2013 Oscars snub great films, nominate predictable films

The Oscar nominations are in, and if I had been trying to create a caricature of what the Oscars would honor and further ensure that no one in America will care about my awards or watch my awards show. . .well, I would’ve named The Artist the best picture of 2011. And I would’ve made the following nominations:

Best Motion Picture

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Amour
Django Unchained
Argo

Achievement in Directing

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Michael Haneke, Amour
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Denzel Washington, Flight
Hugh Jackman, Les Misérables
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Alan Arkin, Argo
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Amy Adams, The Master

Best Animated Feature Film

Frankenweenie
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It Ralph
ParaNorman
Brave

Original Screenplay

Flight, John Gatins
Zero Dark Thirty, Mark Boal
Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino
Amour, Michael Haneke
Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola

Adapted Screenplay

Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
Argo, Chris Terrio
Lincoln, Tony Kushner
Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell
Life of Pi, David Magee

Best Foreign-Language Film

Amour (Austria)
No (Chile)
War Witch (Canada)
A Royal Affair (Den)
Kontiki (Norway)

Original Score

Anna Karenina, Dario Marianelli
Argo, Alexandre Desplat
Life of Pi, Mychael Danna
Lincoln, John Williams
Skyfall, Thomas Newman

Original Song

“Before My Time,” J. Ralph; Chasing Ice
“Pi’s Lullaby,” Mychael Danna & Bombay Jayashri; Life of Pi
“Suddenly,” Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boulil; Les Misérables
“Everybody Needs a Best Friend,” Walter Murphy & Seth McFarlane; Ted
“Skyfall,” Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth; Skyfall

Achievement in Production Direction

Anna Karenina
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln

Achievement in Cinematography

Anna Karenina, Seamus McGarvey
Django Unchained, Robert Richardson
Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda
Lincoln, Janusz Kaminski
Skyfall, Roger Deakins

Achievement in Costume Design

Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran
Les Misérables, Paco Delgado
Lincoln, Joanna Johnston
Mirror Mirror, Eiko Ishioka
Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood

Best Documentary Feature

5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for a Sugar Man

Best Documentary Short Subject

Inocente
Kings Point
Mondays at Racine
Open Heart
Redemption

Achievement in Film Editing

Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln,
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Achievement in Makeup & Hairstyling

Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables

Best Animated Short Film

Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head Over Heels
Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”
Paperman

Best Live-Action Short Film

Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death of a Shadow
Henry

Achievement in Sound Editing

Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty

Achievement in Sound Mixing

Argo
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

Achievement in Visual Effects

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Marvel’s The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman

Don’t get me wrong. Most of these are incredibly deserved. Lincoln deserves every Oscar nomination it received. But I don’t know on what planet you nominate David O. Russell for Best Director this year and not Kathryn Bigelow. I’ve been incredibly harsh on Zero Dark Thirty, don’t get me wrong. But her film was so intense, she deserves to at least be nominated… so she can gracefully lose to Steven Spielberg.

And where is The Avengers? 1 nomination for visual effects. Where is Skyfall? Relegated to a handful of technical Oscars and Best Original Song (which it will likely win, deservedly so). Ted also gets one nomination for best original song, as does the short Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare (awesome!). The Hobbit‘s groundbreaking 48 fps? 3 nominations. Moonrise Kingdom? 1 nomination, for best original screenplay.

WHERE THE HELL IS LOOPER?!?! ZERO NOMINATIONS. ZERO. Mirror, Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman got nominations. Anna Karenina, a snoozefest that I really, really, REALLY wanted to love (based on my favorite book of all time) got 4 nominations. And zero for Looper. Zero for Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

And while Lincoln leads the pack with 12 nominations apiece, how in the world is Life of Pi right behind them with 11? While I can concede best cinematography and maybe even Best Director (but not when Bigelow, or Tarantino or even Ben Affleck, aren’t nominated), that is ridiculous.

So, great job, Oscars. Great job showing why you are making yourself more and more irrelevant every year.

What deserves its nominations, what doesn’t? What got snubbed?