The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, here are the major headlines and my opinions...
HUGO LEADS ALL
Martin Scorcese's directorial masterpiece earned huge attention. The film earned 11 nominations, the most out of all the films this year, including Best Picture, Best Director (for Martin Scorcese), Best Original Score (Howard Shore), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects. The film earned five nominations at the Golden Globes last week, with Martin Scorcese winning for Best Director.
THREE OTHER FILMS ALSO EARN IMPRESSIVE ATTENTION
Black-and-white silent film (a rarity in today's society) The Artist stunned the nation as it won three Golden Globes last week, with Best Actor-Drama, Best Picture-Drama, and one other I can't remember. With 10 nominations at the Oscars, the film is set to do some pretty big upsets at the ceremony. Steven Spielberg's War Horse earned six nominations, following its' two nominations at the Golden Globes, as well as Brad Pitt's Moneyball, which earned him a Best Actor nomination as well as Best Adapted Screenplay.
THE LEGENDARY JOHN WILLIAMS
The usual composer for Steven Spielberg films earned two out of the five slots for the Best Original Score award, including his work for both The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: ONLY TWO NOMINATIONS THIS YEAR???!
One of the biggest surprises of the announcements was the fact that instead of the usual four or five nominations, the Best Original Song category only accepted two final nominees this year. And instead of using major soundtrack titles by major artists, it came between two musical numbers from two movies, Man or Muppet from The Muppets and Real in Rio from Rio. The first was a dramatic number performed by Jason Segel and a puppet and the other features tropical birds singing about their home. While for a first, the nominations are for movies I've seen, I just don't get why its' only two...
PARAMOUNT and DREAMWORKS RULE ANIMATION CATEGORY
With Cars 2 recieving the worst reviews for a Pixar film by far, everyone already knew that this year was not going to go to Pixar like it did the past 10 out of the last 11 years. The funny thing is that the first two out of the five nominations were foreign movies that I never heard of (A cat in paris and chico and rita), but that's not entirely unexpected, since the Academy does open up to foreign/independent films. But DreamWorks had a great day as for the first time ever, both of their entries for this year, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, earned the third and fourth nominations in the category (Puss was nominated for the Golden Globe for the same award). It was an even better day for soon-to-be 100 Paramount in which the critically-adored Rango earned the final slot in that category (Paramount distributed the DreamWorks film so you can see why its' an even better day for them). But, on a negative approach, one has to wonder why the Golden Globe winner for Best Animated Feature Film, The Adventures of Tintin, was shut out, as well as other critically-adored fare such as Arthur Christmas (who was nominated for the Golden Globe for the same award) and Winnie The Pooh.
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY SURPRISING
Despite its' mixed critical reception, underwhelming box office results and being shut out of just about every awards show this year, the 9/11 drama Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close earned a couple of nominations, including Best Picture. That was very unprecedented, but at least it will boost its' box office potential.
HARRY POTTER, APES and TRANSFORMERS EVEN GET IN
The final Harry Potter (Deathly Hallows Part II), wasn't ignored, earning three nominations for Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup and Best Art Direction. Transformers: Dark of the Moon, despite negative reception from critics, also earned three, for Visual Effects, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. Rise of the Planet of the Apes also earned a nod for Visual Effects.
WOODY ALLEN and GEORGE CLOONEY GET BACK IN THE GAME
Allen and Clooney both recieved two nominations, Allen for Best Director and Best Screenplay (Midnight in Paris) and Best Actor (The Descendants) and Best Adapted Screenplay (The Ides of March).
WOMEN-CENTRIC MOVIES ROCK AND ROLL
Due to their successes and positive critical reception, both Bridesmaids and The Help earned significant attention, with four and two nominations respectively. The R-rated comedy earned nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay, while the book adaptation tallied nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress, and two nods for Best Supporting Actress.
THE NOMINEES FOR BEST PICTURE ARE:
The Academy selected this year to choose between five and 10 films, and they chose nine altogether, they are (listed by film and their director(s)):
--The Artist (Thomas Langmann)
--The Descendants (Jim Burke, Jim Taylor, and Alexander Payne)
--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Scott Rudin)
--The Help (Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, and Michael Barnathan)
--Hugo (Graham King and Martin Scorcese)
--Midnight in Paris (Letty Aronson and Steven Tenenbaum)
--Moneyball (Michael De Luca, Rachel Horowitz, and Brad Pitt)
--The Tree of Life (TBD)*
--War Horse (Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy)
*--The Tree of Life was directed by Terrence Malick, but the list of people who would get the award (including one or more other key people) has yet to be announced...
Watch the Oscars on February 24 at 8/7c on ABC to find out who wins...
