No Nomination for Wild Things?

Many people are already going bonkers over the Academy Award nominee announcements. Sandra Bullock should or shouldn’t have been nominated, Clint Eastwood ain’t gettin’ his respect, and what the heck is that Celtic cartoon? These are just some of the comments that I’ve heard and I neither agree nor disagree with them, as I haven’t seen any of these three films.

However, one film that I saw, and that I consider to be the most amazing film that I did have a chance to see last year, was Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. I could extol the film’s brilliance, rave about its message and go on and on about how much I loved it overall…but I’ve already done that.

What I would like to know is why the hell this film didn’t receive a nomination? I would argue that it should have been considered for best picture—just as rightfully so as Up—but even without that idea in mind, from Art Direction to Costume Design, Directing to Music to maybe even Best Actor in a Leading Role (was Max not at least in the top 10 best performances by a child actor ever?), there are plenty of places where a nomination would have been well received.

And knowing that The Incredible Mr. Fox—while a cute children’s story, a pretty lackluster movie—was nominated for an award (over Monsters vs. Aliens and Ice Age 3, both of which were far better) simply adds insult to injury.

I’m not about to trash the actors and films nominated, but I do think that there’s an inherent problem here. While no one had a problem nominating a film about blue cat people, a film about giant monsters is cast aside? At first, I thought that perhaps we just don’t know how to categorize Where the Wild Things Are. After all, it’s not an animated film (actually, I’d wager that Avatar is more animated than Wild Things, when you get down to it), so where does it fit? That said, given the praise Avatar has received—and its huge number of nominations—I think that’s not the problem, either.

So what is it? Do we have a problem giving awards to muppets? (Didn’t Gollum get an award somewhere in the big Lord of the Rings hullaballoo? If so, that’s got to qualify.) Is it not “serious” enough (like some are arguing about the exclusion of The Hangover from the nominee list) to win an Oscar? The Golden Globes, after all, did have it listed as a nominee for Best Original Score, at least. All I know is that it’s thoroughly deserving of such an honor, and am disappointed that it wasn’t recognized.