Tuesday, January 24, 2012

And the nominees are...

The 2012 Oscar nominations were announced at 8:30am this morning by Jennifer Lawrence, one of last year's Best Actress nominees for WINTER'S BONE and star of the upcoming THE HUNGER GAMES.  The announcement ceremony was pleasantly surprising, filled with unexpected nominations (not that all the surprises themselves were pleasant, but it's always nice when they're not boring).  Here's the list:

Best Picture
• The Artist
• The Descendants
• Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close
• The Help
• Hugo
• Midnight In Paris
• Moneyball
• The Tree Of Life
• War Horse

Best Director
• Woody Allen, Midnight In Paris
• Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
• Terrence Malick, The Tree Of Life
• Alexander Payne, The Descendants
• Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Best Actor
• Demián Bichir, A Better Life
• George Clooney, The Descendants
• Jean Dujardin, The Artist
• Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
• Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Best Actress
• Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
• Viola Davis, The Help
• Rooney Mara, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
• Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor
• Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
• Jonah Hill, Moneyball
• Nick Nolte, Warrior
• Christopher Plummer, Beginners
• Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close

Best Supporting Actress
• Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
• Jessica Chastain, The Help
• Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
• Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
• Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Original Screenplay
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Margin Call
Midnight In Paris
A Separation

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Descendants
Hugo
The Ides Of March
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Animated Feature
A Cat In Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss In Boots
Rango

Best Foreign Language Film
Bullhead (Belgium)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)

Quite a few surprises there, yes?  Here's a few of them:

• No Best Animated Feature nomination for CARS 2 or THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN.  Not so surprising in the case of CARS 2, but it is a Pixar film, which is generally strong in the category.  The absence of TINTIN, however, is completely shocking.

• Nick Nolte for WARRIOR pushes out Albert Brooks for DRIVE in the Best Supporting Actor race, which means a no nominations for DRIVE in the major categories (the film's only nod will come in the Best Sound Editing category).

• Rooney Mara for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO sneaks into the Best Actress race, most likely at the expense of Tilda Swinton for WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.

• Demián Bichir for A BETTER LIFE and Gary Oldman for TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY replace both Leonardo DiCaprio for J. EDGAR (no biggie) and Michael Fassbender for SHAME (shocking) in the Best Actor race.  This is, shockingly, Gary Oldman's first-ever Oscar nomination, so they're likely nominating him as much for his body of work as for this one movie.  It is a terrific body of work.  But that they had to nominate him at the expense of Michael Fassbender is a huge shame.  (Get it, shame? I'm so clever.)

• THE TREE OF LIFE gets nominations for both Best Director and Best Picture, after being totally absent from the Golden Globes and not really on anyone's radar screen for either award.

• EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE manages to snag a nomination for Best Picture despite being totally unrecognized in the awards circuit those far.  Granted, it was directed by Stephen Daldry, who has never directed a movie that wasn't nominated for Best Picture (BILLY ELLIOT, THE HOURS, THE READER), but this particular film had garnered approximately zero buzz.  Daldry himself missed out on his habitual Best Director nomination, but somehow his film managed to sneak into the mix, despite having a Rotten 48% percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

• Neither BRIDESMAIDS or HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS - PART 2 manage to get Best Picture nominations.  Okay, so maybe this last one isn't a surprise to anyone except me, but I was really hoping at least one of the two would nab a nom.  Of the two, BRIDESMAIDS had the best shot, but the Academy unfortunately is continuing its trend of not recognizing comedies (although Melissa McCarthy did get a nom for Best Supporting Actress).  HARRY POTTER, meanwhile, could have garnered the nom as a recognition of the entire series' body of work, not to mention the fact that it was the highest grossing movie of the year AND garnered a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a higher score than any film that was actually nominated for Best Picture, with the exception of THE ARTIST, which beats it by 1 percentage point.  Seriously, what's wrong with recognizing a critical AND commercial success, especially when you have up to 10 slots available?

• This year's Best Picture nominations comes to a total of 9 films.  After catching some flack for expanding the field to 10 for a couple of years and therefore allowing some "lesser" films into the mix, the Academy decided to change its rules again, saying that a film had to garner at least 5% of first place votes to get a nomination, resulting in anywhere from 5-10 noms.  Many were predicting that with these stricter rules, the final number would end up around 5 or 6.  However, 9 different movies were all considered THE #1 BEST movie of the year by at least 5% of Academy voters, which means there is a very wide spread of taste this year, which is kind of cool.  It just now seems silly, in retrospect, to have changed the rules to only end up with 1 less nominee, when you could have kept it at 10 and nominated one crowd pleaser like BRIDESMAIDS or HARRY POTTER or the violent and edgy THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

So there you have it!  An unprecedented amount of shocks and surprises this year. What do you think of the list?  Vote in the poll below and then hit the comments!

Update: Here's the rest of the nominations not included in the ceremony:

Art Direction
The Artist
• Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 2
• Hugo
• War Horse
Cinematography
The Artist
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Hugo
• The Tree Of Life
• War Horse
Costume Design
Anonymous
• The Artist
• Hugo
• Jane Eyre
• W.E.
Film Editing
The Artist
• The Descendants
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Hugo
• Moneyball
Makeup
Albert Nobbs
• Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 2
• The Iron Lady
Original Score
The Adventures Of Tintin
• The Artist
• Hugo
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
• War Horse
Original Song
• "Man Or Muppet" - The Muppets
• "Real In Rio" - Rio
Sound Editing
Drive
• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Hugo
• Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
• War Horse
Sound Mixing
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Hugo
• Moneyball
• Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
• War Horse
Visual Effects
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 2
• Hugo
• Real Steel
• Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
Documentary Feature
• Hell And Back Again
• If A Tree Falls: A Story Of The Earth Liberation Front
• Paradies Lost 3: Purgatory
• Pina
• Undefeated
Documentary Short
• The Barber Of Birmingham: Foot Soldier Of The Civil Rights Movement
• God Is The Bigger Elvis
• Incident In New Baghdad
• Saving Face
• The Tsunami And The Cherry Blossom
Short Film (Animated)
• Dimanche/Sunday
• The Fantastic Flying Books Of Mr. Morris Lessmore
• La Luna
• A Morning Stroll
• Wild Life
Short Film (Live Action)
• Pentecost
• Raju
• The Shore
• Time Freak
• Tuba Atlantic

Most-nominated movies:
11 - HUGO
10 - THE ARTIST
6 - MONEYBALL; WAR HORSE
5 - THE DESCENDANTS; THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
4 - THE HELP

What do you think was the biggest surprise this year?

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