A Film Look » Oscars 2013 – The Nominations

A Penny for Your Thoughts

The annual Hollywoodfest is here! The cap of Awards Season was set last Thursday when the nominees for Oscar 2013 were announced by Seth McFarlane (this year’s host) and the always smart in more ways than one Emma Stone.

If early indications are anything, the show will be a good one to watch, starting by the host. A typical comment (Forrest Wickman, Slate Magazine): “In the less than 10 minutes it took to announce the nominees, MacFarlane managed to insult his co-presenter, belittle the achievements of several nominees, and make a Hitler joke.” Remember, after all, Ricky Gervais was asked to repeat at the Golden Globes (but not his year). MacFarlane’s tweet in response to mentioning Hitler: ‘Lotta flap over that Adolf joke. Look, Amour was a great film, so how about this: Austria, we’ll give you the Oscar if you take back Arnold.”

In addition, the nominees. Surprises could be in store here. Out of the nine nominated Best Pictures, the combinations make interesting math. Four Best Pictures are not contending for Best Director (9-5=4). One of them is not contending for writing–I suppose BOTSW got it over Les Miserables in adapted screenplay (six adaptations were nominated for Best Picture, one had to be squeezed out of Adapted Screenplay). Potential indicator trivia: one Best Picture nominee (Life of Pi) has no acting nominations and three Masterful performances have no picture to go with it. Caveat: Slumdog Millionaire — Best Picture, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography 2009 — had no acting nominations.

One Best Picture nominee (Amour) is also a Best Picture in a Foreign Language nominee. Last times that has happened Foreign Language trumped Best Picture (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Life is Beautiful). Cinematography has three matches with Best Picture (Lincoln, Pi, Django U) yet this one, I think, is really up for grabs – great nominees all.

Newsworthy: a Bond film got the most nominations ever (five out of a total of twelve in fifty years), and its first in eleven years but, alas, not for Javier Bardem’s strong performance. Yet I could not substitute any of those nominated for Actor in a Supporting Role for him. They were all outstanding (Alan Arkin was my favorite).

Maybe, after the math, Lincoln seems like a sure thing for Best Picture. But I would not bet two cents on it. We’ll find out on February 24th.