Oscar Nominations 2012: Albert Brooks Is Not A Happy Man

The nominations for the 84th annual Oscars were announced by the actress Jennifer Lawrence in Los Angeles on Tuesday morning (24 January 2012). The magical Parisian adventure movie Hugo leads the way with 11 nods, while silent French flick The Artist managed to nab 8 nominations.

One of the numerous surprise 'snubs' saw 'Drive' actor Albert Brooks totally ignored in the category of Best Supporting Actor, despite being touted by the bookmakers as a possible rival to favorite Christopher Plummer. Albert had anticipated a possible nomination on Monday, tweeting, "Tomorrow morning I find out if I have to go to any more events that Christopher Plummer wins". After winning the same award at the Golden Globes, Plummer is heavily tipped to win the Best Supporting gong for his performance in 'Beginners', though many assumed Albert Brooks would at least land a nomination. Instead, when the nominations were read out on Tuesday, Plummer found himself joined by Kenneth Branagh, Jonah Hill and the surprise choices: Max Von Sydow and Nick Nolte. Hinting at disappointment, Brooks joked with his 250,000 Twitter followers, "I got ROBBED. I don't mean the Oscars, I mean literally. My pants and shoes have been stolen", before adding perhaps more seriously, "And to the Academy: "You don't like me. You really don't like me". In fact, 'Drive' failed to pick up any nominations, despite lead star Ryan Gosling tipped for a possible nod in the Best Actor category.

As mentioned, it's Martin Scorsese's Hugo that leads the way to the Oscars, with 11 nominations including Best Director and Best Picture. There were surprise nods for the Tom Hanks drama 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close', though 'The Artist' looks the movie to beat come the ceremony in February. This year's show is set to be hosted by veteran comedian Billy Crystal and comes live from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on February 26, 2012.