• This is actually Nick Nolte's third Oscar nomination! (For Warrior.) He was most recently snubbed for his work in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.
• While, as usual, women don't direct any films, because they can't, due to being women, and therefore they don't get nominated, two women actually at least somehow got nominated for Best Screenplay! That's Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig, who co-wrote Bridesmaids, which should totally win its category. And! A woman actually got nominated in the Adapted Screenplay entry! Co-nominated at least; husband-and-wife team Peter Straughan & Bridget O’Connor wrote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which should completely and utterly win, because that is a great script. Unfortunately she died in late 2010.
• I bet Spain's really glad they nominated Black Bread, instead of Almodovar's The Skin I Live In. It is, however, the first movie in Catalan to be put forward! It is also the first movie in Catalan to be snubbed in favor of some other countries' films at the Oscar nominations. "Grim but gripping" said Variety! "Stodgy, starchy and not particularly nutritious" said the Hollywood Reporter! "Totally didn't see it," said everyone in America.
What else am I missing? (And no, our boyfriend Michael Fassbender wasn't snubbed, Shame just wasn't a very good movie. Oh also! Drive got nominated for sound editing! Which, YES, OBVIOUSLY!)
Don't bag on BLACK BREAD. The director, Agusti Villaronga, is a genius and made the ultra-disturbing '80s masterpiece IN A GLASS CAGE, which makes SKIN I LIVE IN seem like a Disney movie.
@dietcock@twitter I love you.
Delta Burke, sure, but where's Major Dad?
@freetzy In Red Tails (seriously!).
If the Help wins Best Picture, I swear to god that I am going to throw all of the T.V.s out of all of the windows. Jesus. Christ.
@amuselouche What's a TV?
@melis *I.V.s - fixed it.
@amuselouche YES. YES. I FUCKING HATED THAT MOVIE SO MUCH. Sorry, my caps lock was temporarily broken by my overwhelming sense of agreement.
The Help for best picture, really?! I guess if you've never seen a movie before, sure.
@scroll_lock: 'WAR HORSE' DUDE.
@HiredGoons- SJP was great in that!
@scroll_lock Eventually the only Oscar-nominated movies will be Spielbergian schlock and racially fraught "feel good" movies. ))<>((
@deepomega Oh God, my rage stroke is coming early this year.
@deepomega- And if we're lucky, Tom Hanks will wrap his huge, bloated head around WWII for a change. Can't have too many movies about that little chapter!
Another interesting fact: Cars 2 is the first Pixar film not to be nominated for Best Animated Feature since the Best Animated Feature category was created in 2001.
@Megapol Tchotchke Not surprising, it was the first Pixar movie I hated.
@Megapol Tchotchke That actually IS an interesting fact that I did not know! (It sounds like it was garbage! The preview horrified me.)
@Megapol Tchotchke If I can be excused from explaining why I know this, "Puss in Boots" was beyond deplorable, so the bar was not that high.
I just saw Warrior yesterday on the plane. I thought Nick Nolte did a very good job playing Nick Nolte.
@En Vague http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MmLo91A7HI
MICHAEL SHANNON
JOYFUL NOISE WAS ROBBED!
Carey Mulligan totally deserves to be nominated for the Mena Suvari On A Bed Of Roses Memorial Award For Excellence In Heavy-Handed Idiot Metaphor for that stirring rendition of New York, New York, though.
Carey Mulligan is a wonderful British Actress so pick on Iran.
God bless, The Bionicman
So between the Best Pic noms for Midnight In Paris, War Horse, The Help, and Extremely Aggghh and Incredible Bleccckkkk, what I'm hearing is it was a banner year for white people feeling good about themselves.
So it's ... a year?
A very good year
It was a very good year
For small-town girls
With racial healing to start
Or backs covered in art
Or the Falklands to thwart
It was a very good year.
What is a Delta Burke?
Oh, don't you cross a Sugarbaker woman.
ELIZABETH OLSEN.
@Murgatroid: right? Who saw that coming?
What about REAL STEEL?
mark strong should have got a nom for best supporting actor in tinker tailor.
"Man or Muppet" better be a lock.
@dntsqzthchrmn: Only 2 nominees...and I was so looking forward to a Madonna-Elton catfight on the red carpet. Bummer.
O.K., haters -- and I'm genuinely curious here -- which movies should have been nominated for best picture that weren't?
(Of course I don't mean this as an endorsement of the whole list; I'd be happy to see Margin Call and Young Adult instead of The Help and Extremely Barf, for example. But the other ones (except Tree of Life, which I haven't seen) are all quite good! I can understand War Horse rubbing certain people the wrong way, but it won me over; and I honestly can't see what's not to like about Midnight in Paris, other than some sort of grudge against Woody Allen.)
I mean, what -- Melancholia? That Cronenberg movie I thought everyone hated? What else is there??
@Mr. B It admittedly wasn't the flushest of years, but I'd have happily accepted Ides of March over Extremely Faaaaaauuugghghhh.
I dunno, I guess I feel this was actually a pretty good year for movies, at least the best since whatever year "There Will be Blood" came out. I mean, remember when that Sandra Bullock Lifetime Channel movie was up for Best Picture?
@Mr. B: Except that's exactly what The Help is, and it's really heavily represented in the noms. (I'd argue that War Horse is actually super racist AND boring, and that Midnight In Paris is representative of the worst excesses of late-period Allen, too.)
@Mr. B Also I'd say WHERE THE FUCK IS DRIVE.
@Mr. B You mean Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?
@deepomega I MEAN HOW DO YOU NOT NOMINATE ALBERT BROOKS FOR THAT
@deepomega For the record my favorite of the nominees is The Artist, by far. I'd accept Hugo or The Decendants if either of those won, but the others are all an-honor-to-be-nominated.
I'd like to hear more about how War Horse is racist. Uhhh ... there were a couple of Sikhs in it for about 10 seconds? Or is your reading that the black horse represents some sort of Uncle Tom figure?
I only recently saw Bridesmaids. I had been looking forward to it for ages.
It's a pointless waste of the time of everyone involved to sit around bitching about what didn't get nominated, which is just why I'm going to do it.
It's absolutely fucking criminal the BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK did get nominated for best documentary. It was one of the best documentaries not just last year but for several years now (Possibly the best since MARWENCOL in 2010 and the absolutely devastating DEAR ZACHARY from 2008). Fuck the Academy!
Grumble grumble. Wasn't Jane Eyre this year? Fassbender should have been nominated for that. He was lovely.