Oscar Nomination Snubs

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced this year's Oscar nominations, and there will be many great races for the prestigious film award in various categories, but many worthy names and titles were left out. Hundreds of movies are released each year with countless actors and production staff but only a limited number of Academy Award slots, so snubs are part of the game. It doesn't make it any less annoying when those who are deserving of recognition are ignored, so we rightfully raise our voices to draw some attention to them.

First and foremost, I still oppose the expansion of the Best Picture category. They had added more chances for more movies to compete, under the explanation that it would give more popular flicks that deserved accolades the opportunity to be in the running for the big prize (and to arguably draw higher TV ratings by audiences rooting for blockbuster films to win it all). They changed the rule again -- instead of 10 nominations (versus the original five), the Academy deemed that "between five and ten" titles could be chosen.  So this year they nominated 9 movies for Best Motion Picture.  Would it have killed them to add Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two to that list?

As with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter saga was an amazing cinematic achievement, and the final chapter received critical praise in addition to box office success. If not the greatest film of the year, it should have at least received a nomination as one of the top ten best movies of 2011. (My wife disagrees with me -- she said tonight during dinner that "it was a good movie, but not Oscar worthy.")  If it didn't live up to the high standards of the Academy for whatever reason, how about a nod for some of the actors, especially Alan Rickman who was outstanding as Professor Severus Snape?

If we're talking about actors, the biggest snub has to be towards Michael Fassbender.  He was terrific as Magneto in the under-rated X-Men: First Class (which deserved a Special Effects nomination if nothing else), but also generated rave reviews in Shame. Not nominating him for his portrayal of the sex addict Brandon Sullivan was, well, shameful.

When will Andy Serkis be nominated for some of his incredible work bringing motion-captured computer-generated characters to life, which he did once again as Caesar the intelligent simian in Rise of the Planet of the Apes?  I also think Kenneth Branaugh did an amazing job directing Thor; and J.J. Abrams' Super 8 merited some Oscar love as well. All of those were science fiction and fantasy films, which always face an uphill battle getting the Academy to take them seriously. Still, there were some great stories told in the genre, such as in Source Code and In Time, that I think should have earned some screenwriting praise.

Don't get me started about The Forgiveness of Blood, which was robbed in so many ways from even being considered for a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Hopefully people will still hunt for it and see it on the big screen, judging for themselves how great it is.

Everyone has an opinion, so there are obviously many others. Which ones do you think were unjustly ignored?