Academy Award snubs

The Academy Award nominations were announced a couple of weeks ago. It's not that I haven't noticed, I've just been so wrapped up in the Arizona Cardinals' run to the Super Bowl that I haven't had a chance to blog about it. Like most years when the nominations have been announced, I haven't yet seen most of the nominated films. And now, since I've started my nation-wide boycott of movie theaters, I won't be seeing most of the films until they come out on DVD, well after the Academy Awards are decided.

Therefore, today's post is not so much about Academy Award snubs from this year's list of nominations, but all-time snubs. Specifically, I'm talking about films and performances that were snubbed from receiving a nomination, not those that were nominated and failed to win. In my opinion, the nomination is good enough, and the lack of a nomination in the examples I will give below are pretty much incomprehensible. So, in no particular order, here are my all-time Academy Award nomination snubs:


1. Humphrey Bogart---"Treasure of the Sierra Madre", 1948

No one can deny what a great actor Bogart was, even now, 50 years after his death. His classic films are still classics, and can be found regularly on Turner Movie Classics, as they should be. So why in the world was he snubbed for his all-time greatest performance? Was it because it was so atypical for him and nothing like any other role he played? Bogie's performance as Fred C. Dobbs, the down-and-out drifter in Mexico who finds gold with his two partners, and loses his mind, and later his life, in the process, is simply stupendous. In the beginning of the film, he is a likeable loser, someone down on his luck, but not a bad person at all. Finding and mining the gold transforms him into a paranoid, greedy, dangerous psychopath, a process that happens gradually. Bogie is superb in making that transition appear natural and believeable. His monologues about conscience after he shoots his buddy, Curtin, are mesemerizing. It's one of the few times that you can watch a Bogart film, and believe it's not Bogie up there on the screen, it's actually Fred C. Dobbs. He deserved an Academy Award for his performance (he had only been nominated one time, for "Casablanca", at that point in his career), and the fact that he didn't even get nominated was criminal.

2. James Cagney---"White Heat", 1949

Cagney's performances came basically in two categories; the snarling gangster with the moves of a ballet dancer ("Angels with Dirty Faces", "The Roaring Twenties", "The Public Enemy", to name just a few) or the Irish actor/song and dance man ("Yankee Doodle Dandy", being the best example). "White Heat" was a variation of the snarling gangster genre. Cagney played Cody Jarrett, a snarling gangster with deep psychological problems, an Oedipus complex of monumental proportions, suffering from debilitating migraine headaches and a cheating, untrustworthy wife. Through it all, Cagney is simply tremendous. Two scenes stand out above the rest. The first shows Cagney in prison, learning that his mother has been murdered, and slowly boiling over, eventually going beserk in reaction, punching out fellow inmates and prison guards alike as he is finally subdued and carried off to the prison hospital. The second standout scene is the towering finale, as Cagney is on top of a gigantic oil tank, surrounded by dozens of other oil tanks, as the law is closing in on him. Watch Cagney deliver his final line, "Made it, Ma, top of the world!!", as only he could, and you will understand perfection in film acting. Inexplicably, Cagney was not nominated for this magnificent performance.

3. Paul Giamatti---"Sideways", 2004

Probably no contemporary actor in Hollywood today is as underrated and consistently snubbed as Paul Giamatti. Is it because he's not a hunky, traditionally-handsome leading man? It's baffling. Giamatti's performance as Miles, the English teacher/would-be author and wine conoisseur is entrancing. Giamatti is both likeable and detestable as he plays a flawed, but basically good, man trying to make something of himself. His relationships with both his buddy, Jack, and the waitress he is attracted to, Maya, are complex and anything but smooth and Giamatti is superb in his scenes with them. Giamatti also nails the scenes where is supposed to be drunk, not as simple a feat as it may seem. He inhabits the role of Miles, and he is eminently watchable. I think it's one of the best performances of the last decade, and yet, no nomination.

4. Samuel L. Jackson---"Jungle Fever", 1991

One of these days, Samuel L. Jackson will win an Academy Award. How can he not? The guy is simply a tremendous, towering, powerful actor. In a film full of magnificent performances, his was the standout in "Pulp Fiction". He received a nomination for that film, but for some reason he was overlooked for "Jungle Fever", the performance that put him on the map. Jackson plays Gator, the crack addict brother of Wesley Snipes in Spike Lee's powerful drama. His performance is unbelieveable and heartbreaking. He should have been nominated for a supporting Oscar (as should Halle Berry, unrecognizable as his equally crack-addicted girlfriend).

5. "Do the Right Thing", 1989

How in the world did this movie not get nominated for Best Picture? Spike Lee's powerful depiction of a blistering hot summer day in a racially charged Brooklyn neighborhood is one of the most intelligent, searing indictments of race relations ever put on film. The performances are superb, the screenplay is poignant, and the final film is mesmerizing. Lee was robbed.

6. "Some Like it Hot", 1959

Today, Billy Wilder's comic masterpiece is universally regarded as one of the great comedies of all time. It is timeless, as funny now as it was fifty years ago (Good Lord, is this movie really 50 years old??!!). Fabulous performances by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in drag, George Raft and Pat O'Brien as the scary old gangster and the old cop chasing him, and a simply luminous, legendary performance by Marilyn Monroe make this a timely classic. It should have been nominated for Best Picture.

7. "Singin' in the Rain", 1952

Most people regard "Singin' in the Rain" as the best movie musical of all time. The singing and dancing is great (Donald O'Connor's "Make em Laugh" number is simply amazing), the screenplay is witty and funny, and the film entertainingly tells the story of the time when Hollywood transitioned from silent films to talkies. Gene Kelly is a wonder to behold in this movie, and his "Singin' in the Rain" number is one of the greatest scenes in all of Hollywood history. No nomination for Best Picture, are you kidding me?

8. Orson Welles---"Touch of Evil", 1959

I've written about this film before on this blog (See Charlton Heston, RIP), and there's no need to go into all of it again. Simply put, Welles' performance as crooked cop Hank Quinlan is one of the all-time great performances in one of the all-time great films of cinema. Of course, by the time this film was made, Welles was a pariah and outcast of Hollywood, so it's not surprising that he wasn't nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. It's still highway robbery.

9. "The Dark Knight", 2009

How in the name of sport do you explain this one, oh great Academy of Arts and Sciences? Is it because the film is a comic book movie, or a summer blockbuster, or the second-highest grossing film in history? None of that should matter. "The Dark Knight" is a brilliant movie, with one of the greatest performances of all time (Heath Ledger is a lock to win the Oscar as the Joker), an intelligent story, and a tremendous production. Its exclusion from the list of Best Picture nominees is inexplicable.

10. Bruce Springsteen, "The Wrestler", Best Song, 2009

Let's see, Bruce wins the Golden Globe for this great song, it is the final coda of his wonderful new CD, "Working on a Dream", he is fresh off a terrific performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, and he is about to embark on a world-wide tour. Sure, I know, let's snub him for an Academy Award nomination. Ridiculous.


Well, there you have it, my top ten list, if you will. I'm sure I've left some horrific snubs out, so hopefully this post will generate some comments and spark my memory of Academy Award terrible mistakes and omissions. Isn't this more fun than watching the Pittsburgh Steelers win another Super Bowl?