Oscar Opinion

So the Oscar nominations were announced. I must be doing too much reading up about them in the weeks leading up to Jan. 30, because there wasn't one surprise for me. It was all so predictable and ho-hum, and this is for the second year in a row in which I've been underwhelmed. I miss having a left-field nomination, like Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny or Rosie Perez for Fearless. I mean, wouldn't it have been great if, say, Jane Lynch got nominated for stealing every scene in which she appears in 40-Year Old Virgin, the funniest film in years?

All in all, I guess I'm okay with all the Brokeback nominations, since it - along with Capote - were the two best films I've seen this year. Alas, though, I haven't seen Walk the Line, Munich, or Good Night, and Good Luck, so I'm not a well-studied observer just yet. I will be by March 5. Speaking of which, the Oscar telecast will be worth it just to watch "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" be performed live. It's so cool that got nominated.

The nomination of Crash is pretty suspect, as The Squid and the Whale (and talk about Jeff Daniels for overlooked in his performance...) was a much better film. I guess I just don't think Crash had all that interesting of things to say about race relations. I think about race relations all the time, so maybe that's why. I also would have been happy with the fascinating, disturbing Grizzly Man somewhere on the nominee list. And, of course, Boys of Baraka, even though I haven't seen it.