Oscar Rant

Alright, I plan on talking about all of the Oscar surprises from this morning’s Oscar nominations, but first I’d like to rant just a little bit. I hope you don’t mind.

Around the same time every year we (and by we, I mean anyone who is really passionate about movies) get excited for the Oscar nominations. There is a lot of buzz and nearly everyone is making predictions. A lot of predictions talk about “locks” and “dark horses” but its all about the same thing: what movies we liked and what movies we didn’t. Some people make these “dark horse” predictions because they personally liked a movie that didn’t really go over so well with critics, but they really want it to get the nom. That’s the difference; some people go by what they want and not by what deserves the nom. That being said, I think most years the Oscars do a good job of nominating mostly people who deserve the acclaim. But every year there are those few people who get nominated who don’t even remotely deserve it. I mean, they aren’t nominating people who are absurdly bad like Adam Sandler for That’s My Boy or anything like that, but they are nominating people who just aren’t in the same class as some of the more deserving people. I guess what I’m trying to get at is: the people who vote on the Oscars really need to make it less political. This shit is getting ridiculous. It shouldn’t be about who sucks up to the Academy the most or who has the best ad campaign. It should be about who put out the best film or who had the best performance. I really wish that the Academy voters were people more like me (not saying I should, because I don’t see nearly enough movies every year to know) but it should be people who are passionate about film and want to see the best person win. When you are dealing with something that is held in such high esteem as the Oscars, it should be about who deserves it. I can’t stress that enough. When people like Sandra Bullock and Christopher Plummer are winning awards for performances that were good but not nearly good enough to even merit a nom, then we are doing it wrong. Just like every year, I’m going to play into the hype about Oscar snubs and all that shit and I’m going to make my predictions for winners eventually, but in my predictions (as I always do) I will definitely be noting who should have been nominated, and in some cases, that person will win (in my book, at least.)

So, now that I got all that out there, let me talk about all of the surprises from this morning’s noms.

Best Picture

I have very little bad to say about the Best Picture noms. I think that the nine films that were nominated are all very worthy, but I do see one glaring omission. That omission being Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. I can’t believe that a movie as excellent as this would be left off and an, albeit beautiful and moving, film like Amour would get the nod. I don’t want people to think I’m saying that Amour shouldn’t have been nominated.  I just think that Moonrise Kingdom should have taken that tenth optional slot and filled out the Best Picture noms.

Best Director

I really don’t even know where to start with this category. I was pulling out my hair when I watched them announce this absolutely shitshow of directors. The only person here that I really thought would get nominated was Steven Spielberg. I will admit that Ang Lee definitely deserves his slot, even though I didn’t love Life of Pi. His direction was the only good part of that movie (and maybe Richard Parker.) But how the hell did people like David O. Russell, Michael Haneke and Benh Zeitlin be nominated in place of at least four more deserving directors. The two biggest omissions, to me at least, were Ben Affleck (Argo) and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty.) Both of these two have already received tons of nominations including the ever coveted DGA Award nominations. This is the first time (in my lifetime, at least) that only two of the five DGA Award nominees were also nominated for Oscars. This is genuinely baffling. Apparently there has been some controversy with Zero Dark Thirty about the depiction of torture, but if that’s why Kathryn Bigelow got snubbed, then that’s just fucking stupid. As for Affleck, I still can’t fathom why he was left off. This was his year to shine. In fact, I still think he might win the DGA Award (I’m actually torn between him and Bigelow.) And if either of them win the DGA Award, that’ll be the first time since 1995 (Ron Howard for Apollo 13) that the DGA winner was not nominated for an Oscar. Some people think that Tom Hooper deserved a slot, but I tend to disagree. I found his direction in Les Miserables to be lackluster and that he leaned far too much on close ups. I think that Quentin Tarantino deserved that slot much more. That being said, I was happy to see David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) in the nominees, since I was one of the few people who absolutely loved that movie.

