I’ve already highlighted my favorite aspects of this morning’s Oscar nominations. Still, before we move into Phase Two, I’d like to give one final respectful nod to the could-have-beens — the names that we sadly won’t be talking about anymore in the next five weeks of speculation.
I listed my true favorites in my dream ballot over the last few days, though many of those were never in the realm of possibility. What follows are 10 contenders who were very much in the mix, and had every reason to be disappointed this morning.
From my perspective, the race is poorer without the following:
• Marvin Hamlisch (Best Original Score), “The Informant!”: As a previously honored veteran of the branch, I thought his foot was comfortably in the door. Was his playful score too tongue-in-cheek for the voters? I’d say the movie wasn’t well-liked enough, but these are the guys who nominated “The Village.” (Less surprising but still disappointing: the omission of “A Single Man” composer Abel Korzeniowski.)
Filmmaker Danny Boyle is set to be feted this evening by the American Film Institute, but with just eight feature films under his belt, the dynamic director of such milestones as “Trainspotting,” “28 Days Later” and this year’s festival favorite “Slumdog Millionaire” is hardly due for a career retrospective. He’s still going strong, excited by each new project and willing to take his time on whatever strikes his fancy along the way. But as “Slumdog” begins to stand out as, perhaps, Boyle’s greatest cinematic accomplishment to date, the director shares with us what he’s learned along the way, film-by-film.