Josh Brolin has a bone to pick with the Academy after it nominated “Dune” for 10 Oscars but shut out filmmaker Denis Villeneuve from the director category. “Dune” landed in the best picture race and earned nominations in every individual crafts category, which made Villeneuve’s omission one of the biggest nomination snubs of the year. How could Villeneuve’s epic dominate the Oscar nominations (it’s second only to “The Power of the Dog” as the most nominated film of the year) but not land him personal recognition? It was the question on everyone’s mind, including Brolin’s.
“Hey, I just want to say congratulations to Legendary and Warner Bros., everybody who got nominated for ‘Dune’: editing, cinematography, score, music, writing, pretty much everything,” Brolin said in a video posted to Instagram. “And the unbelievable, almost numbing, flummoxing I feel for Denis Villeneuve not being nominated for best eirector. It’s just one of those things where you go, ‘Huh? What?!’”
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Brolin added, “I don’t know how you get 10 nominations and then the guy who has done the impossible with that book doesn’t get nominated. It makes you realize that it’s all amazing and then it’s all fucking totally dumb. So congratulations for the amazing accomplishments that these incredibly talented people have been acknowledged for, because it’s all really, really dumb.”
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The odds were in Villeneuve’s favor after he picked up directing nominations from the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards and Directors Guild of America Awards. With Villeneuve out of the running, this year’s Oscar race for best director boils down to Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”), Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).
Brolin starred in “Dune” as House Atreides weapons master Gurney Halleck. Villeneuve will get another shot at landing a directing Oscar nomination for “Dune” thanks to the sequel, officially titled “Dune: Part Two.” Warner Bros. has already set an October 2023 release date for the follow-up.
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