The Semi-Annual Oscar Rant

For starters, it should be pointed out that I am/was one of the people who thought that expanding the field to nominated films for Best Picture Oscar to ten was a good idea.

Perhaps this was because I felt that one of the great talented directors of my generation Wes Anderson had been snubbed once too often. Well, Anderson made yet another solid film this year in "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" but even with an expanded field, it was still snubbed! The film is nominated for Best Animated Feature, but the odds of it upsetting "Up" are about the same as North Carolina Central University, the 'other school' in Durham, NC, winning the NCAA tournament!

But, my main beef with the Academy Awards is that "The Blind Side," a film which appears to be nothing more than a two hour "ABC Afterschool Special" actually landed a nomination for Best Picture! One could say I am being very pre-judgmental because I haven't seen the film myself, but I thought the 30-second trailer was painful enough! Somehow, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Sandra Bullock, who has done some fairly good acting here and there given her limited range, wins the coveted Oscar over Carey Mulligan who gave a wonderful performance in "An Education."

This is also the first year that my choice for best film of the year ("Up in the Air") and worst film of the year ("Avatar") have both been nominated for Best Picture. I can't say enough negative things about "Avatar" which is somehow an even more annoying over-the-top boring spectacle than director James Cameron's (pictured) previous epic box office champ/Oscar winner "Titanic." Of course, "Avatar" will win Best Picture which is almost enough to make me think I would vote for "The Hurt Locker" by Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow even though it ranks eighth on my Ten Best List. "Up in the Air," on the other hand, is a truly wonderful film in every regard. At least, it got nominated.

I also disapprove of the Oscar nomination for "District Nine," my second least favorite film of 2009. Like "Avatar," it's a completely fake film with no interesting characters which moves at an agonizing slow pace. The only impressive thing about either film seems to be their special effects, but if looks alone were a criteria for selecting a nomination then one should nominate Sandra Bullock for Best Actress (oh wait, they did that, didn't they?!).

I must profess that there were some pleasant surprises from the Oscar nominations this year. "An Education," "A Serious Man," "Up in the Air," "Inglorious Basterds" and "The Hurt Locker" are deserving of Oscar nominations even though I personally had qualms with the final act of Quentin Tarantino's film ('Basterds).

Stanley Tucci ("The Lovely Bones"), Matt Damon ("Invictus") and Christopher Waltz ("Basterds") are terrific nomination choices in the Best Supporting Actor category. The same can be said for the cast of "Up in Air." George Clooney was nominated for Best Actor and his co-stars Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick were nominated for Best Supporting Actress. I was also delighted to see Jeff Bridges get a Best Actor nomination even though I have yet to see his film "Crazy Heart." And, with a few major exceptions, I was pleased with the Best Director and screenwriting nominations as well as many of the technical categories.

And, lastly it was great to see the great Austrian director Michael Haneke's film "The White Ribbon" get nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film.

Of course, there's no way in expletive H-E-DoubleL that the film will actually win what many of us film fans consider to be the category with the most dubious history (at least in recent years). But, there is always a chance that your horse can win the Kentucky Derby, and I suppose that is the reason why we always watch the Oscars. But, this year, I might actually turn off the set before the Best Picture Oscar is announced.