2013 Oscars - the nominees are...

Cafe Society
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I don’t think we have a thread for the Oscars now that the nominations are out. If there is one, I apologize.

I sat in my car in the parking lot at work to listen to the live announcement of the nominees. The list is here.

  • Yay for Sally Hawkins! I thought a nomination was too much to hope for but I was wrong. (A nomination for Andrew Dice Clay was too much to hope for).

  • Surprising snubs: Emma Thompson and Robert Redford. I’m more disappointed for Redford. But Best Actor was a really tough category this year.

  • Surprising inclusions: Jonah Hill and Meryl Streep. I know you never bet against Meryl, but I was really expecting Thompson to take this slot.

Speaking of Thompson:

Saving Mr. Banks got exactly the same number of nominations as Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Guess the Academy wasn’t impressed by the Mouse’s whitewashing of history. And usually they love movies about movies; but not this time.

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Sally Hawkins was the most exciting nomination for me. It almost makes up for her not getting nominated for Happy-Go-Lucky. Boo for no Robert Redford, though.

I generally don’t root against people or films, but I can’t say that I’m upset about Saving Mr. Banks almost being shut out. I am hugely disappointed in the lack of Inside Llewyn Davis recognition.

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“Two-time Oscar nominee Jonah Hill.”

What a strange world we live in.

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Alone in my car, I cheered when they named Sally Hawkins. I had an outside hope for a BP nod for Blue Jasmine but it was not to be.

Holy crap, I’ve only seen 4 of the 9 BP nominees. I squandered my time on Saving Mr. Banks and Blue Jasmine! and Anchorman 2

Hopefully the Oscar recognition will keep the ones I’ve missed in the theaters a few more weeks.

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I’ve only seen one of them (Gravity). What seems slightly weird to me is that they’re all from the last three or four months and I think they’re all still in the theaters. Some years, some of the nominated titles have already been released on DVD by the time the nominations are announced.

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Redford was the bitter pill this morning. Aside from Nebraska, his film was my favorite of the year–a beautiful film, and he has never been better in an interesting (and vastly underrated) career. And by all appearances, still underrated, though he is also a notorious non-shmoozer and did very little to campaign. Bale and DiCaprio took the spots that Hanks & Redford were expected to take, and it’s a tribute to what a tough category it was, because Hanks was very good (especially that last scene), but DiCaprio had also rarely been better. I would’ve been happy to see Bale get bumped.

Adams also took Thompson’s spot, and as good as the latter was, I don’t feel bad because of how much I hated Saving Mr. Banks. Adams is also the only one in that category without an Oscar, but she would get my vote because hers is the best in an otherwise vastly overrated film.

The biggest (welcome) surprise in Supporting Actress was Hawkins, who got the coattail-bump, as did Jonah Hill. Sorry Oprah! Chris Helmsworth must’ve been put out because you know they asked him to be up there because Daniel Bruhl was expected to score a nod, too. He didn’t.

For Director, the biggest surprise was Alexander Payne, though I loved the film so can’t begrudge him, though seeing Spike Jonze in there would’ve been beautiful. Two directors of color in the mix, and neither named Ang Lee (the only non-white winner ever).

Final Tallies

10 - American Hustle, Gravity
9 - 12 Years a Slave
6 - Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Nebraska
5 - Her, The Wolf of Wall Street
4- Philomena
3 - Blue Jasmine, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2 - August: Osage County, Despicable Me 2, Frozen, The Grandmaster, The Great Gatsby, Inside Llewyn Davis, The Lone Ranger, Lone Survivor

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Other odds & ends

3 actors–Steve Coogan, Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke–walk away with writing nods.

Renaissance Men Alfonso Cuaron & Spike Jonze get nominated in atypical categories (Editing & Song, respectively)

Benedict Cumberbatch (August: Osage, Hobbit/Smaug, Star Trek Into Darkness) & Paul Giamatti (12 Years, Mr. Banks, Ernest & Celestine) each have 3 films nominated. With 15 total, the films of Amy Adams (Hustle, Her) have the most nominations.

