REACTIONS TO THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS-A SAVAGE CINEMA EXCLUSIVE

And the cinematic horses have been let out of the gate!!!

Dear readers, no matter how many words I write, I do not think that I could ever fully express to you the unbelievable anticipation I feel when the Academy Award nominations are about to be announced. Due to my preschool teaching obligations, it is almost torturous for me to have to wait and wait and wait until I have reached my lunch break and I am, at long last and finally, able to get myself to a computer to read the results of which films from the past year have been coronated with the honor of an Oscar nomination. Today, I thankfully was able to scurry away to a computer early and briefly and print out the nominations for the 85th annual Academy Awards which I was then able to study closely a bit later. And while I was absolutely thrilled with many of the nominations, I was more than surprised, and sometimes shocked, with what had been omitted.

As of this writing, I have seen six of the nine Best Picture nominees ("Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty" are both on my MUST SEE list, while "Amour" is not currently playing in my city) and I have to say that I am overall so very pleased with the breadth and variety found on this list overall. While there were a couple of films I just knew would be on the list, I feel that Oscar truly has gotten this aspect of the nominations more than correct. Also as of this writing, I am preparing my annual four part Savage Scorecard series in which I will run down all of the films I loved and hated throughout the previous movie year. My plan is to slowly roll out each installment until around mid-February (if not a tad earlier), all of which will lead to my Oscar predictions before the telecast on Sunday, February 24th. I have a really strong idea of which films will end up in my final Top Ten of 2012, and I was indeed extremely happy to see that several of my picks also ended up as films nominated for Best Picture.

Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," a film that I admired and appreciated more than I actually liked, was the clear victor today and expectantly so as that film carries the type of nearly regal pedigree that Oscar loves while also being a decidedly adult, mature and even cerebral experience that marked some uncharted artistic territory for Spielberg. What made me jump out of my seat was the placement of David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook," Benh Zeitlin's "Beasts Of The Southern Wild" and especially Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" as Best Picture nominees. Even Ang Lee's masterpiece "Life Of Pi" was not necessarily a shoo-in so I was also ecstatic to see it in the running.

Other nominations that made me completely elated were Joaquin Phoenix's nomination for Best Actor in Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master," as this performance was a career best, a transformative piece of work in which Phoenix seemed to be acting to save his life! Additionally, I was very happy to see Denzel Washington's nomination for Robert Zemeckis' "Flight," his finest performance in many years and complete return to the tip-top peak of his formidable talent.

But the two acting nominations that made my cinematic heart soar were for Jacki Weaver's rock solid, deeply complex and undeniably unglamorous role in "Silver Linings Playbook" (I told you to watch her closely in my review, didn't I?). Most especially, I was over the moon for young Quvenzhane Wallis' ferocious, commanding performance in "Beasts Of The Southern Wild." Now aged 9, it must be noticed that Wallis was only 6 years old at the time of filming and while more seasoned, established actors may resent Wallis' nomination in a leading performance, reportedly the youngest to ever receive the nomination, I ask those people, and you as well, to truly take some time and think hard about what it takes to carry a film with a leading performance. The very kind of emotional and intellectual journey an actor can take to, and share with, an audience, regardless of age. Quvenzhane Wallis carried "Beasts Of The Southern Wild" on her small shoulders like an amazon warrior and she completely deserves any notoriety that she is blessed to receive.

In regards to the Best Adapted and Best Original Screenplay categories, Oscar was indeed 100% correct with the nominations for Tony Kushner's work with "Lincoln" and Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" respectively. Both of those screenplays gave actors the kind of luxurious, sumptuous, multi-layered dialogue that I would imagine actors would salivate to receive. Kushner and Tarantino, without question, supplied two of the very best screenplays of the year. I was also so, so happy to see Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola's imaginative and nostalgically romantic and urgent work for the wonderful "Moonrise Kingdom" recognized. And I was also and especially pleased to see John Gatins' original screenplay for "Flight" in the running as that film, in addition to providing rich characterizations and a grippingly wrenching moral core, provided us with a rare and openly spiritual layer that most films would dance away from.

But the snubs left my jaw upon the floor. While Christoph Waltz was deservedly nominated for his tremendous and wonderfully loquacious work in "Django Unchained," I was surprised that neither Leonardo DiCaprio  Samuel L. Jackson or Jamie Foxx were nominated at all, especially as all three reached new heights and displayed new layers to their uniquely gifted talents. Perhaps this is due to the deeply controversial nature of the film where Oscar feels more comfortable celebrating the piece in its entirely and not so singularly for the elements that are nothing less than powder kegs.

But that said, Oscar just blew it with the Best Director category and to a disastrous degree. Without getting too technical and lost in film criticism jargon, the "Auteur Theory" is one that states that the director is the true "author" of a film. With that, it absolutely flabbergasts and even angers me when Oscar thinks that films have somehow directed themselves!!

The omission of Quentin Tarantino in the Best Director category is a seismic oversight in my mind as he has constantly been a filmmaker where his skills as a writer and director are in lockstep and his directorial work with "Django Unchained" set his own creative bar that much higher. In addition, why were Kathryn Bigelow ("Zero Dark Thirty"), Tom Hooper ("Les Miserables") and really Ben Affleck ("Argo") not nominated as well? To me, it feels to be stupidly simple. If you are going to bother to nominate nine films for Best Picture, then you not only need to have the same amount of nominations for Best Director, the directors of the Best Picture nominees should all automatically be nominated. I don't understand the criteria, or better yet, the politics involved in these decisions but I strongly feel that the Academy seriously needs to rethink how filmmakers are to be recognized.

Yes, I was sad that films like Sam Mendes' extraordinary James Bond film "Skyfall" was not given any attention within the major awards. And for that matter, why no love for Joss Whedon's "The Avengers," aside from the token Best Visual Effects category? That film was a masterful comic book epic that showcased the genre at its finest and it more than deserved the attention and accolades from the industry. But, I do have to ask the following question: What does the Academy have against Christopher Nolan?! I am just beside myself that "The Dark Knight Rises," his grim and grand finale to his Batman trilogy received not...even...one...nomination in any category. Nolan has been consistently snubbed in the past but this time, as far as I am concerned, is completely inexcusable, especially as he is a filmmaker who has shown and proven time and again how exactly to merge grand ideas, supreme craftsmanship, elegant artistry and white knuckle visceral intensity over and again. He is truly one of the finest we have and his work on his self-described "Dark Knight Trilogy" has been nothing less than game changing. Shame on Oscar for ignoring this giant talent so glaringly.

Yes, I know that Oscar cannot make room for everything (and you have no idea of how happy I am that Meryl Streep was not nominated yet again) but I think that with the variety of the nominations combined with everything that was completely left out speaks to the unusually high quality of the 2012 movie year overall.

Before February 24th, there are more films to see, reviews to write and lists and predictions to compile. But on the night itself, I'm gonna grab myself a nice, big bowl of popcorn and my trusty notepad and pen and enjoy my personal "Superbowl" as much as I am able.