It happens almost every year.

This is deeply disappointing but unfortunately not surprising at all. The two best documentaries I’ve seen this year have just been screwed out of a shot at an Oscar nomination.

“Anvil! The Story of Anvil” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” were not picked as one of 15 films deemed eligible by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be nominated for an Oscar.

Also left off the list was Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim’s “It Might Get Loud” starring Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White and the high-profile doc “The September Issue.” WTF?

These movies join a long and distinguished list of classic documentaries that got screwed by the Academy such as “The King of Kong,” Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man,” Kurt Kuenne’s “Dear Zachary,” “Hoop Dreams” (which was nominated for Best Editing),  “Crumb,” and “American Movie.”

“Soundtrack for a Revolution,” which features the Roots, the Blind Boys of Alabama, John Legend, and Wyclef Jean, however, was nominated. This is the first time I’m hearing about this movie.

By the way, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” wasn’t released before the Oscar deadline, so it’s ineligible for the documentary category this year. Some insiders say it has a chance at the Best Picture category (which is now expanded to 10 nominees).

Here are the lucky nominees. The three most high-profile docs are in italics:

• The Beaches of Agnes
• Burma VJ
• The Cove
• Every Little Step
• Facing Ali
• Food, Inc.
• Garbage Dreams
• Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers
• Mugabe and the White African
• Sergio
• Soundtrack for a Revolution
• Under Our Skin
• Valentino The Last Emperor
• Which Way Home

What are some of the other high-profile worst Oscar documentary snubs in history?

Tags: 2009, anvil, capitalism: a love story, documentary, included, ineligible, left, Michael, moore, not, off, oscar, screwed, shortlist, snubbed

“Let the Right One In” will not be competeing for an Academy Award this year. This happened a while ago, but with the shortlist being announced yesterday, it’s new news to me. Each country is allowed one submission and Sweden chose “Everlasting Moments” instead. Turns out, though, that it may be the Academy’s difficult and silly eligibility rules that kept the “right one” out this year. It could be that Sweden didn’t choose it because he film is not eligible before next year. The eligibility year is not a calendar year for this category, and “Let the Right One In”  premiered in the U.S. after September 30, 2008. I’ve been doing research online to find out if this is the eactual reason Sweden never submitted the film. If you can find a reliable source that confirms this, please leave a comment!

From ComingSoon.net: Nine films will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 81st Academy Awards. Sixty-five films had originally qualified in the category.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Austria, Revanche, Gotz Spielmann, director;
Canada, The Necessities of Life, Benoit Pilon, director;
France, The Class, Laurent Cantet, director;
Germany, The Baader Meinhof Complex, Uli Edel, director;
Israel, Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman, director;
Japan, Departures, Yojiro Takita, director;
Mexico, Tear This Heart Out, Roberto Sneider, director;
Sweden, Everlasting Moments, Jan Troell, director;
Turkey, 3 Monkeys, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, director.

In the meantime, “Let the Right One In” competed directly with  the movie Sweden chose instead in that country’s movie awrdsjust two days ago. Variety reports that “Let the Right One In” won five awards at the Golden Bugs, the equivalent of the Oscars in its native Sweden. The ceremony took place Monday night.

The movie took prizes for Director (Tomas Alfredson), Script (John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his novel), Cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema), Set Design (Eva Noren) and Sound (Per Sundstrom and Ljudteamet). When it came time for the biggie, though, Best Film, it lost out to Jan Troell’s “Everlasting Moments.”

Tags: academy awards, film, foreign, ineligible, language, Let the Right One In, not picked, not submitted, oscar, shortlist, sweden, wins, won