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2011 Academy Awards

I'm kind of hoping Annette Bening pulls off an upset over Natalie Portman. She's been robbed too many times- lost to Hilary Swank (always overrated, IMO) twice. I thought The Kids Are All Right was one of her best performances.

King's Speech and Colin Firth FTW! That and Kids...were my favorite movies of the year.

Haven't seen The Fighter yet, but I want Melissa Leo to win Supporting Actress. She's amazing in everything she does.

Of the ten Best Picture nominees, I've only seen King's Speech, The Kids..., and Toy Story 3, but I have The Social Network on DVD and will see either True Grit or Black Swan this weekend!
 
In the male acting categories these are the first nominations for Jesse Eisenberg, James Franco, Christian Bale, John Hawkes, and Mark Ruffalo. In the female acting categories they're the first nominations for Jennifer Lawrence, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jacki Weaver.

This is Jeff Bridges' sixth nomination (with one prior win). Annette Bening and Geoffrey Rush have each scored their fourth nomination (Rush having one prior win). Javier Bardem, Nicole Kidman, and Amy Adams have each scored their third nomination (with one prior win for Bardem and Kidman, Bardem's win being in the Supporting category). Colin Firth, Jeremy Renner, Natalie Portman, Michelle Williams, Helena Bonham Carter, and Melissa Leo have scored their second nomination, with Portman and Williams scoring their first Lead nomination.
 
I've seen them all (Best Picture) except for True Grit, Winter's Bone and The King's Speech. Which I think I'll do this weekend.
 
Should they increase the Best Director Nomination list to 10 like they did for Best Picture? I mean the rule of thumb is whoever wins Best Director will also win Best Picture and I think it's rare that that has not been the case. If they do go up to ten, it might really open things up because the predictability will not be there. I mean looking at the list of Best Picture and Best Director, movies like 127 Hours and Winters Bone won't have a chance of winning.
 
tomalak301 said:
I mean the rule of thumb is whoever wins Best Director will also win Best Picture and I think it's rare that that has not been the case.
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Best Picture and Best Director have lined up 59 of 80 times (so just slightly less than 75%). But this year has strong odds of being another Picture/Director split, with TKS possibly winning the former and David Fincher probably a lock for the latter.

I don't personally see the need to add more Director slots; they didn't do that back in the 1930s/1940s when there were ten.
 
tomalak301 said:
Should they increase the Best Director Nomination list to 10 like they did for Best Picture? I mean the rule of thumb is whoever wins Best Director will also win Best Picture and I think it's rare that that has not been the case.
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No, they should drop the Best Picture category back down to five.

Best Picture and Best Director usually go together, but not prohibitively so. In the last decade there were split awards between the two categories in 2000 (Gladiator/Traffic), 2002 (Chicago/The Pianist), and 2005 (Crash/Brokeback Mountain).

The use of a preferential ballot for Best Picture in a field of 10 nominees makes a split more likely than ever. I think David Fincher will win Best Director no matter what, while Best Picture is a close race between The Social Network and The King's Speech.
 
Eisenberg is surprising to me. Good for him.

PsychoPere said:
I don't recall know if it was Michael Phillips or A.O. Scott, but I believe one of the two suggested, when recently appearing on the Filmspotting podcast, that Steinfeld's nomination for Supporting might have been intended in order to give her an easier win.
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One would have to be thick-headed indeed to come to any other conclusion. ;)


Out Of My Vulcan Mind said:
no Best Documentary nod for Waiting for Superman.
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Good! That movie was shit - constant extreme close-ups, ADD-like topic-hopping, ceaseless superficiality, cloying human interest angles that had nothing to do with the arguments being presented, and while I don't mind a biased movie, those arguments that were made were full of logical/factual holes: "Throwing more money at schools won't improve them... now, let's see how awesome some select, lavishly funded schools are!" Also: "The US is singularly disastrous when it comes to education, but anyone who suggests that culture might play a role hates our children, who are all angelic, multi-ethnic kids who burst into tears if they can't go to a great school." Also: "This one Catholic school was just awful to this one little girl. That doesn't have anything to do with anything, just thought you might like to know."

