Reaction: The 84th Academy Awards Winners

And now, the Academy Awards have ended, leaving the public applauding some winners and scratching their heads over others. And so, I've taken the time to break down each of the categories, talking about who won and why. I did not watch the ceremony on television, so I can't necessarily speak about Billy Crystal's performance as host or for the dresses or anything like that. I just know the winners, and that's what I'll be talking about. For those of you who were following along with my Oscar predictions, you might be happy to know that I correctly predicted sixteen of the twenty-one categories where I made picks.

(Also, for your viewing pleasure, don't forget to check out my "Top 10 Films of 2011" list as well as my personal "Best of 2011" awards.)

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Best Short Film, Live Action: The Shore
Because I'm not familiar with the short films, I did not make a prediction as to which of them would win; I also don't really have anything to say about them.

Best Short Film, Animated: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
(See: Best Short Film, Live Action.)

Best Documentary, Short Subjects: Saving Face
(See: Best Short Film, Live Action.)

Best Documentary, Features: Undefeated
I went into this category a little blind, having not seen any of the nominated films, so I took a wild guess and went with Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory based on the fact that the Producers Guild had nominated it at their awards ceremony. What I didn't take into account was the fact that the Academy is a sucker for underdog stories, which is exactly what Undefeated is. It was critically acclaimed, but audiences have been less than thrilled by the film, but I guess the Academy decided to side with the critics here.

Best Visual Effects: Hugo
This might be the biggest surprise of the night, for me. I fully expected the Academy to honor the motion capture technology that brought Caesar to life in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, especially after the massive push to get Andy Serkis an acting nomination for his work on the role. Still, I have to applaud Hugo, my personal top film of the year, for taking another award, but I am still a bit flabbergasted.

Best Sound Editing: Hugo
I had this one pegged from the start. Hugo had been cleaning up in this category at previous awards ceremonies, so there was no reason to think the Academy wouldn't salute it here as well.

Best Sound Mixing: Hugo
(See: Sound Editing.)

Best Original Song: "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets
This is probably the category I was most excited to see, if only because I was a little sad that The Muppets didn't receive more than just its one nomination here. Still, I'm glad to see it take the award, even if it was in an incredibly easy category.

Best Original Score: Ludovic Bource for The Artist
Taking on big-time composers like John Williams and Hans Zimmer couldn't have been easy, but Bource has already received quite a bit of praise for his score for The Artist. Would I have liked to see someone else win? Sure, but I can applaud Bource for his effort.

Best Makeup: The Iron Lady
After picking up a couple wins here and there, I thought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 might take home the award, but I was also very wary of The Iron Lady's ability to steal this one as well. If anything, I think the fact that Harry Potter, a well-received audience pleaser, lost to a sub-par drama goes to show that the Academy is still a bit set in their ways. It might be a few years before they'll actually start to recognize big-budget flicks, no matter how good they might be.

Best Costume Design: The Artist
This category is generally dominated by British period pieces, but it might have been a little too muddled with them this year. After Jane Eyre, Anonymous and W.E. all received nominations int this category, I had a feeling The Artist would swoop in and steal the award. And that's exactly what happened.

Best Art Direction: Hugo
(See: Best Sound Editing.)

Best Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I would have been shocked had they not thrown this one to David Fincher's film, even if there were some fantastic films nominated against it. This just seemed like the right choice from the start, and you knew it had to win an award somewhere.

Best Cinematography: Hugo
I'm a little miffed by this one, to be honest. Hugo hadn't won this category at any of the major awards, and I personally thought it would get thrown to either The Tree of Life, War Horse or The Artist. I can see where the merit lies, but I don't know whether this was the right decision by the Academy. Still, it gave Hugo five Oscar statuettes, so that's gotta count for something.

Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation
A Separation was nominated in other categories as well as this one, making it the front-runner. This one's no surprise.

Best Animated Film: Rango
With the omission of The Adventures of Tintin from this category's list of nominees, this was Rango's award to lose. That being said, I still think Rango might have taken the award even if Tintin had been included. But that's just me.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
Despite stiff competition, I figured this category - not Best Actor - was the best chance The Descendants had to take home an Oscar statuette. And the fact that it beat out Hugo here helped spell Hugo's doom in the larger categories.

