For our Moviegoers, Hollywood awards season is the most exciting time of the year. Upon the announcement of the nominees for the 84th Annual Academy Awards, the Moviegoers staff – Mack Bates, Kerry Birmingham and Joel Zawada – gathered to discuss this year's batch of nominees, pick their favorites in the five major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role) and predict who will walk away with Oscar gold.
Part One deals with the worst nominations of the year, and what was overlooked.
Part Two looks at the categories of Best Actor & Actress in a Supporting Role.
Part Three looks at the categories of Best Actor & Actress in a Leading Role.
Part Four looks at the categories of Best Director & Best Motion Picture.
Mack: So, what are your picks for the worst nominations this year? Which ones stand out as real head scratchers?
Kerry: I'm going to rule out the surprise inclusion of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close until I see it, so instead I'll say Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. You don't nominate Streep just for existing.
Joel: You can't really call nominating Streep a head scratcher, though.
Kerry: Fair enough. I'm just hesitant to condemn.
Joel: CONDEMN AWAY!
Kerry: Well, I thought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would have a better showing.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Mack: I thought David Fincher for Best Director was a lock. His take on the material was masterly and tasteful, considering how dark it is.
Joel: I was surprised by Fincher's absence, but this IS only the first of three potential films. Maybe Fincher can pull a Peter Jackson and win big for the last in the franchise.
Mack: Here's hoping that's the case. In lesser hands, Dragon Tattoo would have just been a big-budget exploitation film.
Joel: More importantly, John Williams gets a double nomination for Best Original Score – including his awful War Horse showing – and Trent Reznor gets NOTHING for his innovative work on Dragon Tattoo? That's disgusting.
Mack: War Horse shouldn't even be in the running for Best Picture. It had me until that dreadful ending. I don't know what Spielberg and company were smoking when they decided to wrap things up like that!
Kerry: It's the Obligatory Spielberg Nod.
Mack: Should have gone to The Adventures of Tintin, then.
Joel: War Horse was just a parody of all of Spielberg's worst tendencies. It was cloying, syrupy and cynically manipulative.
Kerry: Why do you hate America, Joel?
Mack: I think Joel didn't appreciate how outwardly manipulative the film played at times. Right?
Joel: It's the fact that the emotional manipulation seems to have WORKED that saddens me the most.
Kerry: Well, that's what movies DO, don't they? It's all a manipulation they're hoping we don't notice.
Joel: This is brutal, in-your-face, telegraphing-every-cue kind of manipulation.
Kerry: Well, now I HAVE to see it.
Mack: I apparently liked it more than Joel, but that ending ruined it for me. It just didn't jive with anything presented before in the entire movie. And that subplot about the little girl was total horseshit. Pun intended.
Kerry: For Spielberg to really get attention these days, he has to do something exceptional. War Horse probably isn't it.
Joel: I agree with Mack. The Adventures of Tintin would've been a better use of the Obligatory Spielberg Nod.
Mack: Tintin being slighted for Animated Feature, Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay is mind-boggling.
The Adventures of Tintin
Joel: I've been angry about the snubbing Melancholia has gotten since its debut. I know Lars Von Trier didn't do himself any favors by sympathizing with Adolf Hitler during his press conference at Cannes, but if Roman Polanski can still win awards, I can't fathom why Von Trier can't.
Kerry: Polanski's crimes are against a specific person. Von Trier's antipathy is directed at America as a whole.
Mack: Von Trier isn't liked or respected by the Academy, and the actresses who do get notice for his films are to a degree pitied by the members for having to endure his seeming misogyny.
Joel: In my view, Melancholia was BY FAR the best film of 2011, and its absence from so many year-end lists is highly irritating. Kirsten Dunst deserved a nomination for her performance.
Kerry: That's quite an endorsement.
Joel: I also thought Michael Fassbender was a lock for Best Actor in Shame.
Mack: Fassbender should've been a contender.
Kerry: Fassbender's time will come.
Joel: Well, he IS in everything now. It's a numbers game.
Kerry: He keeps picking interesting projects. It'll happen.
Mack: Invariably he will get in there, but will it be for the right role/film? The Academy so often bypasses worthy performances in favor of safe ones. When an edgy turn does get traction, it's usually a surprise.
Kerry: Has anyone seen Take Shelter?
Joel: I've heard nothing but great things for both Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain.
Mack: I saw Take Shelter and everything you've heard is true. They both are superb in it. Shannon is on fire throughout and, of all of Chastain's 2011 performances, this was my favorite.
Jessica Chastain in
Take Shelter
Joel: I really hope Chastain doesn't burn herself out after this year. She's going to be an awards-show staple if she can keep choosing quality projects.
Mack: That's money in the bank. She'll be a perennial nominee for years to come. A true chameleon. I don't think we've seen half of what she can do yet. She's quickly becoming a favorite of mine.
Joel: I would've like to have seen a Best Director nod for Nicholas Winding Refn for Drive, but they sort of slotted Hazavinicius into the "bold newcomer" role in that category, so I understand.
Kerry: There's a lot of love out there for Drive. It'll live on in video.
Joel: I also would've liked to have seen a Best Original Screenplay nod for Martha Marcy May Marlene, if not a Best Supporting Actor nod for John Hawkes as the oily cult leader. And what did Steve James do to the Academy in a past life to have them snub both Hoop Dreams AND The Interrupters in the category of Best Documentary Feature? What does the man have to do to get some love?
Mack: I'd love to find that out myself. James' snubs are true crimes. The Interrupters was easily the best film I saw during The 2011 Milwaukee Film Festival, and one of the best documentaries I've seen in recent years.
Kerry: They eventually gave Errol Morris one, they can give one to James.
Mack: I fear that if they ever do nominate a doc of his, it'll be just so-so.
Kerry: This one's left field, but there's a great WWII-style propaganda jingle in the middle of Captain America that could have expanded the Best Song nominees to a whole THREE songs.
Mack: Not to mention Mary J. Blige's poignant song from The Help, "The Living Proof".
Joel: Why the producers of The Muppets nominated "Man or Muppet" instead of "Life's a Happy Song," I'll never understand.
Kerry: Good call on the Muppet song. Any excuse for Amy Adams to sing on the Awards show would've been okay with me.
The Muppets