Oscar Noms Recap

The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced this morning, and there were more surprises than usual, with some categories all over the place. "Hugo" led the pack with 11 nominations, followed by "The Descendants" and "The Artist" in capturing some of the major categories.

First, here is the complete list of nominations:

http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/84/nominees.html

Given that 2011 was a lackluster year, the nominations seemed, as my friend Irma put it, "all over the place," and that was true. Here is a brief breakdown of some of the major categories.

Best Picture:
There were 9 total nominees, a mild surprise in such a down year. Not a surprise for "The Help," "The Artist," "Hugo" and "The Descendants." Most surprising was the inclusion of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," given that it had been overlooked all awards season; a pleasant surprise and nice to see it there. Even more surprising was the exclusion of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," a better film than "Moneyball," "Midnight in Paris" and "The Tree of Life," all included here.

Best Actor:
Demian Bichir for "A Better Life" and especially Gary Oldman for "Tinker Tailor Solider Spy" were the biggest surprises. Bichir was less of a surprise given his SAG nomination, but Oldman is the dark horse here, given he hasn't been on the awards radar at all, but it's a nice one to finally see him recognized. I had expected DiCaprio, who seemed a lock in the category, or Michael Fassbender for "Shame."

Best Actress:
Rooney Mara was the surprise here but a good one for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." Most had expected Tilda Swinton for "We Need to Talk About Kevin," which apparently not many had seen.

Best Supporting Actress:
A strong category this year, all my predictions held true. Would've been nice to see Shailene Woodley for "The Descendants" but it didn't happen.

Best Supporting Actor:
No Albert Brooks for "Drive," one of the year's biggest performances as the fork-wielding villain. That went to Nick Nolte for "Warrior," not a huge surprise given his SAG nomination and for Max Von Snydow for "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," which I had correctly predicted.

Best Director:
What, no love for Spielberg? Sure, he's nominated as producer for "War Horse," but he was overlooked for Best Director AND Best Animated Film (a bigger surprise than this one). Also, no David Fincher for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."

Others:
As mentioned, probably the biggest snub was the exclusion of Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tin Tin" from the Best Animated Film category, instead two little-known, little-seen films in "A Cat in Paris" and "Chico and Rita."

And only 2 songs in the Best Song category? I don't think that's been done before. At least it's the funny "Man or Muppet" song from "The Muppets" and NOT Madonna.