Is ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ the worst film ever nominated for Best Picture?

As usual there were plenty of surprises and snubs this morning when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 84th annual Academy Awards. At 5:40 am pacific time, Jennifer Lawrence and Academy president Tom Sherak revealed that Albert Brooks, Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton will be watching from home while Gary Oldman earned his long-awaited first invite, Melissa McCarthy was recognized for her hilarious work in “Bridesmaids” and “The Muppets” finally got some love for their delightful tunes.

However, the biggest surprise of the morning was that “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” received a baffling nomination for Best Picture, as well as what seemed like a lifetime achievement award for Max von Sydow in the form of a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Even more surprising than the nominations was the applause for the film by members of the audience. The crowd in attendance hooted and hollered three times during the short ceremony, which was streamed live on YouTube — once for Gary Oldman and twice for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”

This would only make sense in the unlikely case that the film’s producers and cast made up the majority of the theater’s audience. If those weren’t the circumstances and that room was filmed with either Oscar voters, critics or random schmucks, I’d be worried, because “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” was my least favorite film of the year. This film was made purely to appeal to the sentimental nature of Academy voters, and somehow they took the bait, which is relatively deplorable considering the polarizing film received a 48 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Somehow a film voted the fifth worst of the year in the Vulture Critic’s Poll, which complies the opinions of the top film critics in the country, was voted among the top nine films of the year by Academy voters.

Someone please tell me how the fuck that happens. I realize a film starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock and directed by Stephen Daldry is packed with Oscar pedigree. Add in a precocious kid and a 9/11 background and this is an award’s season wet dream — on paper, at least. But once you get past that you have a schmaltzy film that exploits a national tragedy in search of tears and trophies.

Why is the Academy rewarding a film that isn’t trying to do anything other than deliberately appease and fellate the Academy? I thought the new Best Picture rules were supposed to weed out the bullshit films that don’t deserve an invite to the Kodak Theater, yet here we are, with the worst reviewed film ever to be nominated for Best Picture. I thought “The Blind Side” was unworthy, but “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” isn’t even in the same hemisphere.

I realize that this film is not going to win anything at this February’s Academy Awards. The film isn’t a remote contender for Best Picture and von Sydow will lose to Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor. That will never explain, however, the injustice of “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” being nominated over more deserving films, and won’t stop me from ranting about how much I hate that obnoxious kid from “Kids Jeopardy” every time they show a clip of him crying.