The annual Oscar nominations were announced today. And for once, there were some decent surprise nominations. These awards have become more and more predictable over recent years. There was a new system enacted to determine how many Best Picture nominees there would be this year, indicating it could be between 5 and 10 movies up for the prestigious honor. It was expected that there could be 6 or 7 movies nominated, but instead they wound up with 9. This year’s nominees in the top category are:
The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, War Horse
Those nominees were not a surprise, with the exception of little seen Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close featuring Tom Hanks as a victim of 9/11 and his grieving wife played by Sandra Bullock. But there were some surprises in the acting categories.
A Mexican actor that nobody’s heard of named Demian Bichir is nominated for Actor in a Leading Role for a movie called A Better Life. The obscure actor will be up against some of the most popular men in the world like George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Rooney Mara being nominated for Actress in a Leading Role for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a slight surprise as the movie hasn’t received as much attention as initially expected.
Comedies are almost always ignored at the Oscars so it’s nice to see Melissa McCarthy nominated in the supporting category for Bridesmaids, even though it was one of the more disgusting roles I’ve seen all year. That film also received a nomination for its writing. And Jonah Hill who’s also best known for comedies received a nomination as well for his supporting role in Moneyball where he got to show some of his dramatic acting chops. Warrior, one of the best films of the year in my opinion, got a nomination via Nick Nolte in the same category which was not totally expected either.
Still though, most of these surprise nominations have little chance of actually winning. You can expect The Artist to win Best Picture just as previous overrated films like The King’s Speech and The Hurt Locker won the last two years. And it would’ve been nice to see some more deserving films like Drive (only nominated in the sound department) or even 50/50 up for that award. The “Academy” still has a lot of old fuddy-duddies making their picks and even though they often pick the more traditional/old-fashioned choices to win, at least they’re recognizing some more contemporary actors this year.
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