Oscar nominations: what we learned

All indications coming into today's announcement of nominations for the 85th Annual Academy Awards were that things were going to be unpredictable. To say that this came to fruition could be argued either way. I personally say yes. Several nominations were surprises. At least one entire category is a full list of surprises. The omissions of some names from select nominations, and some films from even a single nomination is something I can't say I saw coming (Sorry, fellow Batman fans). There is plenty to be noted from what we heard today.

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Hollywood doesn't discriminate

At least not when it comes to nominations, fortunately. There were a few controversies that erupted over the last several months that were believed to potentially throw a wrench into the gears of Oscar hopes. Beasts of the Southern Wild is an indie film that was distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, but two of its lead performers were not members of the Screen Actors Guild. Both Quvenzhane Wallis and Dwight Henry had never acted before when they wound up being cast in their roles. Therefore, the SAG determined them ineligible, as well as the film itself for the top SAG prize. Also, the Golden Globes did not nominate the film or anyone involved with it for a single award. Nonetheless, the AMPAS has its own set of regulations and Beasts scored 4 nominations, including Best Picture.

Another controversy was Joaquin Phoenix, who has never been one to mince words. In the spirit of George C. Scott and Woody Allen among others, Phoenix hates the whole competitive aspect of the Oscars. He stated such last fall, calling the contest "bullshit" and proclaiming, "...I don't want to be a part of it. I don't believe in it. It's a carrot, but it's the worst-tasting carrot I've ever tasted in my whole life. I don't want this carrot. It's totally subjective. Pitting people against each other ... It's the stupidest thing in the whole world." We'll see if he shows up on February 24 because he is nominated for Best Actor for his role in The Master.

Animation made a comeback

2011 was a bad year for animated feature films. Not so much in that they didn't make money, the problem was many of them just weren't very good. The 3-D hoopla was in full swing and studios seemed more interested in the gimmick than actually giving us quality films to use the gimmick with. The Adventures of Tintin was the Golden Globes choice for Best Animated Feature. Critics and moviegoers, however, were pretty unimpressed with it. The AMPAS then didn't even include it amongst the nominations for their own Animated Feature award, instead giving love (and deserved love, for the record) to a few Hollywood productions and two foreign animated films. The ultimate winner was Rango, a movie that to this day just doesn't excite me all that much.

However, in 2012 the train got back on the tracks. We saw a lot of great animated films this past year, Pixar returned to top form with Brave. Several monster-themed films came out and did well, although ironically enough, the one that had the most commercial success was not nominated, Hotel Transylvania, and the one that had the least commercial success was, Frankenweenie. And personally, I think nominee Wreck-It Ralph was completely brilliant. It was good to see animated films return to top form in 2012.

Amour for Amour

One of the most critically-acclaimed foreign films in years, Amour scored huge with today's nominations. While it "only" got 5 nominations, they were all big ones. Best Picture? Check. Best Director? Check. (I don't think anyone saw that coming.) Also Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. Having already won the Los Angeles Film Critics and Cannes Film Festival top prizes, this film is likely to make some history come Oscar night.

Some awards got a makeover

Two awards have new names this year. One formerly called Best Art/Set Direction is now referred to as Best Production Design. Also, Best Makeup has been expanded and is now being given to more people, as it is Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

A third award had a rough period over the last decade, Best Original Song. The nomination process was constantly being toyed with and we were seeing nominations that no one knew about, cared about or understood. Worst of all, with the potential for no songs to even make the cut due to the convoluted nomination process, the Academy themselves seemed to be completely disrespecting every songwriter out there. After several years of only three nominations and wins going to people like Three 6 Mafia for a song about being a pimp, and a couple of years ago winner Randy Newman semi-chastising the Academy during his speech for not being able to conjure up five nominees, last year was the final straw. Only two songs were nominated. Two. Oh, but it got worse. They didn't even feel it was worthy to have them performed during the show. Fortunately, the AMPAS saw things had gotten out of hand and revamped the process once again. And this year, we have 5 nominees that look like they belong on the list.

The Academy really liked the acting in Silver Linings Playbook

Of the eight nominations this film received, four of them were for acting, with a rare Grand Slam of every acting category having a name in it from the film. I'm not surprised with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence getting nods, and while I wasn't myself enthralled with Robert DeNiro in the film, his nomination didn't really surprise me either. I was surprised to see Jacki Weaver got a nod. I actually thought she was rather underutilized in the film. Still, I'm glad to see her listed. It's actually her second career nomination, both in the Supporting Actress category, and she was damn good in the first film she was nominated for years ago, Animal Kingdom.

