82nd Academy Awards Nominations
This time of year is the busiest time for films and every year actors, directors and fans wait to hear the nominations for the Academy Awards. The blockbuster was the thing for this year as James Cameron’s Avatar and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker both received 9 nominations each, with Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds close behind with 8 nominations.
The spread of nominations for films this year was generally very good with the likes of A Serious Man, District 9, Crazy Heart, The White Ribbon, An Education and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus all relatively small films receiving several nominations.
However there are some glaringly obvious films that were missed out including the likes of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are, Duncan Jones’ Moon and John Hillcoat’s The Road.
None of these films received ANY nominations when Sam Rockwell’s performance in Moon was deserving of a best actor nomination. The soundtrack and cinematography of Where The Wild Things Are was more than deserving of nominations in those respective categories.
Comedy was once again ignored when a film like The Hangover which was financially and critically successful, Funny People being another comedy worthy of some credit. Raising the question should there be a separate category for comedy? South Korean films Mother and Thirst were both terrific and should have received an Oscar nod in a couple of the categories (most definitely Best Foreign Film).
Meanwhile many other films were also ignored like British gritty film Fish Tank, political satire In The Loop, Jane Campion’s A Bright Star, Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Woody Allen’s Whatever Works and music biopics Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Nowhere Boy.
Fans may well feel discontented but every year films, directors and actors are ignored and this is never likely to change.
