Oscar Nominations

Early this morning, the nominees for the 84th Academy Awards were announced and, as it’s usually the case with these things, there were some good things, some bad things, and some truly horrible ones too. Below I’ll post the entire slew of nominees announced this morning, a brief commentary on how that category panned out this morning and how I personally did with my nomination predictions I posted yesterday.

BEST PICTURE

• The Artist (Thomas Langmann)
• The Descendants (Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor)
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Scott Rudin)
• The Help (Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan)
• Hugo (Graham King and Martin Scorsese)
• Midnight in Paris (Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum)
• Moneyball (Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt)
• The Tree of Life (Nominees to be determined)
• War Horse (Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy)

Most people were predicting six or seven nominees in this category. I predicted eight, though one of my eight, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was left out, which is one of the snubs that pained me the most this morning. In its place was The Tree of Life, showing how many people love Terrence Malick’s masterpiece. And grabbing that last spot is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which had been pretty much shut out this awards season but got some Oscar love, getting a ninth slot that people were predicting, if it happened, would go to Bridesmaids. I went 7 of 9 here.

BEST DIRECTOR

• Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris)
• Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
• Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)
• Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
• Martin Scorsese (Hugo)

Much like in Best Picture, here again is The Tree of Life presumably taking the slot that should have gone to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘s David Fincher. 4 out of 5 predicted correctly here for me.

BEST ACTOR

• Demián Bichir (A Better Life)
• George Clooney (The Descendants)
• Jean Dujardin (The Artist)
• Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
• Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

Here was the thing I hated the most about the Oscar nominations. The Academy failed to nominate the best male performance of the year by leaving out Michael Fassbender for Shame, proving that they are prudes that don’t mind female nudity but cringe at the sight of male nakedness. This was the one snub that got me mad this morning. It’s cool to see Oldman get his due, and a name like Bichir’s included, but all I think is how mad I am about Fassbender’s snub. 4 out of 5 here.

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)

In my predictions yesterday, I said that either Glenn Close or Tilda Swinton, the presumed fourth and fifth slots of this rarce would fall off thanks to an upset at the hands of Rooney Mara. I was half-right since that indeed happened but the one that fell off was Swinton and not Close, like I had predicted. Still, super happy to see Mara here. 4 out of 5 in this one, too.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn)
• Jonah Hill (Moneyball)
• Nick Nolte (Warrior)
• Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
• Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

One of the biggest upsets of the morning happened here, as Albert Brooks for Drive, the presumed second-place by many, was snubbed in favor of Max von Sydow, riding the wave of support that also got Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close into the Best Pic category. Still, this category at least got the best Twitter interventions from Patton Oswalt, another snubbee. Yet another 4 for 5 for me here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Bérénice Bejo (The Artist)
• Jessica Chastain (The Help)
• Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
• Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)
• Octavia Spencer (The Help)

4 out 5 correctly predicted here, as Janet McTeer gets in instead of The Descendants‘ Shailene Woodley. Still, nothing too unexpected here.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
• Bridesmaids (Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig)
• Margin Call (J.C. Chandor)
• Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
• A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

I went 3 for 5 here. Artist, Midnight and Bridesmaids were locks. And the final two slots I thought were down to about six films, Margin Call and A Separation included, I just predicted the wrong ones. Still, pretty happy about J.C. Chandor’s name being called out here, he’s an incredibly promising talent.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• The Descendants (Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)
• Hugo (John Logan)
• The Ides of March (George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon)
• Moneyball (Steve Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan)

3 for 5 in this category. In my predictions I said that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Ides of March could take the fifth slot which I had predicted for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was again snubbed, the fact that both got in, at the expense of The Help, doesn’t spell great things for the chances of Tate Taylor’s film at the Best Pic trophy.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• Bullhead (Belgium)
• Footnote (Israel)
• In Darkness (Poland)
• Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
• A Separation (Iran)

4 for 5 here. Sad about the lack of Pina here, but at least it got into the Docu race (about which I’m really mad about for another reason).

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• Hell and Back Again (Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner)
• If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman)
• Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs)
• Pina (Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel)
• Undefeated (TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas)

Just 2 out of 5 here. The fact that Project Nim wasn’t included in the shortlist is absolutely atrocious to me, one of the most horrible things the Academy announced this morning. At least Pina got in.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

• A Cat in Paris (Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli)
• Chico & Rita (Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal)
• Kung Fu Panda 2 (Jennifer Yuh Nelson)
• Puss in Boots (Chris Miller)
• Rango (Gore Verbinski)

3 out of 5 here. Really shocked about not seeing The Adventures of Tintin here. Ditto for Cars 2, which I really don’t mind not being here, but thought it would sneak in just for being a Pixar film (this is the first time a Pixar film isn’t up for the award and isn’t nominated for any kind of Oscar). Hoping this means this award is Rango‘s already.

