play themselves. Pem Zam, for instance, goes by her real name in the movie.Mr. Dorji also shot scenes in the order in which they appear in the film, so that his actors could let their characters develop with the story. He also added scenes that he felt were poignant examples of real village life. One example: In a scene where Ugyen teaches his students how to use a toothbrush, they aren’t acting; they really didn’t know.The result is a film that successfully captures a sense of innocence, the Oscar-winning director Ang Lee told Mr. Dorji in a video call last month. He described “Lunana” as a “breath of fresh air.”“It’s a precious, precious, very simple but very touching movie,” Mr. Lee said. “Thank you for going through all that and sharing your country and culture with us.”An unlikely hit“Lunana” is Bhutan’s first Oscar entry since “The Cup,” a 1999 film that was written and directed by Mr. Dorji’s teacher Khyentse Norbu. That film, which chronicles the arrival of television in a monastery, was not shortlisted or nominated for an Academy Award.The Bhutanese government submitted “Lunana” for last year’s Oscars, but it was disqualified: The national film committee had gone so long without submitting a film for consideration that it was no longer officially recognized by the Academy.For the 2022 awards, the country formed a special selection committee. And in December, “Lunana” was among 15 shortlisted of 93 Academy Award submissions from around the world. On Tuesday, it was one of five films — alongside others from Japan, Denmark, Italy and Norway — nominated for an Oscar in the International Feature Film category.Karma Phuntsho, the selection committee’s chairman, said “Lunana” reflects the maturation of a domestic film industry that’s only about three decades old.“I have been encouraging my friends in the film industry to look beyond the small Bhutanese market and share our stories with the world,” he said. “Pawo has done that with a flair and it is a proud moment for all Bhutanese and friends of Bhutan.”Mr. Dorji with some of his cast. Kinley WangchukMr. Dorji said the film was made on a $300,000 budget — “peanuts when it comes to filmmaking” — and that he never expected to have much help publicizing it. Now it’s being distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films and marketed by a public relations agency with offices in New York and Beverly Hills.News of the film’s success has trickled back to Lunana, according to Kaka, a 51-year-old village headman there who goes by one name. “The people back home are happy that their village has become known to the world,” he said by telephone.Namgay Dorji, 35, the real-life schoolteacher whose experience of living in the Lunana Valley for a decade inspired parts of the script, said the film’s international success had inspired him to stay in the area longer than he had once planned to.“When I was in front of the camera, I wasn’t that excited,” said Mr. Dorji, the schoolteacher, who appeared in the film as an extra. “But after watching it and listening to the children’s dialogue, I realized how much hardship our community has had to overcome.”Chencho Dema reported from Thimphu, Bhutan, and Mike Ives from Seoul. More

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      2022 Oscars Nominations: Snubs and Surprises for Lady Gaga and Jared Leto

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      “The Power of the Dog” led the Oscar nominations on Tuesday, but plenty of other high-profile contenders fell short. Here, the Projectionist muses on the morning’s most startling surprises and omissions.Kristen Stewart gets the royal treatment.Kristen Stewart’s role as Princess Diana in “Spencer” is the sort of thing Oscar voters usually rush to crown: It’s a juicy, transformative lead in a biopic, performed by a famous actress who has successfully leapt from blockbusters to prestige films. Then came a shocking snub from the Screen Actors Guild, followed by another shutout from BAFTA, and pundits worried whether she’d get nominated at all. Still, Stewart was game, continuing to do press and awards-season round tables, and the 31-year-old actress was rewarded Tuesday morning with her very first Oscar nomination.Lady Gaga and Jared Leto are shut out.“House of Gucci” was stripped to its studs Tuesday, as former winners Lady Gaga and Jared Leto were both snubbed by the academy. Few performances this year were talked about more — both by audiences and by the two actors themselves — and the red carpet will be a little lesser for their absence. (Hey, nobody said the Oscars were particularly ethical … but they are fair.)‘Drive My Car’ overperforms.Coming out of last summer’s Cannes Film Festival, no one had tagged Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” as a major Oscar spoiler: Instead, films like Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero” and Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” had all the buzz. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Dolby Theater: A year-end surge from critics’ groups put Hamaguchi’s contemplative three-hour drama in the thick of the awards conversation, thanks to high-profile best-film wins from the critics in New York and Los Angeles. Off that momentum, “Drive My Car” managed an astounding four Oscar nominations, with citations in picture, director, adapted screenplay and international film.‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ is snubbed.There was no bigger film last year than “Spider-Man: No Way Home” — in fact, with a domestic gross of more than $748 million so far, there are only three other films that have ever been bigger. As the superhero movie kept raking in cash, the drumbeat grew louder that if the Oscars really wanted to reflect the year in film, they should honor one of the few movies that kept theaters open at all. And the academy did … but only with a nomination in visual effects. A best-picture nomination proved well outside the web-slinger’s reach.The director of ‘Dune’ goes missing.The academy’s directing branch is often dazzled by technical achievement, and a filmmaker who can wield blockbuster scale in the service of a soulful story usually has a leg up over more intimate fare. That’s why it’s startling that this year’s best-director race didn’t make room for Denis Villeneuve, especially since his sci-fi film “Dune” did score 10 nominations in a host of categories. But history was made elsewhere in that category, as Jane Campion became the first woman to earn two directing nominations (for “The Power of the Dog” and 1993’s “The Piano”) and the “West Side Story” filmmaker Steven Spielberg became the first person to be nominated in that category in six different decades.Two couples were nominated.Not only did the real-life partners Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons score their first Oscar nominations this year for “The Power of the Dog,” so did Penélope Cruz (“Parallel Mothers”) and Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”), the rare married couple to have already won before. Even better: It’s a four-category split, as Cruz and Bardem were nominated in the lead races while Dunst and Plemons continued the spread in the supporting categories. Talk about a double date!Kenneth Branagh makes history.Even before “Belfast,” Branagh was an Oscar favorite, collecting five nominations over the course for his career in categories as varied as director, actor, supporting actor, adapted screenplay and live-action short film. But Tuesday morning’s collection of nods for the black-and-white film “Belfast” vaulted Branagh to a surprising Oscar record: He is now the first person to be nominated in seven different categories, having added citations for best picture and original screenplay to his haul. (Hopefully that makes up for a few surprising “Belfast” snubs in editing and cinematography.)‘Flee’ scores the hat trick.Look, it’s hard enough to earn just one Oscar nomination, as so many of the morning’s snubbed artists can attest. That makes what “Flee” just accomplished all the more remarkable: This animated documentary about an Afghan refugee is now the first film ever to receive Oscar nominations for documentary, animated film and international film all in the same year. A win in any of those categories seems unlikely, but at least when the makers of “Flee” claim it’s an honor just to be nominated, you’ll know that they mean it. More