Best Actor

Guess what! I have no complaints about this category. Everyone here absolutely deserved the nom and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There were a few dark horses that I wouldn’t have minded switching out with Washington, like John Hawkes for The Sessions, but I really felt like this was the best set.

Best Actress

I was very happy to see that Naomi Watts got a nod for The Impossible. I can’t really say that she deserved it over Marion Cotillard for Rust and Bone, a film which I have yet to see, but it seems like a lot of people think that this was a baffling substitution. I can’t imagine Cotillard’s performance was that much better to make me freak out about this choice, because I thought Watts was phenomenal. Maybe I’ll finally get around to seeing Rust and Bone and actually write an informed article about that. Or I can just not give a shit, like I do sometimes when it comes to foreign language films. Sorry. Just a side note: it's really awesome to see a nine year old AND an 85 year old in the same category. Too bad neither of them are gonna win.

Best Supporting Actor

I can’t say I’m really that upset about the nominees here, once again. There were a slew of amazing performances this year that could have taken what I called the “fifth slot.” Tommy Lee Jones, Alan Arkin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christoph Waltz were locks in my book, so that fifth was up for grabs. I thought it would be Leonardo Dicaprio for Django Unchained, but it easily could have gone to Javier Bardem for Skyfall. Oddly, it went to Robert De Niro for Silver Linings Playbook, which I don’t see as a bad decision. I thought he was great in that movie and this nod was very deserving. If Eddie Redmayne had taken that spot for his decent portrayal of Marius in Les Miserables, I may have shit a brick. Thank god he didn’t.

Best Supporting Actress

While I was delighted to see De Niro get a nod for Best Supporting Actor, the same cannot be said for his counterpart in the film, Jacki Weaver. I can name at least four people who deserved that slot way more than her, and that’s just off the top of my head. The one that really jumps out at me would be Judi Dench for Skyfall. She really stole the show there and I thought she might snag it. Other than her, maybe Maggie Smith for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or maybe Nicole Kidman for The Paperboy. Even Ann Dowd for Compliance would have been a much better nomination than Jacki Weaver. Ugh. Things like these drive me insane.

Best Original Screenplay

I can’t say I’m super upset about this category, because the movie I want to win, Moonrise Kingdom, did make it this year. The one that I don’t really think deserved the nod was Robert Zemeckis’ Flight. I was really hoping to see the exquisitely written Looper make it into the fray and make this a really hard category to predict. As it is, we are looking at four really strong contenders, instead of the five it should have been with Looper in place of Flight.

Best Adapted Screenplay

If there was one thing I really hated about Life of Pi (other than Irrfan Khan’s ghastly performance as Adult Pi) it was the horrid script. There is nothing worse than having a film where part of the script is someone describing to you what you are about to see. That just seems beyond retarded. That’s why they say “a picture’s worth a thousand words,” so we can get Irrfan Khan to shut the fuck up. Put in something like Perks of Being a Wallflower instead. Literally anything other than Life of Pi. FUCK.

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I can’t really think of any other glaring errors off the top of my head. Maybe a Best Editing nod for Cloud Atlas? or maybe like a Best Cinematography or Best Adapted Screenplay? Or like...anything? Just ONE nom for Cloud Atlas. I mean, it wasn't the best movie of the year, but it deserved at least one nom. But that’s really it. I kind of wanted to see Howard Shore get a Best Original Score nod, but I knew he wouldn’t in a year where there were so many great scores. I’m not even disappointed that he didn’t, because that meant the Academy was voting like a bunch of non-mongoloids.

Well, that’s it for my rant, hope you enjoyed what I had to say and maybe even agreed with me (for once.)

PS. Apparently people from work (and by people, I really just mean one or two people who sound mildly interested. Yes I mean you, Amanda and Alex.) might start reading this, so I'm kind of excited and kind of scared. Sorry I said fuck so many times. But let's be honest, I'm not really sorry.