Well, it’s that time of year again. The nominations for this year’s Academy Awards have been announced (check out the full list here), and one month from now the winners shall be crowned with applause and glory, whilst the losers will have to make do simply with a pat on the back and their gift bags worth thousands and thousands of dollars (and no, I’m not kidding about that). However, given that these are indeed the most prestigious awards in the film world, we can use this opportunity to look back over the year’s films that have made the cut and see just how 2011 will be remembered as a year for movies.

At a cursory glance over the list of nominees as a whole, my personal reaction to most of it is, “Really? You’re kidding. Seriously? Weak.” AMPAS, the body that is responsible for the Oscars, has long been sliding into a deep chasm where their choices for the annual nomination shortlist have reflected an attitude that is both redundant and irrelevant. Every year, there is the regular cynical half-joke of what is “worthy” in the eyes of Oscar. You know what I mean. The idea that certain types of film, certain types of ideals, certain types of performance are the only ones officially recognised as the kind that the Academy can comfortably bestow honours upon. It’s the kind of thing where Kate Winslet, having lost out on five separate occasions, went on TV show Extras and made a joke about starring in a World War II film and finally nailing that Oscar win because that always works… only for her to star in a World War II film and finally nail that Oscar win three years later.

We’re all aware that the Oscars have become something of a bad joke, and yet we still keep going back every year, hoping against hope that this year will be different. After all, these are the films that will stick out as being the ones to define the year. That future generations could look back on and say what kind of year it was. However, looking at this list just seems to fall drastically short in summing up what has actually been a pretty decent year.

To begin with, there is a rather shocking shut-out on some really great stuff, with only a token nomination thrown to others (someone owes Drive an apology). For example, I find it disheartening that there is no Best Picture call for We Need to Talk About Kevin, and yet there is for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Though the latter has yet to be released over here, it is already being resoundingly panned as exploitative “grief porn.” When looking over the list of what’s up for the big award, what jumps out is the idea that most of them could be boiled down to a simple, easy sound-bite (“It’s about family,” “It’s about racism,” “It’s about life,” “It’s about friendship,” “It’s about having faith,” and the old self-congratulatory favourite, “It’s about movies.”). We Need to Talk About Kevin doesn’t really fit into this type of easy categorisation. And neither does Melancholia or Drive or Shame, which also go unrecognised, except for Drive's single nod for sound. There is a depth of ideas or ambition going on in each of those films that would surely be more deserving of credit than Moneyball. It’s not that these nominated films are all necessarily bad, just not as deserving of the title Best Film of 2011. Perhaps AMPAS feel like these other films will get their due from the festival awards circuit or the Independent Spirit Awards, but what kind of attitude is that?

The acting categories also have their share head-scratchers, and yet they still fall into the same old routines. Look at Best Actor… there’s the token foreign nod that doesn’t have a hope (Demián Bichir), the affirmed Hollywood royalty returning for another nomination (George Clooney and Brad Pitt), the long overdue recipient finally getting some recognition (Gary Oldman) and the wild card that could throw off the game (Jean Dujardin). This isn’t a Best Actor shortlist; this is the ragtag line-up of stock characters from a movie about award shows that wouldn’t get nominated.

The Best Actress group is also a collection of good actresses doing some fine work, but is defined by almost one thing. Glenn Close – made up to look like a man; Rooney Mara – made up to look like a punk; Meryl Streep – made up to look really, really old; Michelle Williams – made up to look like a Hollywood icon. The only one who sits outside of this is Viola Davis, an African American woman in a film about racism. Now, personally, I think Michelle Williams did an excellent job and I’d vote for her, but I’d still be aware that I’d be doing so because I couldn’t vote for who I really wanted to win.

Normally, the Best Supporting Actor category is the one that uniformly offers the best show. It tends to be the one that genuinely presents a group of actors doing some excellent work and, though there is often a clear favourite, almost any one of them would be a worthy winner… but I will never be able to get used to seeing the name Jonah Hill with “Academy Award-nominee” over it. I imagine that, as happy as he may have been with his work in Moneyball, he probably feels really awkward when looking at his fellow nominees. Especially when he is clearly only there to stop it from being full of old guys by taking the nomination from a much more deserving Albert Brooks.

