So despite the fact that I said I was trying to wake up early to get my sleep-wake cycle prepared for this semester, I was still asleep at 9 o’clock because fuck it, I only got 3 hours of sleep plus a 2 hour nap yesterday haha. BUT THEN… I hear my phone go off and it’s a text from Chris who wrote “Oscar Nominations are out with some pure bullshit,” so I HAD to wake up and check these nominations out.

The biggest WTF for me is how the fuck does Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close get nominated for Best Picture!!?? The Academy just fucking LOVES Stephen Daldry I guess because his last 4 movies have been nominated for Best Picture even when they didn’t deserve it. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close received middling reviews from critics (48% on RottenTomatoes, 46/100 on Metacritic). I actually loved The Reader in 2008, but over The Dark Knight or The Wrestler? Fuck that shit. At least the Academy was smart enough to NOT give Daldry a Best Director nomination.

I sort of feel like The Academy nominated Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close to offset any hate for War Horse getting nominated for Best Picture hahaha. They were like “fuck… we know people are going to complain about War Horse, time to throw these motherfuckers off with a nomination out of left field… what else came out this year? Daldry made another movie? What’s it about? 9/11!? What was the critical response? Mixed!? PERFECT! Let’s nominate that and get these critics and film fans off our backs for War Horse.” It’s the classic “look over here, while I go over there” routine lol.

How the fuck did Janusz Kaminski get nominated for Best Cinematography for War Horse? There were some good shots, but for the most part I thought the cinematography was way too “Hollywood” and artificial.

The Adventures of Tintin getting shut out of the Best Animated Feature category was extremely surprising as well.

I was surprised that The Help didn’t pick up a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, instead that last slot going to The Ides of March.

I haven’t seen it, but everyone I know has said that Michael Fassbender is fucking fantastic in Shame so it’s a “shame” that he didn’t get nominated (lol).

No Albert Brooks Best Supporting Actor nomination for Drive! WHAT. THE. FUCK.

50/50 failed to receive a Best Original Screenplay nomination.

No Shailene Woodley Best Supporting Actress for The Descendants also makes me really sad. Usually the Academy likes to award a young up and comer each year in the Best Supporting Actress category, but I guess not this year =(

Kind of fucked up that Tilda Swinton didn’t get nominated for We Need to Talk About Kevin in the Best Actress category because all I’ve read are RAVES on her performance in that film. Then again, Swinton for Michael Clayton stole the 2007 Best Actress Oscar from my girl Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone. Don’t get me wrong, Swinton was GREAT in Michael Clayton, but watch Amy Ryan in The Wire or The Office and then watch her character in Gone Baby Gone and you seriously can’t tell it’s the same actress. So maybe this is a little justice after the fact LOL.

I’ve heard Senna is an amazing documentary and apparently it wasn’t even on the SHORT LIST of documentaries to potentially be nominated for Best Documentary.

No love for Cliff Martinez’s scores for Drive or Contagion in the Best Original Score category =( I guess it’s because Drive had songs that weren’t specifically made for the movie (which is kind of bullshit, but I’ve heard that disqualifies scores from being nominated).

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross don’t get to defend their Best Original Score win from a year ago as the Academy snubs their score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Some things I was happy about… Gary Oldman FINALLY get that Oscar nomination for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Some people are saying that Ryan Gosling was snubbed for not getting nominated for Drive, The Ides of March, or Crazy Stupid Love, but I disagree for the most part. Would it have been nice to see his performance in Drive get nominated? Absolutely, but the Academy can’t go for that like Hall & Oates haha. And as amazing as he’s been this year, I don’t think his performances in The Ides of March or Crazy Stupid Love were “Oscar worthy” either. If anything, his snub for last year’s Blue Valentine was a much worse atrocity to cinema than anything he did this year.

THANK GOD The Ides of March wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. It’s a good film, no doubt, but there were so many other better and more deserving movies that should have been nominated ahead of it. I don’t think Ides of March was even in my top 20 of 2011, let alone the the top 9 (only 9 Oscar Best Pic noms this year).

I’m not surprised Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t nominated for J. Edgar because that film reeked of Oscar bait and the Academy doesn’t usually nominate actors for noncritically acclaimed films (although there were a few of those this year). A notably exception is when EVERYONE thinks an actor/actress was brilliant in a subpar movie, like Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones (awful movie, amazing performance).

I was very surprised to see The Tree of Life get a nomination for Best Picture. I for one am happy about that because obviously it was in my top 5 for 2011. 

As much as I love Spielberg, I was happy that he didn’t get a Best Director nomination. The five nominees that they have now were all very deserving and even though I know that the Best Picture/Best Director wins usually line up together, I wouldn’t mind seeing any of these 5 directors win the Oscar.

As much as the Academy fucked up this year, I’ll be excited to see who wins because it doesn’t seem like there are too many awards that are locked down.