Oscar, You Foolish Little Man

Nominations for the 77th Academy Awards were announced at 5:30 PST this morning, with The Aviator unsurprisingly leading the pack with 11 nods, including Best Picture, more than any other film this year. Also nominated for Best Picture were Finding Neverland and Million Dollar Baby, the latter of which most of America hasn't seen and hadn't even heard of until Christmas. Also up are Sideways and Ray, Sideways being the better of the two but maybe reeling a little from Ray's hot publicity wave and Golden Globe wins, which look to set up Jamie Foxx as the new Will Smith.

But the nominees for Best Actor are truly disappointing. Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio were locks for the nod, which I support, and am also pleasantly surprised to see Don Cheadle be recognized for Hotel Rwanda, another film unknown by large quantities of red-staters and normal people alike. Jamie Foxx's nomination, although no surprise by now, is still more sizzle than steak. But nominating Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby is unfair to Paul Giamatti, the heart and broken soul of Sideways. Giamatti gave a fantastic performance as oenophile and struggling writer Miles, who must cope with divorce and relearn what it means to be alive. Unfortunately, in the eyes of Oscar and many people, Giamatti is just this year's John C. Reilly: a gifted, diverse actor, given 15 minutes in the mainstream before being allowed to return to work. Most people probably couldn't match Giamatti's name and face, let alone realize that this is the guy who brought us the amazing and undervalued American Splendor (2003). The same newcomers talking sagely two years ago about Reilly's supporting role in Chicago (2002) probably didn't even recognize him in The Aviator as Noah Dietrich, the man helping Howard Hughes find the money to finance his dreams. So now Giamatti must walk the same road through the brief glare of transient popularity before he can go back to work and keep making great movies.

I wish I could say I was surprised at Jim Carrey's absence from this morning's list, but I'm not. He's comedy's Tom Cruise, moving slowly over the years from tedious genre exercises to better films and amazing performances (see Cruise in Magnolia for further proof). Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the latest heartfelt odyssey of love and loss from the warped mind and brilliant pen of Charlie Kaufman, brought us Carrey as we'd never seen him: honest, nervous, quiet. Human. It's a shame he was overlooked.

Also absent from all but the technical categories and Best Animated Feature Film was The Incredibles, presumably ignored because it's a lock to win Best Animated Feature Film (if Shrek 2 takes home the Oscar I'm calling in a bomb threat), and also because even great animated films aren't considered on the same level as regular ones.

I'd be a lot more upset if all this was life or death, but it's not. So while I mourn the absence of films and actors I consider worthy of recognition, I take comfort in the knowledge that no amount of statues or undue adulation can make me pick Jamie Foxx over Paul Giamatti, or The Lord of the Rings over Mystic River and Lost in Translation. Sadly, in a few more years I might be used to this kind of disappointment. I hope not.