Similarly, the Best Supporting Actress round tends to have one front-runner, but there is rarely much competition going, which is really more of a reflection that decent roles for females tend to be quite thin on the ground. It was pretty much unavoidable that Jessica Chastain not show up in this category, mainly because she’s been in every film over the past year and still going. Then there’s Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids… but I’ll get to that later.

Under the normal run of things, this Best Director list would maybe offer up some degree of excitement, since it brings Woody Allen back for his first Best Director nomination since Bullets Over Broadway back in the mid-90s. He’s up against fellow New York-lover Martin Scorsese. And the ever-enigmatic Terrence Malick is back with his first nomination since The Thin Red Line. But there’s still something lacking in all this. Where’s Lynne Ramsay? Where’s Nicolas Winding Refn? Once again, it feels like you’d be voting for someone whilst being secretly pissed that the option you really wanted wasn’t there.

I’ll just use this as the opportunity to vent about what I feel is the most galling part of this list… Bridesmaids is up for two Oscars… not one, but two. I slightly grudge being annoyed with at least McCarthy’s nomination, mainly because comedy is never recognised by the Academy, but when you consider that it’s basically a big fat girl playing a big fat girl who’s quite mannish, that’s hardly a resounding victory. And that it got nominated for writing is frankly insane. Partly because it feels like most of the dialogue was made up on the spot, but mostly because it continues to perpetuate the stereotype that Bridesmaids is funny… that’s right, I said it. This is the Academy’s appeal to populism, their clamour to appear not as the fusty elitists, but as the vaguely hip crowd that know what the masses are into and can dole out kudos that reflect that. I haven't been this angry at a Oscar writing nod since Borat. Things like Margin Call and The Artist require effort and intelligence to communicate their ideas, either from complicated financial stuff or without the benefit of speech. All Bridesmaids needed to do was have a woman in a bridal gown take a dump in the street… Oscar!

In this entire list, I have only one shining light, and it’s in a most unlikely place: Best Animated Film. Dear sweet lord, Rango is my saving grace here. The animation is absolutely sublime, the characters are memorable and it is genuinely funny and clever in all kinds of ways. It is the one thing on this whole list that I could look at and comfortably say, “yes, that really is the best of its category.” That Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots are there is a bit of an insult, but that can be forgotten if Rango takes this one. And it should. It really, really should.

I could continue with the list, citing more problems with the Oscars sinking into irrelevance - shown no clearer than in the useless and near barren category of Best Song, which most people have long since stopped even trying for, hence only two competitors - but I think I should probably wrap this all up since I’ve been going on for… well, about eight hours now.

When considering all the things about these awards - the prestige, the legacy, the idea that they are rewarding the very best of what is on offer - the most striking feeling that comes across from this most recent round of nominations is one of near complete apathy. Yes, these films and actors may very well have been good, but they’re nowhere near the level of excellence that they should be hitting for these types of honours. I look at what’s up for these awards and I am saddened that all I can muster up in response is bafflement, outrage and despondency. There will, in any year, always be room for debate as to who should win and what is really worthy of recognition, but this is different. This isn’t just a simple matter of informed opinion versus informed opinion, debating the complexities of performance against the artistry of visuals and the gravity of words. This list feels dishonest. This feels like AMPAS has become the kid in school who’s so desperate to fit in with the crowd that they ignore what they really think and just go along with everyone else because it’s easy, it’s safe, it doesn’t rock any boats.

Really ask yourself this: In ten years time, twenty years time, fifty years time, and people are looking back on the best films of the year 2011, the ones that mattered and said something about us, are you really comfortable with this list being representative of the height of artistic achievement in film over that year? I’m not. I look at this list and see something of compromise. It doesn’t push, it settles. Good as many of them may happen to be, they don’t belong on this list. They’re just the seat-fillers, waiting for the real nominees to show up.

Winners will be announced on Sunday, February 26th.