The Academy Award nominations were announced this past week, and the nominations were horrible. What was the Academy thinking? If I didn’t know any better, I would say they did exactly what the world has accused them of for decades, and they did it just to be spiteful.
They failed to nominate Tom Hanks for “Captain Phillips,” and “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” was snubbed altogether, including a best actress nod for Oprah Winfrey. Sometimes when the nominations go against the grain, they tend to shut out everybody who should have mattered in favor of some real out-there ideas, and this time they went for broke, nominating best actors and actresses for films which were almost all late-year releases, such as “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “American Hustle.” These films have not had enough time to generate any true legacy in terms of classic film contention or lasting box office figures. It makes the whole Oscar system look like a “good old boys” network, which it truly is not.
If the nominated films are not audience oriented, the show itself will see few viewers, no matter what funny costume they put on the host or who sings the song nominees. Maybe the voters got caught short because they didn’t have enough time to shop for Christmas, either, and they put their ballots aside until the last minute. At any rate, I think “Butler” should have been nominated for Best Picture and should have won. I’m not staying up late to see any of the films nominated, because I have seen none of them. I did, however, see “Butler.” So much for America’s taste in movies: it was the most talked about film of 2013, but got no love from Oscar. So much for pressing my movie-loving buttons.
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