I woke up Tuesday morning with my normal routine: roll around in bed for a little while before checking Twitter on my phone for the hottest news topics of the day.
I browsed the feed and the first topic I saw was the Oscar nominations, which had been announced that day.
As many of you already know, I am a huge film buff.
And out of everything I browsed, this caught my eye the most. I was very eager to look up this year’s nominations.
Unfortunately, I was running late and didn’t have time to look up that extensive list until later in the afternoon.
When I finally did, what I read shook me. Nine films are being nominated for Best Picture. Most of the choices I agree with, such as “Moneyball,” “Midnight in Paris” and “Hugo.”
But the list wasn’t without its head-scratchers, particularly “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” a title that enjoyed success as a book, but did not transition well to the big screen.
For all its talk a couple of months ago as possibly being a slam-dunk for an Oscar nomination, critics still shared mixed views about ELIC.
Although the story was liked, the directing by Stephen Daldry was heavily criticized.
With such a powerful story, many critics simply thought that the direction could have been better.
Considering all the mixed opinions of this film, I’m shocked this was one of the nominations. Why not give it to a movie that had an overwhelming positive reaction? I doubt my expectations of Daldry’s film would live up to the likes of David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” or Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive.” Those are two films that I think few could have topped in 2011.
That’s not to say ELIC is an abomination of a film. Instead, it’s a credit to how good “Drive” and “Dragon Tattoo” truly are.
“Drive,” an arthouse thriller that featured classic elements of film noir, should have been on that list of nominees.
And “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which was reviewed last week in The Knight, also should have been on the list.
I don’t care how the Academy should have done it, but it should have tried its best to fit those two into the top nine.
It’s a crime that neither of them is on the ballot.
Understandably, there are Oscar snubs every year, particularly in the Best Picture category. This year is no exception.
But it’s come to the point where more people are taking the Academy Awards less seriously every year.
If it were up to me, I would strongly suggest tweaking the voting process so that the right movies get in every year.
Again, obviously not every movie is going to make it on the list, but as the famous saying goes: “Don’t bring Kool-Aid to a grown man’s party.”
