Oscar Nominations 2012: Still Too Many Films
The 2012 Oscar nominations were announced this week with The Artist leading a pack of nine Best Picture nominees. Although the Academy ushered in a new era of Oscar contenders two years ago when the Best Picture nominees were expanded from five to ten films, nine were nominated in 2012. And despite the drop by one this year, it still feels like too many nominees.
The films nominated for Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards are: The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and War Horse.
Call me crazy, but it’s hard to take the Oscars seriously anymore. And with nine films in the running (or ten, whatever the “official” total is supposed to be), it’s even harder to write a “who got snubbed” piece without laughing halfway through and dragging it to the recycle bin. I mean, seriously. With nine films up for a Best Picture Oscar, you can still make the case that no one got snubbed!
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Four directors were snubbed since only five were nominated in the Directing category yet nine films were nominated for Best Picture. Am I the only one who sees the humor in that? And if a film gets snubbed after nine others were nominated for an Oscar ahead of it, what does that really mean? For one, no “nominated for Best Picture” sticker on the Blu-ray.
But this isn’t about the merits of each film nominated for Best Picture. It’s not about whether more directors deserve to be nominated either. It’s about the mentality of joining arms like the Whos in Whoville and nominating as many films as possible. Change is inevitable and good, especially when there’s a purpose, but what was wrong with five nominees? There’s something desperate about the move that I can’t quite put my finger on. What’s interesting is that for 2012, despite the all-inclusive happy Whoville nature of the Best Picture category, the Academy still looks like the Grinch who snubbed Drive. Wait a second, that’s a real Oscar snub!
Give everyone a “best effort” ribbon or “most sportsmanlike” trophy and be done with it already!
How do you feel about the amount of Oscar nominees?
