Oscar Nominations

It's that time of year again; the Oscar nominations for 2011 have been announced, and accordingly, I feel I should make my opinion on them known, for the three of you who will actually read this.

For the most part, the Academy's decisions look pretty good, if predictable. Sadly, I have yet to see several of the films that have been nominated, largely because getting to the cinema is awkward and expensive. That said, there aren't really any surprises in the Best Picture category; everything that has been nominated was fairly predictably going to get nominated. It's nice to see Toy Story 3 get a nod, even if it almost certainly won't win. I haven't seen The King's Speech yet, but considering the number of nominations it has, and the general buzz about the film, I'm predicting it to take home the Best Picture award.

Now, as I said, I haven't seen The King's Speech, so what follows is not exactly fair. All the same, I think it's a damn shame that Inception isn't going to win Best Picture. The King's Speech is certainly more the Academy's kind of film, being small-scale and talky rather than the effects-based action blockbuster that Inception was, and it may indeed be the better film. For me, however, that's doesn't matter, because I will always champion quality science fiction, because frankly, somebody has to; the Academy doesn't care for it as a rule. I thought it had a very good shot at the award, and while it has a Best Picture nomination, it hasn't been nominated for Best Editing, and statistically speaking, you need at least a nomination in Best Editing to win Best Picture; the last time the Best Picture winner didn't have an Editing nod was in 1981. So, Inception probably won't win, which is a real pity.

Fortunately, it's up for a whole lot of other awards, with particularly deserving nominations in Best Original Screenplay and Best Visual Effects; if there's any justice it will win the latter, at least. Nolan's lack of a Best Director nomination is pretty inexplicable, however; we can probably put this down to the Academy's snobbishness regarding science fiction and summer blockbusters.

For me, the other extremely disappointing aspect of this year's awards selection is the total absence of nominations for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which is definitely up there with the year's best films. Apparently the Academy doesn't like niche, geeky, magically realistic films which no one went to see. Who knew? Still, it would have been nice to see it get a Visual Effects nomination, and it really deserves a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. Its absence isn't a surprise, because it really isn't the Academy's kind of film, but it's disappointing nonetheless.

I realise I only talked about a few films and a few categories, but I talked about what I'm most interested in. As I said, most of the nominations aren't surprising, and therefore there's not a great deal to say about them; I thought it would be more interesting to talk about things which didn't get nominated and should have been. We'll find out which film wins which award on February 27th; check back here for commentary on the awards themselves.