Cavalcade of Awesome

Well, the academy released the Oscar nominations for this year’s Academy Awards.  Again, some surprises, some not so surprising.  I usually like to take a look at the most popular categories and give you some of my thoughts on the decisions.  Looking back, I see I’ve done this recap since 2007 (for the 2006 movie year).  Here are those articles:

2010
2009
2008
2007
2006

Normally, by now, I’ve posted my Movie Board articles telling you guys what my favorite/least favorite movies of the year are.  However, I’m still catching up on Oscar eligible movies, so I’ll have those up in a few weeks.  I have my preliminary list, but there are some good ones I need to see just to be sure.

Anyway, back to the Oscar nominees for this year.  You can find the full list of nominees at Oscars.org.  Now, let’s take a look at the “money” categories and judge how the Academy did this year.

Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in “A Better Life” – What?  Who?
George Clooney in “The Descendants” – Man, Clooney no longer does the “one for you, one for me” formula.  He pretty much just does whatever the hell he wants to do.  How else do you explain The American or Men Who Stare At Goats?  I miss the Clooney from Ocean’s 11, Goodnight and Good Luck and Intolerable Cruelty.  I’m not having as much fun with the current version.
Jean Dujardin in “The Artist” – This movie actually doesn’t sound that bad, but I have yet to see it.
Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” – Looks amazing.  Really want to see this movie.  Oldman is great in pretty much everything.
Brad Pitt in “Moneyball” – Again, I really want to see this but have not yet had the opportunity.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in “My Week with Marilyn” – This movie doesn’t look great.
Jonah Hill in “Moneyball” – Props to Jonah for dipping his toes into the dramatic pool.
Nick Nolte in “Warrior” – I hear this movie is great, but I can’t support a Nolte nomination.  For anything.
Christopher Plummer in “Beginners” – Meh.
Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” – This movie looks amazing.  But I’m reluctant to see it because as a new dad, I feel the heavy father-son relationship at the center of this plot will completely undo the macho-man hold on my emotions and cause me to bawl like my wife at cheesy cell phone commercials.

Actress in a Leading Role
Glenn Close in “Albert Nobbs” – Close may be fantastic in this, but it just “feels” tailor made for the Oscars.  Like they were trying to get Close a nomination.  Julie Andrews did gender bending first in Victor/Victoria.  Close’s makeup in this just looks like posturing for an Oscar. See also Nicole Kidman’s makeup in The Hours and Charlize Theron’s in Monster.
Viola Davis in “The Help” – Better movie than I expected and Viola was great in it.
Rooney Mara in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – Really, really good movie.  Hard to watch, but very good.  Rooney Mara is also great in it.
Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady” – I imagine this is good.  I want to see it.
Michelle Williams in “My Week with Marilyn” – Not a fan of Michelle Williams.

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This is what I wait all year for.  The reason I saw 50+ movies last year.  The Oscar nominations.

I’ve been doing this review of the Oscar nominations for about 5 years now. Check out my Oscar nomination reviews from 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.  I’ve clearly shown that I know more than the Academy.  So let’s see what I think of the nominations this year.  I’m only going to look at the “money” categories because no one really cares about sound mixing unless they are actually a sound mixer.

Best Actor
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful” (Roadside Attractions) – Dammit.  Where the f**k did this movie come from?  I saw 50+ movies last year and I’ve never heard of this.
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit” (Paramount) – Yes.  Agreed.  Well done.
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network” (Sony Pictures Releasing) – Just watched this. It deserves all the praise it’s getting.
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech” (The Weinstein Company) – This is one of those I know I should see and my wife will want to see, but I’m like…”I’ll pass.”
James Franco in “127 Hours” (Fox Searchlight) – Apparently this movie is NOT a prequel to the 1993 Renny Harlin classic, Cliffhanger, starring Sylvester Stallone.  And Franco does NOT play a younger version of Sly’s Gabe “Mountain” Walker.  I don’t know about you, but that adjusts my expectations to somewhere below…zero.

