Preface
It seems that every few years the Oscar nominations are absolute garbage. Last year we had The King's Speech, The Fighter, The Social Network and more jostling for awards, but the year before had the likes of the watchable but vastly overrated The Hurt Locker and Crazy Heart, which did feature a hell of a performance from Jeff Bridges, but was flawed as a film. Other nominees that year were Sandra Bullock slush-fest The Blind Side, the middling Up In The Air, and the absolutely dreadful Avatar.
The two years year before that (presented in 2008 and 2009 if you have lost track already) were both years full of well deserved nominees and winners, a rarity that two years back to back contained so many worthy films, acting performances etc. They included No Country For Old Men (one of the most deserving Oscar winners of all time in my opinion), There Will Be Blood, Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler and The Dark Knight, with acting and writing nods going to many of those.
But so many times, Oscar gets it so brutally wrong it defies logic. Just look at some of these past indiscretions, and I'm just limiting these to Best Picture, in the interests in saving time. And please note, except when stated, I'm not saying anything negative about the winner, more the superiority of the runner/s up...
1964, My Fair Lady wins Best Picture, Dr. Strangelove does not.
1979, Kramer vs. Kramer wins Best Picture, Apocalypse Now does not.
1980, Ordinary People wins Best Picture, Raging Bull does not.
1994, Forrest Gump wins Best Picture, not Pulp Fiction OR The Shawshank Redemption - that one may be the worst of all.
1996, The English Patient wins Best Picture, Fargo does not.
1997, Titanic wins Best Picture, L.A. Confidential does not.
2001, A Beautiful Mind wins Best Picture, Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring does not.
2002, Chicago wins Best Picture (bet you all forgot that one), Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, The Gangs Of New York and The Pianist do not.
It's nothing that hasn't been spoken or typed before, but it's well worth a reminder. Some shoddy films have won the Best Picture Oscar in the past. All this brings me to this years nominations, and I've never had so much umbrage with a list before. And I'm going to cover my problems, one by one...
Lack Of Drive
Probably the most glaring omission from the nominations is Drive. Nicolas Winding Refn's superb picture garnered glowing reviews, made most critics top ten list, and was my favourite film of 2011. But other than BAFTA, there was not much awards buzz. The Academy, who can't have bothered to watch it that closely, seemed to go with the flow here, electing to give it one nomination. For sound editing. Maybe they chose to have a bit of shut-eye when it was on?
The most blatant miss was for Albert Brooks, who was simply brilliant as Bernie Rose. They don't give a Supporting Actor nomination to him, but do for Jonah Hill? Yes, he was the best he has ever been in Moneyball, but it was by no means an award worthy performance, and he's still only known by most people for stuff like Superbad, The Sitter and Get Him To The Greek. Not to say that doesn't make him capable of performing in 'grown up' films, but it's just not that good a performance.
But really, why was Drive not nominated for more? The only thing other than the Academy flat out missing it was the bursts of ultra-violence throughout. Most of them probably have heart conditions.
The Oscars Have No Shame
Another huge acting miss here, both for Lead Actor and Supporting Actress, in Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan for their respective fearless performances. Not to mention Steve McQueen's fantastic direction, the cinematography (another nomination Drive could have had also) and probably one for Best Picture too. Some may argue, but if you can consider harmless but bland War Horse and inevitable weepy Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close (a film where the Academy must have just glanced at the plot and saw their old faves Tom Hanks and the reliably awful Sandra Bullock were in, and added it to the list) both worthy of Best Picture, then you can sure as hell include Shame.
I can only imagine the opposite happened to when the Academy saw the plot for Extremely Loud..., as to what happened to Shame. They saw it was about sex addiction and had a few shots of genitalia in and they burned their screener copy at the stake.
Bridesmaids? REALLY?
I didn't mind Bridesmaids when I saw it. It was a fun enough film, superior to the Hangover films, but the script could never really settle on what kind of comedy it wanted to be, it was all over the place. If you told me that it would not only receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, but also a supporting actress nod for Melissa McCarthy as Megan, I would have probably called you an insane person, not before I asked "What? The one whose most memorable moment in the film was the bit where she took a shit in the road?".
Turns out the Academy must be insane people. It's been said for years that the inclusion of more comedies would be great at the Oscar's. But this is not the place to start, and the film is flat out unworthy of any awards consideration, except maybe frivolous honours like 'MTV's Wackiest Comedy 2011' or something.
If the Academy wanted a fantastic comedy, with great performances and a brilliant screenplay, they should really have checked out The Guard.
This Is Making Me Melancholic
As big an injustice as the lack of anything major for Drive, was the non-existent amount of nominations for Melancholia. I've not seen a performance by an actress in the last 5 years, let alone the last year match Kirsten Dunst in this film. It was simply incredible. The film deserved a nomination, the cinematography deserved a nomination, and Lars Von Trier deserved a nomination. But I think we all know why no nominations were forthcoming. Von Trier's ill-advised comments at Cannes last year. Yes, they were idiotic, but I'd like to think the films are looked at for what they are, not the directors statements. Obviously not.
This Is The Pitts
Slightly dramatic header, I did enjoy Brad Pitt in Moneyball, a top film with top performances. But did the Academy not see him in The Tree Of Life? I know they watched it as it got a couple of the few deserved nominations of the lot. Pitt delivered a career best performance in that film, and should have been nominated for that instead, if not both.
Aping A Decent Awards Shortlist
Another popular choice for Best Supporting Actor would have been Andy Serkis, for his role as Caesar in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. People had mentioned Serkis in previous years for his role as Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings films, but for me ROTPTA was where he really shone. But it's not your traditional role.
The film at least got a Visual Effect nod, but that leads me to perhaps the worst nomination of them all. Visual Effects and Sound Mixing nominations for Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. Yes, I know they are minor awards, but they can call it an Oscar nominated film now! And it's truly one of the most vile, repugnant headache's of a film ever to be released.
The Rest, And What I Didn't Mind
Nothing for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their music work on Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? The opening credits sequence was THE music moment at the cinema for me in 2011, but best play it safe and give a nomination to John William's pedestrian wankery for War Horse, eh?
I know this one is old news, but why the hell did Senna not get a nomination for Best Documentary? It was one of the best films of last year, let alone the Best Documentary and nothing! At least BAFTA got it right, giving it nom's in both British Film and Documentary categories.
God, I really need to see We Need To Talk About Kevin. Critically acclaimed, went on many a top ten list, and no nominations whatsoever. That film must be amazing.
I've not actually seen The Artist or The Descendants yet, looking forward to both though. If anyone was wondering.
Finally what I liked - it was good to see Nick Nolte get a Supporting Actor nomination for Warrior, he was great in that and a lot of other places seemed to forget that, and as mentioned earlier it's good to see The Tree Of Life in there, as well as a Supporting Actress nomination for Rooney Mara in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. That's about it though.
Conclusion
I just can't care about The Oscar's anymore. This year is the final straw for me, I don't care who wins. They are meaningless. I just can't believe it took me so long to figure that out!
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