No Snub, No Surprise

The talking heads had a hard time this morning when the Oscar nominations were announced. After the names were read the anchors turned to their pundits and asked what the surprises were and who was snubbed. They had little to say because there was little wrong with the list.

For a year that was mostly bereft of good films until the last few months, there is some fine cinema recognized. All the Best Picture nominees are worthy, but I would have put Walk the Line in that group instead of Capote. How do you have a Best Actor and Actress but aren't a nominee for Best Picture? But its not like its been ignored, so no harm done.

Again, I was happy to see the recognition of Crash, which I think has the best chance of giving Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain a run for Best Picture, but the odds are not good. In fact the odds makers in Vegas agree with my picks from yesterday (see below), so I'm going to stand by them

As for the nominations, I would have given a Best Supporting nod to Don Cheadle for Crash instead of for William Hurt's scene-chewing in A History of Violence and considered Eric Bana in Munich and Ralph Fiennes in The Constant Gardner for Best Actor recognition, but I don't see anyone I would take off the current list.

Of course, that’s the kind of year it has been -- there are more than enough films to make picking a Top 10, let alone a Top 5 a difficult choice.