84th Academy Awards: Initial Thoughts

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the nominees for the 84th Academy Awards this morning. This year’s most nominated film? Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, with 11 nominations, followed by Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist, with 10. There was the usual surprises and snubs that come with any Oscar nominations and this year was no different. A few random thoughts to bring up initially: Hugo got a large chunk of nominations, the most overall with 11 nominations. This could really push Scorsese's latest to the front of the pack right alongside The Artist. In the end I think The Artist gets the win, but that's getting ahead of ourselves. More thoughts below:

Best Picture: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close? For real? Believe it. It was announced last (seemingly in no particular order) but my hunch is it really did fill that ninth slot, rounding out the Best Picutre nominees that included The Artist, The Descendats, Hugo, Midnight in Paris and The Help. Also finding their way into the race was Moneyball and The Tree of Life, both well received during the Oscar run-up. I'm equally surprised about the inclusion of War Horse. One wonders how it got so many No. 1 votes on 250 ballots. Beats me.

Best Director: The DGA correctly predicted Martin Scorsese for Hugo, Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist, Alexander Payne for The Descendants, and Woody Allen for Midnight is Paris. However, David Fincher failed to score a nod for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as Terrence Malick snagged the last slot for his wonderful direction in The Tree of Life. I always knew Malick was on the bubble, teetering on the edge of the nomination. I bet it was aclose vote, but it seems clear Malick had enough pull within the Academy to garner a nomination.

Best Actor: This is the category I did the worst in. We have a bunch of first time nominees here, incluiding unsurprising nominee Jean Dujardin for The Artist. Demián Bichir for A Better Life and Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy both were the shocking inclusions here, since both had little pre-Oscar heat (aside from Bichir who had a SAG nod, and Oldman had a BAFTA nod.) George Clooney (The Descendants) and his good friend Brad Pitt (Moneyball) round out the the shortlist. Snubs? In terms of precursor support both Michael Fassbender and Leonardo DiCaprio both seemed like solid guesses. Fassbender in particular has a lot of critical enthusiasm and media support though his film was always going to be a tough sell with Academy voters.

Best Actress: For Best Actress, Michelle Williams was cited for her turn as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn, as was Meryl Streep, who plays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in The Iron Lady. Streep's nomination is her 17th. Viola Davis looks as strong as ever here for her work in The Help. Also receiving recognition was Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs. However, Tilda Swinton found herself on the outside looking in as Rooney Mara was the surprising fifth nominee.

Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks was overlooked as the mob boss from Drive This race seemed really diffuse beyond Christopher Plummer and Kenneth Branagh since Nick Nolte's film didn't have heat, Jonah Hill seemed like an easy snub if they didn't love Moneyball as much we expected so several men still seemed possible like SAG nominee Armie Hammer, Globe nominee Viggo Mortensen and men in Best Pictures like Ben Kingsley. In the end Max von Sydow claimed the last spot for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Best Supporting Actress: The nominees here are: Octavia Spencer, The Help; Berenice Bejo, The Artist; Jessica Chastain, The Help; Janet McTeer Albert Nobbs; and Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids. According to most of the precursors and several regional critics organizations who went bonkers for The Descendants, Shailene Woodley is the one that's missing from that list above for playing George Clooney's sorta rebellions sorta not daughter. Earlier in the year it looked like electrifying work by Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus and Carey Mulligan in Shame might win traction but that didn't come to pass.

Other thoughts:

- Best Oscar song with two nominees?? And why only two nominees, the minimum possible? Thirty-nine songs made the short list, including two of the Rio songs, Zooey Deschanel's sweet "So Long" from "Winnie the Pooh," a couple more songs from Muppets and more. In the end we are left with "Man or Muppet" from Muppets and "Real in Rio" from Rio. Sure, the Muppets was awesome, but there was a better song there called "Life's a Happy Song." Something is rotten in Denmark.

- Visual Effects is a darn mess from top to bottom. I can behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But Real Steel? What?!! I just don't get it! Where in the world is The Tree of Life? This is probably the one award it deserved to win.

- Where is The Adventures of Tin Tin in the Best Animated category? It seemed to have strong buzz going in so it's weird to lose the nod.

Ok, I'm out of time. More thoughts as they come along. In the meantime check out some of my friends websites and blogs!!!

http://kdoscarology.blogspot.com/ My friend Keith's blog!

http://awardcontenders.com/ My friend Mark's site! Check them both out!!!