Oscar nominations

I am currently experiencing a surge of annoyed frustration that is aimed at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Like many media outlets have reported, the nominees for this year's Oscars were announced earlier today. Sure, based on other award nominations and wins as well as my own preferences among the films that I have had a chance to see before now, most of the named nominees were ones that I had expected to be given a nod. Even so, there were a couple upsets that have already provoked quite a lot of astonished uproar.

The nomination snub that shocked me the most was Christopher Nolan being left out of the Best Director race - again. I openly admit, I am one of those nearly obsessed Nolan fans that may be slightly partial towards the English director. I even count him as a contemporary auteur. Still, with Nolan having been snubbed in 2008 for his amazing work on The Dark Knight and now being passed over once again for Inception, the lack of recognition of his directorial talent among the AMPAS is quite unfathomable to me.

Another missed nomination that surprised me was in the Best Supporting Actor category. Considering the performances I have seen out of the five nominations, and the buzz and previous other nominations etc, none of the names on the list felt odd. However, with Andrew Garfield left without a nomination for his touching work in The Social Network something still feels a bit wrong. I certainly would have picked his performance over Mark Ruffalo's work in The Kids Are All Right.

As for this year's predicted big winners, the loudest buzz in the Hollywood circuit seems to be twirling around The King's Speech and The Social Network - which have 12 and 8 nominations in total respectively. I have not yet seen The King's Speech myself, but with its win from the PGA awards and Colin Firth's recent wins at both the Golden Globes and the Critics' Choice Awards, the film is a strong contender in both the Best Picture and Best Actor categories.

The Speech's biggest competition for snatching the golden boy on the big night is the facebook film which seems to have dazzled all the awards forecasters from even really considering other films to have any chance of getting a big price for almost anything this year. Granted, I have seen Social Network only once and did think that it was pretty good. However, the film did not manage to leave me bedazzled or even a bit giddy. It flows nicely, is quite well written and has a few brilliant acting performances in it, but it still did not give me the same awed sensation that I got from films like Inception and Black Swan. I suppose it is a film that I have to watch again to learn to appreciate more.

As for the front-runners for some of the other categories, the closest race for the big price seems to be in the Best Actress group. Natalie Portman's performance as a disturbed ballet dancer in Black Swan is phenomenal, but Annette Bening also gave a very good and widely revered performance in The Kids Are All Right. Both actresses have been nominated in the SAG as well as BAFTA awards and have already won a Golden Globe each for their work. Portman is my own favourite to win the Best Actress Oscar and she seems to be slightly in the lead if the Critics Awards Grid on IMDb and her win at the Critics' Choice Awards can be used as indicators.

During the years I've been watching the Oscars, my preferences for the winners have prevailed only occasionally. This year I am not even sure which films and specific performances or contributions I would vote for in each category. Of course, this is partly because I have not seen all of the nominated films as of yet, but even among the ones I have seen (which is currently about two thirds out of the number of films) I do not really know which are the ones I would unquestionably prefer over the others.

I suppose this is a situation I could easily rectify by watching all of the films again. This would also help with the 250-project since a few of this year's Oscar contenders have already found their way onto the list. It is going to be quite a month if I do end up taking on this task. We'll see how things turn out. For now, I've earned my rest. Good night.