Jonah Hill over John Hawkes?

Extremely Loud... over Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy?

ONE NOMINATION for Drive?

ZERO NOMINATIONS for Shame?

Let's let the vitriol fly

One nomination for Drive is about right.

I don't understand why people thought this would get nominations. Exactly what aspect of it screams "oscar!" to you? "Good movie" doesn't count.

Tintin is the most shocking slight I've seen in many years of Academy award, probably my whole life. Yes, it's because of the mocap, but I guess aesthetics and craftsmanship don't count for much these days.



People hate this one, and you couldn't pay me enough money to see it.

What about 50+ critics awards association, festival, and awards circuit nominations & wins make you think people hate it? I'm disappointed Fassbender didn't get a nomination. I'm not quite shocked, and at least DiCaprio wasn't who pushed him out. I was rooting for him but I never thought he was a lock, and Mulligan apparently never had a chance, although she thoroughly deserves on in my mind. I have no issue with you not wanting to see it, but "people hate this one" seems a bit strong.



I obviously don't agree with you about the overall quality of the film, but for the Oscars I was hoping it'd get in as an Animated Film. Puss in Boots, seriously?



I agree with your point that it didn't really stand much of a chance with boring Academy voters. I guess the question is, Is an Oscar vent thread the place for stuff we are surprised got snubbed because they had a chance or just for stuff we wanted to see nominated in a fantasy world? For the latter I have all kinds of thoughts, for the former I'm with Kunzie that John Hawkes getting pushed out, and Hill getting in at all, is bogus on several levels.

re Shame

when's the last time an NC17 film got any major Oscar noms?

I was hoping for acting nominations for Gosling and (especially) Albert Brooks. I love when actors play against type, and play well. I thought Brooks was a shoo-in.

Was John Hawkes up for lead or supporting? I haven't seen it yet but it is my most anticipated (damn Australia release dates). I'm glad he was at least recognised last year for Winters Bone.

Re: Drive not being nominated, did anyone really expect it to be? It has nothing to do with whether is was good or not it just isn't the type of film the Academy members ever vote for.

I haven't seen 2 of Animated features and Tintin was better than the Dreamworks pictures but it is in no way a shocking slight, the character isn't that popular or well known in the US and it did mediocre with the crowds and BO in the US compared to the rest of the world. As a Tintin fan I actually found it rather boring a lot of the time, I really wanted to enjoy it more than I was and its nowhere near as good or fun as Rango was.

Winter's Bone got a Best Picture nomination last year. It doesn't seem out of the question that Drive might get a couple acting nods (especially with Brooks winning a lot of the critics' awards)

But Winter's Bone was one of those life-affirming indies; Drive is the opposite. Brooks was good, but his performance amounts to a Tom Cruise of Tropic Thunder or a Sam Rockwell of Iron Man 2. It doesn't matter that he played against type; it's not a fully realized character, and you can't it 100% seriously.

Totally agree on nominations for playing against type but to simply shrug Albert Brooks off and then compare it to Cruise/Rockwell is far too dismissive. Those were completely hollow one dimensional caricatures played for laughs at least Brooks' character in Drive had some degree of substance and conflict.

I would say my biggest disappointment is the omission of Michael Shannon in Take Shelter easily the best performance of the year for me and I don't think he won anything in the lead up from all the other various awards.

Agree. I've followed his career avidly for a couple years now and thought he was terrific in Take Shelter

Man, this is a weird time for movies. First of all, nobody seems to agree on anything anymore, and the critics are on the cusp of being permanently ignored (that ain't just me talking). I can understand the cultish love for Drive, but where the hell do all these other defenses come from? Why should I care about Shame, for instance? Or We Need to Talk About Kevin? Take Shelter? Tinker Tailor? A Separation? I wonder how these people have time to defend Drive when they're equally adamant about all those others. Then there's the prime nominees themselves, none of which comes close to full popularity. Point is: there's way too many "titles worthy of attention" floating around for these past year. Sometimes you need to pick your battles. Not talking to anyone here in particular, just a general impression I've had.

I don't think it's a bad thing that critics are being ignored (not saying you do either). Obviously the internet has leveled the field, and gives opportunities for voices to be heard. My hope is that we're moving to a place of deep analysis of films as opposed to star ratings and such. When the major critics die off, will they be replaced by names that will have respectability? Hard to say. Maybe there's just not a need for it anymore, especially since filmmakers aren't reliant on critics to promote their films in the way they once were (such as Siskel & Ebert championing One False Move).



