January 25, 2011

Oscar nominations

(read the official list of nominations here)

Not nominated for anything:

Scott Pilgrim (unsurprising)
Easy A (very unsurprising)
Jack Goes Boating (deserves acting nominations, but unsurprising)
Never Let Me Go (What? Not even the score? No? What?)
The Ghost Writer (Oh, come on!)
The American (Yeah, but if there were a category for best poster...)

Some notes on the nominees that I've seen:

The King's Speech - 12 nominations: Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay, Actor (Firth), Supporting Actor (Rush), Supporting Actress (Bonham Carter), Score, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Editing and Sound Mixing. All pretty much expected. It'll probably win most of its nominations, too.

True Grit - 10 nominations: Picture, Directing, Adapted Screenplay, Actor (Bridges), Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. I'll be rooting for this one. With ten nominations, it might actually win something, too (but not likely). Also, what's with putting Steinfeld in the supporting category? Demoted because she couldn't win as a lead?

The Social Network - 8 nominations: Picture, Directing, Adapted Screenplay, Actor (Eisenberg), Score, Cinematography, Editing and Sound Mixing.  Best score? Seriously? They need to start having the music categories selected by a committee of specialists, like they do for the technical categories, because that right there is extreme bullshit.

Inception - 8 nominations: Picture, Original Screenplay, Score, Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Gee, I wonder if this will win for effects...

The Fighter - 7 nominations: Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Bale), Supporting Actress x2 (Adams, Leo) and Editing.  Shoe-in for supporting actor (even though he was a lead).

Black Swan - 5 nominations: Picture, Directing, Actress (Portman), Cinematography and Editing. And this one's not nominated for music. Was it even eligible? Maybe the weird and arbitrary eligibility criteria for music meant that the five movies that were nominated were the only five that were eligible.

Toy Story 3 - 5 nominations: Picture, Animated Feature, Adapted Screenplay, Song ("We Belong Together") and Sound Editing. I'm pretty sure they can retire the "best animated feature" category now. What's the point?

The Kids Are All Right - 4 nominations: Picture, Original Screenplay, Actress (Bening) and Supporting Actor (Ruffalo). Meh. It's not a great movie, but it's good and it adds a nice bit of variety to the nominees.

Winter's Bone - 4 nominations: Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Actress (Lawrence) and Supporting Actor (Hawkes). Hooray, it's got more than just Best Actress! But again, no music nominations. Probably not eligible for anything. Whatever.

How to Train Your Dragon - 2 nominations: Animated Feature and Score. Best score? They pick these things out of a hat, don't they.

Harry Potter - 2 nominations: Art Direction and Visual Effects. The Social Network and Inception are nominated for best cinematography; I'm just saying.

I Am Love - Costume Design. See Harry Potter above.

Iron Man 2 - Visual Effects. Shouldn't this fall under the Best Animated Feature category? (Oh, snap!)

Restrepo - Documentary Feature. I think this is the only documentary I've seen this year.

And a list of those I need to see:

127 Hours - 6 nominations: Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Actor (Franco), Score, Song ("If I Rise") and Editing.
Another Year - Original Screenplay.
Rabbit Hole - Actress (Kidman).
Blue Valentine - Actress (Williams).
The Town - Supporting Actor (Renner).
Animal Kingdom - Supporting Actress (Weaver).
The Illusionist - Animated Feature.
Biutiful - 2 nominations: Foreign Film and Actor (Bardem).
Dogtooth - Foreign Film.
In a Better World - Foreign Film.
Incendies - Foreign Film.
Outside the Law - Foreign Film.
Exit Through the Gift Shop - Documentary Feature.
Gasland - Documentary Feature.
Inside Job - Documentary Feature.
Waste Land - Documentary Feature.

And those I couldn't care less about:

Country Strong - Song.
Tangled - Song.
Alice in Wonderland - 3 nominations: Art Direction, Costume Design and Visual Effects.
The Tempest - Costume Design.
Barney's Version - Makeup.
The Way Back - Makeup.
The Wolfman - Makeup.
Tron: Legacy - Sound Editing.
Unstoppable - Sound Editing.
Salt - Sound Mixing.
Hereafter - Visual Effects.

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