Although I agree with this year’s nominations more so than in years past (‘The Queen’ for best picture? Seriously?), there are still some massive snubs in every major category.

The Academy Awards and I have a sort of love/hate relationship. For as little merit as I put in their choices, I am still enthralled by the entire process and wait for Oscar night with bated breath.

Although I agree with this year’s nominations more so than in years past (“The Queen” for best picture? Seriously?), there are still some massive snubs in every major category. Here are my picks for the movies and people that Oscar just seemed to forget about in 2007.

Best Picture - “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
I gushed about this movie a few months ago in my review, but now that it’s out on DVD, you all have no excuse for not experiencing one of the most beautiful pieces of filmmaking in recent years. Every single element comes together to create a beautiful tapestry that is an undeniable masterpiece. From a career altering performance by Casey Affleck, to a core-shaking score by Nick Cave, the film is a product of perfection. Add in some of the most breathtaking landscapes ever captured on celluloid, and you have a film that has every right to be acknowledged as one of the finest of the year.

Best Director - Tim Burton, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
No one can deny the guts it takes for a director to leave his comfort zone and swim out into unknown waters. However, it’s even more impressive when the director completely nails it. “Sweeney Todd” takes the dreary beauty that has become a staple of Tim Burton films, and injects it with a healthy smattering of Broadway panache. Burton assembled a group of actors not known for their singing abilities, and transformed them into a single, musical entity that exceeded the original production in every facet.

Best Actor - Emile Hirsch, “Into the Wild”
I can’t believe that two of the kids from the painfully lame “The Girl Next Door” turned out to be able to give such phenomenal performances. In the case of Hirsch, who embodies the real-life spiritual adventurer Christopher McCandless, it involved literally transforming himself. From a physical shift reminiscent of Christian Bale in “The Machinist” and Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull,” Hirsch becomes a magnet that our eyes simply cannot turn away from. As a spiritual vagabond, Hirsch wanders from the tundra of Alaska all the way to the cavernous depths of his own renewed soul.

Best Actress - Keri Russell, “Waitress”
While the other three performance snubs are immersed in films wrought with pain and misery, Keri Russell delivers a sweet breath of fresh air. As a newly pregnant pie prodigy wading through the muck of her life, Russell tugs on the audiences heart-strings at every turn. Too bad the performance, as well as the movie itself, came out during spring, a season that is notoriously forgotten come Oscar season.

Best Supporting Actor - Paul Dano, “There Will Be Blood”
The second alum from “The Girl Next Door,” Dano was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have to stand toe to toe with Daniel Day Lewis throughout the course of the best picture nominee. Where most actors would seem like insects in the shadow of Day Lewis’ legendary performance, Dano brings a wearied youth to the screen as the serpentine Eli Sunday, a boy who’s lust to carve his name in the gut of the world pits him against an avatar of the devil himself.

Best Supporting Actress - Kelly Macdonald, “No Country For Old Men”
In a world so full of characters whose hearts have become atrophied from the evils that surround us, one woman stands out as a pinhole of light amidst a haze of darkness. In what little time she spends with his husband Llewelyn (Josh Brolin), the two exude a realistic bond that warms the viewer’s heart, only to tear it apart when the “ultimate badass” Anton Chigurh (Oscar Nominee Javier Bardem) steps in between them. A scene near the end of the film between Macdonald and Bardem provides one of the tensest moments of 2007.

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