I consider myself a peaceful person. I believe war, capital punishment, and torture are all wrong...however, certain members of the Academy, and even certain whole branches, need to have horrible things happen to them. I mean really, really horrible things.
I always experience a certain amount of pain every year with the Oscar nominations, but this year might be the worst. How could it have gone so spectacularly wrong? I like surprises as much as the next person, but they should be
pleasant surprises! AMOUR replacing LES MISERABLES in the Director branch was a pleasant surprise I was looking forward to. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (one of my favorite films of the year) replacing ARGO and ZERO DARK THIRTY is worthy of something...well, like you would see happening in ARGO or ZERO DARK THIRTY.
I am very happy for Emmanuelle Riva and Quvenzhané Wallis, but either was supposed to replace Naomi Watts not Marion Cotillard.
I am really sad Ann Dowd's self-campaigning did not work out. Not only is it terrible she spent all that money, but the Academy fucked up by not recognizing her performance.
There were two great Supporting Actor performances in DJANGO UNCHAINED, and neither one of them was Christoph Waltz.
LINCOLN leads the nominations, but is not nominated in a category it deserves to win: Make-up.
ZERO DARK THIRTY not being nominated for Cinematography and Sound Mixing.
SKYFALL receiving more nominations than any other James Bond film, but not being nominated for Editing.
I will say I get bragging rights for know they would nominate MIRROR MIRROR for Costumes. Maybe other folks around here had on their predictions, but I did not notice. When I saw Colleen Atwood had done the costumes for SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN I had a suspicion she might be nominated.
There is so much more I want to say, but I think I need to go look at videos of adorable puppies right now to keep from punching my computer screen.
"When it comes to the subject of torture, I trust a woman who was married to James Cameron for three years."
-- Amy Poehler in praise of Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow