Arts & Entertainment
‘The Favourite’ leads LGBT-inclusive Oscar noms
‘A Star is Born’ follows close behind
The 91st Academy Awards announced the nominees for its class of 2019 with “The Favourite” and “Roma” tying for the most recognition with 10 nominations each.
“The Favourite” earned nominations for its three lead actresses with Olivia Colman scoring a Best Actress nomination for portraying Queen Anne and Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz receiving Best Supporting Actress nominations.
“A Star is Born” came in an overall close second pulling in eight nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Original Song nominations for Lady Gaga and a Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for Bradley Cooper.
Other LGBT-inclusive nominations include the Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which became the highest grossing music biopic of all time upon its release last year.
Melissa McCarthy was nominated for her role as lesbian writer Lee Israel in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” and Richard E. Grant received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing her gay friend Jack Hock.
LGBT nominees on the list were Jeff Whitty for co-writing “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman for their Netflix documentary “End Game,” Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman for writing the original song “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns” and Shaiman for Original Score for “Mary Poppins Returns.” The LGBT-inclusive film”Marguerite,” which tells the story of a nurse and an aging woman’s friendship, was also nominated for Live Action Short.
The Academy also finally gave some overdue credit to acting veterans Regina King and Sam Elliot with their first nominations. King was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk.” Elliot received a nom for Best Supporting Actor for “A Star is Born.”
Notable snubs in this year’s Academy Awards crop were a Best Director nomination for Cooper for his directorial debut in “A Star is Born” and Timothée Chalamet for Best Supporting Actor in the drug addiction-fueled drama “Beautiful Boy.”
Two film nominations were also historical film moments. Netflix received its first Oscar nomination for “Roma” and “Black Panther,” which earned seven nominations, became the first Marvel film to be nominated for Best Picture.
The Academy Awards air on Sunday, Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Check out the complete list of nominees below.
Best Picture
“Black Panther”
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“The Favourite”
“Green Book”
“Roma”
“A Star Is Born”
“Vice”
Best Actor
Christian Bale – “Vice”
Bradley Cooper –”A Star Is Born”
Willem Dafoe – “At Eternity’s Gate”
Rami Malek – “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Viggo Mortensen – “Green Book”
Best Actress
Yalitza Aparicio – “Roma”
Glenn Close – “The Wife”
Olivia Colman – “The Favourite”
Lady Gaga – “A Star Is Born”
Melissa McCarthy – “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Best Director
Spike Lee – “BlacKkKlansman”
Pawel Pawlikowski – “Cold War”
Yorgos Lanthimos – “The Favourite”
Alfonso Cuarón – “Roma”
Adam McKay – “Vice”
Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali – “Green Book”
Adam Driver – “BlacKkKlansman”
Sam Elliott – “A Star Is Born”
Richard E. Grant – “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Sam Rockwell – “Vice”
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – “Vice”
Marina de Tavira – “Roma”
Regina King – “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Emma Stone – “The Favourite”
Rachel Weisz – “The Favourite”
Best Adapted Screenplay
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen – “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”
Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott
Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty – “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Barry Jenkins – “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper
Best Original Screenplay
Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara – “The Favourite”
Paul Schrader – “First Reformed”
Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie
Alfonso Cuarón – “Roma”
Adam McKay – “Vice”
Best Cinematography
Łukasz Żal – “Cold War”
Robbie Ryan – “The Favourite”
Caleb Deschanel – “Never Look Away”
Alfonso Cuarón – “Roma”
Matthew Libatique – “A Star Is Born”
Best Documentary Feature
“Free Solo”
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening”
“Minding the Gap”
“Of Fathers and Sons”
“RBG”
Best Animated Film
“Incredibles 2”
“Isle of Dogs”
“Mirai”
“Ralph Breaks the Internet”
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Capernaum” (Lebanon)
“Cold War” (Poland)
“Never Look Away” (Germany)
“Roma” (Mexico)
“Shoplifters” (Japan)
Best Documentary Short Subject
” Black Sheep”
“End Game”
“Lifeboat”
“A Night at the Garden”
“Period. End Of Sentence”
Best Animated Short Film
“Animal Behaviour”
“Bao”
“Late Afternoon”
“One Small Step”
“Weekends”
Best Live Action Short Film
“Detainment”
“Fauve”
“Marguerite”
“Mother”
“Skin”
Best Original Song
“All the Stars” from “Black Panther,” Kendrick Lamar, SZA
“I’ll Fight” from “RBG,” Diane Warren
“The Place Where Lost Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns,” Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman
“Shallow” from “A Star Is Born,” Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, Andrew Wyatt and Benjamin Rice
“When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” David Rawlings
Best Original Score
Ludwig Goransson – “Black Panther”
Terence Blanchard – “BlacKkKlansman”
Nicholas Britell – “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Alexandre Desplat – “Isle of Dogs”
Marc Shaiman – “Mary Poppins Returns”
Best Production Design
“Black Panther”
“The Favourite”
“First Man”
“Mary Poppins Returns”
“Roma”
Best Costume Design
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”
“Black Panther”
“The Favourite”
“Mary Poppins Returns”
“Mary Queen of Scots”
Best Film Editing
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“The Favourite”
“Green Book”
“Vice”
Best Visual Effects
“Avengers: Infinity War”
“Christopher Robin”
“First Man”
“Ready Player One”
“Solo: A Star Wars Story”
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
“Border”
“Mary Queen of Scots”
“Vice”
Best Sound Editing
“Black Panther”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“First Man”
“A Quiet Place”
“Roma”
Best Sound Mixing
“Black Panther”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“First Man”
“Roma”
“A Star Is Born”
Photos
PHOTOS: Remove the Regime rally and march
Dropkick Murphys, Earth to Eve perform on steps of Lincoln Memorial
The Remove the Regime rally and march was held on Saturday, Nov. 22.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Transgender Day of Remembrance was observed at the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Nov. 20. The event was emceed by Rayceen Pendarvis and Dwight Venson. Musical selections were provided by Agape Praise and Dynamic Praise. Proclamations from the D.C. Council and the D.C. Office of the Mayor were presented. The Pouring of the Libation was conducted by Rev. Elder Akousa McCray and Rev. Paul Fulton-Woods of Unity Fellowship Church.
