Four Movies Snubbed By Oscar And Why

Zero — count ’em, zero — Academy Award nominations were given to a quartet of films that made lots of other peoples’ lists, and I know exactly why.

The films are Shame, with Michael Fassbender as a pussy hound who can only get it up for quick, anonymous sex;

We Need to Talk About Kevin, with Tilda Swinton as the mom of a murderous kid with a lot of axes to grind;

Young Adult, with Charlize Theron as a woman who cracks up and mentally regresses to an old high school obsession, to the embarrassment of many;

and Martha Marcy May Marlene, with Elizabeth Olsen as a damaged girl who flees a horrific commune.

These films are a little too “edgy” for Oscar.

Their protagonists aren’t always protagonists.

There are dirty and/or disturbing scenes.

And they don’t offer simplistic, sappy resolutions.

(SPOILER ALERT!)

I mean Fassbender doesn’t end up meeting a lady he cares about, suddenly realizing that sex with an emotional connection is so much more fulfilling.

Kevin doesn’t silence all the talk with a bevy of good deeds.

The young-adult-fiction writer stays hollow, patronizing, and positively crazy.

And there are no easy answers for the haunted Martha Marcy May Marlene either.

In the post-No Country for Old Men era, Oscar doesn’t like that type of thing very often.

Oscar likes War Horse.

And yes, I know they’ve honored The Tree of Life, but that’s an epic-scale film, not a relatively obscure art-house item, and the ending … well, let me not give it away.

End of lesson.

Except to add that Melancholia, The Skin I Live In, Take Shelter, Rampart, and A Dangerous Method also got zero nominations!