In a startling and surprising upset, the list of nominees for the 2009 Grammy Awards, which were announced earlier today, did not include Scarlett Johansson. Johansson's debut album of Tom Waits covers, Anywhere I Lay My Head, a concept record exploring the countless ways in which her head has been laid, was accorded extensive and breathless coverage here at the Screengrab, to the point that at one point, Zach Snyder became confused and thought he must be directing it. (He realized this was not the case only after his demand that Johansson's version of the song "Town with No Cheer" be beefed up with more CGI battle scenes fell on deaf ears.) Johansson was so determined to make a splash with her album that she went out of her way to give especially dull, unfocused performances in the fourteen films she made prior to the sessions, saving her energy for what mattered. (Johansson, who is rumored to have been in The Other Boleyn Girl and The Nanny Diaries, will next be seen in The Spirit, in which she is said to give an especially dull and unfocused performance, because she thinks she might like to go snowboarding sometime next year.) Johansson's musical efforts went unnoticed in 110 out of 110 categories, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Song of the Year, Best New Artist of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Metal Performance, a category in which she was thought to have at least a shot, given that Jethro Tull has one on their mantlepiece. There was some hope that, in a thin year, Johansson might narrowly squeeze into the category Best Pop Duet Vocal, but her hopes were dashed after the Academy called in expert mathematicians to confirm that there is only one of her.
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