A Few Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations

• I hope the strike is settled so we actually get an Oscars ceremony, and not just a press conference. I know, I’m weird, but I actually like the show itself, with its inflated sense of self worth and long winded production numbers. Plus, Jon Stewart is hosting again. Latest word on the strike is that the writers and producers are talking again (or at least talking about talking again) so maybe they’ll get something worked out. The recent DGA settlement will surely help things along.
  
• No big surprises here regarding the best picture nominations. Michael Clayton was a little surprising, since it came out a few months ago and academy voters have short memories, but it did get nothing but rave reviews when it was released. And Juno, despite countless positive reviews, was a bit of surprise for a best picture nomination, simply because it’s the kind of light-hearted, humorous movie the academy tends to overlook despite its quality (thank last year’s Little Miss Sunshine for helping make the inclusion of such films seem less surprising then they once were).
  
• Javier Bardem is my first official lock to win his award; for a film about which nothing but positive things continue to be said, he received more praise than anyone else for his role as the heartless and unstoppable assassin Anton Chigurh.
  
• Speaking of Best Supporting Actor, I think they should change the name to the Phillip Seymour Hoffman Award; the dude gets nominated every year it seems.
  
• We can now say “Transformers: Nominated for Three Academy Awards.” Still a shame Judd Nelson’s stellar voice work in the original Transformers movie went unnoticed by the academy…
  
• In the Best Original Song category, I’m flashing back to the early nineties, what with Alan Menken nominated for three different songs from one Disney movie. Traditional wisdom has it that multiple nods for one movie in one category cancel each other out, but that didn’t stop Menken from cleaning up awards back in the second Golden Age of Disney films.
  
• For the record, as a native Minnesotan, contrary to what our media may think, I don’t really care about all the “Minnesota connections” to the Academy Awards this year. Seriously, are other states as desperate as Minnesota to connect, no matter how tenuously, all national news items to the local scene somehow?
  
• I’ve actually heard of two of the best documentary feature nominees (No End in Sight and Sicko) this year.
  
• I continue to have never heard of (let alone seen) any of the live action or animated shorts noms.
  
• Surfs Up gets the third animated feature nomination? Seriously? I mean, it’s obvious Ratatouille will win the award, but still, don’t just hand out the third nomination. I mean, sure, the Simpsons movie isn’t going to win, but I’d rather see it get the nod than yet another animated penguin movie in which the penguins all participate in a specific human activity.