Fuck that movie, and shame on its maker. You got your ass whupped by Tron Legacy, so just go and run and tell that,
HOMEBOY.
 
J.T.B. said:
I will never understand the definition of "in a supporting role." Hailee Steinfeld gets a supporting actress nomination but was the protagonist and in almost every scene of the film.
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You submit your performance for whatever you think you have a better chance at winning. Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs and Nicole Kidman in The Hours don't have that much screen time, but they won Best Actor and Best Actress.

The one that makes no sense for me is Jamie Foxx for Collateral when he's got more screen time than Cruise and is the one driving the story.
 
For me, Social Network was just SO brilliantly written and directed, that it's no contest.

True Grit was a great little western, but just didn't have that special or unique feel of something like, say, Unforgiven.

Inception might have been at the top, but turned into too much of a frenetic, overblown action movie at the end, for my taste.

Black Swan, Winter's Bone, and TS3 were all well done, but didn't really blow me away. And the others I still need to see.
 
JacksonArcher said:
I'm extremely upset and devastated that Christopher Nolan was once more snubbed for the Best Director award.
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If he wants one so badly, maybe he should, I dunno, try making a great film, instead of a another pretty good genre flick. :devil:
 
JacksonArcher said:
I'm extremely upset and devastated that Christopher Nolan was once more snubbed for the Best Director award.
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Nolan was actually nominated over Russell, but Russell found out he has been snubbed so he screamed and cussed out the Academy for a couple hours until they changed their mind. :)
 
I'm disappointed that The King's Speech seems to be getting so many more nominations than the other films. King's Speech is a fine film, but I also think it's not the deepest thing ever written. It doesn't really say anything that any generic "underdog overcomes his problems and achieves self-actualization" film doesn't say. And, as Christopher Hitchens notes, The King's Speech whitewashes some pretty embarrassing decisions made by Churchill and some pretty damning decisions made by King George VI. It's not a bad film, but I don't think it says something deep and unique the way The Social Network does. (I'm seeing True Grit this week, and reserving judgment on whether I think it or The Social Network deserves the Best Picture Oscar.)
 
Sci said:
I'm disappointed that The King's Speech seems to be getting so many more nominations than the other films.
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Well, it tends to happen that if one year a big blockbuster gets a lot of nominations (Avatar), the next year they tend to give the love to a smaller film. Next year it'll be Deathly Hallows Part 2's turn as a lot of folks are expecting the producers (who remained unchanged throughout) will likely be rewarded for the 8 films, just as Return of the King's massive Oscar haul was seen as a reward for the trilogy as a whole, not just the one film.

I just noticed something interesting. Although some might point out the presence of a 3-D film in the Best Picture list - anyone notice that the nomination is for Toy Story 3, not Toy Story 3-D? It's pretty significant, I think, even though the 2-D version was (in some parts of the US) widely circulated.

Alex
 
I will be pissed if Harry Potter is nominted for Best Picture for 8 films. Just like my attitude during the whole Return of the King fiasco, it will be an injustice to all the other films that come out in that year. You want to give a special award for the achievement fine, but don't waste the best picture nomination on 8 films when it's only supposed to be one.
 
23skidoo said:
I just noticed something interesting. Although some might point out the presence of a 3-D film in the Best Picture list - anyone notice that the nomination is for Toy Story 3, not Toy Story 3-D? It's pretty significant, I think, even though the 2-D version was (in some parts of the US) widely circulated.
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The film has one official title - and that's Toy Story 3 - regardless of 2D or 3D exhibition and the marketing logos that went with them.
 
Aragorn said:
You submit your performance for whatever you think you have a better chance at winning. Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs and Nicole Kidman in The Hours don't have that much screen time, but they won Best Actor and Best Actress.
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I understand that's how the game is played, but it makes a distinction between the two categories arbitrary and calls into question the logic of even having two categories.

--Justin
 
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