My Top Ten 2010 Film Performances Not Nominated For An Oscar

Wordy title, but pretty self explanatory. These are the gems not recognized by the group known as "The Academy"- they're sounding more and more like a higher force everyday, no? You might notice a shortage of female performances on this list. Don't fret, it's probably because most of my favorites were nominated close to a month ago (Leo, Kidman, Adams, Portman...). So in alphabetical order by film, they are:

Ryan Gosling- Blue Valentine

Richard Jenkins- Eat Pray Love

Olivia Williams- The Ghost Writer

James Franco- Howl

Xavier Dolan- I Killed My Mother

Ewan McGregor- I Love You, Phillip Morris

Julianne Moore- The Kids Are All Right

Andrew Garfield- Never Let Me Go

Leonardo DiCaprio- Shutter Island

Andrew Garfield- The Social Network

Sorry for the double dosing of Mr. Garfield... or am I? The guy had a stellar one-two punch that landed him the role of Peter Parker/Spiderman (still an odd choice, IMO). While I'm glad Michelle Williams and Annette Bening got recognized for their work, their onscreen partners's performances were nothing to sneeze at either. I'm just going to blame early and/or limited release for the snubbings of Olivia Williams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ewan McGregor and Xavier Dolan- with the latter having to deal with being a teenager and a foreign-language performance. James Franco got in for his broader, more popular work but his portrayal as Allen Ginsberg had more of an emotional punch. And lastly, poor Richard Jenkins just got stuck being in a crappy movie about Julia Robert spending 2 hours proving she doesn't need a man only to sail off (literally) with one.