Oscar 2012: Surveying the Wreckage
By Tom Houseman
January 25, 2012
Best Film Editing: (5/5) Seriously, though, I know EVERYTHING!
Best Makeup: (2/3) This is my most frustrating miss, because I had it right and I second-guessed myself at the last second. The third spot here was wide open, and any of the films on the short list could have gotten it.
Best Sound Mixing: (3/5) At first I was kicking myself for not trusting the CAS as a precursor more, but when looking at their nominees I would have done worse using their picks as a guide than with my random guesses. The only two that hit both the CAS and the Oscars were Hugo and Moneyball. I suppose we can take from this that small films can be a hit with the Sound Mixers, and that they will take any chance they can get to nominate Greg P. Russell (Transformers 3) just so they cannot give him the Oscar. This will be that guy's 15th nomination without ever winning.
Best Sound Editing: (1/5) This is the place where I should have looked to the guilds as a guide. Of the MPSE's eight Sound Effects Editing nominees, four of them showed up here, with only Hugo, the only film that I correctly predicted, showing up without a guild nomination.
Best Visual Effects: (4/5) I feel no shame in only getting four out of five here. My gut told me that The Tree of Life would get ignored here, but that same gut was telling me to pick Captain America instead, so I have no qualms about how this turned out.
Best Original Score: (3/5) Never ever ever pick against John Williams. This is the third time in the last decade that Williams has been nominated twice in the same year. Beyond that, I guess Trent Reznor still isn't part of the official Academy composers club, as he and partner Atticus Ross were overlooked in favor of Alberto Iglesias for his work on Tinker Tailor.
Best Original Song: (0/2) I try so hard to defend this category from haters, but this year is just embarrassing. First of all, only two nominees? Really? Secondly, what random nominations. I'm impressed that they picked the best Muppets song, but that song from Rio? Clearly the rule that songs have to be seen over the footage they are played over in their film hurt a lot of contenders, especially The Help and Albert Nobbs. How they were able to ignore Star Spangled Man from Captain America, however, is beyond me.
Best Animated Film (2/5)
Critics and the HFPA have gotten over their distrust of motion capture animation, but obviously the AMPAS voters haven't, which explains Tintin's absence. Voters also took this opportunity to send a message to Pixar that they won't nominate mediocre movies, as Cars 2 is the first Pixar film in the history of this category to not get nominated. Instead the voters picked two smaller foreign films, the very deserving Chico & Rita and the I haven't seen it A Cat in Paris. They like to keep us on our toes, those animators.
Best Documentary Feature: (2/5)
Remember how upset everyone was with the Documentary voters, saying that the only great 2011 documentary they didn't snub was Project Nim? Well, consider this a giant up yours from voters to critics, as Project Nim got snubbed too. I can't pretend to explain the picks of these voters, as I've only seen one of them, so I'll just say I'm glad I got as many right as I did.
Best Foreign Language Film: (3/5) I already told you that beyond A Separation I was just taking semi-educated shots in the dark, and hey, two of those shots hit something. Let's just hope that if Iran's film beats Israel's for the award, it doesn't ignite World War III. Also, if that does happen, then unlike Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close's Best Picture nomination, I can totally say I called it.
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