(Full disclosure: between both of us, we have not seen all of the movies nominated)
Javi: Whenever I compile my Top 10 list of the year, I try to think of what was good but also something off the beaten path that might make someone appreciate films in a different way than what everyone else is saying. The Oscars this year seem to have looked at the every movie site's Top 10 and just copy and pasted it. There are very few surprises, but it was more surprising at what isn't there.
The big issue this year is The King's Speech. I haven't seen this movie, and yet I don't care to because this movie looks boring Oscar bait. It is the cinematic equivalent of a finely crafted pop song ready to go to the Top 40 and night clubs, but in this case 100% more British. There's a reason why I am anti-Clint Eastwood and to a lesser extent anti-Daniel Day Lewis; their strategies are always to release Oscar bait movies every year. It is very repetitive and frankly, artistically dishonest, more Eastwood than Day-Lewis, although that might be a personal bias.
But I regress. The real shame here is poor Christopher Nolan, who directed one of the best stories of this year, on a technical sense, and was completely left out of the race, even if INCEPTION was nominated for Best Picture. If I had to guess, the King Speech director nomination for Tom Hooper was put there just for the potential of letting this movie sweep the major awards. If it ends up winning a lot and since every other director was legitimate, I guess Nolan was seen as the easily expendable one. Another big shame is not including Ryan Gosling for his performance in BLUE VALENTINE. It was one of the most tragic and believable performances of this year, and to me nothing will top it.
I will say, as a personal note, I am amazed that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World did not get nominated for Editing, Sound Mixing, Best Original Song, or even Best Visual Effects. For anyone that has seen the movie and can appreciate the technical aspects of it, you can see that it's true that some recognition was in order.
I will say, as a personal note, I am amazed that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World did not get nominated for Editing, Sound Mixing, Best Original Song, or even Best Visual Effects. For anyone that has seen the movie and can appreciate the technical aspects of it, you can see that it's true that some recognition was in order.
Overall, this year left me with the impression that slowly but surely the Oscars are getting to the point of being as political as the Grammys. Their complete lack of recognition of anything not catered 100% to them makes it seem obvious that they are phasing out recognition for excellence across the world of cinema. Just the tiny scope of what they want to see.
Jonesy: For me this year, there were some interesting choices from the academy. First, I am very disappointed in Christopher Nolan's snub for director. Unfortunately, the academy doesn't seem to care too much for pure action movies, so I guess Inception's movie nomination will have to be enough.
I feel he was snubbed to make room for the new academy's golden boys, The Coen Brothers. Now, I like their movies, I do, but like my cohort mentioned Eastwood above, the Coens seem to have a knack for only releasing toward the end of the year, once a year. That doesn't mean I write off their movies because I still go into their movies with as open-minded as possible, and I may like it or I may not. But it's just an observation...
The only acting race that will be interesting to see is Best Supporting Actress. I think it'll be anyones game, but how fabulous would it be for Hailee Steinfeld to win?
Toy Story 3. Where do I begin? Here's what the academy needs to do...either get rid of Best Animated catagory since there are ten nominations or don't let animated movies get Best Picture nominations since they have their own category.
I am surprised with the amount of nominations The King's Speech received, but I'm also shocked with how many True Grit received since it apparently missed the drunken Golden Globe boat a couple weeks ago. How do you go from nothing to 10 nominations? What if it beats Social Network and The King's Speech (the apparent front runners) for Best Picture? That'd be a fun twist.
All in all, the academy is not where it should be in terms of recognizing great non-bait movies (cough, cough, Scott Pilgrim). However, they're leaps and bounds where they use to be. At least there are no sweaping epic war movies this year. In the past, little movies like Winter's Bone, The Kids are All Right, and 127 Hours would have never had a snow ball's chance in hell in getting recognized. In fact, besides Inception and Toy Story 3, all the movies deal with either personal or family drama. Interesting.
On a happier note...Yay for John Powell's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON score getting a nomination!
