Facebook
Twitter
Google
Reddit
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
MySpace
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Digg
CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on March 21st, 2024, reviewing the new streaming series “Manhunt” – based on the bestseller by James L. Swanson – currently streaming on Apple TV+.
The 10 Biggest Oscar Snubs of 2009
Submitted by BrianTT on January 23, 2009 - 10:31am
Printer-friendly version
E-mail page to friend
PDF version
Dear Zachary.
Photo credit: Oscilloscope
Winner Bruce Springsteen for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture for “The Wrestler” on stage during the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2009
Photo credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBC
Let the Right One In
Photo credit: Magnolia
Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version
CHICAGO – Stories are released every year about the gap between the Oscars and public opinion. It’s a chasm that seems to be growing with every passing year.
For the 81st-annual Academy Awards, this legendary group had a chance to close that gap and nominate two films for best picture that were critically acclaimed and commercially successful: “The Dark Knight” and “WALL-E”. But they blew it.
The two films did land a combined fourteen nominations, but were excluded from Best Director and Best Picture, proving that the Academy still has a long way to go when it comes to actually recognizing the best of the year. But they were far from the only mistake revealed on Thursday morning, January 22nd, 2009.
Before we discuss the serious snubs, Best Foreign Language Film is too much of a joke to be considered eligible. The likely winner, Waltz With Bashir, is very deserving, but the process is so flawed that it makes the inevitable win for Ari Folman’s excellent film a slightly hollow one. 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 and ignores one of the most critically acclaimed choices like Gomorrah from even making the short list is mind-boggling to me. It’s not snubbing, it’s utter nonsense.
Picking ten snubs from this year’s list of nominees was shockingly easy. In fact, there wasn’t a single category that didn’t have a worthy contender on the outside looking in. And how do you rank them? What’s more painful - Sally Hawkins, Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, or Rosemarie DeWitt still being unable to put Oscar nominee next to their name? Instead, we’re picking the biggest snub per category with the big eight and then two notable omissions from the other categories rounding out a top ten (well, top eleven if you’re being picky).
Dear Zachary.
Photo credit: Oscilloscope
10. “Dear Zachary” for Best Documentary
Kurt Kuenne’s amazing dissection of pure evil and immeasurable good didn’t even make the short list for a category that’s almost as messed up as Best Foreign Language Film. Man on Wire will probably and predictably win but there were so many other choices they could have made to join it then the ones they did. Trouble the Water was powerful, so that’s a great nod, but it is mind-boggling to me that Werner Herzog gets snubbed for one of the best nature documentaries of the last few years, Grizzly Man, but nominated for a film that even he would admit wasn’t nearly as good, Encounters at the End of the World. But all of it pales in comparison to the most powerfully emotional experience that I had in 2008 - Dear Zachary. Like Foreign Language Film, this will be a category that I use for a bathroom break.
Winner Bruce Springsteen for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture for “The Wrestler” on stage during the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2009
Photo credit: Paul Drinkwater/NBC
9. “The Wrestler” by Bruce Springsteen for Best Song
This is perhaps the most head-scratching snub of the day. It’s clearly not an anti-Boss thing, as they gave him the award for “Streets of Philadelphia”. No, I think there’s a deeper problem here. I think this category is broken. Maybe after giving the trophy to Three Six Mafia (deservedly, I might add), something snapped. How else do you explain the THREE nominations for “Enchanted” in this category last year (snubbing Eddie Vedder’s great work on “Into the Wild” and tunes by John Mayer, Rufus Wainwright, and Bob Dylan) and now this disaster? Don’t get me wrong. The two songs from “Slumdog Millionaire” are both good and it will be ridiculously cool to see M.I.A. perform on the Oscars. And I love the track from “WALL-E” by Peter Gabriel. But did they forget the other two nominees? How about “The Wrestler” and “Dracula’s Lament” from “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”? Come on. It’s not too late. Just pretend there were five all along. We’re gonna need a laugh after all the “Reader” and “Frost/Nixon” clips anyway.
Let the Right One In
Photo credit: Magnolia
8. “Let the Right One In” by John Ajvide Lindqvist for Best Adapted Screenplay
I know it will be a cold day in movie hell when a foreign horror movie gets a nomination this prestigious, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t snubbed. The script for Tomas Alfredson’s stunning study of vampirism and adolescence is easily better than three of the chosen nominees and arguably second only to Simon Beaufoy’s stunning work on “Slumdog Millionaire”. No offense to the talented people chosen for this category, but could it have been any more predictable? Take the award-winning plays, the F. Scott Fitzgerald adaptation, and something called “The Reader” has to be a great adapted screenplay, right? “Let the Right One In” is a challenging, daring examination of childhood isolation through the lens of the vampire mythology. It’s a wonderful screenplay that was probably not even considered. It will stand the test of time far more impressively than “Frost/Nixon” or “The Reader”.
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
It may not have been a snub but the Oscar rules are wrong. Sweden had a tuff choice last year and Troell’s “Everlastng Moment” is a very good movie and went up on Short list Top 9.
Now, if the americans think LTROI is a better movie, it should be eligible (especially if it had a US release during 2008). Oscars is after all a US award, not a Swedish one. If you blame Sweden and refuse to change the rules this will happen again. If it isn’t possible to nominate several movies from the same country something is wrong. It’s as if Paramount or Warner just could submit 1 movie each year.
Sally Hawkins totally
Sally Hawkins totally deserved a nomination, she was brilliant!
