Our Instant Reactions to the Oscar Nominations, Especially the Snubs

There were lots of glaring snubs this year, and we are not pleased. Even for a year with mostly lame movies, there were a few that deserved to be rewarded. How many accolades do The Artist and The Descendants need? Spread the love around, why don’t you? We wish War Horse would just go away. Manipulative drivel. We are happy about the love for the very weird The Tree of Life. We are also glad about Nick Nolte’s nod for Warrior and Demian Bichir’s nod for A Better Life. Those are both underrated and under-seen movies. Ern just saw Warrior and loved it.

Poor Albert Brooks! He should have gotten a nod for Drive if only because Drive should have gotten some sort of nominations in a big category. It wasn’t exactly Oscar bait, but it was our favorite movie of the year. Brooks’ tweet after the nods came out was, “And to the Academy: You don’t like me. You really don’t like me.” Oh Al, we like you! Jonah Hill was good in Moneyball, but it’s baffling to us that he got the spot and not Brooks. We’re also surprised that Ryan Gosling wasn’t nominated for anything.

There were two break-out stars this year that did wonderfully in multiple movies and received lots of Oscar buzz. One, Jessica Chastain, was recognized for The Help. We like her unique look and obvious range. She did funny in The Help, deep in The Tree of Life, and dramatic in The Debt. The other break-out actor, Michael Fassbender, was snubbed for Shame, even though most people assumed that was a slam-dunk for the actor. We’re surprised as well. Maybe the message or content of the movie turned voters off? Or maybe Fassbender isn’t as well-known among industry insiders as Brad Pitt and George Clooney. We would have been rooting for Gary Oldman anyway. We have a feeling that newcomer Fassbender will get another chance at an Oscar and Oldman has been deserving of AT LEAST a nomination for years.

Ern is not happy that Harry Potter didn’t get a best picture nomination. It wouldn’t have won, but it should have gotten a spot in order to honor what that cast and crew did for ten years making those unfilmable books into decent movies. It was powerful and it got rave reviews from all the critics. We have no patience for genre bias. Freaking Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close got a nomination and not Bridesmaids or Harry Potter? Rotten Tomatoes needs its own awards show.

We are both really bummed that Shailene Woodley didn’t get a nomination for The Descendants. She was probably our favorite part of that movie. We are glad Rooney Mara got a nod, but she’s not going to win, so we are not THAT glad. We are rooting for Michelle Williams in that category anyway, because Charlize Theron was snubbed, and we like Williams as a person. We’re pretty happy about Melissa McCarthy, but, again, she probably won’t win. How was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo not nominated for Best Original Score?!! The Artist is obviously going to win, but still. We've made our love for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross pretty well-known on this blog.

There should be a new category called “best Meryl Streep performance” so that she can just compete against herself. We are glad that Rango is probably going to get a win, and Leeard is glad that Angelina Jolie didn’t get nominated for the movie she directed. Leeard is also happy that a Polish film was nominated, even though A Separation will take that prize. 

Overall attitude: Whatever. And TEAM GARY OLDMAN.