It's finally arrived. At about 8:40 am (Eastern Time) 2011 Best Actress nominee Jennifer Lawrence took the stage alongside the president of the Academy and announced the 2012 Oscar nominees. As it happens every year, the Academy offered plenty of snubs and surprises with its nominations (click here for a full list of nominees, courtesy of Indiewire.com). Martin Scorsese's Hugo topped the field with 11 combined nominations and the Best Picture frontrunner, The Artist, tried to keep pace with 10 nominations of its own. Congratulations are in order for all of the nominees, but what everyone will be talking about is the snubs and surprises. Here are today's most notable shockers:
SNUB: Michael Fassbender (Best Actor) - Shame
After garnering a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor (although he missed out on a SAG), very few insiders expected Michael Fassbender to be left off of the list. Shame's NC-17 rating aside, Fassbender was extraordinary in his role as a sex addicted professional living in New York City. Also in the Best Actor category, longshot Michael Shannon gave a beyond worthy performance in the indie thriller Take Shelter. These two fine actors deserved a much better outcome than the one they received.
SURPRISE: Demian Bichir (Best Actor) - A Better Life
As an unfair world reminds us, one man's loss is another man's gain. In the Best Actor race, A Better Life's Demian Bichir is the surprise winner. The underdog, who did receive a SAG nomination over Fassbender, was one of this morning's most shocking nominees. But in all fairness to Bichir, I haven't watched the vastly under-seen film A Better Life (you can be sure it's moved to the top of my "must see" list).
SNUB: Albert Brooks (Best Supporting Actor) and the film Drive
It wasn't so long ago that the Best Supporting Actor category was Albert Brooks' race to lose. Brooks gave a spot on performance as the antagonist in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive. Alongside Brooks and his entire cast and crew, Drive was the most snubbed film of the year. It's lone nomination came in the Best Sound Editing category, which is almost laughable.
SURPRISE: Max von Sydow (Best Supporting Actor) and the Best Picture nominee Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
At the expense of Albert Brooks, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close co-star Max von Sydow walked away with a Best Supporting Actor nomination. In similar fashion to this year's black and white silent film, The Artist, Max von Sydow garnered a nomination without even speaking a word. Even more surprising than his recognition was the Best Picture nomination handed out to his film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life were also other somewhat shocking inclusions to the Best Picture race.
SNUB: Tilda Swinton (Best Actress) - We Need to Talk About Kevin
Perhaps the most outrageous snub, in my opinion, was Tilda Swinton being overlooked in the Best Actress category. Her role in the psychological tailspin We Need to Talk About Kevin was explosive and, by all means, groundbreaking. Without taking anything away from the excellent on screen work of Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Glenn Close (although I have yet to see Albert Nobbs), Swinton and Best Actress nominee Viola Davis (The Help) were in a league of their own this year. It's a shame to see such an amazing piece of film like We Need to Talk About Kevin go completely unrecognized by the Academy.
What do you think were the biggest snubs and surprises with the 2012 Oscar nominations? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.
Snub of the season: JK SIMMONS in "The Music Never Stopped"
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