So Oscar nominations were announced this morning and even though this year was probably the most wide-open year I can remember and I was like 5% confident in my choices and I had some low to average expectations, nothing could have prepared me for what went down. Though I did get 87/121 and 2nd place in our predictions circle, which ain’t half bad if I do say so myself.

Anyway. Time for lists. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

THE HOW COULD YOU LIST:

• Selma
• Selma
• SELMA
• How the Academy could have so utterly failed to acknowledge Selma past a Best Picture and Best Song nod is beyond me

• Oh wait. What’s that? The Academy is 93% white with an average age of 63? Ugh. Moving on.
• Ava Duvernay for Best Director – she now becomes the 9th women in Oscar history to have her film nominated for Best Picture without herself receiving a Best Director nod
• Had she been nominated, she would have become the first nominated female Black director in the 87 years of the Academy’s history, not to mention the fifth nominated woman period (and out of those four female directors, only Kathryn Bigelow has won for “The Hurt Locker”)
• David Oyelowo for Best Actor – it hurts even more that it had to happen on MLK’s birthday
• “Life Itself” for Best Documentary – I’m pretty sure 100% of people had this locked, not just for a nomination but for the win. The snub is a crime
• “The LEGO Movie” for Best Animated Feature – how… just how?

THE SURPRISES LIST:

• Marion Cotillard beating out Jennifer Anniston for Best Actress – I mean yeah, “Two Days, One Night” is the better film and Cotillard is long overdue for recognition but like… she did zero campaigning while Aniston led one of the most aggressive efforts I’ve seen. I honestly feel kinda bad…
• “The Theory of Everything” received nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay… But not Best Director… Which is just weird really for a film to get so many major nods and then nothing for the guy at the wheel
• Robert Duvall for Best Supporting Actor – I mean I predicted it… But I really wanted to be wrong. If only because now people might take “The Judge” seriously
• Laura Dern for Best Supporting Actress – probably the only surprise I am really happy about
• “Whiplash” for Best Picture – scratch that I’m also really happy about this too
• So much love for “American Sniper” – read: too much love for “American Sniper”… (I am not happy about this)
• “Inherent Vice” for Best Adapted Screenplay – sorry PTA that film was mega confusing. Should have gone to Gillian Flynn for “Gone Girl”
• No love for Jessica Chastain *all the sad faces*

THE I JUST HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS LIST:

• I just really can’t believe “Selma”
• This is the whitest year since 1998
• Like the Best Director profiles look like five pictures of the same white guy taken from different angles
• And I had such high hopes after the success of “12 Years of Slave” last year
• It breaks my heart how wrong I was
• With the exception of Iñárritu’s success with “Birdman” the lack of diversity this year is stunning
• And this might have been par for the course in the early 20th century when POC just did not have the opportunities to break into Hollywood
• But in this day and age, there is a wealth of award-worthy talent that is getting overlooked for lesser work and unfortunately the only conclusion is the race factor
• No one is arguing that a person’s race should be reason enough for awards recognition
• But when you have groundbreaking work from a POC and it’s overlooked for a lesser work and that lesser work is made by a white man… what other conclusions are we expected to draw?
• Ellen DeGeneres opened her Oscars 2014 monologue with a warning joke: “Possibility number one: ’12 Years a Slave’ wins best picture. Possibility number two: You’re all racists.”
• Joke’s on us