The Real Best Movie of the Year Got Hosed

The Oscar nominations were announced today, and it seems that just about every other year these awards are a joke. Last year they got the big award (Best Picture) right in my mind. They chose Crash, and well they should have. This year, a mockery has been made of the awards. As soon as the nominations were announced, everyone was saying Dreamgirls got snubbed for Best Picture by not being nominated. You want to know what really got snubbed? Blood Diamond.

Without a doubt, that is the Best Picture this year in my mind. The Academy did do a pretty good job of picking the Best Picture nominees, and I have to admit that I have only seen one film of the five. That film being The Departed, which I enjoyed very much. But I don't think it was a better movie than Blood Diamond, so the Academy could ax that and be okay in my eyes.

But my real beef is with Letters from Iwo Jima. I didn't see the movie, but it seems that when the Academy is in a fix they just nominate something from director Clint Eastwood. And I don't really see why. Plus I don't think he should get a shot because he put out two movies on the same subject. Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers are about the same thing, the Battle of Iwo Jima. I mean, c'mon. Just cause one is about the six men who raised the US flag there and the other is told through the eyes of the Japanese doesn't mean that they are not about the same thing. They are, and they should have been marketed that way. If so, I would be fine with the two (like Kill Bill Volumes 1&2).

Side note: I applaud the Academy for nominating the film Borat for best adapated screenplay. Too often it seems that the Academy brushes off films because of the genre they are in. Comedies and action films tend to get dismissed no matter how good they are, I'm glad to see that is changing a little bit.