2013 Oscar Nominations

[Mitch Henessey]

Best Picture
"Argo"
"Django Unchained"
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Amour"
"Lincoln"
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Zero Dark Thirty"
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"

I wouldn't have a problem with Django or Argo winning, but there's too much controversy surrounding Django right now. So the Academy might go with Life Of Pi or Lincoln.

Actor in a Leading Role
Bradley Cooper - "Silver Linings Playbook"
Daniel Day-Lewis - "Lincoln"
Hugh Jackman - "Les Miserables"
Joaquin Phoenix - "The Master"
Denzel Washington - "Flight"

Daniel Day Lewis all the way.

Actress in a Leading Role
Jessica Chastain - "Zero Dark Thirty"
Jennifer Lawrence - "Silver Linings Playbook"
Emmanuelle Riva - "Amour"
Quvenzhané Wallis - "Beasts of Southern Wild"
Naomi Watts - "The Impossible"

Haven't seen some of the films on this list, but Jennifer Lawerence seems to be a strong contender.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Alan Arkin - "Argo"
Robert De Niro - "Silver Linings Playbook"
Philip Seymour Hoffman - "The Master"
Tommy Lee Jones - "Lincoln"
Christoph Waltz - "Django Unchained"

Damn, the selfish side of me wanted Leo in this category, but Waltz was just amazing.

Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams - "The Master"
Sally Field - "Lincoln"
Anne Hathaway - "Les Miserables"
Helen Hunt - "The Sessions"
Jackie Weaver - "Silver Linings Playbook"

Going with Anne Hathaway, she deserves it.

Animated Feature Film
"Brave"
"Frankenweenie"
"ParaNorman"
"The Pirates! Band of Misfits"
"Wreck-It Ralph"

Wreck-It Ralph is the only film I've seen on this list.

Directing
"Amour" - Michael Haneke
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" - Benh Zeitlin
"Life of Pi" - Ang Lee
"Lincoln" - Steven Spielberg
"Silver Linings Playbook" - David O. Russell

Lee or Spielberg will probably take this, and I'm kind of surprised Ben didn't make it into this category.

Writing - Original Screenplay
"Amour" - Michael Haneke
"Django Unchained" - Quentin Tarantino
"Flight" - John Gatins
"Moonrise Kingdom" - Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
"Zero Dark Thirty" - Mark Boal

Holy shit I almost forgot about Moonrise Kingdom. Oh, and Tarantino is my pick.

Writing - Adapted Screenplay
"Argo" - Chris Terrio
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" - Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
"Life of Pi" - David Magee
"Lincoln" - Tony Kushner
"Silver Linings Playbook" - David O. Russell

The entire list is here: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1699936/oscars-nominations-list-2013.jhtml

 

[Papa Pillman]

No Tarantino or Affleck in the best director category is an absolute failure by the academy.

Can Waltz go 2-for-2 as Tarantino's show-stealing secondary player?? If he does, Quentin better cast him as a lead on one of his next projects.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

No Tarantino or Affleck in the best director category is an absolute failure by the academy.

The snubbing of Tarantino and Affleck legitimately shocked me. Ang Lee deserves his spot, there's no doubt about it, but David O. Russell? I have a hard time buying into any argument that puts him over Tarantino or Affleck.

Also, the more I think about it, Lincoln dominating the Award wins this year wouldn't surprise me. As I said before, Django has too much controversy surrounding it, but the Academy had to give it some nominations, because a full blown snub would've raised too many questions.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Very few surprises among this years nominees.

For Best Picture, it wouldn't surprise me to see Life of Pi or Lincoln get the nod. Life of Pi has the whole survival aspect coupled with a highly imaginative & unusual set of circumstances that the Academy likes and Lincoln has been hailed as the most authentic biopic about a President ever made, plus Lincoln is damn near a saint to most Americans. Django Unchained is highly controversial and controversy makes people nervous in this ultra politically correct society of today. I think the field is pretty wide open in this one. All these movies have gotten tons of praise. I haven't seen all of them though. A few of these movies have made a lot of money at the box office as well. Both Lincoln & Les Miserables both cost in the $50-60 million range to make and have both made well over $100 million thus far. However, that doesn't usually mean much as it's not at all uncommon for this Oscar to go to a movie that's made little waves financially. Beasts of the Southern Wild is basically a fantasy film and the only film of that genre to win big at the Oscars was Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, so the odds are against this movie taking home Best Picture. Django Unchained is a great movie but probably too controversial for the Academy to vote it Best Picture. Ago has a solid shot but I think Lincoln, Les Miserables & Life of Pi are the favorites.

I expect Daniel Day-Lewis to take home the Oscar for Best Actor. He does an amazing job in his role as Abraham Lincoln, plus the Academy loves him. He's already won two Oscars, one for Best Actor & Best Supporting Actor, so he's probably the favorite. I did think Hugh Jackman was great in Les Miserables, which says a lot as I've NEVER cared for musicals.