And here are the nominations:
Best Picture
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception”
“The Kids Are All Right ”
“The King’s Speech”
“127 Hours”
“The Social Network”
“Toy Story 3″
“True Grit”
“Winter’s Bone”
Best Direction
Darren Aronofsky for “Black Swan”
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for “True Grit”
David Fincher for “The Social Network”
Tom Hooper for “The King’s Speech”
David O. Russell for “The Fighter”
Actor in a Leading Role
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
James Franco in “127 Hours”
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”
Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”
Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”
Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”
Adapted Screenplay
Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy for “127 Hours”
Aaron Sorkin for “The Social Network”
Michael Arndt, story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich for “Toy Story 3″
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for “True Grit”
Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini for “Winter’s Bone”
Original Screenplay
Mike Leigh for “Another Year”
Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington and Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson for “The Fighter”
Christopher Nolan for “Inception”
Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for “The Kids Are All Right”
David Seidler for “The King’s Speech”
Animated Feature
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“The Illusionist”
“Toy Story 3″
Art Direction
“Alice in Wonderland”: Robert Stromberg (Production Design), Karen O’Hara (Set Decoration)
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1″: Stuart Craig (Production Design), Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration)
“Inception”: Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (Set Decoration)
“The King’s Speech”: Eve Stewart (Production Design), Judy Farr (Set Decoration)
“True Grit”: Jess Gonchor (Production Design), Nancy Haigh (Set Decoration)
Cinematography
“Black Swan”: Matthew Libatique
“Inception”: Wally Pfister
“The King’s Speech”: Danny Cohen
“The Social Network”: Jeff Cronenweth
\“True Grit”: Roger Deakins
Costume Design
“Alice in Wonderland”: Colleen Atwood
“I Am Love”: Antonella Cannarozzi
“The King’s Speech”: Jenny Beavan
“The Tempest”: Sandy Powell
\“True Grit”: Mary Zophres
Documentary (Feature)
“Exit through the Gift Shop”
“Gasland”
“Inside Job”
“Restrepo”
“Waste Land”
Documentary (Short Subject)
“Killing in the Name”
“Poster Girl”
“Strangers No More”
“Sun Come Up”
“The Warriors of Qiugang”
Film Editing
“Black Swan”: Andrew Weisblum
“The Fighter”: Pamela Martin
“The King’s Speech”: Tariq Anwar
“127 Hours”: Jon Harris
“The Social Network”: Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter
Foreign Language Film
“Biutiful”: Mexico
“Dogtooth”: Greece
“In a Better World”: Denmark
“Incendies”: Canada
“Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi)”: Algeria
Makeup
“Barney’s Version”: Adrien Morot
“The Way Back”: Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
“The Wolfman”: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey
Music (Original Score)
“How to Train Your Dragon”: John Powell
“Inception”: Hans Zimmer
“The King’s Speech”: Alexandre Desplat
“127 Hours”: A.R. Rahman
“The Social Network”: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Music (Original Song)
“Coming Home” from “Country Strong” Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
“I See the Light” from “Tangled” Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
“If I Rise” from “127 Hours” Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
“We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3″ Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
Short Film (Animated)
“Day & Night”: Teddy Newton
“The Gruffalo”: Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
“Let’s Pollute”: Geefwee Boedoe
“The Lost Thing”: Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
“Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)”: Bastien Dubois
Short Film (Live Action)
“The Confession”: Tanel Toom
“The Crush”: Michael Creagh
“God of Love”: Luke Matheny
“Na Wewe”: Ivan Goldschmidt
“Wish 143″: Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite
Sound Editing
“Inception”: Richard King
“Toy Story 3″: Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
“Tron: Legacy”: Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
“True Grit”: Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
“Unstoppable”: Mark P. Stoeckinger
Sound Mixing
“Inception”: Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
“The King’s Speech”: Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
“Salt”: Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
“The Social Network”: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
“True Grit”: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland
Visual Effects
“Alice in Wonderland”: Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1″: Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
“Hereafter”: Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
“Inception”: Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
“Iron Man 2″: Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick
Jonesy: For me this year, there were some interesting choices from the academy. First, I am very disappointed in Christopher Nolan's snub for director. Unfortunately, the academy doesn't seem to care too much for pure action movies, so I guess Inception's movie nomination will have to be enough.
I feel he was snubbed to make room for the new academy's golden boys, The Coen Brothers. Now, I like their movies, I do, but like my cohort mentioned Eastwood above, the Coens seem to have a knack for only releasing toward the end of the year, once a year. That doesn't mean I write off their movies because I still go into their movies with as open-minded as possible, and I may like it or I may not. But it's just an observation...
The only acting race that will be interesting to see is Best Supporting Actress. I think it'll be anyones game, but how fabulous would it be for Hailee Steinfeld to win?
Toy Story 3. Where do I begin? Here's what the academy needs to do...either get rid of Best Animated catagory since there are ten nominations or don't let animated movies get Best Picture nominations since they have their own category.
I am surprised with the amount of nominations The King's Speech received, but I'm also shocked with how many True Grit received since it apparently missed the drunken Golden Globe boat a couple weeks ago. How do you go from nothing to 10 nominations? What if it beats Social Network and The King's Speech (the apparent front runners) for Best Picture? That'd be a fun twist.