Remarks were given by trans survivors of violence. Family members of slain trans woman Dream Johnson were featured speakers. Prayers were given by Rev. Cathy Alexander and Rev. Dwayne Johnson of Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C. Yael Shafritz gave a Jewish prayer through a video presentation. Closing remarks were given by community leader, Earline Budd.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Books
Pioneering gay journalist takes on Trump 2.0 in new book
Nick Benton’s essays appeared in Fall Church News-Press
Nicholas Benton is a well-known local LGBTQ advocate and journalist and the longtime owner and editor of the Falls Church News-Press, a weekly newspaper.
In his eighth book out now, Benton offers a new set of remarkable essays all crafted in the first eight months of Trump 2.0 and its wholesale effort at dismantling democracy and the rule of law. Most were published in the Falls Church News-Press, but he adds a new piece to this volume, as an addendum to his “Cult Century” series, revealing for the first time his experiences from decades ago in the political cult of Lyndon LaRouche, aimed at providing a clearer grasp of today’s Cult of Trump.
His “Please Don’t Eat Your Children” set takes off from the satire of Jonathan Swift to explore society’s critical role of drumming creativity out of the young.
Below is an excerpt from “Please Don’t Eat Your Children, Cult Century, and other 2025 Essays.”
Please Don’t Eat Your Children
In his famous short essay, “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public,” author and Anglican priest Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) uses cutting satire to suggest that cannibalism of the young might help solve a battery of social ills.
As we examine our broken society today, it seems to me that reflecting on Swift’s social critique can be quite useful. Now we face a nation filled with anger and division and there is little to suggest any real solutions other than insisting people “don’t do that!” We can start out with the observation that young children, left to their own, are neither hateful nor cruel. How do they get that way later on in their lives? What drives them toward such emotional states and behaviors? It is not a problem only for the margins of society, for the extreme misfits or troubled. It is defining the very center of our culture today. Our divisions are not the cause, but the result of something, and nobody is saying what that is.
Swift doesn’t say what it is in his biting little essay. But it is implied by a context of a lack of bounty, or poverty, on the one hand, and an approach to it characterized by obscenely cruel indifference, on the other. He coined the phrase “useless eaters” in defining his radical solution. In Hitler’s Germany, that term resonated through the death camps and some in our present situation are daring to evoke it again as the current administration pushes radical cuts in Medicaid funding.
But while that refers to the old and infirm, mostly, it is the young we are talking about here. The problem is that our society is structured to devour our young and as they begin to find that out, they rebel. Not in all cases is this the practice, of course. Where there is little or no lack, things are different. We nurture our young, as we should, and we love them. Lucky is the child who is born to parents who are of means, and in a community where nurture is possible and valued. But even such children are ultimately not immune from facing a destiny of pale conformity battered by tightly delimited social expectations and debt slavery. If they have enough ambition, education and doors opened for them, some can run the gauntlet with relative effectiveness. Otherwise, our young are raised to die on battlefields, or to struggle in myriad other painful social conflicts aimed at advancing the world of their elders. In the Bible, there is a great admonition against this process that comes at the very precondition for the tradition it represents that begins with Abraham.
It is in the book of Genesis at the beginning of the Biblical story when, as that story goes, God commanded Abraham to kill his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. As Abraham is about to obey, God steps in and says no. The entire subsequent eons-long struggle to realize Abraham’s commission by God to make a great nation that would be a light to the world would have been cut short right then if Abraham had slain his own son. The message is that all of the Abrahamic traditions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, owe their source, and in fact are rooted, in God’s command to reject the sacrifice of children to the whims of their elders. The last thousands of years can be best defined in these terms, where nurture is pitted against exploitation of our young with, at best, vastly mixed results. Scenes like that at the opening of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the World War I novel and film where a teacher rallies a classroom full of boys to enlist in the war, is bone chilling. Or, the lyric in Pink Floyd’s iconic song, Comfortably Numb, “When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone. I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone.”
Nick Benton’s new book is available now at Amazon.
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