As far as Best Supporting Actor, I think it's a very competitive field as it's filled with past winners & nominees. Alan Arkin is highly respected in Hollywood and this makes his fourth Oscar nomination in all, he won this award in 2006 for his role in Little Miss Sunshine. Robert De Niro is an icon and this makes his 7th nomination overall. He won this award for his role in The Godfather Part II and won Best Actor for Raging Bull. Tommy Lee Jones is a great actor and won this award for his role in The Fugitive back in 1993 and was nominated for the Best Actor award for In The Valley of Elah. The Academy loves Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He won the Best Actor award for his role as Truman Capote in Capote in 2006. He was nominated for this award a year later for his role in Charlie Wilson's War. He received another nomination for BSA for his role in Doubt back in '08. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he flew under the radar and won it. Christoph Waltz was great in Inglorious Basterds and he stole the show again in Django Unchained. I think this one is pretty much anybody's ball game.

The Best Actress category is wide open I think while Best Supporting Actress should go to Anne Hathaway. She kills it in Les Miserables and she's won damn near everything she's been nominated for in this role already.

For Best Director, I was also a little surprised to see that Tarantino wasn't nominated. The front runners have to be Spielberg and Lee.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

No Tarantino or Affleck in the best director category is an absolute failure by the academy.

Can Waltz go 2-for-2 as Tarantino's show-stealing secondary player?? If he does, Quentin better cast him as a lead on one of his next projects.

How is the Academy not nominating a consummate fraud/plagiarizer a failure on their part? Tarantino already used the Holocaust and Hitler as a morally infallible coverup to have Academy members jizz over his directorial thievery, now he's using American slavery. What's next, a movie about pedophiles being marshaled into a Coliseum-like death chamber only to be devoured by zombies identical to those featured in Lucio Fulci's films?

Ben Affleck deserved to be nominated for Best Director and it's a shame he didn't get in. I'm very happy Kathryn Bigelow didn't get a nomination as Zero Dark Thirty was just her trying to milk America's involvement in the Middle East as film fodder.

And, FINALLY, the most important non-American/non-English filmmaker of the past 40 years gets recognition for a timeless masterpiece? How do you feel about Haneke now, Jeffue?

 

[Uncle Sam]

There's an old Chinese proverb which goes like this: "The Academy is mostly just a bunch of old fucks." I think that was Chairman Mao and, as usual, he was right. This year is no exception. I'd have nominated different people and films for most of the awards, but what else is new?

Tarantino will win a pity Best Director award in ten years, regardless of the quality of the film he makes. I think they call that "doing a Scorsese."

I'd like to see Haneke win, but I doubt he will. Ang Lee already has one - they're not giving him another one for Life of Pi.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

There's an old Chinese proverb which goes like this: "The Academy is mostly just a bunch of old fucks." I think that was Chairman Mao and, as usual, he was right. This year is no exception. I'd have nominated different people and films for most of the awards, but what else is new?

Tarantino will win a pity Best Director award in ten years, regardless of the quality of the film he makes. I think they call that "doing a Scorsese."

I'd like to see Haneke win, but I doubt he will. Ang Lee already has one - they're not giving him another one for Life of Pi.

I love your spirit, Sam. There's no chance in hell Haneke's going to win, but the greatest non-English-speaking directors never do (Kurosawa got one Best Director nom, Fellini got four, and Bergman got three, but none of them ever won anything competitive from AMPAS). As much as I like to berate the Academy for their choices, they do play an important part in validating the greatness of foreign directors, a sort of "We're going to throw this nomination your way because we'd lose all credibility if we didn't recognize your importance...you better be happy."

 

[JGlass]

I would have liked to see Cloud Atlas get some nominations, but I suppose that it's not exactly the type of film that the Academy gets into. The Academy is great at determining mainstream film's quality, but it doesn't seem to have any interest in attempting to put over films that don't meet their specific criteria.

 

[LoudClearVoice]

Of the movies nominated for best picture, I have only seen Argo and Silver Linings playbook. I enjoyed both movies but IMO between just those two, Argo is a better overall film.

SLPB was better than I expected and the acting was great, but Argo is just better.

 

[jmt225]

Amour getting so many nominations really gets under my skin.

I look at the Oscars as an American award show.... if it's not, then why is there a Best Foreign Film category in the first place? I didn't agree with The Artist getting so many nominations last year (let alone victories), and I sure as shit don't agree with Amour getting so many nominations this year. You don't see the Cesar Awards or the Japanese Academy Awards hand out awards to films from other countries outside of Best Foreign Picture... why aren't we the same way? It makes zero sense to me.

Another thing that bothers me about it is that I can't stand Michael Haneke, as tdigle pointed out. I haven't seen Amour, but the rest of his films I have found to be boring and pretentious nonsense. Bret Easton Ellis said it on Twitter perfectly... Michael Haneke is a great filmmaker who has yet to make a truly great film (maybe Amour is... that is to be determined, though if it's anything like his previous films, I sincerely doubt it is). I also think the guy is very Anti-America, but of course that wouldn't bother the voters since 90% of them are ultra liberal Anti-Americans themselves, which is why Katheryn Bigelow wasn't nominated when in all intents and purposes she should have been.

