Some Oscars notes

-- This is the first year I can remember where I have seen all the best-picture nominees on the day the nominations were announced.* That may be an indication that the academy, following the brouhaha over the announced-then-dropped "popular film" category, still saw fit to nominate a lot of movies that the mass audience has seen. Only not everything. I've been searching for ways to see some of the nominees in other categories; "At Eternity's Gate" has a best-actor nomination for Willem Dafoe and, according to Box Office Mojo, was in less than 200 theaters nationwide at its peak distribution, and that was a month ago.

-- The academy's expanding the best-picture category will never really work until, at the very least, the directing and writing categories are also expanded. There are eight nominees for best picture this year, but only four of those movies were also nominated for best director. (The fifth directing nomination is for "Cold War," which is not on the best picture list.) "Black Panther," "A Star Is Born,""Bohemian Rhapsody," "Green Book" -- all, in the academy's view, were apparently made by elves. Of course, some of the people involved with "Bohemian Rhapsody" think that it was anyway.

And alongside those elves were all women, who were shut out of the directing category.

-- According to the motion picture academy, 347 feature films were eligible for the Oscars. About three dozen films received nominations. So look forward to another films that Oscar forgot post.

-- There were, as always, lists of snubs to be found. ("Destroyer," one of those snubbed, has delayed its local opening -- probably because star Nicole Kidman did not get a promotable best-actress nomination.) But one snub probably could have been avoided if the academy would just accept my proposal to grade on the cume.

Emily Blunt, more than one analyst noted, could have been nominated for best actress for "Mary Poppins Returns" and supporting actress for "A Quiet Place" but was not nominated at all. What if Oscar contenders could submit all of their work in a year? What if the aforementioned Kidman could contend with her appearances in "Destroyer" and "Boy Erased" together (and, for that matter, "Aquaman" -- which also gave large audiences a chance to see Willem Dafoe).

-- Let's get away from these arbitrary categories while we're at it. Mahershala Ali is not a supporting player in "Green Book"; he shares the lead with Viggo Mortensen. The three women in "The Favourite" (Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz) are equals dramatically -- but Colman has the best-actress nod while the other two are in the supporting category.

More another time.

*The nominees: "Black Panther," "BlacKkKlansman,"  "Bohemian Rhapsody," "The Favourite," "Green Book," "Roma," "A Star is Born" and "Vice." I saw all in theaters except "Roma," which I watched on Netflix. I've seen "Black Panther" and "BlacKkKlansman" twice each, once in a theater and once on disc at home.