Best Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris
You can never count Woody Allen out of any Oscar race, and the fact that Midnight in Paris had been dominating in this category at previous awards only helped cement its chances of taking home the Academy Award as well. Still, it had to beat out The Artist, so that has to be commended.

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
When Hazanavicius took the award for Best Director, it all but sealed The Artist's fate to take home Best Picture. Had Martin Scorsese managed to steal this award, we might have had a bit of drama going into the final award announcement, but alas, it didn't happen.

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer for The Help
Despite doing battle against co-star Jessica Chastain, Spencer managed to receive enough votes to win in a category that was lacking in real depth. Still, that can't take away from her fantastic performance in one of the more moving films of the year.

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer for Beginners
I called my prediction of Christopher Plummer in this category the safest bet at this year's Academy Award, and it did not disappoint. To see anyone else take home the award would have been the biggest upset of the night.

Best Actress: Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady
I honestly thought Viola Davis would find a way to take home this award, but the star power of Meryl Streep is just too strong. Even though she starred in a film that was lightyears behind The Help, her performance was strong enough to sway Academy voters. Still, I couldnt't help but whisper favoritism through the halls after this one was announced.

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin for The Artist
At the end of the night, I thought this category would be the biggest predictor as to what film might win Best Picture. If George Clooney managed to nab this award, I think it would have opened the way for Hugo to take the Best Picture steal. However, when Dujardin rightfully won Best Actor, it was essentially guaranteed that The Artist would walk home with Best Picture.

Best Picture: The Artist
And it did. Although I personally don't think it was the best film of the year, I have to applaud The Artist for all of the accolades it has managed to win this year.

*****

I'd like to congratulate all of the winners and all of the nominees as well. I can't wait for next year's Academy Awards!

Reaction: 84th Academy Awards Nominations

And so, the Academy Award nominations have been announced for the this year's ceremony, which will honor the films released during 2011. As with every year, there were some surprises and some snubs, so I'd like to offer you my personal reaction to the announcement. I'll mostly focus on some of the bigger categories now, but as the actual ceremony approaches - it will be held on February 26, 2012 - I will do a full breakdown on my predictions. I'm going to take the categories one at a time, and I'm only going to talk about the ones that stood out glaringly. I hope you can forgive me for not going terribly in-depth at this point, but seeing as I still have yet to see many of the nominated films, I don't want to give my all-out predictions just yet. So without any further delay, here's my reaction to the 84th Annual Academy Awards nominations. (For a full list of nominees, be sure to check the Internet Movie Database, which has listed them rather nicely.)

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Let's start with a little bit of a breakdown. In total, forty-six feature-length films have received nominations for this year's Academy Awards, and fifteen short films have also been nominated. Hugo leads the way with eleven nominations but is followed close behind by The Artist, which nabbed ten of its own. From there, we have a bit of a drop to Moneyball and War Horse, both of which received six nominations.

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Best Achievement in Sound Editing
I want to start here for a very simple reason: this category offers the only nomination that Drive managed to receive for this year's awards. After being so brilliantly received, it hasn't managed to scare up much in terms of nominations, but the fact that it only received one is a bit of a shocker.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
This is the source of one of my biggest issues with this year's nominations, if only for the fact that only two songs were actually recognized. One - "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets - has been my favorite of the year since hearing it during the film, but the other - "Real in Rio" from Rio - seems an odd choice. Also, by only nominating two songs, this may be the sparsest selection from which the Academy has ever chosen. If anything, they could have nominated another song from The Muppets seeing as there were so many great ones from which to choose. Maybe the Academy hopes they can cut down on their show length by offering only a couple of live musical performances.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
While I don't have any massive issues with this category's nominees, I think it's worth mention that John Williams will be competing against himself, as his scores for both The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse have been nominated. What's even more interesting is that his scores will be battling the likes of the music from The Artist, Hugo and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, so there's a slight chance he won't even manage to win.

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
For whatever reason, the Academy always seems to do something a little bit odd with this category, and this year is no exception. After winning the Golden Globe in this category, The Adventures of Tintin has not received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. In its stead are two foreign language films - A Cat in Paris and Chico & Rita - to duke it out against Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots and Rango. Also missing is the beautifully-crafted Winnie the Pooh or Cars 2, which is still a Pixar film despite its lower-than-average critical response. I honestly don't know what the Academy was thinking here.

