Juan’s Two Cents – The 84th Academy Award Nominees Edition

Hugo deserves to win!

Best Writing (Adapted)

  • Likely Winner: Moneyball
  • Most Deserving: Hugo
  • Snubbed: Carnage [1], Drive, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and War Horse (wow that’s a lot of movies!!!)
  • Biggest “Fuck You”: I’ve expressed my hatred for Moneyball a lot, but the screenplay is probably the worst thing about it. Like I mentioned earlier, the film is literally drowning in sentimentality and it really makes me wonder who hit everyone in the head with a baseball bat and told them this was meant to be such a highly acclaimed film because it shouldn’t be at all.

Best Writing (Original)

  • Likely Winner: The Artist
  • Most Deserving: Midnight in Paris (Let’s face it, Woody Allen hasn’t made a movie this deserving of a writing nomination in over a decade and however much I like The Artist, it’s not as great as Allen’s film)
  • Snubbed: Beginners [1] & Young Adult
  • Pleasant Surprise: Bridesmaids actually got an Oscar nomination
  • Biggest “Fuck You”: That mediocre as fuck screenplay by J.C. Chandor forMargin Call [1] that everyone seems to be jizzing themselves over. There were far better first time screenplays that could have been chosen and I’d much rather have had YA take this nominations place because it’s the best thing Diablo Cody has ever done (and will probably ever do)

Best Animated Feature

  • Likely Winner: Rango [1]
  • Most Deserving: Rango
  • Snubbed: The Adventures of Tintin
  • Biggest “Fuck You”: Literally everything in this category that isn’t Rango is extremely offensive to me because it was nominated over something as marvelous as Tintin. That’s not entirely true though. I said this before watching Chico & Rita and I have to admit that it was a pretty surprising movie. The others in the category however? They don’t even shine a light on my snubbed selection.

Cinematography

  • Likely Winner: Too tough to predict honestly
  • Most Deserving: Emmanuel Lubezki
  • Snubbed: Darius Khondji for Midnight in Paris
  • Pleasant Surprise: Jeff Cronenweth for TGWTDT 

Foreign Language Film

  • Likely Winner: A Separation
  • Most Deserving: A Separation
  • Snubbed: La Piel Que Habito [1] which actually wasn’t submitted by Spain as their possible nominee
  • Honestly: I haven’t seen a single one of these except for A Separation

Documentary

  • Likely Winner: Pina
  • Most Deserving: Pina
  • Snubbed: Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never [1]
  • Honestly: I’m only half kidding about that last line

Art Direction

  • Likely Winner: Hugo or The Artist
  • Most Deserving: Midnight in Paris

Juan Barquin

Just yer average twenty-something college student with no time on his hands who ends up watching (and writing) too many movies and shows for his own good.

6 Responses

  1. amy says:

    There are a lot of wrongs in this year’s nominations, but the animation category isn’t one of them. Certainly, it isn’t the worse. I haven’t seen Tintin yet, but in terms of animation, motioncap still looks fairly weird – compared to, let’s say Chico & Rita or A Cat in Paris.

    Then again, we have no idea how they pick their nominations for animation. Is it story quality or is it animation quality?

    In terms of Rango, I only found it okay. The texturing of characters was pretty great, but I think an animated film like Chico & Rita is doing more for the genre than Rango is.

    • Juan Barquin says:

      @amy, I’ll just have to go ahead and watch Chico & Rita, but you know I wasn’t a big fun of A Cat In Paris. I think Tintin and Rango had such beautiful animation honestly. They both appealed to me so much and I think Rango is doing plenty for the animation genre. It’s bringing it outside of the box. It’s not necessarily sticking with the norms and it’s practically any live-action western film in animated form – full of homages and references to all of these wonderful classic films.

      • amy says:

        @Juan Barquin, I’m seeing picks like A Cat in Paris in the animation category as technical picks, more than overall films, though. Kinda like The Secret of Kells which was visually stunning but the story left me a bit meh.

        You def. need to check out Chico & Rita.

  2. Eric says:

    Hi, I’m rather new to the group (haven’t been to any of your screenings though) and was just curious on your blog post.

    Couple of comments:

    I totally agree that Drive and Shame were snubbed, and that some of the inclusions are rather idiotic. Shame is among my favorite films of the year, and the lack of recognition really hurts it (then again, they failed to nominate the equally great Hunger). However, your opinion and my opinion on the films The Tree Of Life and Moneyball differ highly, (I came out of Moneyball surprised, and out of Tree of Life disappointed both as a film fan and a Terrence Malick fan).

    I completely disagree with your assertion that Transformers 3 doesn’t deserve anything for sound. I hate that film with a passion, but I cannot fault it for having an absolutely incredible and complex sound design behind it.

    Another gripe I have is your assertion that the animated category is weak. I highly disagree. Although they left out Tintin, I thought it was fantastic that they were able to include Chico and Rita along with A Cat in Paris. Both are absolutely fantastic. The only film in hat category I did not enjoy was Puss in Boots.

    But as is such with most art, it’s subjective. I have my opinions, you have yours, and the Academy has theirs. I hope you enjoy your 2012 movie season. Happy watching.

    • Juan Barquin says:

      @Eric, Glad to see someone taking an interest in things though!

      In terms of Moneyball and The Tree of Life, I can definitely see why people would and wouldn’t like them. I mean, TTOL is probably the years most divisive film due to its content and I can most definitely see why plenty of people would be disappointed (and even hate it if they felt the desire). As for Moneyball, I’m in a very unpopular position. Only about four people I know have agreed with me that it was just plain boring and sentimental, but hey that’s cinema!

      As for Transformers 3, I was mostly just joking around. I mean, I really do hate Michael Bay – because well I don’t think I need an explanation hahaha – but it really does deserve the nominations it received (although it still frustrates me that he recycled certain scenes from his own previous films into this one – laaaaaazy work).

      I stand by my animated films section though. I know a lot of people, including Amy right above, weren’t too happy with what I said either. I just didn’t think A Cat in Paris was very good and neither was Puss in Boots. As for Kung Fu Panda 2 – come on. The only one I can’t vouch for is Chico and Rita. I mean, out of all years to bump it up to 5 nominations, I think this was one of the most unnecessary. I’d much rather have seen the likes of Tintin, Winnie the Pooh, and Arthur Christmas populating the nominees than the ones that are there (with the exception of Rango which is my second favorite animated film of the year).

      Even though we disagree on certain things, thanks for the comment and bringing your opinions to the table though! It’s always exciting to actually get some discussion started. Different strokes for different folks. Hopefully you’ll enjoy your 2012 watching season as well!

  1. November 7, 2013

    […] like last year, I made an obscenely long list of all the positives and negatives that came with the Oscar […]

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