Oh, Beauty and the Beast got a nomination for Best Picture, so it isn’t so hard for an animation feature to get a nomination…
Best Animated Feature
Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture before the existence of Best Animated Feature. Since then, no animated film has, arguably because voters feel that recognizing the work in the Best Animated category is recognition enough, even if it is one of the best pictures of year as well.
my thoughts
I think a lot of people feel that the academy existst to please them by awarding their favorite movies of the year all the awards. The Dark Knight was a good movie, no doubt, but for the academy and for a lot of critics (national and international) it did not ascend to the level of a masterpiece that everybode believes it to be. Wall-E was a very good movie, as was Rattatouille, which won best animated film last year. Pixar makes the best hollywood animations nowadays and get rewarded for it year for year. The Dark Knight was the best superhero movie in a long time (arguably even of all time)and it got nominated for 8 oscars. 8!!! thus, it ranks third on the list of most nominated films, sharing that place with milk.
Why do people want categories formerly perceived as not-serious or purely entertaining to not only be awarded, by rise up into the highest categories?
The Return of the King won 11 oscars, and nobody (!) complained about the academy not awarding popular movies then, and that was five years ago. The Departed won (I disagreed but that doesnt matter) and the public was happy.
Now, only because a movie that won more than 500 million, people are starting to accuse the academy of not liking popular films.
firstly, they don’t have to. the filmmakers are getting the awards, not you and your viewing pleasures. the academy awards the movies it thinks are best.
secondly, it does sometimes award popular movies, which has been proven in the past.
is it because last year no country for old men got the oscar and nobody had even heard of it? well, it was the right decision. would people have preferred spiderman 3? probably. but, honestly, who cares?
the oscars are hollywood’s most prestigious awards for a reason: they are granted by an academy of filmmakers that evaluate the movie differently than the general public.
but it does sound as if i was on a pro-oscar campaign, whereas i have to agree with you on a lot of points:
The Wrestler got snubbed - director. movie. screenplay. song.
especially song. it was my favorite movie of the year and this was just depressing…
Let the right one in should have nominated.
The voting process is screwed up.
The Reader is terrible, pretentious oscar bait, well deserving the cinematography and acting noms though.
benicio del toro got snubbed.
finally i just have to disagree with you on Frost/Nixon, which is an excellent movie and deserved almost every nomination it got. I probably would have picked other ones, but nevertheless it was a good choice. howards direction was excellent, the movie wasgripping and definetely NOT boring!
I just hope for Slumdog Millionaire/Benjamin Button (by the way, both pretty popular movies, if you wish, compared to there will be blood or no country…)
Thank you.
I’m glad I’m not the only one outraged that WALL·E didn’t get a nomination for best picture. I really wish the Academy hadn’t created the “Best Animated Feature” category. It really does an injustice to the medium as a whole.
I’m sorry, but I disagree
I’m sorry, but I disagree with you in many of your snub picks. I see you have chosen your favourites for the year (and the ones you dislike), and you determined whether the academy is right or wrong in its nominations based on your choices.
I have to disagree about The Reader which I think is a very good movie. I will also have to disagree about The Dark Knight being voted for best picture.
I believe the academy awards for achievements done in making a movie. The Dark Knight was a good movie and it was nominated for most of its achievements (cinematography, editing, sound, visual effects, etc…). But I don’t see it as a great achievement in the history of cinema. At least not as great as the five nominees.
best song? not the wrestler anyway...
no offense, but “the wrestler,” the song that is, is kinda boring. The acoustic style, the metaphors, the gravelly grit….it’s all been done and it tries too hard for that oscar. I frankly would have headed straight for the bathroom if I had to see this performed because I heard it enough already in the previews. Its an ok song that is fitting for the movie, but seriously… it won a golden globe and springsteen has an oscar anyway.
I’m gonna go ahead and
I’m gonna go ahead and agree with the fellow that posted above me. I won’t trouble myself for his name…but he was the guy with the big long section. There are people that are angry about WallE being snubbed, and about the Dark Knight being Snubbed.
I know the Academy is always blamed for not picking the “popular” films and instead going for the one that is deemed “artistic” or relatively high brow to make them seem more intelligent.
This is an illusion folks. There is a reason why they pick those films, and it is because it is what THEY perceive are the best films of the year! It is the Academy’s awards, and no one else’s. If you want to see the Best Film nominations be “Dark Knight” “Iron Man” and “Indie Jones IV” then watch the people’s choice awards and get your fill. Don’t forget a coloring book. You may want something to keep you busy during the commercials.
Also, the nominations for Best Film also happened to be my favorite films of the year (although if it were up to me, I would have slammed the Wrestler into Frost/Nixons place…although Frost/Nixon was also a DAMN good picture)
Best picture
The Batman movie was a fantastic thoroughly engaging movie with a fantastic screenplay. I completely agree with the article that the voters must be out of their minds. Just because it is a superhero movie it wasn’t fair to be eliminated.When Slumdog could be nominated with a simple rags to richs theme that has been seen many a time before, how can a complex storyline could be ignored.Shame that Chris Nolan has been ignored , i’m just furious.James Franco deserved a Best supp nod too.Songs in slumdog are overrated and probably flicked from some english songwriter, i know i’m from India we specialise in plaigrism.
The worst snub
BY FAR the most heartbreaking omission was the exclusion of Kristin Scott Thomas for “I’ve Loved You So Long”; the best work of her career.