It’s A Long Way Down On Oscar Morning For Amazon

What a difference a year makes, and not in the good way like you’d want. Last year on Oscar nomination morning, Amazon was celebrating having broken through as the first streaming platform to earn major-category Oscar nominations , with six nominations in total for Manchester By the Sea. The film would go on to win two Oscars and break even more ground. The Amazon model of studio/streaming hybridization (a traditional theatrical run followed by a long life on streaming) was recognized as the ideal. And with a 2017 slate chock full of acclaimed filmmakers, the year ahead looked bright.

Again, what a difference a year makes. After a year that saw Amazon Studios’ president Roy Price step down after sexual harassment allegations, that saw the studio’s professional relationship with Woody Allen come under scrutiny, where their decision to cancel seemingly every show of theirs with a female character was met with anger, where the star of their most respected show was accused of sexual harassment and is not coming back, where their planned David O. Russell project with Julianne Moore and Robert De Niro was scrapped due to The Weinstein Company’s involvement — after that year, on top of all of it, their impressive-looking slate of 2017 movies managed just one Oscar nomination.

This is not to downplay the accomplishments of The Big Sick, a Sundance 2017 title that was an unambiguous indie hit, a crowd-pleaser and a money-maker that had critics onboard as well. The Best Original Screenplay nomination is a great thing, and Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon surely deserved it. But even there, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed to see that film come close to a Best Picture nod and not get it, not to mention Holly Hunter’s bid for Best Supporting Actress.

But it’s the rest of Amazon’s 2017 slate that fell flat:

• Todd Haynes’s Wonderstruck followed up Carol‘s 6 Oscar nominations with a film that never really caught on, and despite elements that were certainly nomination worthy (production design; one of the year’s best scores), it came up empty.
• Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel was trying to make that Blue Jasmine lightning strike twice, this time for Kate Winslet. Only this time, the reviews weren’t there, and nobody was in any kind of mood to support Woody Allen doing anything.
• Richard Linklater, a Best Picture/Best Director nominee not three years ago for Boyhood, delivered Last Flag Flying, a decidedly unspectacular quasi-sequel to The Last Detail that was likely too downbeat to inspire any kind of surge of patriotic support.

Even the good movies has trouble catching fire. Mike White’s Brad’s Status was a unexpectedly phenomenal look at a middle-class father whose Alexander Payne-esque dissatisfaction with his humdrum life gets put into surprisingly astute perspective. Unfortunately, it never went anywhere. Neither the Ai Weiwei documentary Human Flow, about the global refugee crisis, nor City of Ghosts, about a Syrian activist group, made it into the Best Documentary lineup.

And to make things worse, if you’re an Amazon person, Netflix finally broke through their own glass ceiling, finally scoring major-category nominations for its acclaimed Mudbound. The Dee Rees period drama earned four nominations in total, and Netflix picked up two more Best Documentary nominees (Icarus and Strong Island) and a Foreign Language Film nominee (On Body and Soul). It’s a complete reversal of last year’s fortunes.

The 2018 outlook for Amazon Studios — which includes Gus Van Sant’s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, whose good Sundance reviews still feel way too tepid to suggest it could contend for awards, as well as … sigh, the next Woody Allen movie, A Rainy Day in New York — don’t immediately have one thinking comeback. Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake sounds potentially awesome, but not awardsy. The climb back to those so recent Manchester heights could be a steep one.