And we're off to the races!
This morning, the nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards, which will be held on Sunday, February 27th were announced and my initial reaction is a combined emotion of happiness and a complete lack of surprise. Happiness, because, for the most part, the Academy got it right by really focusing on the very best 2010 had to offer and in all of the correct categories as well. The lack of surprise comes from the fact that while greatness existed in the cinematic year of 2010, it was decidedly not a great movie year at all, making the nominations more than obvious and eliminating any sense of major surprises.
Out of the ten Best Picture nominees, I have currently seen nine of the films, as I just have not gotten myself to viewing "Winter's Bone" as of yet. Without producing any major spoilers as I have not yet published by Top Ten of 2010 list for your reading consumption, I will tell you that many of the nominated films are housed on my personal list. The nominated list as a whole was quite pleasing as it did cover the cinematic divide by celebrating the box office blockbuster, critical darlings, independent film favorites and at least one film that may be somewhat of an obscurity (the aforementioned "Winter's Bone") to general audiences.
If I was especially happy to see certain nominations, I would have to say that seeing Hailee Steinfeld's nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the young and feverishly determined Mattie Ross in the Coen Brother's "True Grit" made me smile the biggest. Her performance was so striking in its immediate command and authority and coupled with her mastery of the difficult language taken from the original Charles Portis novel, Steinfeld made this girl someone not to be ignored.
I was also beyond thrilled to see the Oscar nomination for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' deeply innovative film score for David Fincher's "The Social Network." It was an unpredictable series of compositions that unearthed the interior dread and venom that lurked within that film's primary characters and how they are all undone by jealousy, betrayal, greed and sorrow.
On the other hand, I do believe that while the wealth of nominations for David O. Russell's "The Fighter" were not unexpected, I did feel they were a bit overdone as I still contend that film is more than a little pedestrian and MOR compared to the likes of the forward thinking "Inception," "127 Hours" and definitely "Black Swan."
In other categories, it saddened me that the Academy could not seem to find space to honor Edgar Wright's "Scott Pilgrim VS. The World" in the Visual Effects section. There's no way you can tell me that the endlessly creative eye-popping effects, which completely validates the usage of CGI in the movies, was lacking when compared to the excellent but standard special effects of "Iron Man 2" and the bloated, and horrifically bland CGI wasteland of "Alice In Wonderland."
I was also sad to see Julianne Moore's omission for her work in "The Kids Are All Right" as she was entirely Annette Bening's equal. The greatness of each performance in that film was due to what they gave to each other and Moore gave it all she had in a performance that was as hysterical as it was compassionate and heartbreaking.
And then, Oscar always seems to find some omission that is so jaw dropping, so incomprehensible as it almost invalidates the ceremony as a whole. Typically, it is always in the category of Best Director as for the second time, Oscar has refused to honor Christopher Nolan for his outstanding work on "Inception," in which we were all in the palms of a cinematic master's hands. It's not like this film, which is nominated for Best Cinematography, Visual Effects, Original Score, Sound Editing and Original Screenplay directed itself!!
As I have said so often over the years, this program is my Superbowl, the culminating event of a year at the movies. I will save my official predictions until a closer period towards the telecast, a program that will undoubtedly be OVERlong and filled with the type of self-important and self-congratulatory pomp and circumstances the Academy Awards are known for.
And I wouldn't miss it for the world.
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