Academy voters to viewership: "Kiss our ass!"

This is not about merit. Or rather, this is never only about merit, so don't take my observations as endorsements or write-offs.

The producers of this year's Oscars telecast may have gone way populist, hiring attractive young stars James Franco and Anne Hathaway as co-hosts, but the Academy voters have gone the opposite route, shunning a surprisingly large number of glamorous stars who actually merited consideration.

Full list of Oscar nominations is here.

It struck me immediately as I listened to the nominees being announced this morning, the unfun lack of household names except in cases where the performance was beyond locked (Natalie Portman, Annette Bening).

Off the top of my head, major surprise snubs include (in descending order of WTF?): Andrew Garfield for The Social Network (he was the heart of that movie, has acting cred from Boy A and is the next Spider-Man), Ryan Gosling for Blue Valentine (a well-liked, extremely respected actor whose counterpart was honored), Mila Kunis for The Black Swan (she may be a newcomer to critical acclaim but she played two completely different roles, one of which was arguably the title character), Matt Damon for True Grit (an old favorite in one of the year's hardest-charging contenders to steal The Social Network's thunder), Mark Wahlberg for The Fighter (not considered a great thespian but he was responsible for the film existing and was the title character), Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right (she's been nominated and overlooked before, but this time was really exceptional).

No dancing around the subject—so far, the best movie of the year is Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, the creepiest mind-fuck of a thriller since just about ever. The progeny of Roman Polanski's Repulsion and Brian De Palma's Carrie, this nonetheless unique vision of a dancer's descent into madness and/or ascent into perfection is an unforgettable (and why would you try?) achievement in filmmaking.

Once you go black...

Incandescent, Audrey Hepburn-channeling Natalie Portman gives the female performance of 2010 as Nina Sayers, a young ballerina obsessed with earning the role of the Swan Queen in her company's season-opening production of Swan Lake. She's devoted her life to dance, given her body over to it—as illustrated in exacting, uncomfortable detail by Aronofsky's lens—and even though the company's previous prima ballerina (Winona Ryder in a deliciously conceived bit part) isn't left with much to show for her own devotion, Nina seems willing to give even more, perhaps even her sanity.