Official Oscar Nomination Thread

The Tree Of Life is really an incredible movie and the most deserving of the win (and that's coming from someone who expected it to be pretentious bullshit) but it won't win. I'd happily trade The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with War Horse or The Help. Not that they're bad movies though.

I LOVE that Jonah Hill got an Oscar nomination just because he was good in Moneyball and mostly because it will bother people.

I wish David Fincher got a nom but I can't really argue with the guys who did get Best Direction nominations. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo should win all of its nominated categories though.

And Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won the Oscar last year and they made one of only memorable scores this year and they don't even get a nomination?

I'm real happy about Tree Of Life. I thought it was going to get stiffed. The two that I'm a bit surprised by are War Horse for Best Picture and Rooney Mara for Best Actress. I didn't think either were deserving. I was also happy to see Moneyball and Midnight In Paris get their noms.

I agree with you about Reznor and Ross. That was a fantastic score.

I just hope Scorsese wins another Director's Oscar for Hugo.

He'd be my choice too but I wouldn't cry if Malick or even Allen won.

Tintin not being nominated for best animated film irks me, it was a superbly crafted film. Perhaps the motion capture process disqualifies it? I though Kung Fu Panda 2 was a very-well directed film, but that over Tintin baffles me!

 

And bravo for Hugo gathering so many nominations...there's hope for 3D yet!

I just got up so I'll comment on the noms after I go through them better but.....

Did Werner Herzog mess with one of the board members wives or something? Beither CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS or INTO THE ABYSS could pick up a Best Documentary nom?

As always the noms throw us a few curve balls.

 

Best Picture

 

The big surprise here is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which has been receiving decidedly mixed reviews. I wasn't sure if War Horse would make the cut, but glad it did. Also glad to see Woody Allen back in the BP mix with Midnight In Paris. As far as what will win, I think The Descendants GG win was a fluke, and Hugo is the only contender that could possibly derail The Artist in this category.

 

Director

 

Looks to be a mirror of the BP race: Scorsese vs Hazanavicius. 

 

Actor

 

Where the hell did Demián Bichir come from? At any rate, this one is Clooney vs. Dujardin.

 

Actress

 

No surprises here. This is probably Streep's to lose, although The Iron Lady is such a horrible film that it's not a slam-dunk. I would prefer Davis or Mara, although the former probably has the best chance of beating Meryl.

 

Supporting Actor

 

Really disappointed to see Albert Brooks (Drive) and Armie Hammer (J. Edgar) passed over. Something tells me this will come down to Plummer vs. Von Sydow.

 

Supporting Actress

 

I was convinced after seeing The Help last summer that Octavia Spencer has this award locked up. Nothing has changed my mind since then. Nice to see Melissa McCarthy get a nomination.

 

Animated Film

 

In the first decade of this category's existence (2001-2010), every year there's been an eligible Pixar film released it has been nominated. That streak ends this year. That's not too much of a surprise, however, the absence of The Adventures of Tin Tin is. Like Neil, I'm wondering if it was ineligible for some reason. At any rate, I suppose the front-runner here is Kung Fu Panda 2, although I'm personally rooting for the extremely odd yet strangely endearing Rango.

 

Foreign Language Film

 

A Separation seems to be the front-runner here, but this category often surprises.

 

Score

 

I'm puzzled as well at the exclusion of Reznor & Ross. I am glad to see Howard Shore's lovely score for Hugo and Alberto Iglesias' moody 70s-flavored work for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy recognized. I want Shore to win, but I expect the award will go to Bource on the coattails of The Artist's probable BP win.

 

Screenplay

 

Looks like a real race for Adapted. I could see The Descendants, Hugo, or Moneyball winning it. I'm thinking it may go to the latter due to the degree of difficulty of adapting that book into an entertaining film. As for Original, looks like another win for The Artist, with Woody Allen being the possible spoiler here.

Edited by Craig S - 1/24/12 at 8:00am

Looking at the list of nom confirms my suspicion that this upcoming Oscars is going to be BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGG!

 

to keep with the negativity, I'm hoping to see Maryl Streep lose since I'm sick of Oscar bait films winning anything in these awards, as well as that Extremely Loud nonsense.

Look for The Artist to sweep best picture, director and script.

