The 10 Biggest Oscar Snubs of 2009

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Sally Hawkins
Sally Hawkins
Photo credit: Simon Mein

3. Sally Hawkins for Best Actress for “Happy-Go-Lucky”

This one hurts. Literally, hurts. How the Academy chose to ignore the most vivid, three-dimensional, well-defined performance of the entire year is beyond me. Sally should not only have been nominated, she should have won. She created the most memorable and believable character of the year and she did it from scratch, working on the role improvisationally with Mike Leigh and her cast-mates over a several-month period. This one will go down in history. I also loved Michelle Williams work in “Wendy & Lucy” and Kristin Scott Thomas’ turn in “I’ve Loved You So Long” but I kind of knew they were going to be omitted a long time ago. Hawkins was a shocker.

Benicio Del Toro
Benicio Del Toro
Photo credit: Daniel Daza

2. Benicio Del Toro for Best Actor for “Che

I actually think they got Best Actor more “right” than any category announced on Thursday morning, but if I had to pick an exclusion, it would have been nice to hear a right-field nominee like Del Toro for “Che” or Josh Brolin for “W.”. Having said that, I’m ecstatic that the Academy saw through Clint Eastwood’s routine in “Gran Torino” and chose Richard Jenkins’ far-more-subtle work in “The Visitor”. As for the other nominees, no one can argue against the quality of work done by Frank Langella, Sean Penn, or Mickey Rourke in 2008 and Brad Pitt, while arguably not as good as Del Toro or Brolin, was the driving force behind a movie with 13 nominations. It would have been ridiculous to nominate “Button” for that many trophies and not nominate Pitt.

WALL-E
WALL-E
Photo credit: Walt Disney Pictures

1. “The Dark Knight” and “WALL-E” for Best Picture

These two will go down in history. It’s stunning to think that people that know about the art of moviemaking honestly believe that the “Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader” are better films than these already timeless masterpieces, the two best films of 2008. No, there is clearly a bias that forced these two movies from ever being considered by a large portion of the voting body. I said that once the Best Animated Feature category came into existence that it would be harder or close to impossible for an animated film to get nominated for Best Picture. Guess what? It will NEVER happen. If “WALL-E” couldn’t do it in a year that produced such lackluster alternatives as “Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader” then nothing ever will. And the same goes for superhero movies. “The Dark Knight” tied for the second-most overall nominations with no nod for Best Picture (with “Dreamgirls”). It’s clear that the Academy loved every aspect of the film but hesitated when it came time to pick a superhero movie as one of the top five films of the year. Shame on them.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Anonymous's picture

The Dark Knight and WALL - E

The Dark Knight and WALL - E “timeless masterpieces” ……….hahaha what a joke, your opinion is now rendered invalid. Please don’t write anything on film ever again, thank you. How can they be timeless masterpieces when they have only been out for less than a year. Only time will tell so please don’t write silly comments like that in future.

Anonymous's picture

agreed

The Dark Knight does not have the qualities of a Best Picture. Sure it had one great performance, surrounded by a couple mediocre ones. The writing was not that great. So I agree with the previous post. There are some great critics in Chicago, but its plane to see that you are not one of them.

Now I will agree with you that Wall-E is a great, and pretty a much flawless picture, well for the first half. but it still lacked the qualities that a best picture should possess.

Anonymous's picture

I have to disagree with your

I have to disagree with your opinion there. The Dark Knight does in fact have all the qualities of a Best Picture barring one - it is a genre film and worse yet, it’s a superhero film. And that was enough for the academy members to ignore it in the major categories. It’s nothing but prejudice and it’s exactly that sort of narrow minded thinking and inability to look past the genre that makes prompts people to say that it does not have the qualities of a Best Picture.

It’s wrong to say that Ledger’s performance is surrounded by mediocre ones. Yes Ledger was brilliant, but that does not automatically make everyone else mediocre in comparison. They all did a very good job, Aaron Eckhart in particular was sublime.

I suppose despite my arguments, it was always going to be a fools hope for TDK to get a Best Picture nomination. But, Nolan deserved that Best Director nomination, more so than anyone from last year. When you look at a film for its directing, you’re looking at every single department from acting to sound mixing, because a director’s job is to bring all these departments together to function like a well-oiled machine (and I’m a director myself, so I know exactly how that machine needs to work). The only other films from 2008 that are in the same class as TDK in this respect are Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire.

Anonymous's picture

The Dark Knight

I must politely defend the Dark Knight’s writing, as it deserves a nomination for best adapted screenplay. Granted, its dialogue does not exactly ring with Tarantino’s deceptively natural and sublime fusion of poetry and prose, but TDK utilizes forces of antagonism in deliciously brilliant and complex ways. For example, as a villain, the Joker requires much more of Batman than simple right/wrong, good/evil decisions. Ledger’s character traps him in situations where he must wage an ethical war within himself before reacting and pulls this off not once, but multiple times throughout the film. This is a terrifically intellegent, mature script. It takes the traditional superhero genre and elevates it to a gorgeous morality play. It is grossly underrated, and the fact that this slice of cinematic beauty did not earn a Best Picture nomination is a travesty.

Anonymous's picture

Disagree

What qualities did Wall-E not possess?

James's picture

I think that the main

I think that the main problem is the voting process…there is no larger monster called “The Academy”, it is thousands of individual votes. They pick their top five in every category, in ascending order (1st is best 5 is least best) and then submit them. Halfway through the counting process, the nominations are released based o n the first half of the ballots recieved. This is so that nobody knows until that night exactly who won. The process is retarded.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

The members who vote...

James wrote:
I think that the main problem is the voting process…

Is the problem the process or the members who vote? The academy’s demographic is much older. I’d argue that the members who vote skew to the 50-plus age range.

It also seems like they figured Heath Ledger getting “The Dark Knight” supporting nomination and “WALL-E” getting nominated for best animated film was enough. It’s not fair to exclude one nomination because of another.

I’ve been on juries before (including for the 2008 Chicago International Film Festival) and I understand the thinking, but it’s still not right. As a jury member, you shouldn’t do it.

Anonymous's picture

I’m sorry James, but your

I’m sorry James, but your post is “retarded.” That is not even close to the actual process. Read this:

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2008/01/academy-awards.html

Joey Nolfi's picture

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN’s lack of a nomination was not a snub…Sweden did not submit it.

BrianTT's picture

Submission Not Needed For Adapted Screenplay

In the intro, I suggest that the process for Best Foreign Film, which requires country submission is deeply flawed when I write..

“The fact that the Academy still employs a process that makes one of the best foreign films of the year (Let the Right One In) ineligible…”

…acknowledging that it couldn’t be nominated for Best Foreign Film because of the submission process.

However, it could have been nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Films are regularly not submitted for Best Foreign Film and nominated in other categories. Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her was not submitted by Spain and, consequently, not nominated for Best Foreign Film but WON the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

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