Kneejerk Reactions to This Year's Oscar Nominations

I was hoping that this year's Academy Award nominations would have a few pleasant surprises scattered throughout the boring, predictable nomniations. But instead, I just find myself needing to vent. So let's go through this category by category:

The full list of nominations can be found here.

Best Picture
Ugh. For the past few weeks, the expected nominations for this category were Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight always seemed like the wild card in the bunch: a summer blockbuster in the midst of "serious" movies with fall/winter release dates. But it still had enough widespread critical acclaim and excitement generated among the general public to earn it a Best Picture nomination. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, as it was left it out in favor of The Reader, a paint-by-number prestige picture that's only managed to get mixed reviews. Limited release wonders like Rachel Getting Married, Happy-Go-Lucky, and The Wrestler were predictably ignored, because the Academy only pays attention to studio-financed pictures with buzz and huge PR campaigns surrounding them. As a result, the only surprise nomination that we're left with is one that nobody wanted. Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button are both highly overrated. Slumdog Millionaire, a conventional, predictable fable with nothing you haven't seen before, has positioned itself as this year's front runner, somewhat expectedly racking up ten total nominations. And Benjamin Button, a fairly enjoyable Forrest Gump rehash, somehow picked up THIRTEEN nominations, for which I have to comment, "Really?" I haven't seen Frost/Nixon or The Reader yet, because they just look like standard Oscar bait and I don't have much interest in watching either of them. And that just leaves Milk, the only film in the bunch that might actually deserve to be called great, so hopefully that'll win.

Best Director
Usually, the Best Director category follows a pattern: the directors from four or five of the Best Picture nominees get nominated, and usually one of the directors gets left out of the directing category in favor of a widely-respected director from another movie. This year, the director nominees simply mirror the Best Picture category, which again means that Christopher Nolan gets shafted in favor of The Reader. Danny Boyle gets nominated for making a feature length music video. David Fincher gets nominated for making an Oscar movie that looks and feels about as unspectacular as you can get. And again, I haven't seen Frost/Nixon yet, but Ron Howard? Come on, that guy directed THE DA VINCI CODE for crying out loud. He just throws stuff on the screen without giving any life or depth to any of it. You guys are really considering giving him another Oscar? So again, that just leaves Gus Van Sant, who didn't do an amazing job with Milk, but at least managed to make a totally solid picture. And of course, Jonathan Demme, Mike Leigh, and Darren Aronofsky are forgotten, along plenty of others who produced more interesting work than most of the Best Picture nominees. C'est la vie.

Best Actor
The only omission that immediately comes to my mind is Josh Brolin's awesome performance in W. He totally immersed himself in the character and turned an obvious, mediocre script into a pretty interesting movie. I would've much rather seen him get a nomination than Brad Pitt, whose wooden performance in Benjamin Button can be best described as "a cardboard cutout standing around while everything happens around him." However, it wouldn't be first time that an actor won an award for a dull, hollow, lifeless performance (see: Kevin Spacey, American Beauty). That aside, Mickey Rourke deserves to win, and it's looking like he has a good shot at doing so.

Best Actress
Okay. What the FUCK. I finally saw Happy-Go-Lucky last weekend, and I don't know how it's possible for Sally Hawkins to not get nominated. Like Brolin in W., she gives a memorable performance that serves as the driving force of the entire movie. Oh well, her baffling exclusion means that now I can wholeheartedly root for the lovely Anne Hathaway, who was outstanding in Rachel Getting Married.

Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger. He should win. He will win. End of story.

Best Supporting Actress
Rosemarie Dewitt should've been nominated. Other than that, I don't have much of an opinion in this category.

Looking through the other categories, there isn't really that much that stands out, partly because I haven't seen a lot of the movies that are nominated, but also because most of the nonimations just aren't that interesting. There are the usual glaring omissions in technical categories. Two years ago, it was Children of Men losing Best Cinematography to Pan's Labyrinth. This year, it's the fact that The Wrestler's great cinematography wasn't even given a nomination. Stuff like just furthers the impression that Academy voters don't actually WATCH most of these movies before they choose these nominations or vote for the winners. (Fun fact: the movie Wanted got just as many nominations as The Wrestler.) The only other thing that stands out is Bolt getting nominated for Best Animated Feature instead of Waltz With Bashir. Apparently it's illegal for a movie to get nominated in both the Animated and Foreign categories. Oh well, those categories have always been screwy.

I guess writing is therapeutic, because the inital sense of frustration that I felt went I started writing this has now subsided into apathy. In the end, this year's Oscars just follow in the tradition of the previous years. Run of the mill Oscar bait gets recognized, while universally-acclaimed action movies don't. Movies are judged less on skill and talent than they are on media-fueled hype and momentum. Actors and directors are judged less on performance than they are on repsect within the industry, and the all-important "buzz". And most of the genuinely fresh and unique films get passed over in favor of glossy multi-million dollar pictures with a famous cast, or a reputable director, or the backing of a major studio. Same as it ever was.

I'll still probably end up watching though. But I also feel more motivated to find someone with IFC so I can watch the Independent Spirit Awards, which look a lot more interesting than the Oscars this year.