Oscar Nominee Analysis: Best Picture

To help myself stay sane, instead of doing EVERYTHING right here and right now, I'm going to break down each category day-by-day, beginning with the biggest award of the Oscars, Best Picture.

Best Picture

The Artist

The Descendants

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

The Tree of Life

War Horse

For the most part, the Academy did pretty well here. For the first time in history, there are nine films nomination for Best Picture; and out of the nine, there is only one I didn’t fully expect: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Now, how could a film like this be nominated? Three reasons: 1) Scott Rudin is one of the most well known, and best liked movie producers in the business; 2) Stephen Daldry is loved by the Academy; 3) Screenwriter Eric Roth, who has brought to life films such as Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. What would I do to fix this? Take out Extremely Loud, include either Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Tinker Tailor, or Drive, and that would be my remedy. I know War Horse is getting a lot of heat for being nominated, but it was a pretty good movie so I won’t argue against it, and I feel the same way with The Help. I will say, it was a pleasent surprise to see The Tree of Life here. Many others, including myself, could not have predicted it being there, but this may be due to the fact that the Academy loves Malick. It also would have been nice to see love for what's being hailed by critics as the best film of the year, A Separation, but that would be asking too much of the Academy to give a foreign language film a Best Picture nom. A nice surprise would have been Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 gathering a nomination, but the Academy wouldn't do that.

Films I Haven't Seen: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close; Moneyball

Rottentomatoes Ratings: 
The Artist: 97%
Moneyball: 95%
Hugo: 94%
Midnight in Paris:93%
The Descendants: 89%
The Tree of Life: 84%
War Horse: 77%
The Help: 76%
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: 47%

Snubs:
A Separation: 99%
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2: 96%
Drive: 93%
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: 87%
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: 84%