After cleaning up with various critics groups and other film-honoring bodies, and going 1-2 at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards, commercial juggernauts Wall▪E and The Dark Knight both got relegated to somewhat unfortunately expected, consolation-type booby prizes: a Best Animated Feature nod for the former, and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Heath Ledger for the latter, among a mess of other, lesser nods. And that sucks, for different reasons. The rejection of Wall▪E shows the stranglehold that the actors’ branch has on voting (the thinking: “no actors = we’re not voting for it for Best Picture, since it didn’t employ as many of us”), while the stiff-arming of The Dark Knight, especially in light of the embrace of past commercial hits, underscores ingrained genre snobbery, pure and simple. Below are the top-shelf domestic narrative nominations:
Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant, Milk
Best Actor
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Best Actress
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader
Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Best Original Screenplay
Frozen River
In Bruges
Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Wall▪E
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Best Animated Feature
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall▪E
More thoughts later, and in the coming weeks, certainly, but the Best Supporting Actress nominations clearly offer mostly confirmatory love on the part of AMPAS voters — Cruz and Adams are recent nominees, and Tomei a past Oscar winner. Taraji P Henson’s nomination for a solid but unexceptional performance in a very Mammy-ish role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is depressing, but indicative of the weird love that film is getting.
One thought on “Oscar Nominations Announced, Irking Disney and Warner Bros.”
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Occam’s razor says that genre snobbery is it. And perhaps I have been hanging out at Breitbart’s Big Hollywood too often. However, that said, the obvious themes of an untractable enemy, and Bat Wayne’s decision to embrace his inner authoritarian, as Alfred goaded him to do it, struck me as a very overt political statement. One that a handful of critics commented on during the lull between effusive early praise and the film’s actual release.
As for the comment on The Reader, yes it is, as Ricky Gervais suggested, a sure fire way to get an Oscar nod when you play the Holocaust card.
The bigger snub to my mind is Wall-E, as you noted. As the year drew to a close I found myself liking Wall-E more and more. I found the blend of light and complex themes, with an emphasis on personal responsibility and a distrust of anyone who promises to take care of everything you need to be delightful. Plus Wall-E is by far the most subversive character since Rufus T. Firefly.