Record number of Australians nominated for 2016’s Academy Awards
By anyone’s standards, it’s been an impressive year for Australia’s film industry professionals, 16 of who have been nominated for their industry’s highest accolade – an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award, or Oscar.
Leading the charge with a total of ten nominations shared between 15 creatives is George Miller’s undeniable masterpiece Mad Max: Fury Road. While Charlize Theron’s sensational performance as Imperator Furiosa has been overlooked, Mad Max: Fury Road has won nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Cinematography, Film editing, Production design, Visual effects, Sound mixing, Sound editing and Make-up and hairstyling.
When I reviewed the ‘magnificent’ Fury Road in May 2015, I described it as ‘a film of such complete, jaw-dropping cinematic mastery in every way that after the first astonishing twenty minutes, you will find yourself wondering where on earth Miller and his superb collaborators have left to go. The answer is, miraculously, everywhere and back again.’ It is exciting to learn that the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences agree. Fury Road has also enjoyed enormous success with audiences around the globe, raking in a box office take in excess of $375 million.
Cate Blanchett, nominated for her fourth Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Carol, is in line to win her third Oscar. Blanchett has been nominated seven times – four times for Best Actress and three times for Best Supporting Actress. Her first Best Actress nomination was for her break-through performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998). Though she did not win that year, in 2004 she won Best Supporting Actress for her turn as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004), and followed that up with a Best Actress win for Blue Jasmine (2103).
But all eyes will be on the sentimental favourite in the Best Supporting Actor category, where the legendary Sylvester Stallone is nominated for his performance as the iconic Rocky Balboa in Creed. Having been nominated for Best Actor for Rocky (1977), which he lost to Peter Finch for Network, the ovation from his peers that a Stallone Oscar win this year would inspire would be something that no film buff would want to miss.
The winners of the 88th Academy Awards, to be hosted by comedian Chris Rock in Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, will be announced on February 28.
This preview was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
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