2012 Oscar Snubs
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences moved the nominations announcements to January a couple of years ago, effectively shortening the "awards season," but the unintended consequences have been to push the rest of the pretenders to Oscar glory into a free for all, everyone trying to predict or influence or simply contrast eventual Academy Award nominees. As a result, there are few real surprises by the time the Oscars are announced. It's the final party in an absurdly overcrowded season of awards proms and I'm about partied out.
Plus there's that new Academy sliding scale of Best Picture nominees. Bumped up from five to ten spots last year (not out of altruism but because indie pictures kept knocking the big audience-pleasing Hollywood movies out of contention), the number is now determined by the number of "You like me, you really, really like me!" number one votes a film received on the Academy ballots. This year, it resulted in nine nominations: an odd number for an odd year.
And yet... it's the Oscars. They still matter. A nomination is indeed an honor (certainly more of an honor than the Golden Globes) and a snub is still something to get worked up over. And so here is out annual scorecard on Oscar's slights and oversights: they shoulda been a contender.
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There are nine nominees this year, but is more really better when "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (Hollywood's inevitable and inadequate 9/11 drama), "The Help" (this year's answer to "The Blind Side"?) and "War Horse" (Spielberg sentiment run amok) fill out those extra slots? This year swings so far in the other direction of Big Films with Important Messages Hammered Home with Insistent Direction that the indie films that spurred the expansion were all but ignored.
Two of the most glaring slights: "Meek's Cutoff," Kelly Reichardt's lost-in-the-desert frontier drama (did it play too early in 2011 for voters to remember its understated virtues?), and "Take Shelter," a psychological drama about mental illness and end-of-the-world fears wrapped up in contemporary anxieties of economic survival. I suppose the art house take on a grindhouse story left "Drive" in the dust and Fox effectively sabotaged grass-roots support for Kenneth Lonergan's "Margaret" by burying the film after a nominal release, but if the Academy really wants audience-friendly films, you can't do better than "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," Rupert Wyatt's reboot of the kitchy science fiction franchise as a gripping prison break thriller with a wicked high-concept twist.
Is there an actress in this category unworthy of the attention? I think not. Meryl Streep's nod for "The Iron Lady" may have been inevitable, but that's not to say undeserving, and Rooney Mara a welcome surprise in a career-making turn as the coolly ferocious and fiercely focused girl in the "Dragon Tattoo" remake, just to cite two.
Yet it was a superb year for good roles and great performances by actresses. Inevitably left behind in this embarrassment of riches are Tilda Swinton's guilt-ravaged mother in "We Need to Talk About Kevin," Kirsten Dunst's portrait of crippling depression and resignation in "Melancholia," Charlize Theron's hilariously deluded and blithely alcoholic "Young Adult" and Mia Wasikowska's fiercely self-possessed "Jane Eyre." But I honestly cannot think of a richer, more nuanced, more immediate performance than Juliette Binoche in Abbas Kiarostami's "Certified Copy." She takes her single-mother from first date to a twentieth wedding anniversary in a single afternoon without dropping a step in the dance of life.
It's been a good year for Brad Pitt. In "Moneyball," he takes a lesson from his good buddy (and fellow nominee) George Clooney and puts his natural sense of ease into the cool façade of a professional while anxiety eats away beneath the mask. But Pitt delivered not one but two of his best -- perhaps the best -- performances of his career this year, and in the balance sheet of the Academy voters, the likable "Moneyball" was privileged over his more volatile, simmering, unsettled turn as a frustrated father in "Tree of Life," a performance bristling with unconditional love, unfocused anger and life lessons that verge bullying.
Give credit to the Academy for spotlighting Damien Bichir's turn as another father, this one an illegal alien sacrificing all to give his son "A Better Life." His inclusion likely squeezed out Academy favorite Leonardo DiCaprio for "J. Edgar," but also left out was Michael Fassbender's intense portrait of an emotionally disconnected sex addict in "Shame" and Michael Shannon's anxious exploration of a husband and father struggling to keep schizophrenia -- and the harrowing nightmares it brings -- at bay in "Take Shelter." And let's give a shout-out to Brendan Gleason's hilarious work in "The Guard," admittedly a long shot in this category but one of the sharpest and funniest creations of the year nonetheless.
