Ever since 2007, I wait for the 5:30 AM announcements
for the long awaited list that shows which movies move on to the finals, that
is, the Oscar nominations. We get by the Golden Globes, the Critic's Choice
Awards, and the BAFTA nominations, which are similar to the Oscar nominations,
and finally, I typically ask myself, "why am I wasting my life with the
Oscar prediction?" Every year, there is some sort of a surprise with the
nominees, and every year, I give a great big shout out moan to the deflation
that subjugated my expectations.
This year is a big year, surprisingly, for the non rated-R movies and
surprisingly, the only Best picture nominee that was Rated-R was The
Descendants, which really should've been PG-13 for its mild use of
language. However, because so, two of the most talked about Rated R movies of
this year was snuffed; Drive, and The Girl With the Dragon
Tattoo. As of now, there are lynch mob hate replies upon hate over this
nomination list, and I am no different for I too am part of this lynch mob over
the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. For one, this movie
was not praised by the critics, and the box office doesn't show much support.
The movie received mixed to negative reviews and has a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes,
and a 6.2 rating on IMDB. The movie only landed one other nomination for a
supporting role that, on other words, robbed from some other great
performances.
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| "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is now the new Jar Jar Binks of the Oscars. |
Why did this movie get nominated? This movie is an all American movie, despite
not being anywhere in the American Film Institute Top 10 list. It's a movie
that uses 9/11 and revolves around that event to draw out some forced
sentimentality, basically, another way to move people into "truthiness"
that this movie is superior. However, in Ebert's review in this movie, he
states that a catharsis can never be found after 9/11, basically saying a movie
revolving around 9/11 cannot be uplifting or inspiring. The other reason why
this movie is respected is because of how its "make you feel good"
sentimentality rubs off to the voters instead of the different artistic movies.
I guess there is that old root of people hating the "different"
things, and both Drive and The Girl With the Dragon
Tattoo fell in this trap. This is why The King's Speech won
instead of the thought provoking wakeup call of The Social Network, Black
Swan, and Inception, evidently, my three favorite movies of
2010. Drive was an action movie gone artistic and
professionally different, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was
a large mystery surrounding around the theme of rape. Even though these two
would hold up much longer, they really have no place in the Oscars and will
probably be remembered as something better. Possibly, in the near future, The
Tree of Life will become the new 2001: A Space Odyssey,
and Drive will gain a cult status after seeing people wearing
the scorpion jacket.
The Supporting Actor nominations felt a strong shockwave with Max Von Sydow
being nominated in the movie. Even though Sydow is a great actor in his past
work, did he really merit a nomination? To me, this year had two big surprises
in the Supporting roles. The first is the fact that Andy Serkis in his
outstanding motion capture role as an ape from Rise of the Planet of
the Apes, showing that motion capture can be respected and elevated to
the art of acting, and Albert Brooks' return to the screen with his
surprisingly sadistic role in Drive, despite being a comedian and
the voice of Marlin from Finding Nemo. none of these were
acknowledged, and instead, we get a nomination from someone who doesn't even
speak in the movie. The Oscars still do not believe that motion capture is
acting and will never adapt to that change, and I do not know why they snubbed
Albert Brooks for making a comeback. The way I see it, you either adapt or die,
according to Billy from Moneyball. Maybe they are giving Max Von
Sydow the nominations because he's an old actor who'll never give up. Maybe
they gave it to him because of compensation. If they really wanted to
acknowledge Sydow, then why don't they give him an honorary award? Or why
didn't they acknowledge him in other good movies? He was great in movies
like The Exorcist and Hannah and her Sisters, and
yet the Oscars finally recognize him in some movie that was not really his for
the taking.
With that said, I feel that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close does
not merit any nominations for it's not a typical Oscar movie. It's a political
suck up in an organization that's known to be heavily political with its movies
and industries. The fact of the matter is, the movie has a target audience, and
everyone else will just have to stick with it, like the Star Wars prequel. At
least the Oscars kept a tradition where at least one of the Best picture
nominations is a terrible movie to me. Some other fails were The Reader,
and The Blind Side.
Another aspect that didn't work was the fact that there were only two
nominations for Best Original Song. What the heck happened? I originally
believed that the best song was "The Living Proof" from The
Help, and even that movie's song isn't nominated. Rio gets
a nomination, and yet, they don't appear to be that popular. In fact, the song
seems cheaply made for a movie that would appear in the MTV movie award. And
so, by default, the obvious winner is The Muppets. But was
"Man or a Muppet" their best song? "Life's a Happy song"
was a cheery song that became a sort of theme song for the movie, and
"Pictures in my Head" was the absolute tear jerking song. Why weren't
these songs nominated instead?
Although the Oscar nominations are somewhat of a farce, it is not without some
pleasant surprises. I was surprised with Demian Bichir's nomination from A
Better Life and I actually support that nomination, despite him not
having no chance of winning, and despite not actually seeing that movie. Though
I will admit, I still am a tad bit bitter over Michael Fassbender not getting a
Best Actor nomination for Shame. I like the fact that both Margin
Call and A Separation are scoring nominations for
Best Original Screenplay, and I also like the fact that John Williams is also
getting a nomination for his work on The Adventures of Tintin score.
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