Tintin wasn't disqualified by the mocap work, but it is animators who make the nominations and they are not fans of Tintin because they don't consider the process as 'pure'.

Biggest disappointments: Shailene Woodley snubbed for Best Supporting Actress, and especially David Zippel and Alan Menken snubbed for "Star Spangled Man" from Captain America: The First Avenger, Brad Bird snubbed in the directing category.

I also thought 2011 was a pretty weak year for outstanding films. I'm still puzzled by "War Horse" getting a BP nom.

My surprises (and disappointments):

BEST PICTURE

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - might have to check this one out (I had passed on it this weekend, tepid reviews)

Midnight in Paris - just happy this film didn't get forgotten, as it was released mid-year. Bonus points for Woody letting the camera linger on Rachel McAdam's rear just a tad longer than expected in the filling-up-the-car-trunk scene. Heh.

Moneyball - decent flick, but not a BP contender.

The Tree of life - shocked that it got a BP nom, simply because it was so out of the norm, and polarizing for challenging cinema conventions.

War Horse - won't win, place or show.

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Actor In A Leading Role

Demián Bichir - surprise nom, but he's done good work in the past.

George Clooney - not a surprise nom, but just never really thought it was Oscar-worthy.

Gary Oldman - eh, though for one scene in TTSS, not a memorable role

Brad Pitt - besides eating, or tobacco-chewing in almost every scene in this movie, also not a memorable role for Pitt.

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Actor In A Supporting Role

Kenneth Branagh - easily a solid choice, but probably will lose out of either of the lifetime achievement awards in the race between Plummer/VonSydow.

Jonah Hill - literally a nom from left field. He's going to be be the toast of the Judd Apatow crew.

Nick Nolte - not sure I understood much of his dialogue in Warrior.

Christopher Plummer - haven't seen his performance in Beginners

Max Von Sydow - also haven't seen this performance in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

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Actress In A Leading Role

Glenn Close - heard really good reviews for her work in Albert Nobbs, but haven't seen the film

Rooney Mara - I think her physical transformational aspects got a lot of press, but her performance wasn't showy, but still captivating, but I understand why some people didn't think much of her performance.

Meryl Streep - too bad her performance was stuck in Oscar-bait.

Michelle Williams - given a somewhat weak field this year, I had suspected she'd get a nom.

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Actress In A Supporting Role

Bérénice Bejo - solid work

Jessica Chastain - somewhat surprising, but she could be a rising star, had a good year of roles

Melissa McCarthy - 2011 is her year, snagged an Emmy, and now an Oscar nom. She won't win, but she was totally the scene-stealer

Octavia Spencer - she will most likely win for yet another scene-stealer type of role, as her role was more poignantly utilized in the film.

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Animated Feature Film

No Tintin, maybe the Academy will inevitably created a category for mo-cap animated film.

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Directing

The Artist - Michel Hazanavicius - A daring effort in this day and age of cinema, the one to beat.

The Descendants - Alexander Payne - nicely pitched directing job, probably won't win.

Hugo - Martin Scorsese - only has to beat out Hazanavicius,

Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen - while being a breath of fresh air, film-wise, the directing was a fairly standard Woody Allen effort.

The Tree of life - Terrence Malick - most audacious directing effort to be nominated, but too divisive to win.

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Makeup

The Iron Lady - Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland - the only other decent aspect of this film (besides Streep's performance).

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Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

The Descendants - Can you believe it, Community's Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) would be part of the crew for an Oscar-nommed screenplay?

Hugo - A love letter to cinema.

The Ides of March - entertaining, surprising nom to me.

Moneyball - Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin Story by Stan Chervin -

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - it probably reads better than the actual film presented itself in visuals and audio.

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Writing (Original Screenplay)

The Artist - probably will win.

Bridesmaids - this was a surprise to me

Midnight in Paris - could win.

I can't believe there were not more than two worthy original songs, out of all the films released last year.

Totally agree with all your assessments except this one. Bridesmaids could have the love here to pull it off.

 

They changed the rules this past year for Song in order to make it harder to get nominated. Frankly, aside from 1-2 more songs from The Muppets, I don't know of any other songs that were worthy of nominations. And not competing with itself can only help The Muppets' Muppet or Man win anyway.