BEST EDITING

• The Artist (Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius)
• The Descendants (Kevin Tent)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall)
• Hugo (Thelma Schoonmaker)
• Moneyball (Christopher Tellefsen)

I was awfully close to getting my first 5-for-5 category here. But in my predictions I went with my fanboy heart and predicted Drive instead of Moneyball. Still, good to see Thelma Schoonmaker here as well as last year’s winning team of Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• The Artist (Guillaume Schiffman)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Jeff Cronenwerth)
• Hugo (Robert Richardson)
• The Tree of Life (Emmanuel Lubezki)
• War Horse (Janusz Kaminski)

Finally I predicted all five of the nominees here correctly. Probably a battle all the way between Schiffman and Lubezki.

BEST ART DIRECTION

• The Artist (Laurence Bennet, production designer; Robert Gould, set decorator)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Stuart Craig, production designer; Stephanie McMillan, set decorator)
• Hugo (Dante Ferretti, production designer; Francesca Lo Schiavo, set decorator)
• Midnight in Paris (Anne Seibel, production designer; Hélène Dubreuil, set decorator)
• War Horse (Rick Carter, production designer; Lee Sandales, set decorator)

3 for 5 here. I thought Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was an absolute lock in this category, and I also predicted The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but was quite unsure about that one. War Horse I could see here, but Midnight in Paris was more of a surprise to me, though a very welcome one.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

• The Adventures of Tintin (John Williams)
• The Artist (Ludovic Bource)
• Hugo (Howard Shore)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alberto Iglesias)
• War Horse (John Williams)

Double-dip by John Williams here. Still, all I can think about here is how infuriating the lack of Reznor and Ross for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson)
• Hugo (Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning)
• Real Steel (Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg)
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier)

3 for 5 here. Kind of surprised to see Real Steel pop in instead of The Tree of Life, especially considering how much love the Malick film had managed to score in more important categories.

BEST SOUND MIXING

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Bo Persson)
• Hugo (Tom Fleischman and John Midgley)
• Moneyball (Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco and Ed Novick)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin)
• War Horse (Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson)

I never know what I’m doing predicting these categories, so a 2-for-5 showing isn’t that shocking. Good to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo here though.

BEST SOUND EDITING

• Drive (Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis)
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Ren Klyce)
• Hugo (Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl)
• War Horse (Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom)

4 for 5 here, I don’t know why I was so sure Super 8 was the front-runner here. Just insanely happy about Drive.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

• Anonymous (Lisy Christl)
• The Artist (Mark Bridges)
• Hugo (Sandy Powell)
• Jane Eyre (Michael O’Connor)
• W.E. (Arianne Phillips)

4 for 5 again here, strange not seeing The Help here, I guess it means its support isn’t as strong as we once thought.

BEST MAKEUP

• Albert Nobbs (Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng)
• The Iron Lady (Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland)

2 for 3 here, I was super sure Albert Nobbs wasn’t going to get in here, but after the love thrown at Close and McTeer I guess this was expected.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

• “Man or Muppet” (The Muppets; Music and Lyrics by Bret McKenzie)
• “Real in Rio” (Rio; Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown, Lyrics by Siedah Garrett)

Don’t know why there were only 2 and not 5 nominees here, so I’m not really counting it for my predictions.

And that’s it for the Oscar nominations. I went 72 for 102 in the predictions I made, which I guess isn’t all that bad, as the date comes closer I’ll make my actual predictions for who I think will win, but for now let us just think about these nominations. Here are my picks for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly:

The Good:

• Hugo leading all nominees with 11 (the film with the most nominations has won Best Picture 15 of the last 20 years).
• Woody in for Best Director.
• Gary Oldman finally getting his nomination.
• Rooney Mara in for Best Actress.
• J.C. Chandor getting a nod.
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes getting a nod somewhere.

The Bad:

• No extra Dragon Tattoo. I mean, Mara getting in there and a slew of technical nods is awesome indeed, but no Fincher for Director or the film not getting into the big race was hurtful. But those categories were crowded. The one that really stung was the omission of its score. I’m putting this under Bad and not Ugly because at least Rooney got her due.
• Tilda Swinton out of Best Actress. True, it was to give a spot to Mara (who gave a better performance), but Swinton’s performance was better than Glenn Close’s who did get in and should have been the one scrapped in order to make room for the youngster of the bunch.
• Pina not included in the Best Foreign Language race. Bad and not Ugly because at least it’s in the Best Docu category.
• No The Adventures of Tintin in the Best Animated Feature race.

The Ugly:

• No Fassbender!!!
• No Project Nim.
• No Drive (except for a sole technical nod).
• No more (Muppets) Original Song nominations.