Oscar Nominations 2012: A Race of Snubs and Surprises

This Oscar season is shaping up to become one of the most interesting races in years. 2012 was full of great cinema, but the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can only nominate so many films. Their selections were, mildly put, interesting.  

Lincoln leads the Oscar race with 12 nominations.

This morning, the nominations for the 85th Academy Awards were released, with Lincoln leading the pack at 12 nominations. Life of Pi raked in a close second with 11 nominations, and Les Miserables and Silver Linings Playbook each have 8 nominations a piece. Despite clear frontrunners in sheer number of nominations, no single movie has a solid chance of winning. This is possibly the most wide open race since 2000 (which saw Gladiator for Best Picture and Best Actor, Traffic for Best Director, and Erin Brockovich for Best Actress), and easily one that will be too close to call until the envelopes are opened on February 24th, 2013. 

Though many of the Oscar categories did coincide with predictions, there were several snubs and surprises within the major award nominations announced this morning. Most notably, the nominations for Best Director included Michael Haneke (Amour), Ang Lee (Life of Pi), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild). To the pleasant surprise of its loyal fans, Zeitlin was nominated along with the film for Best Picture and his co-writer Lucy Alibar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Zeitlin snuck in with Haneke, who up until now was a dark horse among the Director race. 

Kathryn Bigelow, thought to be the frontrunner for Best Director,
failed to get a nomination. 

However, Zeitlin's and Haneke's nominations came at a price. Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow were both hugely snubbed for their directorial masterpieces Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. Most predictors, myself included, thought both of their nominations were a lock. The Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow has been making headlines for the controversy of Zero Dark Thirty and for winning several critic's awards. Zero Dark Thirty has been winning most of the Best Picture prizes throughout awards season. But now, though both films gained nominations for Best Picture, neither of them stand much of a chance anymore. The only three films in the eighty-four years of Oscar history to ever win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination were Wings in 1927, Grand Hotel in 1931, and Driving Miss Daisy in 1989. The high rarity of this type of win does not provide good omens for either Argo or Zero Dark Thirty, leaving many predictors in the dust and making the Oscar's top honor anyone's game.  

Amour is only the fifth foreign-language film
ever to be nominated for Best Picture.

The acting nominations were pretty much predictable, with a few surprises and snubs in each of the categories. For Best Actor, John Hawkes, someone everybody thought was going to receive a nomination for his work in The Sessions, was left out in favor of Joaquin Phoenix in The Master. Alongside Phoenix are favorites Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) and Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook). Best Actress also snubbed a few noteworthy female performances, namely Marion Cotillard for Rust and Bone and Helen Miren for Hitchcock, who both until now have been heavy hitters. In their place, much like Best Director, stands Emmanuelle Riva for Amour and Quvenzhane Wallis for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Riva, at 85, is now the oldest Best Actress nominee ever (though 1997 Best Supporting Actress nominee Gloria Stuart from Titanic was the oldest nominee of all time at 87); Quvenzhane Wallis (pronounced "kwa-vahn-zha-nay"), at 9, is now the youngest Best Actress nominee ever (the youngest nominee of all time was Justing Henry for Best Supporting Actor in Kramer vs. Kramer at 8). Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty and Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook are the two names to keep an eye on for Best Actress. 

Anne Hathaway's performance in Les Miserables is one of the
 only few certainties this Oscar season. 

The category of Best Supporting Actor is easily the closest race this year, with no clear frontrunner in the all-star list. The award can go without regret to Alan Arkin (Argo), Robert de Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), or Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained). Best Supporting Actress is less decisive, because Anne Hathaway's nomination for Les Miserables pretty much guarantees her a victory in that field. Jacki Weaver got a nice surprise in her nomination for Silver Linings Playbook, though Hathaway's only real competition is Sally Field for Lincoln. Notable snubs in the Supporting races include Javier Bardem and Judi Dench for Skyfall, who both have been receiving numerous awards in recent days, and Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained, though fellow co-star Christoph Waltz received a nomination.   

The Academy Award for Best Picture frequently correlates with not only Best Director, but with Best Screenplay as well. In that case, Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty, both up for Best Original Screenplay, and Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Silver Linings Playbook, all up for Best Adapted Screenplay, have the edge over fellow Best Picture nominees Amour and Les Miserables. Les Miserables, at first considered to be a major contender and despite numerous nominations, failed to get either a Best Screenplay or Best Director nod, almost certainly ruining its chances to win the big prizes. Quentin Tarantino, though nominated for his writing of Django Unchained, was not nominated for Best Director, hurting his film in its overall presence in the race. 

Silver Linings Playbook has the potential to
take home the rare "Big Five" honor. 

The film to watch out for this season is Silver Linings Playbook. Interestingly enough, it is the first movie since 2004's Million Dollar Baby to be nominated for the top five Academy Awards, better known as "The Big Five": Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. Plus, it has nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, which makes it the first film since 1981's Red to receive nominations in all four acting categories. With an additional nomination for Best Editing, Silver Linings Playbook could be the first film since 1991's The Silence of the Lambs to win "The Big Five". Only three movies have ever won "The Big Five" (1934's It Happened One Night, 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and 1991's The Silence of the Lambs), and as such it is a highly coveted achievement. The movie faces tough competition, in the form of Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln and Best Actress Jessica Chastain for Zero Dark Thirty. But, if the Silver Lining's stars and producers campaign hard enough, they could walk away with the top honors. 

Amour is a shoe-in for Best Foreign Language Film, and Wreck-It Ralph will likely take Best Animated Feature. As usual, the technical categories were a mix of random films. Expect Lincoln and Life of Pi to take home most of these awards. Nominated for his score in Lincoln, John Williams is the most nominated person alive today with 48 nominations to his name, though Walt Disney has the most total nominations with 59. Skyfall could sneak in a few awards, especially for Best Original Song, and the Oscar telecast will include a special 50th Anniversary tribute to the James Bond franchise. 

Oscar host Seth MacFarlane co-presented the nominations with actress Emma Stone, and his offbeat humor and well-known passion for pop culture should make him an excellent host. No film is in the lead as of yet, so analysts will keep guessing until Oscar night who will take home Academy Awards.