The 83rd annual Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. Here's the Full List along with the video below. I'll just get right to it with what I felt were the major snubs and surprises, along with some thoughts.
THE GOOD
-The Social Network. If we're looking at the glass half-full it got 8 nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Original Score. Thank you Academy.
-David Fincher. Hopefully soon to be known as "The Oscar-Winning Director of The Game, Fight Club, Zodiac and The Social Network."
- Shutter Island and The Ghost Writer shut out. Sorry, but neither were deserving and whatever attention they got was due to the reputations of their filmmakers. Especially The Ghost Writer.
-John Hawkes nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Winter's Bone. I hesitate filing this under "good" considering who he likely pushed out to get this slot (see below). That said, Hawkes deserves this.
-Jeff Bridges Best Actor for True Grit. After winning last year, now joins Tom Hanks, Robert DeNiro and others in the back-to-back nomination club.
-Michelle Williams officially becomes the first Dawson's Creek actress nominated for an Academy Award in a lead category (for Blue Valentine). She was nominated in Supporting for Brokeback Mountain in '05 but now there's no getting around that I've lost that bet I made against her in 1998. Can't testify to the quality of this performance yet but she's clearly put in a lot of hard work to arrive at this point.
-Both 127 Hours and Toy Story 3 nominated for Best Picture. Expected, but I can deal with it.
THE BAD
-The King's Speech leads the pack with 12 nominations, which is unfortunately enough to secure the Oscar telecast record low ratings, regardless of how likable the hosts are are. I haven't seen the film yet (and honestly have little desire to) so I can only express disappointment at the fact that the The Social Network is trailing.
-Christopher Nolan snubbed again for Best Director. Someone must really hate this guy. It's a disgraceful omission for sure, but honestly, I've seen worse. At least Inception was nominated for Best Picture. It's kind of ironic the director who's film inadvertently caused this 10 Best Picture nominee thing is now being shut out of the over-crowded Director category because of it.
-Andrew Garfield snubbed for Best Supporting Actor for The Social Network. Now THIS is worse. Forget about Nolan. I have my theories as to how this could have happened, but wow, what an injustice. Easily one of the top five performances of the year in ANY category.
- ONLY 8 nominations for The Social Network. Less than Benjamin Button? Something's wrong there. And only a single acting nomination (for Jesse Eisenberg). In addition to Garfield, a much bigger push should have been made to get Armie Hammer nominated as well.
-The Kids Are All Right nominated for Best Picture. Totally saw it coming, but that doesn't make it any less wrong or ridiculous.
-The Town doesn't get in for Best Picture. Not deserving at all, but I'd trade it in a heartbeat for The Kid Are All Right or Winter's Bone.
-Winter's Bone nominated for Best Picture. I liked it (barely) and its two acting nominations are well deserved, but this is just another case of the Academy thumbing their noses at casual moviegoers by embracing an obscure indie picture that's good, not great, but covers an important social issue (see The Hurt Locker and Precious last year).
-Some feel Ryan Gosling should have joined co-star Michelle Williams but if we're being completely realistic it's a shock a movie that small and under-seen got an acting nod at all. He'll have plenty more chances.
-No TRON: Legacy for visual effects or Daft Punk's original score. I don't even know what to say there.
-No Mila Kunis for Black Swan. It's funny how many Portman fans contend she did everything by herself when she seemed to have A LOT of help from everyone involved.
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5 comments:
"Winter's Bone" and "The Kid's Are Alright" are not unnecessarily deserving of Best Picture nominations. I'm bummed that "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" got completely shut out. To see "Tron Legacy" snubbed in the Best Original Score and Best Visual Effects categories is a big surprise. And what is Hailee Steinfeld doing in the Best Supporting Actress category? She deserves Best Actress!!
I realize I'm in the minority there, though I far prefer "Winter's Bone" to "The Kids Are All Right" and can at least get behind the nominations for Lawrence and Hawkes.
Can live with the "Scott Pilgrim" shut out, as everyone seemed to like that movie more than I did. It would have been a nice surprise for its fans if it got in though. The two snubs that really stick out for me are Nolan for Director and Garfield for S. Actor. And yeah "Tron Legacy" was robbed in the technical categories. If you're a kid it seems you're destined to be thrown in supporting regardless of screen time. It's ridiculous.
Andrew Garfield was the most shocking omission, his role wasn't as showy as the lead but his performance created such a sense of empathy for the character that I expected supporting nod.
I personally wasn't suprised about Mila Kunis, maybe I have to rewatch the film but I didn't find anything that terribly deep or impressive about her performance or role.
He was really the emotional core of the movie. You know I thought the same thing too at first about Kunis but the performance has strangely grown on me.
Totally agree with you about Garfield, he's the one that left the strongest impression on me after I finished viewing it.
I'll have to take a closer look at Kunis' performance when Swan hits video.
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