This year the Oscars have really done it. They are a joke. So much so that for the first time since 1994 when i started staying up all night in the UK to watch the broadcast i am seriously considering not bothering this year. I just don't care what wins in most categories this year and moreover i know the best in certain categories can't win as they aren't nominated! This is the most lacklustre, and often offensive set of nominations i can recall from the Academy since Doctor Dolittle got a Best Picture nom! If they can't even get the noms right what chance have they got with the winners.
First up with have the ludicrous best actress category. While i agree that Kate Winslet should have been considered for Best Actress for The Reader not supporting actress the Academy never shows a mind of its own in ignoring the PR push on a title, which here was firmly pushing for supporting. The BAFTAs have a habit of showing independence like this (and indeed did again this year) but the Acaedmy just don't ever stray, so why now?
Then you have to ask where is Kristin Scott Thomas' extraordinary performance in French film I've Loved You So Long? Far better than Hathaway and even Streep, Scott Thomas' performance is rivalled only by Winslet's Revolutionary Road performance this year. Are the Academy so anti-French that they couldn't handle risking two French-language performances at the front of the Best Actress pack two years in a row? That's the only plausible explanation i can think of.
Which of course brings us to the real shocker: Kate Winslet not receiving a nomination for Revolutionary Road. This marks the first time EVER (that's over 65 years) that a Golden Globe winner of the Best Actress Drama award has not received an Oscar nomination. Let me repeat that "FIRST TIME EVER"! It has happened 4 times in history for Golden Globe Best Actor Drama winners - Spencer Tracy in The Actress, Anthony Franciosa in Career, Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago and, most recently and the only time in the past 40+ years, Jim Carrey in The Truman Show - but never, NEVER for a Best Actress Drama winner. What the hell is going on here?
There are of course numerous other issues. While perhaps not surprising do the Academy really believe that lacklustre great-performance-only films like Milk, Frost/Nixon (and to a certain extent The Reader) are better made, produced, etc films than The Dark Knight and WALL-E?
What the hell happened to Bruce Springsteen's song from The Wrestler which was previously considered the front-runner for the Oscar win. But no nomination! And yet the banalq Peter Gabriel song from WALL-E (the only irritating part of the movie) gets one!?!
While on the subject of music. No nominations for Thomas Newman's haunting, beautiful score for Revolutionary Road? Clearly the Academy despise this movie. Also no nomination for the stunning, driving score of The Dark Knight? What madness is this?!
Where is Waltz With Bashir in best Animated film, a far better film than any of the three nominees - yes, even the sublime WALL-E.
Why is the brilliant Rosemarie Dewitt not in supporting actress for Rachel Getting Married?
For the first time i can think of the Oscar nominations actually made me angry this year! The Oscars are a joke, the Academy is a joke and anyone that wins this year (with the exceptions - we hope and pray - of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, Presto in animated short and Waltz With Bashir in foreign film) should know they will go down in history as part of a joke year, easily forgotten and dismissed.
For the first time i can think of the Oscar nominations actually made me angry this year! The Oscars are a joke, the Academy is a joke and anyone that wins this year (with the exceptions - we hope and pray - of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, Presto in animated short and Waltz With Bashir in foreign film) should know they will go down in history as part of a joke year, easily forgotten and dismissed.
Shame on you Academy, shame on you!
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