Oscar Nominations Announced

Nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning. The nods for the major categories are as follows:

Best Picture

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

No real surprises here. As academy members can nominate up to to ten films for Best Picture, I think The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could have easily slipped into that last spot. Don't think Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is really Best Picture quality.


Best Actor

Demián Bichir A Better Life
George Clooney The Descendants
Jean Dujardin The Artist
Gary Oldman Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt Moneyball

As expected, the nods mirror the SAG nominees, the only exception being Gary Oldman replacing Leonardo DiCaprio. I thought Leo was great in J. Edgar but Oldman's performance, which I have yet to see, has been gaining steam as of late.

Best Actress

Glenn Close Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis The Help
Rooney Mara The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams My Week with Marilyn

Again, four of the five nods mirror the SAG nominations, with Rooney Mara deservedly getting the nod here over Tilda Swinton.

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill Moneyball
Nick Nolte Warrior
Christopher Plummer Beginners
Max von Sydow Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Surprise, four of the five noms mirror the SAG nominations with the veteran Max Von Sydow getting the nod over J. Edgar's Armie Hammer. Frankly, Hammer should have taken Jonah Hill's spot.

Best Supporting Actress

Bérénice Bejo The Artist
Jessica Chastain The Help
Melissa McCarthy Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer The Help

Here, all five actresses received SAG nominations. While Melissa McCarthy's performance was crudely amusing, is it really Oscar quality? No.

Best Director

Michel Hazanavicius The Artist
Alexander Payne The Descedants
Martin Scorsese Hugo
Woody Allen Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick The Tree of Life

Four of the five DGA nominees are present, with Academy favorite Terrence Malick, not Steven Spielberg, getting the nod over The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo's David Fincher. Not a worthy substitute in my opinion.

The Oscars air Sunday, February 26th on ABC. Check back on Feb 24 for my picks.

Movie Programs, Storybooks Let Us Take The Magic Home

I was at my mom's house recently and came across some wonderful little cinematic relics of yesteryear while cleaning out her garage. Remember movie storybooks and souvenir programs? Man, I loved these things as a kid. The glossy-stock programs were sold at the box office of finer theaters and featured cast & crew info, full-color photos and little articles on the production process. I remember getting one for The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and sneaking peeks before entering the theater. I didn't want to reveal too much but couldn't help myself. One of the first images I came upon was Han Solo encased in Carbonite. Blew my nine-year-old mind; I couldn't wait to get inside after that.

The storybooks were essential movie tie-ins back in the mid-'70s and early '80s, staples of mall booksellers like B. Dalton, Walden and Crown, and contained a mini novelization of the film and tons of full-color stills, many of which didn't make the theatrical cut. I remember religiously reading and re-reading storybooks for all three original Star Wars films, The Black Hole, Popeye, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. (pictured above).

As we didn't have the luxury back then of owning movies three months after they appeared in theaters (at best we could maybe buy a videocassette a year later for $100), storybooks and souvenir programs were really the only way we could relive the magic of our favorite movies at home. That is unless Kenner made action figures for said flicks, in which case the programs and storybooks were quickly tossed into boxes and placed in the bowels of our parents' garages for us to discover 30 years later.