Supporting Actor
Christian Bale in “The Fighter” (Paramount) – I didn’t like this the first time when it was called The Wrestler.
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone” (Roadside Attractions) – I totally thought this was porn when I first read the title.  I was like, “Go Academy!”  Nope.  It’s about a small girl who searches for her druggie dad who put the family trailer up for his bail.  Sounds all lovely and depressing.  My friend Dr Mike’s wife will love it.
Jeremy Renner in “The Town” (Warner Bros.) – Yes, I couldn’t agree more.  This movie is great and Renner is fantastic in it.
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right” (Focus Features) – So both Hawkeye (Renner) and The Incredible Hulk (Ruffalo) from the upcoming Avengers movie are nominated for Supporting Actor awards. That’s pretty awesome. Oh, and Batman. Forgot Bale was up there too.
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech” (The Weinstein Company) – This movie got a lot of nominations.  I know my wife is going to want to watch it.

Best Actress
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right” (Focus Features) – Lesbian couple, raising teenagers, Oscar noms, blah, blah, blah.
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole” (Lionsgate) – A couple’s son dies, they drift apart.  The Academy loves these depressing dramas.
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone” (Roadside Attractions) – Kid searches for trailer park druggie dad.  Not porn.  Touching.
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” (Fox Searchlight) – Lots of angry lesbian sex between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.  Of course I want to see this.  Too bad it was filmed by Darren Arnofsky who totally ruined similar sex scenes with Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream.
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine” (The Weinstein Company) – Supposedly a very sexy picture. However, I don’t think I would agree because Michelle Williams is not sexy.

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The Academy Awards are almost upon us. This year the Oscars will be broadcast on Sun, March 7 at 8pm EST. The ceremony will be co-hosted by Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.

The Oscar nominations for this year were released on Tuesday, Feb 2.  I do this every year, I go through the nominations for the biggest categories and see how much I agree with the Academy. More often than not, I don’t agree at all.

See my thoughts on last year’s Oscar nominations here.

See the Oscar noms for 2007 here.

You can see all the nominations on the official Oscar website.  So, without further ado, here are the nominations.

BEST PICTURE
Avatar – I can see this in Visual Effects, but not Best Picture. It’s a good movie, it’s just not a great movie.  And by that I mean it’s not the best written movie in the world and it’s AT LEAST 30 minutes too long. The mineral the corporation is mining in the movie is called Unobtainium. They actually say it in the movie. COME ON!
The Blind Side – Think about this: The Blind Side has a shot at being the BEST PICTURE OF 2009. Don’t get me wrong, I like this movie, but BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR?! No.
District 9 – On my list of top 5 movies of 2009. Of course, there’s no way in Hell this is going to win, but it’s good to see it here.
An Education – Yeah, didn’t see it.  Nor have I heard of it.  Well, played, Academy.  Well.  Played.
The Hurt Locker – I don’t normally like war movies. I hear great things about this, so I may have to suck it up and give it a watch.
Inglourious Basterds – An exception to my war movie rule. In my top 5 movies of 2009.
Precious – I see why this is nominated.  I really do.  I just never want to watch it.
A Serious Man – The Coen’s are weird, dude.  I’ve only enjoyed 3 of their movies.  EVER.  And I’ve only watched one of those three movies more than once.  I’m not exactly itching to see this.
Up – I really did enjoy this movie, but, again, I’m not sure it deserved a BEST PICTURE OF 2009 nomination.
Up In The Air – I love George Clooney.  I knew this was going to be high on Academy voters’ lists.  And I still have no desire to watch it.

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, CRAZY HEART – Bridges wasn’t nominated for The Men Who Stare At Goats?  RIGGED!  I’m kidding.  Of course, I’ve never even heard of this movie.
George Clooney, UP IN THE AIR – Another missed opportunity for The Men Who Stare At Goats.
Colin Firth, A SINGLE MAN – Love Colin Firth.  Unless this is a sequel to Love Actually, then I’m not interested.
Morgan Freeman, INVICTUS – I have a man-crush on Matt Damon and I love Morgan Freeman.  That still does not make me want to see a movie about rugby…and apartheid.
Jeremy Renner, THE HURT LOCKER – Again, I hear Renner is great in this.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, INVICTUS – Yay, Matt!  I’m still not going to see this movie.
Woody Harrelson, THE MESSENGER – WTF is The Messenger?!  Harrelson should have been nominated for Zombieland.  There, I said it.
Christopher Plummer, THE LAST STATION – What?
Stanley Tucci, THE LOVELY BONES – Nice nom for Tucci.  He was good in this sequel to What Dreams May Come.
Christoph Waltz, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS – Waltz better win this.  From what I see here, he PWNS this category.

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