Film Feature: Top 5 Oscar Nominations We’re Glad Didn’t Happen

CHICAGO – Oscar. The holy day of the film industry. While other film pundits are scrambling for perspective – who made it and who didn’t – we’re giving thanks for the five 2010 films and personalities that didn’t get a nomination for Oscar night.

Whenever the schadenfreude attitude of “glad” comes up, there is always an equal and opposite “sad” feeling that it didn’t happen. For each notable glad they weren’t nominated, there will be a mitigating “backlash”.

5. Anne Hathaway for Best Actress, “Love and Other Drugs”

Love and Other Drugs
Photo credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

Amazingly, the popular Anne did receive a nomination at the Golden Globes for this film, playing Maggie Murdock, a sparkly victim of Parkinson’s Disease. At the same time, she was wooing a Viagra salesman name Jamie (Jack Gyllenhaal), who obviously lacked the drugs she was seeking. She also introduced herself to him by flashing her breast during a medical examination. This is the type of feel-good, disease of the week performance that Oscar salivates over, but apparently Annie’s carefully contracted scenes of nudity in the film may have swayed voters who wanted to see more.

BACKLASH: Hey, she hosting the whole Oscar show. Wardrobe malfunction!

4. Special Technical Award for 3-D Film Technology

The Last Airbender
Photo credit: Oscilloscope

I saw several of these epic films this year, and I got several headaches. It wasn’t the films like “Jackass 3-D” (which used true on-set 3-D cameras) that were the third dimension offenders of 2010, it was the long list of retrofitted 3-D films (The Last Airbender, Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia) that did it to take advantage of an extra admission price that could be charged. These retrofits had a dark, murky quality to them that was akin to watching them through a fish tank with the light off. And, by the way, that will be an extra four dollars.

BACKLASH: If you take the “Blues Brothers” style 3-D glasses home, you can recreate the theater experience by wearing them and watching TV in the dark.

3. “I’m Still Here” for Best Documentary Feature

I’m Still Here
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

If only the Joaquin-Phoenix-as-rapper joke has continued, on Oscar night he could have dressed up as flamboyantly as Liberace, with an expectant Michael Douglas peering over his shoulder in the row behind. After introducing his hip-hop and bearded persona to David Letterman, Phoenix and Director Casey Affleck waited several months before releasing their document on the journey. Then they turned around and said – to virtually no one’s surprise – that the whole thing had been a hoax. Ya think?

BACKLASH: The Andy Kaufman-esque stunt did get the collective underwear of the Hollywood and film media in a bunch.

2. Best Makeup for “Burlesque”

Burlesque
Photo credit: De Line Pictures

You are a make-up artist for the motion picture industry. You get the assignment to paint the faces of Cher and Christina Aguilera. You kiss your Oscar chances goodbye. After buckets of pancake white (and no doubt plenty of judicious digital retouching) Cher still looked like her face had been flattened by a steamroller. And yes, I know it’s burlesque, but if you tart up Aguilera anymore she soon she’ll soon be served up in a bakery.

BACKLASH: Possible “Showgirls” type cult following to come.

1. Lifetime Achievement Award for Rip Taylor

Rip Taylor
Photo credit: RipTaylor.com

Rip, part of the “Silver Age” of Hollywood (1950s-70s) is fast fading into oblivion and Oscar has chosen to deny him again. The be-wigged, comic goofball has the credits: “I’d Rather be Rich” (1964), “Chatterbox” (1977), “The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington” (1977), “The Gong Show Movie” (1980), “Tom and Jerry: The Movie” (1992) and “The Boys Behind the Desk” (2000), and he has a bag of confetti ready to throw. The man has been writing his humble acceptance for years, will the Academy ever hear it?

BASHLASH: Will not be privy to an Oscar night confetti bombing of Dame Judi Dench.

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com