2012 Oscar Nominations

The entertainment year revolves around the Oscars, and I always look forward to the day the nominees are announced, so I can bury myself in articles about who will win and who should win and who was snubbed, and so on. Oh, and all those Facebook statuses by people who loudly crow that they don't even care about the Academy Awards. Yeah, well, I don't care about your toddler, and that doesn't seem to stop you, does it? Where was I? Oh, yeah! The nominees are out, and the list supports my theory that this was a pretty disappointing year for movies. Shall we dive in?

BEST PICTURE

THE ARTIST
THE DESCENDANTS
THE HELP
THE TREE OF LIFE
HUGO
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
MONEYBALL
WAR HORSE
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE

So, nine nominees. I've seen five of them, (and will have seen the sixth by the time the awards are given out). Of those five, only The Artist is a movie I'd call truly award-worthy. It's not that Moneyball or The Descendants were bad or anything, it's just that they don't stand out as especially noteworthy. I wonder what film the tenth nomination slot would have gone to, if they were still going by the old rules. It probably would have been Drive, but I'm giving my imaginary vote to Contagion, which was solidly better than several of the movies listed up there.

BEST ACTOR

George Clooney, THE DESCENDANTS
Brad Pitt, MONEYBALL
Jean Dujardin, THE ARTIST
Damien Bachir, A BETTER LIFE
Gary Oldman, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY

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

2011 truly was the Year of the Great Performances in Underwhelming Movies. Viola Davis was great in The Help, which wasn't. Meryl Streep was great in The Iron Lady, which wasn't. And so on. The field is too bland for me to make a confident prediction of the winner, but Clooney will probably snag the Best Actor prize, while I hope Davis takes Best Actress. It's too bad that Tilda Swinton didn't get a nomination for We Need To Talk About Kevin. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I loves me some Swinton.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh, MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
Nick Nolte, WARRIOR
Jonah Hill, MONEYBALL
Max von Sydow, EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE
Christopher Plummer, BEGINNERS

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo, THE ARTIST
Melissa McCarthy, BRIDESMAIDS
Janet McTeer, ALBERT NOBBS
Octavia Spencer, THE HELP
Jessica Chastain, THE HELP

Academy Award Nominee Jonah Hill. That sounds weird, doesn't it? All of the categories are hard to predict this year, with Best Supporting Actor being the only possible exception. Anything can happen, of course, but Plummer looks to have this one all sewn up. Best Supporting Actress is a lot more difficult. I'm sure Jessica Chastain is a lovely woman, but there is no reason on Earth her performance in The Help should have earned this nomination. I haven't seen Albert Nobbs, and McTeer seems like a long-shot, but then, so did Marcia Gay Harden. Spencer got the Golden Globe, but who knows how much of a predictor that is anymore? I loved Berenice Bejo's performance, but must admit that it would be a refreshing change for a bawdy comedy performance like McCarthy's to win.

BEST DIRECTOR

Michel Hazanavicius, THE ARTIST
Alexander Payne, THE DESCENDANTS
Martin Scorsese, HUGO
Woody Allen, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Terrence Malick, THE TREE OF LIFE

I always feel like I need to surreptitiously survey my general area to make sure there aren't attackers lurking, ready to pounce every time I say that Hugo is the most overrated movie of the year. It was certainly beautiful, and two-thirds of it was very enjoyable. All of the parts having to do with that obnoxious kid and his adventures in the train station, though, were overwrought and hackneyed. It pains me to think that Scorsese might win this year. I know he was overlooked for a lot of his earlier, more worthy movies, which is a terrible oversight, and will certainly be the subject of an Award Repo. He doesn't deserve the prize this year, though, and given the way that Academy members tend to stick to their stalwarts, I'm afraid he may be the subject of his own Repo someday.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne and Jim Rash, THE DESCENDANTS
Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, MONEYBALL
John Logan, HUGO
George Clooney and Grant Heslov, IDES OF MARCH
Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Woody Allen, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Michel Hazanavicius, THE ARTIST
Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumulo, BRIDESMAIDS
JC Chandor, MARGIN CALL
Asghar Farhadi, A SEPARATION

I don't have a great track record in predicting what will win the writing awards. This is the one category that I do think The Descendants should win, and I'm not just saying that because Jim Rash is on Community. I'm sure someone smarter than me can explain how a screenplay nomination for The Artist works. Is it just a bunch of stage directions? Woody Allen always seems to clean up in writing categories, so this may be the one category that nets him a win this year.

