New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Why then was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close nominated while The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was snubbed? Most voters in AMPAS live in New York City and Los Angeles or at least travel to those places on a frequent basis. This is the simple fact of the matter. A 9/11 based drama is statistically more probable to impact these voters than a movie set in a small Swedish village. And while this was not the first mainstream 9/11 film, it was the first major one with enough distance from events to be worthy of consideration. Let’s also consider that two of the first high profile stories on the subject matter starred Nic Cage and Edward Cullen.

So, while I completely agree that it is an abomination that the vastly superior 2006 film, United 93, received no Academy Awards notice while Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has flat out stolen an undeserved nod in 2012, I cannot say I am surprised nor am I outraged. Numbers matter here. No title released in 2011 was more likely to gain 5% of the vote than this one if we strip quality out of the conversation (which is hard to do, I know). It is the right subject matter targeting the right audience at the right time. Also, since it will not win, it is a future trivia question more than anything else anyway.

The real stories in my estimation exist outside the Best Picture contenders. I started the column with the joke about Bichir, who you are now pretending to know when you talk to your friends. You are saying things like “I was blown away by his performance” and “I have been telling people for months that he should be nominated.” FYI: Everyone knows you are lying. Stop lying. I read an Oscars column last week that listed the top 25 (!) candidates in the category and he wasn’t listed. Yes, his name has been mentioned in some circles but Best Actor is tough sledding every year.

This is exactly why Gary Oldman did not have a single nomination prior to now. In fact, think about it like this. Bichir and Oldman had the same amount of Oscars love yesterday and they still have the same amount of Oscars love today. According to the Academy, Gary Oldman and Demián Bichir have the exact level of credibility as actors. Also, I’m going to pronounce his name “Bitcher” until I hear otherwise. In fact, I say the two of them should fight crime together as The Bitcher and The Old Man.

Of course, Demián Bichir is not the acting nomination receiving the most grief. That honor is reserved for one Jonah Hill, which irritates me to no end. I believe that his understated performance in Moneyball is a jaw-dropping turn from an actor who is ordinarily as subtle as a meteor shower. In order for Brad Pitt to create an epic “character” out of Billy Beane, he needed a straight man and Hill’s last role as an overweight nerd reflects tremendous growth in his craft. I will no longer ask him about his wiener from this point forward.

The numbers game this year was also interesting to me. Ignoring the oddity of nine Best Picture nominees, I’m captivated by a system that could lead to a pair of nominees in the Best Song category. As a child of the 80s who remembers a time when movie soundtracks were anxiously anticipated, I scratch my head at the thought that a virtual coin flip will decide whether The Muppets or those birds from Rio will win. Okay, it’s going to be the Muppets in one of the biggest blowouts in Academy history but the point stands. Two nominees? Does the Academy not know how to download Spotify or Pandora apps?

With regards to the Best Animated Feature category, the results occurred as I expected and yet not at all as I had anticipated. In one of the recaps for last year’s Oscars, I mentioned that with Cars 2 on the docket for 2011, the door was opened for somebody else to win. Cars 2 was also a project based in commerce, not art, which Pixar has frankly earned the right to do from time to time. When the rest of last year’s animated films disappointed, a trend we selected as one of the Top Film Industry Stories of 2011, I figured the choice would come down to Kung Fu Panda 2 versus Rango with the latter a heavy favorite.

Continued:       1       2       3       4