In Contention
By Josh Spiegel
January 25, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
There were other snubs, but another notable one for Inception was its editing not being nominated. Now, a great film’s editing is usually not evident (or it’s evident for a very particular reason), and I’d argue that a movie where the second half takes place in four different dream layers needs to have great editing to be one of the ten best pictures of the year. So the fact that Lee Smith is not only not being nominated, but he ought to have won is just sad. I’ll get off the Inception soapbox (the film was nominated for eight awards, as mentioned above, and it did get on the Best Picture list), but there were other snubs we can discuss. Andrew Garfield, from The Social Network, didn’t get a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Ryan Gosling didn’t get in for Blue Valentine while his co-star, Michelle Williams, did.
What the Academy Awards nominations proved is that they still like things old-fashioned. The King’s Speech - which also won the top honors at this past weekend’s Producers Guild Awards - got the most nominations of any film, with 12, including nods for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound Mixing (no, I have no idea what was so exemplary about that film’s sound mixing). Next was True Grit, which was snubbed at the Golden Globes and at various guilds, with ten nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography. The Social Network and Inception followed up with eight nominations each, so already, the narrative for the next month is set in motion.
What’s the narrative, you ask? Is The Social Network actually going to win Best Picture, or will The King’s Speech take it down? By losing at the Producers Guild, people have begun to wonder if The Social Network is actually as dominant as everyone assumed it was. In essence, people have finally realized that all the critics’ awards that any film wins don’t mean squat at the Oscars, because critics don’t vote for the Oscars. What’s more, precursors also mean squat. I don’t mean to harp too much on it, but there was nothing in the previous guild nominations to make us think that Black Swan would only get five nominations (though it being nominated for Best Director and Best Film Editing, two historically key categories to being a solid Best Picture contender means it’s still in the race), or that Joel and Ethan Coen would get a Best Director nod.
In terms of the biggest prize of all, Best Picture, there aren’t as many surprises. You can say that Winter’s Bone getting nominated is a surprise, but the real surprise is that the film got four nominations, including a very well-deserved Best Supporting Actor nod for John Hawkes. The only real surprise within the category - and again, it’s minor - is that The Town didn’t get nominated. I’m not sad about this one, as I found the film solid but not exceptional, but there was a lot of love within the guilds, or so it seemed. The other nominees are the same ones we’ve been talking about for a while: The King’s Speech, The Social Network, Black Swan, The Fighter, True Grit, Inception, Toy Story 3, The Kids Are All Right, and 127 Hours.
The last of those nominees did a bit better than expected in the technical categories (including a nod for its too-flashy editing), but don’t expect 127 Hours to surprise as a Best Picture winner. 127 Hours did get six nominations, mostly for its technical work, but the most noise you’ll hear about the film will come with the likely awkward jokes made at Oscar co-host James Franco’s expense, for being a host and nominee in the same year. The logic of the film getting six nominations falls apart when you notice that it didn’t get nominated for its sound editing or sound mixing. Say what you like about the movie - I thought it was good, but not great - but the sound is very key in the film, and the technical aspects of the sound seemed excellent to this layperson’s ears.
We’ve got just over a month until the Oscars are announced, but today’s nominations prove that there aren’t going to be that many surprises among the winners. I am still genuinely annoyed that Christopher Nolan and Lee Smith aren’t being honored this year, but only Smith had a solid chance of winning his category, and Nolan has a very strong shot at winning for his screenplay (the other nominated films are Another Year, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, and The Kids Are All right; The King’s Speech is the other strong contender, I think). But David Fincher is probably winning Best Director, Natalie Portman, Colin Firth, Christian Bale, and Melissa Leo are likely taking home the acting honors. And so on. Some of these nominations are interesting, and it’s gratifying to see a few lone wolves out there, including Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom, but don’t hold your breath waiting for them to win.
As we get closer to February 27th, the media is going to present us two sides: you are on team King George or team Mark Zuckerberg. Of course, there are ten nominees (and in that battle, I’m on team Black Swan), but that doesn’t matter to the media. Before now, The Social Network was the presumed victor. Now, we’re not as sure. A couple of guilds will announce their winners in the next week, including the Screen Actors Guild. Even more so than the Producers Guild, the actors’ branch of the Academy is the biggest by far. If they go for one film over another, we might have a race. But either way, the nominations remind me of one thing: the best films of any year are rarely the ones that win all the awards. Sometimes, for fans of one movie, it is just an honor to be nominated.