I'm honestly confused a little: are you saying those films are unworthy, or simply that people need to narrow their focus? Seems to me that it's possible for several great films to come out in year (not saying all of those are great), and I don't think anyone needs to apologize for finding several films great that come out in one stretch -- as long as it's not what they always find. Chris Bumbray writes for Joblo.com and loves everything. He goes by a 10-point scale and it's exceedingly rare for him to give something less than an 8. It's unreal, and more than the ratings, the actual reviews speak of how great every film is. Ebert has certainly gotten loose and damaged his 4-star rating, but I think the actual reviews still largely make sense and I think dedicated readers can tell the differences between different 4-star films. So again, if somebody loves everything, then they deserve to be taken with a good-size helping of salt, but respectable film-goers and film-thinkers who find several films in a short stretch great should sing their praises.



With all of what I said above, I do agree with this to a large degree. A film like Warrior or Moneyball, which are fairly niche, might be great to some with recognition of their limited appeal: those are two films many will enjoy, but maybe not many will love. So if you're like "OMG OMG go see Film X, Film Y, Film Z"...it taints the value of your promotion, so to speak.

I applaud the fact that a French movie is a front runner for the Oscar and hope there will be no Shakespeare in Love - like coup. But I think that giving any nom to Melancholia would be a really cool thing.

I'm actually pretty pleased with the nominations. Are they perfect? Are all my favorites nominated? Of course not. We Bought a Zoo is my second favorite movie of the year and easily deserved nods for best picture, best director (Cameron Crowe), best actor (Matt Damon), best adapted screenplay.

A best director nod for Steven Spielberg for his AMAZING War Horse would have been nice.

Source Code, which is STILL one of my favorites of the year, being overlooked completely.

Thor deserved a nomination for it's INCREDIBLE art direction.

So did EVERYTHING go my way. Of course not. You can't always get what you want. But they actually got a lot right, surprisingly. So I'm not gonna bitch and moan about

The only thing that really surprised me was the snub for Elisabeth Olsen. I never expected Drive to get much love. Sure, it's a really good movie, but that never meant anything to the Academy.

I watched 50/50 again last night and I'm now convinced that Joseph Gordon-Levitt gave one of the best performances in 2011. He got nominated for a Golden Globe, but for some reason there really wasn't much talk of him as a serious awards contender. Damn shame really.

Even Hitler is pissed!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/add-hitl ... lbe,68264/

I still haven't seen a lot of the December releases, so I am not in a position to comment. However, Tintin's snub really pisses me off. I thought the Golden Globe victory made it one of the front-runners for the Animated category but I was shocked to see it wasn't even nominated. Having not seen Rango, I thought Tintin was easily the best animated film of the year. Setting aside the actual film which is certainly an action-adventure and doesn't have the depth of Pixar's best (largely due to the source material), the direction, art direction and the quality of the visuals were easily on par with anything Pixar has put out. And the chase was easily one of the most breathtaking scenes of the year barring Ghost Protocol. For it to not even have a nomination is one of the greatest injustices in recent memory.

The other thing is more of a personal issue but I was hoping Ryan Gosling would sneak his way through. I am seeing The Descendants this weekend, so I'll have to see how Clooney fares. But apart from that I personally feel 2011 has been a landmark year for Gosling and he gave easily my favorite performance of the year so far in The Ides of March. Ah well, I wasn't expecting it anyway, it was more of a hope but I still consider myself disappointed.

I was also disappointed at the lack of nominations for Alexandre Desplat whose work in The Deathly Hallows 2, The Ides of March, and The Tree of Life was easily some of the best background composing I've heard in a long time. I was hoping he might be nominated for one of the former two.

At the time I saw Drive, I thought Albert Brooks delivered a perfectly good, if not great, performance but it never screamed Oscar in my head for some reason. But, yeah, I can see how it would piss some people off that Jonah Hill got in ahead of Brooks.

On the other hand, I am very happy that Jessica Chastain, who is another one of my favorite performers of the year, got noticed for The Help where she was brilliant along with The Tree of Life. I am also elated to see a nomination for Margin Call in the writing category which is another personal fave from 2011.

I think what's happening this year is that the people who would hate films like Artist, Hugo, and Drive just haven't seen them. I haven't really thought about it before, but this is likely the case. People say everyone they know loved Hugo? Nobody saw the damn thing. The only people who went are those who would love Scorsese no matter what. I think these same people realize that Hugo would not be that popular had it been seen by more people. Nobody saw Drive (35 mil domestic), and smart moviegoers know to avoid The Artist. In other words, there are very few people like me who are still willing to sit through the garbage just so they can form an argument against everyone else. Many viewers have given up on fighting an increasingly snobbish critical mass. I think this is what has allowed these films to accumulate enough "universal" praise to be nominated for awards. The people who would fight it just don't care anymore.