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Jessica Chastain appeared practically out of nowhere with dazzling performances in half a dozen films this year. The Academy chose her vivacious, impulsive country girl in high society in "The Help" (where she sure to be overshadowed by her equally deserving co-star Octavia Spencer). But that overlooks even better work as a wife and mother struggling to hold on in "Take Shelter" and the glowing, idealized Madonna of "The Tree of Life."
And that's just one of so many actresses who shone in stand-out performances: Shailene Woodley as the rebellious daughter in "The Descendants, Carey Mulligan's emotionally needy chanteuse in "Shame," Jeannie Berlin's tetchy turn in the all-but-unseen "Margaret." But one superb performance has barely been acknowledged in the flood of pre-Oscar awards: Elle Fanning in "Super 8." The mix of confidence and vulnerability she brings to the role, not to mention the amazing performance-within-a-performance (and her character's own surprise at revealing such innate talent) in an amateur zom
When the momentum of "Drive" stalled early in the awards season, it threw a wrench into the gears of Albert Brooks' nomination, which was considered inevitable just a couple of months ago. His performance as an amiable but deadly Jewish gangster doesn't just put a fresh spin on a familiar crime movie type, it changes the dynamic and supercharges the film with an unpredictable personality. Max von Sydow rides goodwill and good intentions into the category, but the spot really belongs to Brooks.
It was inevitable that Andy Serkis would once again be overlooked for yet another brilliant motion-capture performance (his Caesar is the most nuanced and complex character in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," and like von Sydow he does it all sans dialogue) and I'm sorry that Corey Stoll's incarnation of Ernest Hemingway in "Midnight in Paris" couldn't be squeezed into this category. And in terms of longshots, let's remember Christoph Waltz, whose sly incarnation of a shamelessly honest lawyer in "Carnage" energizes the chamber drama of a social satire.
As much as I enjoyed the light touch and playful spirit that Woody Allen brought to "Midnight in Paris," a welcome return to form from a director with six previous nominations and one win (for "Annie Hall" over 20 years ago), I'm more impressed with the exacting work of David Fincher on "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," who carves a superb thriller out of the sprawling novel and creates more enigmatic and interesting characters than the Swedish version offered.
Tomas Alfredson's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is the mirror opposite of Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life," creating a world of paranoia and isolation out of the smallest details and subtlest of confrontations, and don't forget how well Rupert Wyatt made "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" into the most fascinating character pieces of the year, and that character is an ape.
Kudos to the Academy for recognizing "Margin Call" and the Iranian drama "A Separation" here, but I would have appreciated seeing Kenneth Lonergan's "Margaret" get some respect. His beautifully messy and admirably unkempt script captures the messiness of human lives and unresolved emotions in the wake of 9/11, which looms in the background through lingering anxieties and anger.
Who got robbed? Tell us what you think about this year's nominations on Facebook
Worthy nominees all around, but in place of "Hugo," which is more visually impressive than narratively engaging, I'd rather see the smartly scripted "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (an improvement over the Swedish adaptation) or the recent "Jane Eyre," one of the most resonant British literary adaptations in years.
Lost in the dazzle of such eye-grabbing work as "Hugo" and "War Horse" and "The Tree of Life" is the quiet, unsettled intensity of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," a film so perfectly lensed (by Hoyte van Hoytema, who picked a nomination from the American Society of Cinematographers) that it creates an entire world of paranoid existence in the frame.
It's a shame that Wim Wenders' "Pina" didn't make the final five, but as this loving 3D dance film placed in the documentary category, I can't complain. More frustrating are the omissions from the short-list that went out to voters, in particular Aki Kaurismaki's perfectly-cut serio-comic gem "Le Havre" and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia," a well-observed Turkish murder mystery of ambivalence and bureaucratic indifference.
German maverick Werner Herzog made two of the best non-fiction films of the year -- the death row portrait "Into the Abyss" and his 3D journey into "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" -- and neither were included on the Oscar shortlist. Even with new rules, the process is still a mystery to me.
I'm pleased to see voters reaching beyond the multiplex to champion a pair of foreign animated featured that I haven't even seen -- "Chico and Rita" and "A Cat in Paris" -- while passing on "Cars 2" (Pixar's first major miss) and Steven Spielberg's motion-capture "The Adventures of Tintin." Here's a shocker: I don't see anything missing here.
No, it's not a category, but darn it, it should be, especially given the great line-up of talented canines this year: Uggie in "The Artist," Cosmo in "Beginners," Laika in "Le Havre," the 3D Doberman in "Hugo." Ironically, even with the addition of this catetgory Andy Serkis would still get snubbed!
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