Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo and their film all got Oscar nominations.
Yes and no. While The Artist, a silent film set in the 1920s, claimed more plaudits Tuesday, including nominations for best picture, director, actor and supporting actress, just nine films made the final cut for best picture, compared to 10 the previous two years. Analysts say the nominations, which went largely as expected, demonstrated that the throwback film has lost no momentum in the past two months, and that the 2011 slate was anemic, if varied. The nominated movies include a black-and-white film (The Artist), a 3-D family movie (Martin Scorsese’s Hugo) and a civil rights drama (The Help). Still, out of the 598 commercial movies to hit theaters last year, only nine made the top tier, due in part to a rule change. The academy adopted a labyrinthine voting system last year that allows for five to 10 best-picture nominees — but eliminates any movie that does not collect at least 5% of the first-place votes on the nominations ballot. Several films, including The Artist,George Clooney’s drama The Descendants and Hugo, have won a raft of smaller awards and were considered shoo-ins for the best-picture race. Others were on the bubble. Among Tuesday’s picture snubs: the raunchy female comedy Bridesmaids and J. Edgar, the biopic of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Stars were snubbed, as well: Ryan Gosling and Albert Brooks were overlooked for Drive, as were Charlize Theron for Young Adult and Leonardo DiCaprio for J. Edgar. No one expected a bad morning for The Artist, which took the Golden Globe for best comedy or musical and top honors at the Producers Guild Awards Saturday night. Steve Pond, analyst for awards site Thewrap.com, says that the Academy Awards pose the last opportunity for any film to upset The Artist. Most Oscar seasons see a rivalry, at least in the media. Last year it was eventual winner The King’s Speech vs. The Social Network. In 2010, The Hurt Locker defeated Avatar. But after producers named The Artist best picture Saturday night, “it’s all but inevitable that Oscar voters will do the same,” he suggests. The last obstacle, he says, could be Saturday’s Directors Guild of America Awards, where The Artist‘s Michel Hazanavicius faces Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), David Fincher (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), Alexander Payne (The Descendants) and Scorsese (Hugo). Should Payne or Scorsese win, Pond says, it “could create a clear No. 2, an alternative to The Artist for voters to rally around.” Don’t hold your breath, says Tom O’Neil, author of Movie Awards and head of awards site Goldderby.com. The Artist “is such a novelty and chestnut tribute to classic Hollywood, nothing has been able to slow it down yet,” he says. Except perhaps moviegoers, who have forked over a middling $12 million-plus so far (though best-picture nominees typically see a box-office bump). Scott Mantz, awards analyst for Access Hollywood, says that The Artist‘s so-so commercial appeal reflects a larger ennui among moviegoers — and perhaps the academy. Mantz, who has culled a top-10 list since 1998, says he understands the academy’s truncated best-picture list. “I love movies, and I see a lot of them,” he says. “But even I had trouble coming up with 10 really good ones. It just wasn’t that strong a year.”
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