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
While I don't have any massively overbearing issues with either of the screenplay categories, I honestly thought we might see something here for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Best Achievement in Directing
Terrence Malick nabs a nomination for The Tree of Life. While I somewhat agree with this, I think this nomination tells a lot about where the Academy's head might be right now.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
I almost missed this category as I scrolled down the list because its generally a tad bit humdrum, but something shocking managed to catch my eye: a nomination for Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids. As soon as my heart started to beat again, I had to ask myself why the Academy chose to throw her a bone. Yes, I admit she was rather hilarious in the film, but she is by no means to the level of the other actresses who received nominations. It's almost as though they're trying to make a joke out of it. Why not offer something to Carey Mulligan for Drive? Or Shailene Woodley for The Descendants? Or Marion Cotillard in Midnight in Paris? It just doesn't make any sense, my friends. If this is just a way to appease Judd Apatow for his comments about how the Academy doesn't really salute comedy, then I might have to give up on the awards.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
I have a couple of issues here. First, does Jonah Hill really deserve a nomination for his piece in Moneyball? Sure, he was good, but was he really 'Academy Award' good? Second, I'm glad to see Nick Nolte pull a nomination for Warrior. I thought he was absolutely brilliant. Third, where is Albert Brooks for his performance in Drive? He's been in the Oscar buzz for months, and now they leave him out? Another massive snub here, folks. Also, we didn't get the much-anticipated nomination for Andy Serkis in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, although I personally knew it wasn't going to happen. Still, there'll be a lot of fans crying outrage here.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Rooney Mara gets a nomination for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but the Academy manages to leave both Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet off the list despite their fantastic roles in Carnage. Also, a minor snub goes to Tilda Swinton, who received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Demián Bichir (A Better Life) are in, Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar) and Michael Fassbender (Shame) are out. Despite this, I'm not totally surprised by the Academy's decision. Because J. Edgar as a film was rather underwhelming, I can see them not throwing Leo a bone, even if he was very good. And although I've heard plenty of praise for Fassbender in Shame, the fact that the film scored an NC-17 rating didn't bode well for it at all. Still, the Academy should be able to look beyond those lines and give credit where credit is due.

Best Motion Picture of the Year
The Academy altered their roles concerning the category once again, meaning that we could receive anywhere from five to ten nominees. We ultimately get the following nine to duke it out for 2011 supremacy:

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

While I can't really argue with most of the nominees, the addition of Extremely Loud does seem a bit more political than the rest, especially considering it hasn't had much momentum coming into today's announcement. The biggest snub here probably has to go to The Ides of March, while scored a Golden Globe nomination in this category.

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Having gone through all that, I'd like to list out the biggest winners and biggest losers from the Academy's announcement this morning.

Biggest Winners
The Artist: ten nominations and a Best Picture bid, where it looks to be the front-runner

Bridesmaids: two nominations in major categories for a comedy has to be a success

Demián Bichir: steals a Best Actor nomination

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: three nominations after securing none at the Golden Globes

Hugo: eleven nominations, including a Best Picture bid, leads the field

John Williams: nominated twice for Best Original Score

Melissa McCarthy: steals a Best Supporting Actress nomination

The Tree of Life: three nominations is more than I thought it would get

War Horse: six nominations including a Best Picture bid is better than most experts were predicting

Biggest Losers
The Adventures of Tintin: one nomination and wasn't recognized for Best Animated Feature

Best Original Song: only two nominees were recognized

Carnage: did not receive any nominations

The Descendants: the Golden Globe winner for Best Drama receives half the nominations of The Artist; this doesn't bode well for its ultimate success

Drive: only one nomination, in a minor category

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: only five nominations, and it wasn't included in the Best Picture short-list

The Ides of March: only one nomination, and it wasn't included in the Best Picture short-list

Leonardo DiCaprio: snubbed for his performance in J. Edgar

Super 8: did not receive any nominations

Winnie the Pooh: did not receive any nominations

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And so ends my initial reaction to the nominations for the 84th Academy Awards. As the ceremony approaches, I'll make my final Oscar predictions. That should give me enough time to catch up on everything I still haven't seen!