I guess I can add her to my mental list of Academy Favorites. There does seem to be a trend of names we see nominated many times over a period of, say, 10 years. In the case of Kate Winslet, she had six nominations before finally winning, and oddly enough she hasn't been nominated since. This year we see some returning favorites such as Amy Adams and Daniel Day-Lewis. One category, Best Supporting Actor, actually has five nominees who have all won an Oscar previously, a rare occurrence. It led to some humorous statements from Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone this morning when they were announcing the nominees. Speaking of Seth...

This guy might actually be very good

I have to admit that when the announcement was made that the Oscars were going to be hosted by the guy who made Ted and voices a profane baby on Family Guy, I was a bit concerned. Plus, I've seen him host other events and his comedy can be pretty unfiltered. However, this morning with and without Emma Stone to bounce off of, he was actually pretty damn funny. Just about every category garnered a zinger from him. He said the Best Supporting Actor category list was a breath of fresh air. He joked about Adapted Screenplay ("They just copy from Microsoft Word and, BOOM!, final draft.") and Director ("These are the five best guys at sitting in a chair watching other people work."). Hell, Seth even got an Oscar nomination himself for Best Original Song. He beamed and said, "Now I get to go to the Oscars!"

The ultimate superhero nemesis: Oscar

Back in 2008, The Dark Knight was considered by many (including myself) to be the absolute best movie to hit theaters. The film did very well commercially, and the Academy loved it too, giving it a wildly-high-for-a-superhero-film eight nominations. It won two of them, including for the performance of Heath Ledger as The Joker. However, Christopher Nolan was not nominated for Best Director, and the film itself did not make the cut for Best Picture. (It probably would have if there were more than 5 films nominated at the time, and it's believed the snub is the main reason why we now see anywhere from 5-10 nominations for the top prize.) In 2012, we had The Dark Knight Rises to close out the trilogy. It performed well, it was critically successful, there was a belief that Nolan would finally get his due from the AMPAS and this morning the film didn't get a single solitary Oscar nomination. No major nominations, no technical nominations, no nothing. Same for The Amazing Spider-Man. What about the top moneymaker of 2012, The Avengers? Consider it the big winner. It scored one nomination for Best Visual Effects.

Blockbusters can and do score big with the Academy, but this year it just didn't happen. One normally expects to see a lot of technical nominations for these films whether or not they're critically and commercially revered, but this year the lists are pretty uniform all around. The Hobbit got a few technical nods, and I already mentioned the one for The Avengers, but that's pretty much it. No Battleship, no John Carter, no Batman, no Hunger Games. It's so strange that in a year where we're going to have such an unpredictable Academy Awards, we're seeing a smaller total list of titles on the overall nominations list.

Age ain't nothing but a number

Two nominees for Best Actress have already made history, and will do so again if one of them wins. French acting legend Emmanuelle Riva, nominated for Amour, at 85 years of age is the oldest nominee for this award in history. Quvenzhane Wallis, nominated for Beasts of the Southern Wild, at 9 years of age is the youngest nominee for this award in history. The latter is even more stunning when you learn that at the time she made the film, she was only 6.

The list no one could have predicted

Without question, the most intense debate from this morning until who-knows-when will be the list of nominations for Best Director. All five nominated directors are for films that are among the nine movies up for Best Picture, but the names are not what you probably would expect to see. Argo's Ben Affleck? Nope. Les Miserables's Tom Hooper, who won this award two years ago? BZZZZT. What about Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained? Well, some years back his movie got a Best Picture nod but he didn't get a Best Director nod. History repeated itself today. OK, but surely Kathryn Bigelow got one for Zero Dark...huh? What the...?!?!

Yes, the five nominated directors are from what seem to be the films that would NOT have gotten the directing nods. Steven Spielberg DID make the cut for Lincoln and David O. Russell got his for Silver Linings Playbook. I don't think Ang Lee getting nominated for Life of Pi is necessarily a shock; I'd have considered him the most likely of the least likely to get a nomination. However, seeing the nominations for Beasts of the Southern Wild's Benh Zeitlin and Amour's Michael Haneke completely made my jaw drop. And I'm not saying they don't deserve them, but wow, were they unexpected. I'm wondering what they did in the eyes of the nomination committee that Bigelow or Hooper didn't do. It is without a doubt the most shocking list of nominations for this category in history.

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So it all begins tonight with the televised awards shows, as the Critics' Choice awards air on the CW, and the Golden Globes are this Sunday. The Oscars will be handed out on February 24, and to say that there is a frontrunner right now would be extremely ill-advised. Get ready for a wild ride.