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.
I think this is the first year since I was a little, little kid that I haven't had SOME kind of emotion about these movies. I have seen almost none of them, and the ones that are up seemed boring, dull, and smug to me. I hate movies that run around screaming "I'M TOO INTELLIGENT TO BE FUN!" You can have both, but I don't think any this year were.
ReplyDeleteI did love The Help, but not on the level that I've loved some of the past movies.
Tres disappointed. May not even watch.
Agree. We're going to give The Artist a try, but we aren't happy about it. We don't WAAAAAANT to watch a silent film. Too snooty.
ReplyDeleteWe liked some of these movies, but, you're right, most of them are smug. The Descendants is our pick so far, because at least that was funny and emotional.