With an expanded list of 10 Best Picture nominees this year, everyone knew there would be surprises when the Oscar nominations were announced. Still, some eyebrows went up when The Blind Side, District 9 and A Serious Man made it onto the list. The Blind Side, while being incredibly commercial, received a lukewarm response from critics, who tended to be more rapturous about Sandra Bullock's performance than the feel-good, football film itself. District 9 was a summer blockbuster that, while critically applauded, was nonetheless a gritty sci-fi film (as opposed to the shiny Star Trek reboot people thought the Academy would favor). As for A Serious Man, it's a decidedly quirky film—some think it's brilliant, some think it's boring—that has grossed less than $10 million. As one Oscar pundit put it, "If A Serious Man hadn't been directed by the Coen brothers, it never would have been nominated."
A Serious Man: Wilson Webb
Although the best supporting actress category is considered a one-horse race ( Precious' Mo'Nique is expected to win), Julianne Moore was considered a lock to be nominated for her scenery-chewing role as Charley, the boozy prima donna in Tom Ford's A Single Man. Not only is Moore beloved in Hollywood, but she has been on an aggressive, Harvey Weinstein-backed awards campaign since the fall, showing up at events and festivals to schmooze with Academy voters. Without a nomination for Moore, A Single Man came out fairly empty-handed, nabbing only one Best Actor nomination for Colin Firth.
Wilson Webb
This nomination for Maggie Gyllenhaal, her first, jolted Hollywood, considering that all the buzz about her film, Crazy Heart, has been lavished on Jeff Bridges and his turn as the hard-living country singer "Bad" Blake. Gyllenhaal's much smaller, and more subtle, role as Blake's younger romantic interest has, until now, not received much notice. Observers note that the leggy actress has had more challenging roles in some of her earlier films such as Secretary, and that she was not nominated for a Golden Globe this year. But Crazy Heart warmed voters' hearts, and, as one pundit put it, "Jeff Bridges carried her up with him."
Lorey Sebastian / FOX Searchlight
A beloved elder statesman, Clint Eastwood was expected to get some love from the Academy for his latest film, Invictus, even if audiences' weren't particularly enthralled by it. (No one was calling it Mystic River.) Yet Eastwood was shut out both from the Best Picture and Best Directing categories (in contrast, he was nominated for a Best Director Golden Globe). His actors fared better—Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon both earned nominations for, respectively, the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor races. Still, in a year with 10 slots, it seemed odd that Eastwood got the cold shoulder.
Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
"The secret of what?" was an oft-asked question when the Oscar nominations were announced and The Secret of Kells beat out the crowd-pleasing Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Hayao Miyazaki's masterful Ponyo for Best Animated Feature Film nomination. Most people claimed not to have seen the film, let alone heard of it. But it turns out that Kells has been making slow but meaningful inroads in Hollywood. It's been a favorite on the festival circuit; was screened for a week in Burbank, home of many film studios; and is nominated for an Annie Award, the animation industry's version of the Oscars. The film, which is about a young boy living with Irish monks who must help preserve the Book of Kells, an ancient, Celtic religious text, also seems to have won points for its historical significance.
Not only did the Disney throwback— The Princess and the Frog is not 3-D and is a tweaked version of a very familiar fairy tale—make the Best Animated Feature list, (which was expected), but it is nominated for two Original Songs, a feat that hasn't been achieve seen since The Lion King in 1994. The music recognition could signal that Princess may go all the way on Oscar night, especially if votes for Pixar's Up—which is nominated for both best picture and best animated feature—get split. Princess was directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, the team behind the Disney sensations The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. The songs up for Oscars are "Almost There" and "Down in New Orleans," both by Oscar-winning songwriter Randy Newman.
Walt Disney
Although Rob Marshall's big screen version of the Broadway musical Nine was largely panned, the film's female performances were lauded, particularly that of Marion Cotillard, the put-upon wife of the Federico Fellini-esque Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis). And yet Cotillard, who campaigned for Best Actress, was ultimately snubbed. Instead, Penelope Cruz, who plays Contini's sireny mistress, landed a nomination in the Supporting Actress race. "I wish the Academy would get over its Penelope crush," lamented one voter. (Cruz has been nominated for an Oscar three times, and won once, for Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Cotillard has been nominated, and won, once, for La Vie en Rose)
Expanding Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book, which has a haiku-length of 350 words, into an hour-and-a-half film, was a daunting challenge. But the feeling was that if anyone was up to it, it was the Gen Y wunderkind team of novelist Dave Eggers and writer-director Spike Jonze. When Where the Wild Things Are was released, it received polarizing reviews—it was the film you either loved or hated—but the expectation was that its script, at least, would be recognized come Oscar time. But no. Part of the problem was the amount of tough competition in the adapted screenplay category; almost all of the major Oscar movies this year are based on previous works.
Everyone knew Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was slowly building heat, particularly when it took home the best ensemble cast award at the Screen Actors Guild awards. But it was still seen as a more commercial, less artistic, film whose main merit was Christoph Waltz, who's racked up acting awards ever since the Cannes Film Festival (Waltz also won a Golden Globe). Thus it was with some shock that Basterds wound up with eight Oscar nominations, including in the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original screenplay categories. The only two films that received more nominations were Avatar and The Hurt Locker, which are considered the two horses in a two-horse race for Best Picture of the Year.
These six films were awarded the most Oscar nominations, and are considered the top contenders at this year's Academy Awards. As for best picture, it's Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker. Let the games begin!