BEST ART DIRECTION

THE ARTIST
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2
HUGO
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
WAR HORSE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

THE ARTIST
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
HUGO
THE TREE OF LIFE
WAR HORSE

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

ANONYMOUS
THE ARTIST
HUGO
JANE EYRE
W.E.

I don't think Hugo deserves half the praise it's getting, but one area that the hype is totally justified is the Art Direction. Similarly, the people who tell me the The Tree of Life is pretentious nonsense begrudgingly admit that the cinematography was incredible. I'm not sure what to think in the area of costume design. All five of the nominees are period pieces, and Colleen Atwood isn't up for the award this year, so who knows?

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

HELL AND BACK AGAIN
IF A TREE FALLS
PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY
PINA
UNDEFEATED

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

"The Barber of Brimingham"
"God is the Bigger Elvis"
"Saving Face"
"The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom"
"Incident in New Baghdad"

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT

"Pentecost"
"Raju"
"The Shore"
"Time Freak"
"Tuba Atlantic"

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

"Dimanche/Sunday"
"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore"
"La Luna"
"A Morning Stroll"
"Wild Life"

I haven't seen any of the above. Hopefully, one of the local movie theaters will have one of those nights where they'll screen all of the nominated short films. As to the documentaries, I'll have to do some research to see if any of them aren't the usual horrors-of-humanity fare that I get tired of pretty quickly.

BEST EDITING

THE ARTIST
THE DESCENDANTS
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
HUGO
MONEYBALL

Your guess is as good as mine.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

BULLHEAD
FOOTNOTE
IN DARKNESS
A SEPARATION
MONSIEUR LAZHAR

I haven't seen A Separation, but judging by the amount of internet ink I've seen spilled over it, it seems a safe bet.

BEST ANIMATED FILM

RANGO
CHICO AND RITA
A CAT IN PARIS
KUNG FU PANDA 2
PUSS IN BOOTS

BEST MAKEUP

ALBERT NOBBS
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2
THE IRON LADY

I don't have a dog in either of these races, although I didn't really see anything in The Iron Lady to suggest it needed to be recognized in the makeup category.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
THE ARTIST
HUGO
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY
WAR HORSE

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

"Man or Muppet," THE MUPPETS
"Real in Rio," RIO

BEST 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

I normally don't think too much about the Best Original Score category, but this year, I have an actual opinion. In a movie with no dialogue, the score essentially functions as an additional character, and it was used to fantastic effect in The Artist. I don't think there can be much argument that it deserves the win, no matter how many heart-swelling violin pieces were written for War Horse. I don't even know what's going on in the song category. Two songs? And that's the one they picked from The Muppets? Weird. Visual effects is a tough choice, but I'll go out on a limb and guess that it'll go to Harry Potter as a kind of fond farewell to the series.

BEST SOUND EDITING

DRIVE
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
HUGO
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
WAR HORSE

BEST SOUND MIXING

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
HUGO
MONEYBALL
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
WAR HORSE

The sound mixing team from Transformers has been ignored for long enough! I demand that these pioneers of aural accomplishment...

Yeah, I couldn't keep that up. Look, sound editing and mixing are noble professions, but there's no reason these two awards need to be included in the telecast. Nobody knows what they entail, and frankly, nobody cares. Everyone's always talking about how the Oscar ceremony is too long, and one of the quickest fixes is to shuffle these two categories off to the technical awards.

And there you have it! I'm surprised that Young Adult didn't receive a single nomination, given all the buzz it got. I'm not thrilled to see that the schmaltzy 9/11 misery porn got a Best Picture nomination, but it's a safe bet that it'll lose, and we can go back to ignoring it. What else is there to say? I wish I could be more excited about this crop of movies, but it's been an unfortunately bland year. People are always wringing their hands over how bad the telecast is, and with this slate of nominees, I wonder how they're going to generate any kind of excitement. Is it too late to ask James Franco back to cause another trainwreck?