I love Tuesdays in January.

Waking up on Oscar Nominations Day (OND)* is like waking up on a Hollywood-created Christmas: A few pleasant surprises, a ton of predictable results, and some big dissappointments.

For this year’s OND** the most pleasant surprise is Demián Bichir, whose subtle performance in A BETTER LIFE blew me away, and changed my perception of day laborers.  Check it out.  Seriously.

On a less serious note, here are 2012’s biggest Oscar snubs:

1.  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO – Where’s the Best Picture and Director nods for the best grown-up movie of the year?  Sure, Rooney Mara was nominated, and the film was nominated for Best Cinematography, but all of its co-nominees either got a Best Picture or Best Director nom.  Or both.

2. 50/50 – An emotional, humorous film.  Guess it was too humorous, but am still surprised MARGIN CALL got the nom.  Not a bad film, but it’s no 50/50.

3. SOURCE CODE – Am I the only one that loved this early 2011 sci-fi flick?  Sometimes it feels that way.

4. BEGINNERS – Sure, Christopher Plummer snagged a nomination, but the film is surprisingly good, and certainly one of the best written (MARGIN CALL?  Seriously?), if not the plain Best Pictures of the year.  (THE HELP?  Seriously?)

5. DRIVE – The coolest movie of the year gets a Sound Editing nom.  Woo woo.  :-/

Much more to say about this, but I’m saving it for an upcoming Scriptcast (A Screenwriting Podcast) episode.

Stay tuned…

-Eric

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*Not a recognized federal holiday as of the time of writing.

**Still not a holiday.  But check out the noms on the LA Times 2012 Oscar List