Hopefully Amour doesn't win anything outside of Best Foreign Film, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least bit if it ran the table like The Artist did, proving once again the voters are simply snobby pieces of shit whose opinions should be considered worthless.

Anyways, I still need to see most of the nominees listed, but from a personal preference I'm really rooting for Jennifer Lawrence as I thought she was brilliant in Silver Linings Playbook. For Best Actor, while Bradley Cooper is the only performance I've seen and he was almost as fantastic as Lawrence, I still have to root for my main man Joaquin Phoenix to pull off the upset. I fucking love that guy and his acceptance speech would no doubt be the greatest ever. And as far as Best Director... out of those nominees, I only really like Ang Lee and David O. Russell, and while I loved Silver Linings Playbook, I didn't think direction had much to do with why that film was so good, so I'll root for Ang Lee in this category since his film looks like a director driven movie.

 

[JGlass]

The biggest surprise from my perspective is how many nominations Beasts of the Southern Wild get. I liked that movie just fine, but I thought it was a little dull at points and wasn't all that entertaining. I get that it wasn't supposed to be a feel good movie or anything like that, but I just didn't think it was all that great. What did everyone else think?

 

[Papa Pillman]

How is the Academy not nominating a consummate fraud/plagiarizer a failure on their part? Tarantino already used the Holocaust and Hitler as a morally infallible coverup to have Academy members jizz over his directorial thievery, now he's using American slavery. What's next, a movie about pedophiles being marshaled into a Coliseum-like death chamber only to be devoured by zombies identical to those featured in Lucio Fulci's films?

Your personal opinion on how you decide to classify the way in which Tarantino chooses to honor his influences aside...

Wouldn't most of your expressed issues be better placed arguing the merit of the screenplay, and not the quality of the directorial acheivement??

From a directorial sense I don't see how you can be so dismissive of what the film accomplishes. It at once creates both one of the most beautiful visually stunning views of the Civil war era American South and one of the most disturbingly powerful. Every actor is perfectly positioned to deliver performances that are executed expertly both verbally and non-verbally. Each scene is pain-stakingly crafted. The use of color is striking. The camera angles are masterful. Each frame has a purpose. For nearly three hours there isn't one wasted shot. The screenplay is fully realized on film in the most effective means possible.

No matter how you categorize the morality of Tarantino's vision, you can't discredit the excellency with which he presented it.


As for Uncle Sam's observation that Tarantino will eventually get a possibly undeserved "Scorsese Oscar"... I'm not sure Quentin would qualify as deserving of a pity win for best director being as the academy has already given him an Oscar for his screenwriting, already allowing him to avoid the potential career snub that Scorsese faced.

 

[TLC]

Once again, I'm a little upset that End Of Watch didn't receive any nominations, though that's probably just my personal preference. It totally deserved a best picture nomination to bump it up to 10 films. Anyway, onto the rest.

I really, really hope that Argo wins best film; it really was superb. I'm guessing it will go to Lincoln though or possibly Life of Pi. Both are good films, so I wouldn't be too upset about it. Zero Dark Thirty may be in contention too.

Best Actor will probably go to Daniel Day-Lewis which isn't too surprising. He did a great job with Lincoln so an Oscar win would be fitting. I would love it if Denzel Washington won for Flight though; his performance was simply sublime and the best I've watched this year. Best actress will more than likely go to Jessica Chastain which I'll approve of due to me being a huge fan of hers, and it would be awesome for her to win it so early into her career. Jennifer Lawrence is also a front runner with her knock out role in Silver Linings Playbook. Quvenzhané Wallis would also make huge news if she won so it's not totally out of reach for her to win.

Anne Hathaway will more that likely win Best Supporting Actress like she is with everything else. I haven't seen the film so I can't judge, none of the others blew me away either though. The Best Supporting Actor looks like the toughest line up. All 5 actors are previous winners and could potentially win it. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Alan Arkin will win but that's once again, personal bias. If my prediction of Lincoln stream rolling the competition is correct then Tommy Lee Jones will probably pick up the award.

Best Director will probably go to either Lee or Spielberg, both of whom are good choices. Ben Affleck should've been nominated though. Original Screenplay will hopefully go to Django Unchained and Adapted Screenplay will possibly go to Argo.

The choices are pretty good, yet I have no idea ho Silver Linings Playbook got so many nominations. It was good, yeah, but not great. I have no idea why they're ******ing it so much. The only things I feel it was worthy being nominated for was Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

The biggest surprise from my perspective is how many nominations Beasts of the Southern Wild get. I liked that movie just fine, but I thought it was a little dull at points and wasn't all that entertaining. I get that it wasn't supposed to be a feel good movie or anything like that, but I just didn't think it was all that great. What did everyone else think?

I watched it a few days ago, and I wasn't impressed. Beasts Of The Southern Wild is visually stunning, but the story is unfocused, and the annoying narrative straggles too much. Also, it's kind of boring at times.

Although, I can see why the Academy fell in love with it. Wild touched the sentimental and heartwarming side of most critics, but Wild doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the Oscar for Best Picture or Best Director. The competition is just too strong. If anything, Wild is just a filler pick, and I'll be shocked if it wins anything.