All in all, the academy is not where it should be in terms of recognizing great non-bait movies (cough, cough, Scott Pilgrim). However, they're leaps and bounds where they use to be. At least there are no sweaping epic war movies this year. In the past, little movies like Winter's Bone, The Kids are All Right, and 127 Hours would have never had a snow ball's chance in hell in getting recognized. In fact, besides Inception and Toy Story 3, all the movies deal with either personal or family drama. Interesting.
On a happier note...Yay for John Powell's HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON score getting a nomination!
And here are the nominations:
Best Picture
“Black Swan”
“The Fighter”
“Inception”
“The Kids Are All Right ”
“The King’s Speech”
“127 Hours”
“The Social Network”
“Toy Story 3″
“True Grit”
“Winter’s Bone”
Best Direction
Darren Aronofsky for “Black Swan”
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for “True Grit”
David Fincher for “The Social Network”
Tom Hooper for “The King’s Speech”
David O. Russell for “The Fighter”
Actor in a Leading Role
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
James Franco in “127 Hours”
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”
Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”
Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”
Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”
Adapted Screenplay
Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy for “127 Hours”
Aaron Sorkin for “The Social Network”
Michael Arndt, story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich for “Toy Story 3″
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for “True Grit”
Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini for “Winter’s Bone”
Original Screenplay
Mike Leigh for “Another Year”
Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington and Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson for “The Fighter”
Christopher Nolan for “Inception”
Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for “The Kids Are All Right”
David Seidler for “The King’s Speech”
Animated Feature
“How to Train Your Dragon”
“The Illusionist”
“Toy Story 3″
Art Direction
“Alice in Wonderland”: Robert Stromberg (Production Design), Karen O’Hara (Set Decoration)
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1″: Stuart Craig (Production Design), Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration)
“Inception”: Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (Set Decoration)
“The King’s Speech”: Eve Stewart (Production Design), Judy Farr (Set Decoration)
“True Grit”: Jess Gonchor (Production Design), Nancy Haigh (Set Decoration)
Cinematography
“Black Swan”: Matthew Libatique
“Inception”: Wally Pfister
“The King’s Speech”: Danny Cohen
“The Social Network”: Jeff Cronenweth
\“True Grit”: Roger Deakins
Costume Design
“Alice in Wonderland”: Colleen Atwood
“I Am Love”: Antonella Cannarozzi
“The King’s Speech”: Jenny Beavan
“The Tempest”: Sandy Powell
\“True Grit”: Mary Zophres
Documentary (Feature)
“Exit through the Gift Shop”
“Gasland”
“Inside Job”
“Restrepo”
“Waste Land”
Documentary (Short Subject)
“Killing in the Name”
“Poster Girl”
“Strangers No More”
“Sun Come Up”
“The Warriors of Qiugang”
Film Editing
“Black Swan”: Andrew Weisblum
“The Fighter”: Pamela Martin
“The King’s Speech”: Tariq Anwar
“127 Hours”: Jon Harris
“The Social Network”: Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter
Foreign Language Film
“Biutiful”: Mexico
“Dogtooth”: Greece
“In a Better World”: Denmark
“Incendies”: Canada
“Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi)”: Algeria
Makeup
“Barney’s Version”: Adrien Morot
“The Way Back”: Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
“The Wolfman”: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey
Music (Original Score)
“How to Train Your Dragon”: John Powell
“Inception”: Hans Zimmer
“The King’s Speech”: Alexandre Desplat
“127 Hours”: A.R. Rahman
“The Social Network”: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Music (Original Song)
“Coming Home” from “Country Strong” Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
“I See the Light” from “Tangled” Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
“If I Rise” from “127 Hours” Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
“We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3″ Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
Short Film (Animated)
“Day & Night”: Teddy Newton
“The Gruffalo”: Jakob Schuh and Max Lang
“Let’s Pollute”: Geefwee Boedoe
“The Lost Thing”: Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
“Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)”: Bastien Dubois
Short Film (Live Action)
“The Confession”: Tanel Toom
“The Crush”: Michael Creagh
“God of Love”: Luke Matheny
“Na Wewe”: Ivan Goldschmidt
“Wish 143″: Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite
Sound Editing
“Inception”: Richard King
“Toy Story 3″: Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
“Tron: Legacy”: Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
“True Grit”: Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
“Unstoppable”: Mark P. Stoeckinger
Sound Mixing
“Inception”: Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
“The King’s Speech”: Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
“Salt”: Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
“The Social Network”: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
“True Grit”: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland
Visual Effects
“Alice in Wonderland”: Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1″: Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
“Hereafter”: Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
“Inception”: Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
“Iron Man 2″: Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick
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