I usually write a brief post regarding the Oscar snubs each year (I believe there’s an article in the Constitution that insists they are referred to as “snubs”), and so does every major media outfit. It’s such an easy piece, because a lot of times there’s six or seven “deserving” nominees for each category, so you can chastise the Academy for missing out on one or two nominees without mentioning which nominees you would have done without.
I’d like to do an experiment to see if the Academy nominated the other candidates, whether movie sites would still write the exact same article with different names, but without easy access to mind-altering drugs, I don’t know how I’d pull it off.
The big story this year was in the "Directing" category, which skipped most of the heavy hitters – including the two people most likely to win the award – to nominate Austrian Michael Haneke (who I’d never heard of until a week ago, but is now being referred to as “someone always considered one of the masters of the medium”) as well as first-time director Benh Zeitlin. It’s a strange category, and I don’t know who wins it.
So, rather than just complaining about other people’s picks, I’m gonna make my own selections for each of the categories. This sounds like fun! And not like a ton of unnecessary work or anything.
Let’s start with the big category:
Best Picture
Actual Nominees
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
My Picks
Argo
Django Unchained
Moonrise Kingdom
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
You may think this is a sneak preview of my “Favorite Films” list, but it’s really not. There’s three or four films in my top-ten list that don’t shout “Best Picture!” at me, but I still liked more than almost every film I saw this year. We’ll get there later.
These lists aren’t that different – I pulled Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Les Misérables, while adding Moonrise Kingdom and Skyfall. My problem with the nominees isn’t that the wrong films were nominated, just that there were a few less deserving of nomination. I haven’t seen Amour yet (and probably won’t), so that choice is just supposition, but I’m not someone who tends to be intensely impressed with angry-conversations-in-living-rooms movies.
By the way, whoever does the PR for Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild deserves a substantial pay raise. Beasts (which cost less than $2 million to make), made only $11 million, while Amour has made only $300K so far. Neither film was remotely considered for Best Picture nod three weeks ago. That’s an incredible turnaround.
Actor In A Leading Role
Actual Nominees
Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln
Hugh Jackman in Les Misérables
Joaquin Phoenix in The Master
Denzel Washington in Flight
My Picks
Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln
John Hawkes in The Sessions
Denzel Washington in Flight
And… that’s it. I don't have a problem with this category, frankly. If I have to stick in one more to fill in the nominations, I’ll add Hugh Jackman back in for Les Misérables. Lord knows the man committed to the role.
Actor In A Supporting Role
Actual Nominees
Alan Arkin in Argo
Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master
Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln
Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained
My Picks
Javier Bardem in Skyfall
Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained
Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master
Scoot McNairy in Argo
Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained
I don’t understand all the attention Arkin gets for Argo – he gets most of the laughs in the film but carries none of the weight that the other actors are asked to. I’d rather pick McNairy, who is deeply unnerving in the film. In fact, I’d rather take a number of nominations over Arkin – Samuel L. Jackson for Django, or Dwight Henry for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Frankly, I’d have taken the CGI tiger from Life of Pi over him.
Honestly, I thought a lot of movie companies did a lousy job promoting their actors in this category. Haven’t seen any buzz for Jeff Daniels in Looper or Mark Duplass for Safety Not Guaranteed. Not to mention the complete lack of buzz for Ezra Miller in Perks of the Being A Wallflower, or Eddie Redmayne’s star-making turn in Les Misérables. Or at least three different people in Moonrise Kingdom. Instead, we have five previous Oscar winners going head-to-head. Not a lot to root for there.
Actress in a Leading Role
Actual Nominees
Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva in Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis in Beast of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts in The Impossible
I don’t have any problem with this list. I haven’t seen Riva’s performance in Amour, but there’s no one I’m screaming for in this category. Supposedly Marion Cotillard is incredible in Rust and Bone, and Rachel Weisz in The Deep Blue Sea, but I haven’t seen either film. Though apparently in Rust and Bone, a killer whale eats off Cotillard’s legs, so you better believe I’m gonna check that out.
Actress in a Supporting Role
Actual Nominees
Amy Adams in The Master
Sally Field in Lincoln
Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables
Helen Hunt in The Sessions
Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings Playbook
My picks
Amy Adams in The Master
Samantha Barks in Les Misérables
Sally Field in Lincoln
Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables
Helen Hunt in The Sessions
Once again, not a lot of difference here. I don’t know how Jacki Weaver managed to snag a nod for her tiny part in Silver Linings Playbook other than that there’s not a lot of competition this year. I did a web search to see if I missed anyone, but most of the focus is on Nicole Kidman missing a nomination for The Paperboy or Maggie Smith for Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, neither of which I saw.
Directing
Actual Nominees
Amour – Michael Haneke
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Benh Zeitlin
Life of Pi – Ang Lee
Lincoln – Steven Spielberg
Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell
My Picks
Argo – Ben Affleck
Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino
Life of Pi – Ang Lee
Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson
Zero Dark Thirty – Kathryn Bigelow
It seems crazy to drop Spielberg from this list, since I currently think he’s going to be the winner here, but I think that his best decisions about the movie were all done as a producer – landing Day-Lewis, Field, Jones, etc., not to mention getting Janusz Kaminski to shoot the film. As a director, he really steps back and lets his actors go to work. It’s a good directorial decision, but not a tough or flashy one.
My only holdover is Ang Lee for Life of Pi – the movie I hope wins this category this February.
Other Categories
I’m pretty – maybe even “very” – happy with the nominees in other sections. I was glad to see Roger Deakins land a cinematography nominee for Skyfall, and was pleased to see the Academy managed to nominate five deserving animated movies. I noticed both “Snow White” movies got costume design nods, which is the kind of correct decision the Academy never makes. There’s finally five songs in “Original Song,” and they had the sense not to nominate that dumb Jon Bon Jovi song.
I was psyched to see John Kahrs’ gorgeous short, “Paperman” get a nomination, since I’m hoping it marks a return to form for Disney in the realm of hand-drawn animation. I thought the technical categories went to a nice blend of Argo/Life of Pi/Skyfall/Zero Dark Thirty, and there weren’t any nonsense nominees in the visual effects category for once (The Avengers had to get nominated somewhere).
Even the screenplay categories are pretty good. In “Original Screenplay”, the only one I’m not wild about is the Flight script, so I would have jammed Looper or Safety Not Guaranteed in there. I think Life of Pi is perfectly deserving as an adapted screenplay nominee, but unlike Lincoln or Argo, there wasn’t much work to be done to transition it from book to script. The best bits were already there. Am I insane to watch Joss Whedon’s Avengers script in there? I will admit that I probably am.
All in all, a pretty good collection of nominees this year, with only one category having an obvious miss. And while a couple of the acting nominees seem set in stone already (count on Day-Lewis and Hathaway as locks, with a strong possibility that the Globes and SAG awards will clarify the other categories – my early guesses are Tommy Lee Jones and Jennifer Lawrence, with Emmanuelle Riva as possible spoiler), but no obvious selection for Best Picture, which makes things more enjoyable.