"'Avatar,' 'The Blind Side,' and 'Precious' lead Oscar nominations for Best Picture."

By Sean Patrick Kernan

Rarely have I found myself so bored with Oscar nominations. I love the Oscars. I am an Oscar nerd. I like Oscar history and talking about Oscar history and envisioning how history applies to the current Oscar race (it rarely means anything of note - still fun). This year, sadly, what I thought would be a brilliant innovation, 10 Best Picture nominees, has rendered arguably the most rote and boring nomination list in years.



Not one real, honest surprise among 10 Best Picture nominees. “District 9” you say? A marginal upset. “District 9” is relatively conventional when compared to nominees that would have jolted the Oscar experts. Movies like “The Hangover,” “The White Ribbon” or “Star Trek” would have been far more surprising than the alien race parable from South Africa.

Best Picture nominees:

An Education
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
The Hurt Locker
Up in the Air
Up
The Blind Side
District 9
A Serious Man

The lead Actor and Actress categories were the biggest yawner of them all today. The 10 nominees among the boys and girls were the front runners from all the way back in late November when the campaigns began ramping up. No Michael Stuhlbarg from “A Serious Man” or Sharlito Copley from “District 9.” The final 5 Actors are worthy, don't get me wrong, just not surprising.

As for Best Actress, it was an exceptionally weak year and while I rooted for Zooey Deschanel for “500 Days of Summer” she never really had a chance. The Inglourious ladies of “Inglourious Basterds” were bounced between lead and supporting by so many pundits it really is no wonder they missed both categories.

Best Actor:

George Clooney - Up in the Air
Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Jeremy Renner - The Hurt Locker

Best Actress:

Meryl Streep - Julie and Julia
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious
Helen Mirren - The Last Station



The Supporting categories offered only two minor derivations from my predictions. I thought Alfred Molina would be nominated for his stellar work as an overbearing yet naive father in “An Education” over Christopher Plummer's Tolstoy in “The Last Station.” I also thought that either of the women of “Inglourious Basterds,” Melanie Laurent as the revenge fueled theater owner or Diane Kruger's double agent actress would make it. Maggie Gyllenhaal sneaks in between them and steals a nomination for her ability to reflect the greatness of Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart.”

Best Supporting Actor:

Christoph Walz - Inglourious Basterds
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station
Stanley Tucci - The Lovely Bones
Matt Damon - Invictus
Woody Harrelson - The Messenger

For Best Director Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman in history to be nominated for Best Director while Lee Daniels makes history as the first gay African American director nominated; John Singleton was the first and till now only African American nominated before Daniels double shot of progress. As I am sure you've heard by now, Kathryn Bigelow is competing with her ex-husband James Cameron for Best Director. It is the first time the Academy ever nominated a husband and wife duo or ex-husband and wife duo.

My hope was that 10 nominees for Best Picture would allow the Academy to go nuts and nominate some really unexpected movies. My wild card prediction for best picture was Michael Haneke's “The White Ribbon” from Germany. It was nominated in the Foreign Film category. Some had thought that a kid flick like “Where the Wild Things Are” might make it or “Fantastic Mr. Fox” which had a lot of critical support.

“The Hangover” and “Star Trek” had some late buzz and would have been surprising choices for the Academy.

Instead, the Academy did exactly what every other awards show predicted they would do. “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” received 9 nominations apiece. “Basterds,” “Up in the Air,” “An Education” and “Precious” not far behind. “A Serious Man” is the most deserving of nominees but the Coen's track record alone could have earned the film a nomination.

“Up” may be only the second animated film in history but ever since the expansion to 10 nominees everyone has assumed the Pixar flick would be nominated.

“The Blind Side” and “District 9” were late comers to the Oscar party but they aren't that surprising. Aside from “Avatar” no film has been as big a box office success as “The Blind Side” and with Sandra Bullock hot on the awards circuit you can't be surprised about the picture getting nomm’ed. “District 9” is the only film that can be considered surprising but only on the standard that most didn't believe two sci-fi movies would be nominated in the same year.

Take away “Avatar” and “District 9” was really a contender all along with its strong critical support, solid if not spectacular box office and it's easy to follow race parable storyline, always popular at the academy is a story with the appearance of depth about a hot button issue.

Nope, the 10 nominees did little to bring any excitement to the nominations. The Academy voters followed the recommendations of all of the other awards giving bodies and delivered a rote list of nominees. Here's hoping the show itself can find excitement where the nominations did not.

BYLINE:

Sean Patrick Kernan is a film critic. Check him out at: http://www.myspace.com/number1ramjamfan. Email Sean at sean@zoiksonline.com.