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It`s been a great year at the movies – there are so many excellent films crowding the cineplexes these days, some big and huge and marvellous, others small and intimate and indie. It`s a joy to see them rubbing shoulders in this year`s nominations: from classy big-studio productions like Lincoln (leading the pack with 12 nominations) through to little-movie-that-could, Beasts Of The Southern Wild.
Some of the biggest surprises?
A couple of snubs in the Best Director race – Beasts` Benh Zeitlin snuck in, knocking out Les Miserables` Tom Hooper and Zero Dark Thirty`s Kathryn Bigelow (who were considered sure bets for the top five), and even dark-but-less-dark horse Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained. Zeitlin joins tiger-wrestler Ang Lee for Life Of Pi, horse-whisperer (and President-minder) Steven Spielberg for Lincoln, hospice orderly Michael Haneke for Amour and psychotherapist David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook.
The Best Actress race is the most eclectic and strong it`s been in years: every one of the nominees is great (frontrunners are Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty and Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook), and it features both the youngest (Quvenzhane Wallis) and oldest (Emmanuelle Riva) nominees in the award`s history. Their nominations mean that previous Oscar winner Marion Cotillard got shut out for her role as a handicapped whale trainer in Rust And Bone. Naomi Watts rounds out the five nominees with her heartbreaking, brave performance in tsunami epic The Impossible.
It was a crowded race this year for Best Actor: all the other four guys nominated did excellent work, truly, but that award is going home with Daniel Day-Lewis. Sorry, Denzel, Hugh, Joaquin and Bradley. That`s right, by the way – the guy from The Hangover is now an Oscar nominee! Imagine them putting that on the tagline of Hangover Part III! Poor, marvellous John Hawkes from The Sessions probably just missed the cut.
Anne Hathaway will be walking away with that Best Supporting Actress statuette, make no mistake about it, but she`s surrounded by quality actresses doing quality work, like Helen Hunt – who returns with a bang in The Sessions after five years (more or less) away from the big screen. Silver Linings Playbook`s Jacki Weaver wasn`t in anyone`s lists, but now she`s in the only one that matters, alongside Amy Adams for The Master and Sally Field for Lincoln.
The Best Supporting Actor race is filled with vets – and by vets I mean people who`ve all won at the Oscars before. Which is nice – poor Leonardo DiCaprio, always overlooked by the Academy, didn`t make it in, but his Django co-star Christoph Waltz did. Waltz and his fellow Oscar winners/nominees – Alan Arkin (Argo), Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master) and Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) can just kick back and wait to add another statue to the one(s) they already have.
One thing that makes us particularly sad – it`s a good slate of nominees for Best Animated Film, but Rise Of The Guardians was one of the best animated movies of the year, and it`s a shame to see it locked out. Going to the party instead are Wreck-It Ralph, Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman and The Pirates!: Band Of Misfits. It`s great to see that three out of the five nominees are stop-motion films though, suggesting that there`s room for old-school animation amidst the cutting-edge 3D of modern times.
Well, that`s all we have for you so far. Check out the full list of nominees below, and see you at the movies!
(BTW, we can assure you that most of these movies that haven`t already screened in Singapore will be released over the next few weeks. Keep your eyes out for our preview issue that will be hitting newsstands very very soon!)
BEST PICTURE
Amour
Argo
Django Unchained
Les MisÃ