Thoughts on the 2013 Oscar Nominations

As everyone knows, the 85th Academy Award nominations were announced this week.  What follows is this Oscar junkie’s commentary and musings about the nominations including surprises and snubs.  I go through the major categories of greatest interest to the largest group of potentially interested parties.

Best Picture:  Since the Academy went back to the 1930s and 1940s inclusion of up to ten nominees, this is the first time the Academy has only chosen nine nominees.  There are some of the suspected choices here as the Academy selected Lincoln, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, Argo, and Les Miserables.  But the Academy offers two incredible choices:  Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Amour is a surprise, not because it isn’t widely considered one of the year’s best films, but because the Academy rarely selects a foreign film — even the frontrunner in the Best Foreign Film category — and put it with the Best Picture nominees.  As a fan of Michael Haneke and believing this to be an outright masterpieces, I’m thrilled to see it on this list.  I’m also excited that the Academy went out on an even greater limb by including the small, independent film — and director Ben Zeitlin’s debut — Beasts of the Southern Wild.  This film was on FilmPulse’s top ten film list and we recommended it without reservation.  We gave both Amour and Beasts 10/10 reviews.  The odds-on favorite is Lincoln given it leads in total nominations, but I’m not willing to make an outright prediction at this time.

Best Director:  This is where surprises and snubs reaches a zenith.  Rarely has the Directors Guild of America and the Academy’s list been so different.  The Academy left out two that seemed to be on their way to not only being nominated but even discussed as potential winners in this category — Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty and Ben Affleck for Argo.  Also off the list is Tom Hooper for Les Miserables; however, I’m not upset about his absence like I am the other two because he was the weakest link in Les Miserables and didn’t really deserve to be here.  And surprising too is Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained.  All four directors’ films are nominated for Best Picture.  The Academy easily picked Steven Spielberg for Lincoln and is considered the frontrunner now for sure.  David O. Russell is here for Silver Linings Playbook as is Ang Lee for Life of Pi.  I find Russell’s inclusion a bit of surprise given the other strong contenders who could have been included; what I know of Playbook, it isn’t what I’d call a “director’s movie.”  Of course, Lee and Spielberg have already won this award.  The two incredible surprises, though extremely welcomed ones, are Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild and Michael Haneke for Amour.  I’m excited about these latter choices, but still surprised by snubs of Tarantino, Bigelow, and Affleck.

Best Actor:  Everyone expected Daniel Day-Lewis for his brilliant portrayal of Abraham Lincoln as well as Bradley Cooper for his strong showing in Silver Linings Playbook.  I believe Denzel Washington’s inclusion is a surprise, and I certainly believe both Flight and his work in it are overrated.  The Academy reached out to include Hugh Jackman for Les Miserables, though it’s not as strong a performance as some this year.  Joaquin Phoenix made it in though some critics groups and awards groups left him out for his extraordinary work in The Master; while I found the film to be a disappointment, I cannot deny Phoenix’s brilliant portrayal of a man in search of himself.  The snub, if it can be considered one, is critical favorite John Hawkes who gave a moving and strong performance as a real-life polio writer in The Sessions.

Best Actress:  As with director, there are some surprises here but not really any snubs.  Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) are the frontrunners in this category.  The Academy included former nominee Naomi Watts for her portrayal as a mother hoping to find her family after the 2004 tsunami in The Impossible.  Rounding out this category are two extremely welcome surprises.  Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) delivered a powerful and pitch-perfect performance in Amour; she is the oldest nominee in this category and will turn 86 on Oscar night.  At the other end of the age specturm is youngest nominee in this category, Quvenzhane Wallis for her revelatory portrayal as Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild.  Though Chastain or Lawrence wouldn’t surprise or upset me, I would love to see Riva or Wallis walk away with gold.

Best Supporting Actor:  Here is where the Academy made the fewest surprising choices.  It chose to reward Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Alan Arkin (Argo), and Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained).  Who is left off this list?  I would argue that Leonardo DiCaprio should have been here for his best performance in years as the plantation owner in Django Unchained.  Another possible candidate is former nominee and winner in this category Javier Bardem for playing a great Bond villain in Skyfall.  Interestingly, all five nominees are former Oscar winners, whether or Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor.  I believe the frontrunners are Jones and Hoffman who elevated the films in which they appeared.

Best Supporting Actress:  This category, year after year, is often the most competitive and also produces the most surprising winners.  The category inclues the frontrunner Anne Hathaway for her emotionally powerful performance in Les Miserables.  Helen Hunt’s sensitive portrayal in The Sessions is a great choice.  Sally Field’s tour-de-force performance as Abraham Lincoln’s mentally unstable yet loving and supportive wife was wisely nominated.  Oscar favorite Amy Adams’ rather creepy turn as “the master’s” wife in the same-named film is included.  The most surprising nominee comes from out-of-nowhere and that is Jacki Weaver for Silver Linings Playbook; she was previously nominated in this category for Animal Kingdom and would have been my winner that year.  Field and Weaver are the darkhorses in what may be Hathaway’s year.

Best Original Screenplay:  The Academy wisely chooses one of the most original of the year’s original screenplays by nominating Wes Anderson’s creative Moonrise Kingdom.  Also included — and not surprisingly — is Mark Boal for Zero Dark Thirty and Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained.  What is surprising is the inclusion of Flight writer John Gatins, a film that has been gaining momentum in several categories, though I still maintain it shouldn’t be in many of these categories if any.  Finally, the Academy reached out to a foreign film and included Michael Haneke’s penning of Amour.  This is surprising because the Academy rarely nominates a foreign film in the writing category (though they did the same last year with the Iranian film, Best Foreign Film of 2011, A Separation).  I think this is a toss-up between several worthy candidates, though I would prefer Tarantino, Haneke, or Anderson.

Best Adapted Screenplay:  There are few surprises here, as the Academy includes David Magee for adapting the arguably unadaptable book Life of Pi (he may win just for that accomplishment).  Pulitzer Prize-winner Tony Kushner is here for his adaptation of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book about Abraham Lincoln’s presidency for Lincoln.  David O. Russell is on the list for Silver Linings Playbook.  The Academy rewards Chris Terrio for his taut screenplay for the true-to-live and suspensful thriller Argo.  Finally, the Academy continues to show great love for the brilliant Beasts of the Southern Wild by nominating adapters Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin.  We may be down to Kushner and Magee in this category, though I wouldn’t mind any of these nominees standing on the stage with a statuette in hand.

Best Animated Film:  There are no real surprises here as the Academy recognizes Brave, Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, and Paranorman.  All were commercial and critical successes, though my money is on either Frankenweenie or Wreck-It Ralph.

Best Foreign Film:  As is often the case living not only in the United States, but in a small city in the States, I have only seen Amour on this list and by all accounts it will be a huge surprise if it does not win this category — especially since it’s been singled out among this group for four other nominations in major categories.  The list is rounded out by the well-received Kon-Tiki from Norway and The Royal Affair from Denmark.  The two most surprising inclusions are the under-the-radar choices of No from Chile and War Witch from Canada.  I think anyone would be foolish to bet against Haneke’s beautiful and startling Amour.