Not a whole lot of love for genre pictures at the Oscars this year. The Avengers got just one nomination, for Visual Effects, where it was joined by online punching-bag Prometheus. Both of them will probably lose to Life of Pi.
The good news is that some fan-favorite actors scored big. Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for Best Actress — not for The Hunger Games, but rather for her work in Silver Linings Playbook. She plays a woman suffering from a variety of mental illnesses so who knows, maybe she’ll even win. And though The Dark Knight Rises was shut out, Anne Hathaway got a Supporting Actress nod for playing Fantine in Les Misérables, and she’s pretty much a lock. Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, was also nominated for Les Misérables, but let’s face it, he has no chance.
The Hobbit got three nominations, for Visual Effects, Makeup, and Production Design. Not bad until you remember that the last Middle-earth epic nabbed eleven nominations, and won all of ’em.
Plus we have to mention: John Williams picked up his 48th nomination for Lincoln. Pretty sure that’s a record. And weirdly enough, the Simpsons are now Oscar nominees. Something called Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare” is up for Best Animated Short.
At least we can always look forward to making fun of the fashions. This year the Academy Awards air on February 24th.
Edit: Thanks to Pablo for pointing out that new Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy (along with Steven Spielberg) was nominated for producing Lincoln! It’s the front-runner for Best Picture, too.
“Not bad until you remember that the last Middle-earth epic nabbed eleven nominations, and won all of ‘em.”
What the Oscars did for LOTR was to wait until the third part of the trilogy came out, then award all of the oscars for ROTK as kind of recognizing the entire trilogy. I suspect Hobbit won’t get many Oscars either until part 3 is out.
Nah. All three of the LOTR movies were nominated for Best Picture, and I think the entire trilogy had something like 30 nominations total. The Academy has moved on.
Yay for Kathy Kennedy!
Boy, I missed that one, didn’t I?
The true shame with these nominations: Moonrise Kingdom was only nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Personally it would have been my nominee for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actor in a supporting role (Ed Norton or Bruce Willis) and maybe Best Sound since Best Score Adaptation or Treatment is no longer an option…
Stupid Academy… :-/
I completely understand why MK was left out… it’s Wes Anderson, and people run very hot or cold about his work. (Personally, he leaves me cold. I couldn’t stand MK. Didn’t make me laugh once.)
I like Wes Anderson, but I haven’t seen MK yet… It failed to run at the plebeian theaters near me, and I never got around to hiking out to the art theaters in further suburbia. So basically I’m out of luck until it shows up on premium cable or my mother’s Netflix queue.
…Not that Academy voters will have any of those problems. ::grump::