Dominic Corry: This year's most offensive Oscar snubs

A scene from The Lego Movie.

Dominic Corry takes a look at the movies snubbed by the Oscars this year.

Every year I tell myself it doesn't matter, and every year I let it matter. The Oscars are almost always out of touch, and should never be relied upon to be any kind of real representation of the year in cinema. Yet their nominal importance and centrality to popular culture means we cannot look away.

This year's nominations - even when factoring in the idea that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is at the best of times a staid, conservative organisation - are especially disheartening. I try to play by the Academy's rules and temper my expectations accordingly, but once again I've been rendered crestfallen.

Beyond the lack of ethnic diversity in a year when there was no shortage of ethnically diverse candidates AND the frankly criminal, much-addressed snubbing of The Lego Movie, there were several other notable omissions that seemed shortsighted even by the Academy's traditionally narrow standards.

It is perhaps comprehensible that an ageing organisation is going to have a bias against a film based on a toy, as was the case with The Lego Movie, but it's much harder to fathom what they have against the great Timothy Spall, who despite having offered up a raft of amazing performances throughout his career, has never once been nominated for an Oscar.

Mr Turner

In an awards season overflowing with glossy prestige biopics, Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner proved itself to be a uniquely textured film, and most of that is down to Spall. Leigh's films almost always hang on the performances and Mr. Turner builds on that notion - it is Spall's acting that draws us into the period setting, not the aesthetics of the film around him.

The Academy often seems to enjoy rewarding actors (and directors) for a "body of work", and Spall qualifies in this regard many times over aswell. With more grace than most, be balances character roles in popcorn movies with a sustained dedication to British cinema. Spall's time in the Oscar sun is inevitable, he's just too good an actor not to get his eventual due. I guess he'll just have to make do with his Cannes Best Actor prize for Mr. Turner for now.

While we're on Best Actor, Jake Gyllenhaal should've been nominated for Nightcrawler over at least two of the actual nominees. The role and performance may have been a blatant bid for an Oscar, but the 'haal very much pulled it off - he was hypnotic in that film.

Force Majeure

If you consider the insane variety of masterful contenders that present themselves every year, it seems pretty pointless to get worked up about the Best Foreign Language Film category, but if any film seemed on track to be recognised it was Ruben Östlund's hilariously devastating Force Majeure, which was released in New Zealand cinemas this week, clearly timed to take advantage of a nomination, which seemed a very reasonable presumption up until the announcement.

The biggest challenge for Best Foreign Language Film contenders is getting Academy members just to see their film, so critical and audience buzz takes on a much greater significance. And so does the title I imagine. Force Majeure had amazing word of mouth, superlative buzz and a cool-ass title (even if it does sound a little like a fictional movie from Seinfeld, like 'Prognosis Negative' or 'Ponce De Leon').

Yet still no Oscar love. A nomination could've really pushed Force Majeure beyond the 'foreign film' audience - the central premise is so strong that you simply have to see the film once you hear about it. And a nomination would've helped a lot of people hear about it.

Maybe the confronting nature of the film put some voters off. The often excrutiatingly uncomfortable tension generated by the deliciously precise film makes Östlund come across like a more mischevious version of masterful Austrian miserablist Michael Haneke (Hidden, Funny Games). Still, I suppose it took Haneke's most sentimental film (2012's Amour) for the Academy to finally recognise his work.

Whiplash

Having between 6 and 10 Best Picture nominations when there can only ever be five Best Director nominations means a bunch of helmers are always going to appear overlooked. Again, even factoring this in, attempting to fathom the thinking behind which directors get recognised is maddening.

The Imitation Game is a fine movie, but it contains absolutely nothing resembling directorial flair. Whiplash, however, oozes directorial flair. Guess which one got a Best Director nomination?

It's hard to celebrate Whiplash's deserved nomination for Best Picture when director Damien Chazelle's name isn't on the ballot. He has, however, received the classic 'consolation' nomination - the Academy loves giving out Best Screenplay nominations (of which there are ten) to acclaimed films it deems a little too freaky to recognise elsewhere (see: every Oscars ever).

It serves to further highlight the crazy notion that the director must also be credited as the producer of a film to receive an Oscar for 'Best Picture', unlike Cannes and any other auteur-minded film awards. Hollywood does just as much to build up the romantic idea of the director-as-author as it does to denigrate it.

Also, if JK Simmons doesn't win for Best Supporting Actor, I'm writing a letter. And Gone Girl deserved more love across the board.

Which Oscar snubs bothered you? And do the Oscars even matter? Join the conversation on our Facebook page or have your say below

- nzherald.co.nz