Fin: ‘Barbie' was not snubbed, farewell Sports Illustrated, and RIP Norman Jewison

This week’s notes column

The annual Oscar nominations were announced Monday, and the big story, of course, has been the lack of nominations for Barbie. 

Or rather, “lack” is a bit of a misnomer. The film was nominated for eight awards, including Best Picture. But there’s been a great deal of handwringing over the lack of nominations for Margot Robbie for Best Actress and Greta Gerwig for Best Director. 

Ten points to make about Barbie and the Oscars “snubs”: 

• As I like to say often, the Oscars don’t usually get things right and are rarely fair. When it comes to how good movies are, history is almost always a better judge than the Academy is. 

• Barbie has a lot to be proud of, especially as a project that languished for many years and was seen in Hollywood circles as something of a risk. It ended up the #1 movie of the year at the box office, making over a billion dollars, most people who saw it liked it, and it was a legitimate cultural phenomenon. Barbie was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, and both Robbie and Gerwig got Oscar nominations, for producing and writing, respectively. If you love the Barbie movie, your love does not need the additional validation of those two more nominations.