Well, well, well. There were definitely a few surprises in this morning’s nominations. In fact, I’d say that there’s at least one surprise in all of the major categories. It keeps things interesting, which is fun. Let’s take a look.
Best Picture
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
WOW, okay. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was definitely a surprise. I think most people (myself included) had given up on that one. The Tree of Life is less surprising, but I still would’ve thought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would’ve gotten in ahead of it. However, I do have to pat myself on the back a little bit for predicting that Dragon Tattoo would miss out. All of my predictions were correct in this category were correct – I just missed two of them.
Best Actor
Demian Birchir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean DuJardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Gary Oldman: Academy Award Nominee, at last! Guess this category wasn’t nearly as obvious as it seemed. Surprising about Birchir (guess I should have watched A Better Life when it was in the house), but I do feel a bit bad for Leo and Fassy (even though I’m not THAT surprised to see the latter snubbed).
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
Oh, snap! Mara is a surprise (especially since she only got a Globe nom). Everyone else makes sense, but I am surprised that Swinton was the one to get snubbed over Close. I thought that this category would be pretty predictable.
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
When I saw EL&IC on the Best Picture list, I had a feeling von Sydow would be in. However, I thought he’d replace Nolte or even Hill – not the former frontrunner Albert Brooks. Brooks was obviously slipping after missing out on the SAG (and I had him ranked 4th), but I’m still very surprised. All of the critical favourites are missing out, it seems. Good for Nick Nolte, though. He was fantastic in Warrior.
Best Supporting Actress
Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Damn, Woodley was the one to miss out after all (but I thought she might be when Albert Brooks was snubbed). A lot of people saw that coming, but I definitely think she should have gotten in over McCarthy (she was great in that movie, but Oscar worthy?) and probably Bejo, in my opinion. Ah, well.
Best Director
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
The Malick fanboys will be happy, the Fincher fanboys will be pissed. A lot of people thought this category would match up with the DGA nominations. I figured Fincher would miss out, but I’m a little surprised that Malick was the one to bump him (especially since War Horse did get a Best Picture nom. I guess the fact that The Tree of Life also got one should have been my hint.)
Best Original Screenplay
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Margin Call
Midnight in Paris
A Separation
Two surprises with Margin Call and A Separation. They were both very much in the discussion, but I’m a bit surprised both made it in. Yay for Bridesmaids, though. (Academy Award Nominee Kristen Wiig!)
Best Adapted Screenplay
The Descendants
Hugo
The Ides of March
Moneyball
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Wow, I am really surprised that The Help missed out. Very, very surprised. I’m glad The Ides of March got in, though (even if it does mean yet another nomination for Clooney). I’m off to see Tinker Tailor later today, so we’ll see how that one measures up to the rest of the category.
Click here to see the full list of nominees. Want to know how many categories I correctly predicted all five nominees in? That would be zero.