 

 

I think Scorsese has Director locked up. Everyone who really loves that movie knows its because they ultimately love Scorsese. The Artist will likely win picture, but Scorsese's presence at this point is too dominant to be ignored, IMO. If he wins the DGA it will only solidify him more.

 

Scorses basically made a movie about film restoration, so it's a safe bet to win some major award, probably director. You might as will give Michelle Williams the actress award at the same time for the Marlyn movie. Hollywood always looks after itself.

I'm saddened. Was eagerly awaiting the Hobo With A Shotgun post-Oscar nomination ad-blitz. Was looking forward to the one that says, "We Showed You How To Skate-Rape."

I was pretty startled to find out this is Gary Oldman's first nomination. But it sort of makes sense to me now. He hasn't been in much Oscar-baiting far, and he doesn't seem to be somebody who enjoys glad-handing.

Speaking of boring, can it be called a shock at the lack of Eastwood? I would have thought J. Edgar would've picked up a few costume or makeup noms, if only just to get Clint into the auditorium.

Nice to see Rooney Mara in contention, but Charlize should have been there, too.

It'd be great if Malick showed up drunk with a massive entourage, and started loudly booing when The Artist wins.

Also:

Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon now has the same number of nominations as Tree of Life. Eek.

Twitter was quite funny this morning. From surprising trending topics (Emmanuel Lubezski was trending worldwide for awhile) to the varied reactions to the Oscar-noms. Just saw some guy all upset that "the worst movie I ever saw" (The Tree of Life) got nominated, while Happy Feet 2 missed out.

I would have swapped out Michelle Williams' nom and put Charlize Theron in there, instead.

I thought Nick Swardson's deeply-nuanced performance in Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star was one for the ages, and it's a real shame he got snubbed.

And another TWO nominations for John Williams -- is he the most nominated individual ever? Surely must be up there, somewhere.

The entire Academy needs to stick their hands out and hail The Man in the Scorpion Jacket to drive their getaway car, because they just robbed Fassbender in broad daylight.

(Would love to see the overlooked Michael Shannon at the Oscar show throwing a full-on "Take Shelter" tantrum, overturning tables and roaring, "There's a STORM coming!!!")

I'm really not disappointed at the lack of a nomination for Reznor and Ross, as I found their Dragon Tattoo score to be essentially two-and-a-half hours of synth noodling (which, to a lesser extent, is how I felt about their Social Network score, as well). It was appropriate and effective for the movie, but far from Oscar-worthy.

But I'm happy about Nolte's nod, even though I imagine Christopher Plummer has that one in the bag (and he was really good in Beginners, so that wouldn't be a disappointment, either).

The lack of Oscar-gold should clear the way wide for Johnathon Schaech and Marty Funkhouser in DRIVE 2: DRIVE FASTER.

Honestly, I would have pulled Streep for Theron. I hated The Iron Lady that much.

Williams now has 47 nominations (including 5 wins), which keeps him in second place behind Walt Disney, with a whopping 59 nominations, including 22 wins.

 

Good call, the absence of both Fassbender and Shannon is a bit surprising.

 

I'm also happy that Nolte got a nom.  He was just stunning in "Warrior" - he couldn't have been more raw and vulnerable if he'd tried.  I suspect he won't win but really hope he does...

Very dissappointed that only two songs were nominated.   I thought "The Muppets" alone should have had two; Man or Muppet & Pictures in My Head..but there were other titles I thought should have been in contention also.

 

Also agree on "The Iron Lady"   Terrible film (IMHO).   

 

The documentaries are again all wrong; totally screwed up.. 

 

 

At least we're finally going to be hearing/seeing, "Academy Award-Nominee Gary Oldman" in many, many trailers in the years to come.

But seriously -- Close over Theron, Olsen, and Swinton? Way to seem vital and fresh, Academy.

Albert Brooks not getting nominated is insane. And Jean Dujardin? You're seriously going to tell me that he put in a better performance than Fassbender and The Shannon? Mara really needs to bring that metal dildo of hers and kick it up the Academy's ass.

Part of the problem is that most members in the animation category don't consider performance capture to be animation (I've heard some refer to it as "cheating"). What surprised and pleased me was that Cars 2 was NOT nominated, possibly the first time that Pixar had an eligible film but did not get nominated.