Jonah Hill:Jonah Hill, Jean Dujardin Thrilled to Get Oscar Noms
What are some of the other surprises?
For a complete list of nominees, go here.
Best Picture
Under the new rules, we could have anywhere from 5 - 10 nominees, and the number of first place votes were of paramount importance, so I never thought those first place votes would be spread out over 9 nominees. I was convinced The Artist, War Horse, The Descendants, The Help, and Hugo were locks for nominations (and Hugo surprisingly leads the competition with 11 total Oscar nominations), but welcome to the party Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Tree of Life.
Midnight in Paris should not have been a surprise, since it has nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Writers Guild Awards (showing a broad base of support across every branch of The Academy), and I am pleased by the late campaign pushing Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close into the running, but I never thought Moneyball had enough people pushing it as their favorite, #1 choice.
Tree of Life can thank the new rules for this nomination as people either love it or hate it, and a large enough group of Oscar voters loved it. That group was possibly 5% of voters because you only needed 5% of first place votes to have a chance at a Best Picture nomination. Think of Tree of Life as the Ron Paul of these Oscar nominees. It might be a small base of support, but these people are sticking with it no matter how dire and slim the chances of victory.
The movie with the most nominations goes on to win the Oscar for Best Picture about 70% of the time, so Hugo can make a claim to being the favorite (each branch of The Academy votes for the nominees in its category, so having the most nominations means you have a broad base of support from all members of The Academy from actors to directors to sound engineers, etc.). However, I still think The Artist is the movie to beat.
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio and his swimsuit supermodel of the month girlfriend will be on the outside looking in after he was passed over for a nomination (like I predicted), but we did get one surprise, that shouldn't have been a surprise.
Michael Fassbender (and his, ummm, "manhood") is the talk and buzz of Hollywood right now, but Academy voters were not ready to honor his performance in the NC-17 rated Shame.
Gary Oldman (like I predicted, and I want to rub that in since I botched Best Picture nominees so badly) earned his first Oscar nomination, while Demian Bichir also earned his first nomination for the little seen A Better Life. Bichir follows up his Screen Actors Guild nomination with this one, which will encourage many studios to work as hard as Summit Entertainment did for Bichir by starting earlier than any other. A Better Life was the first DVD I received during the awards season, and it looks like Summit was able to get some attention for Bichir before the clutter of the other campaigns emerged.
George Clooney has to be considered the frontrunner over nominees Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Brad Pitt (Moneyball), Bichir and Oldman. If he wins at the Screen Actors Guild awards on January 29, it's a lock.
Best Actress
Rooney Mara For The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is the big surprise here. The movie was good, but underwhelming in relation to the hype and anticipation. However, Mara seems to have pushed aside veteran Tilda Swinton (We Need To Talk About Kevin), who earned a Screen Actors Guild nomination for this dark movie that has been wowing people in LA and NYC for the past few weeks.
Of the nominees, look for a battle between Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) and Viola Davis (The Help) for the golden bald dude, while Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) could have won in a year with weaker nominees and Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) should just be happy to squeak out a nomination. While holding the record for most nominations by an actor (17 Oscar noms), will Streep win her first Oscar since 1983?
Best Supporting Actress
We shouldn't have been surprised by Janet McTeer's nomination for Albert Nobbs, but I thought Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) would get a nomination in a category that often supports and rewards young actresses. She's a talented and beautiful young lady, so you can count on a big time Hollywood career for her, if she makes the right choices in the next year.
Meanwhile, the nominees will battle it out at the Screen Actors Guild awards on Sunday, and I think Octavia Spencer (The Help) is the frontrunner for now. Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), McTeer, and Jessica Chastain (The Help) should be happy to have nominations, while we should watch out for Berenice Bejo (The Artist). The Weinstein Company year after year wages the best Oscar campaigns, and they are all in with The Artist being a major contender in all of the major categories.
Best Supporting Actor
Jonah Hill (Moneyball) should not have been a surprise, and Albert Brooks (Drive) getting a snub should not have been a surprise, but they did surprise me.
Max von Sydow (as I predicted) showed up as a nominee for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, along with Christopher Plummer (Beginners), Nick Notle (Warrior) and Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn). Plummer almost is a sure thing, since Uggie the Dog from The Artist is not eligible.
Other Surprises
The Academy's Feature Animation Branch continued to show its disapproval of motion capture animation by snubbing Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tin Tin for Best Animated Feature. Motion capture animation often is derided as not being real animation, and the hard core purists, who are willing to accept CGI and other modern animation techniques, continue to shut out the motion capture guys.
Then, Project Nim is a shocking documentary if you ever get a chance to see it, but it was left off the list of nominees for Best Documentary.
Meanwhile, David Fincher, who has been nominated by the Directors Guild for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, was passed over in favor of Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life) and Steven Spielberg fails to get a nomination for War Horse in the Best Director category.
source : thecwdc