Entertainment

Photo: Contributed - AMPAS

The nominations for Best Picture as announced January 24

Special to Castanet by Kelowna film buff Rene Gross

Hey folks, it's that time of year again - the nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards have been announced, and I'm here to break it all down for you and offer my 2 cents worth.

Let's start with the nominees for Best Picture:

Hugo - Leading the pack this year with 11 nominations, this wonderful Martin Scorsese film would appear to be the front-runner; however, as we've seen many times in the past the quantity of nominations is not necessarily a precursor to victory.

The Artist - With a whopping 10 nods this is the film with the "buzz" heading into the show, and the one I believe will take home the golden statue. A silent, black and white picture, The Artist is a French-Belgian co-production and is the first French-made film to vie for best picture since Roman Polanski's The Pianist nine years ago.

If it wins, it would be the first silent film to capture the top prize since Wings triumphed in 1928.

Fun fact: The Artist, a French-made film, is set in Hollywood in the 1920's and was filmed in Los Angeles. The American-made Hugo, is set in Paris in the 1930's and was filmed in Paris and London.

Midnight in Paris - In keeping with the French theme this year (odd, n'est-ce pas?) this delightful, whimsical tale is one of Woody Allen's best movies in years and one of my personal favorites of 2011.

The Descendants - A great character driven piece by Alexander Payne, anchored by an incredible, emotional performance by nominee George Clooney.

Moneyball - Another of my personal faves this year, Brad Pitt does an outstanding job playing Oakland A's GM Billy Beane and Jonah Hill gives a great supporting performance in this as well. If you're a baseball geek like me this movie was "money".

The Help - Help!, I haven't seen this yet, but I've heard nice things about it. Apparently it's the kind of film my mom would enjoy.

War Horse - Steven Speilberg sure knows how to tug those heartstrings. This WW1 epic film is tailor made for the academy: it's emotional, heart-felt, adventurous and beautiful to look at… and darned if the heartstring pulling didn't get to me in the end *sniff sniff*

The Tree of Life - Terence Malick's opus about the essence of life and death, the beginning and the end, our familial legacies and the progress of the modern world as it is contrasted by the world of 50 to 60 years ago. This is high cinema that requires your complete attention and probably multiple viewings to fully absorb. If this doesn't sound like your cup of tea might I offer you...

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - So I'm wondering if, when the Academy members were marking their ballots, they thought they were choosing the Razzie awards when choosing this to be in the running. An overproduced mediocrity of a film this is easily one of the worst movies to ever be nominated for best picture, and currently has a "Rotten" rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Yikes!

Snubs and surprises

There were a few notable snubs in this category in my opinion, like the American remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and box office smash hit Bridesmaids, but the biggest oversight was not including Nicholas Winding Refn's amazing pulse pounding film, Drive - which is in my personal top 3 of the year's best films.

In the 4 major acting categories there were definitely some surprises and obvious snubs.

The biggest shocker in the Best Actor group was Demian Bichir being nominated for the little seen A Better Life, knocking out early favorites Leonardo DiCaprio for J.Edgar, Ryan Gosling for Drive and Michael Fassbender for the sexually explicit Shame.

Other surprise acting noms were handed out to Rooney Mara for TGWTDT, Gary Oldman for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Nick Nolte for Warrior and Max von Sydow for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Overlooked but not undeserving, the academy failed to bestow nominations to Albert Brooks for Drive, Ben Kingsley for Hugo, Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shailene Woodley for The Descendants Charlize Theron for Young Adult, Elizabeth Olsen for Martha Marcy May Marlene and Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia.

Maybe it's time to start looking at expanding the amount of acting nominations similar to the best picture race.

One of the most glaring oversights by the academy this year is in the Best Animated Feature category where they failed to nominate not only Cars 2 but also the absolute best-animated feature of the year by a mile - The Adventures of Tin Tin.

Whether we agree or disagree on the selections, one thing is for sure: I'll be sitting in front of the tube on Sunday February 26th waiting with baited breath for the envelopes to be opened, as Oscar night is an annual tradition that does not get missed in this house.