Woody Allen earns his 16th writing nomination. Meryl Streep gets her 18th acting nomination. John Williams gets his 49th music nomination (The Book Thief). Each is an all-time leader in their respective category.

Competing against Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa and The Lone Ranger, the inevitable Best Makeup award for Dallas Buyers Club is the one true bet-the-farm category.

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Feeding my masochistic tendencies, I immediately went to the online comments on the story version I read. There were only 5 (at that point) but 2 were decrying “propaganda” and “libtards” (no specifics).

SMH…everything is politicized these days. But I’m at a loss to guess what they were whining about; unless you consider mothers looking for adopted sons some sort of liberal conspiracy, or that Wall St might be filled with hookers & blow is anti-capitalist.

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Again a popular, important documentary is snubbed. Last year it was Chasing Ice and this year it is Blackfish.

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The documentary nominations always seem to deliberately exclude films with popular buzz, like Blackfish.

Spike Jonze should have received the directing nod over Scorcese. Marty is a legend; but WoWS is not his best work and needed to be trimmed. I mean, it’s clever that a movie about unbridled excess had a way-too-long running time, but still.

My other disappointments:

  • would’ve been nice to see Gandolfini nominated as some had speculated.
  • I’m still shaking my head at the (apparent) Mr. Banks backlash. It was a flawed movie and not in my personal top 5 but it really seemed Oscar-primed.
  • American Hustle got its share of nominations, but I can’t figure out why it was excluded from Makeup. Look at all that hair!
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I wasn’t crazy about Blackfish, so I wasn’t bothered to see that left out (although I was surprised). I was way more annoyed to see Stories We Tell get left out. That was my favorite doc of the year.

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…which is more than The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Man of Steel, and Lee Daniels’ The Butler combined received.

None of the five animated feature nominees are from Pixar. (Frozen is “in-house” Disney. Something I didn’t realize until I just looked it up: so is Planes. The only Pixar feature-length film in 2013 was Monsters University.)

One thing I noticed in the announcement (and in the official list): Bono and The Edge (nominated as co-songwriters of “Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) are listed by their real names (just as Adele was last year), but Karen O (nominated for co-writing “The Moon Song” from Her) is allowed to be called by her stage name.

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Good point. People had pretty high expectations of The Butler when it came out in August. I think some folks back then would have been surprised to learn it would not get a single nomination in any category.

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EW includes Oprah in The Butler amongst their list of “Oscar snubs”. I haven’t seen the movie; was there any buzz at all about her performance (beyond the fact that she was acting at all?)

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Yes, she got a Screen Actors Guild nomination. Plus, when the movie was released, there were plenty of people out there saying that she was a straight-up lock for a nomination or even the win. Which seemed crazy to me; she’s fine in the movie, but not even remotely one of the best of the year.

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I think that’s based completely on how they chose to be credited onscreen in the film itself.

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I always try to see the Oscar-nominated animated shorts each year. Seems like a good crop.

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I am most astonished that Muscle Shoals didn’t even get nominated for best documentary.

Paste Magazine had it pegged as the best documentary of the year, and I agree with that assessment. Even if you don’t, I can’t imagine anyone who has watched this movie not at least wanting to give it a nomination.

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It was nice seeing Bob Nelson (from the iconic Seattle TV series Almost Live!) get a nod for best original screenplay for *Nebraska.
*
Here he is as one of his best characters: Uncle Fran

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I really thought this was going to be the year that I managed to see all five foreign-language films before the ceremony, but Wadjda, The Past, and Gloria getting left out basically puts the kibosh on that. I’ve seen The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium), The Hunt (Denmark), and The Great Beauty (Italy), and while I don’t really love any of them, the Italy’s entry is probably my favorite. I’ll have to catch Omar and The Missing Picture when they’re released sometime this year.