Keith Bernstein/Warner Brothers Pictures
Jojo Whilden/Weinstein Company
Jake Netter/20th Century Fox
Laurie Sparham/Universal Pictures
Jonathan Olley/Columbia Pictures
Andrew Cooper/Weinstein Company
Darius Khondji/Sony Pictures Classics
David James/DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century Fox
Paramount Pictures
Phil Bray/Weinstein Company
Jose Haro/Summit Entertainment and Telecinco
Jonathan Olley/Columbia Pictures
Jess Pinkham
The 2013 Academy Award nominations have been announced. Following is a look at some of this year's nominees.
LOS ANGELES — Torture. Terror. Mental illness. Revolt. Where’s Uggie the dog when you need him?
The 85th Academy Awards season jolted into place on Thursday as the heaviest number of Oscar nominations — including nods for best picture — went to “Lincoln,” about a president’s struggle with the Civil War; “Life of Pi,” about a shipwreck survivor and a tiger; “Silver Linings Playbook,” a comedy, of sorts, about a man with bipolar disorder; and “Les Misérables,” filled with songs of the oppressed.
“Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which chronicles a child’s encounters with rising floodwaters in the bayou, and “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the murky pursuit of a national enemy, also received best picture nominations.
But the shocker was a triple snub in the best director category:Kathryn Bigelow(“Zero Dark Thirty”),Ben Affleck(“Argo”) andQuentin Tarantino(“Django Unchained”) were passed over despite widespread expectations that one or all of them would be nominated. Instead, the nominations went toSteven Spielberg(“Lincoln”),Ang Lee(“Life of Pi”),Michael Haneke(“Amour”),David O. Russell(“Silver Linings Playbook”) and Benh Zeitlin (“Beasts of the Southern Wild,”his first film).
“We didn’t destroy the hotel room too badly, but it was definitely a blind celebratory panic that we went into,” Mr. Zeitlin said in a telephone interview.
In all, nine films received best picture nominations in a field that can include as many as 10 or as few as 5, depending on how voters from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spread their hand.
Mr. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” was considered the picture to beat, and it led the field with 12 nominations. It remains to be seen, however, if “Lincoln” will end up more like“The Artist,”which last year established dominance (with help from its cheery Jack Russell terrier co-star, Uggie) and won best picture, or Mr. Spielberg’s own“Saving Private Ryan,”which seemed to lead through much of the 1999 awards season but lost out to“Shakespeare in Love.”
The nominations were announced at the Academy’s Beverly Hills headquarters in an early-morning ceremony that paired the actress Emma Stone with the host of this year’s Oscar telecast, Seth MacFarlane. The unusual inclusion of Mr. MacFarlane, creator of the animated television show “Family Guy,” was an effort by the Academy to increase his public profile. Only once before (in 1972, whenCharlton Heston did it) has a host announced nominees.
Mr. MacFarlane worked hard to squelch skepticism about his selection as host and to hint at what will come on Oscar night, cracking a series of one-liners that mocked the self-seriousness of the Oscars and the craft of moviemaking. The directing nominees, he said, are “the very best at sitting in a chair and watching other people make a movie.” Of the foreign film “Amour,” he said, “The last time Austria and Germany got together and co-produced something, it wasHitler.” (Cue nervous laughter from the 400 or so reporters in the room.)
Phil McCarten/Reuters“Lincoln” was followed closely in the balloting by “Life of Pi,” which surpassed expectations by coming up second with 11 nominations, even as “Zero Dark Thirty,” an early favorite, fell into the pack, with just 5.
Mr. Spielberg’s directing nomination was his seventh, whileDaniel Day-Lewisreceived his fifth best actor nomination, this time for his portrayal of Lincoln. (He has won twice.)Sally Fieldwas among the “Lincoln” nominees, as a supporting actress for playingMary Todd Lincoln, as wasTony Kushner, for writing the film’s adapted script.
All of that, as well as an aggressive promotional campaign that found the film playing as a civics lesson of a sort when it was screened for the United States Senate, has helped create a sense that “Lincoln” is the most important picture in a self-consciously important field.
“You never ever know how these things are going to go, so it’s really gratifying,” saidKathleen Kennedy, a producer of “Lincoln,” who spoke by telephone on Thursday morning. She noted, however, that it was not a perfect day for the “Lincoln” team. “I was very disappointed that our makeup and hair people weren’t recognized,” she said.
Though no slouch when it comes to importance, “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the pursuit ofOsama bin Laden, may have been hurt by controversy, as several senators and a number of political critics tore into the film for the way it portrayed torture.
But Oscar voters gave the film a nomination for Mark Boal’s screenplay and nominated its star,Jessica Chastain, for best actress.
All of the year’s best actress nominees hailed from movies that have yet to find a broad audience. (“Zero Dark Thirty” did not have widespread release until this weekend.) Along with Ms. Chastain the nominees in that category areJennifer Lawrence(“Silver Linings Playbook”),Emmanuelle Riva(“Amour”),Naomi Watts(“The Impossible”) and Quvenzhané Wallis (“Beasts of the Southern Wild”), at age 9 the youngest best actress nominee ever.
Joining Mr. Day-Lewis in the running for best actor areBradley Cooper(“Silver Linings Playbook”),Joaquin Phoenix(“The Master”),Hugh Jackman(“Les Misérables”) andDenzel Washington(“Flight”).
Among the clear winners on Thursday was Walt Disney Studios, which had three of the five nominees in the category for best animated feature: “Brave,” “Frankenweenie” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” The rival DreamWorks Animation had none. “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” released by Sony Pictures, and“ParaNorman,” from Focus Features, were the other animation nominees.
“Silver Linings Playbook,” from the Weinstein Company, also came up a winner, as seven of its eight nominations came in prominent categories.Robert De Nirowas nominated for best supporting actor andJacki Weaverfor best supporting actress. The film was the first to be nominated in all four acting categories since“Reds,”released in 1981, according to Libby Wertin, a researcher with the Academy. It slightly outstripped “Lincoln” in the major categories, and handily surpassed “Life of Pi,” which had no acting nominees.
In keeping with recent tradition the Academy brushed off the best box-office performers. There were no nominations in acting or directing categories for“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,”“The Dark Knight Rises”or“Skyfall.”
The Oscar process has been especially rough this year, as the Academy began phasing out paper ballots in favor of online voting. The idea was to get quicker results, which allowed the group to break precedent by announcing its nominations before the presentation ceremony of the rival Golden Globes, set for Sunday.
But some of the Academy’s roughly 6,000 potential voters remained unaware of the shift until balloting was near. Others had trouble accessing a heavily secured voting system. The Oscar nominating vote was ultimately extended by a day, after the documentary branch members got an extension for voting on their shortlist, which was selected under new rules.
The new documentary process, intended to broaden the pool of voters making a first cut of the candidates, yielded what appeared to be a fairly conventional list of culturally hip or politically progressive nominees. Those were “5 Broken Cameras,”about Palestinian resistance to the Israeli Army; “The Gatekeepers,” about the Israeli security apparatus; “How to Survive a Plague,” about AIDS; “The Invisible War,” which deals with rape in the United States military; and“Searching for Sugar Man,” about the lost career of the singer Rodriguez.
Tom Hooperwas bypassed as the director of “Les Misérables,” from Universal. But the film received eight nominations overall, and its presumed strength among actors —Anne Hathawaywas nominated for best supporting actress, along with Mr. Jackman’s best actor nomination — still make it a force to be reckoned with.
On ABC’s Oscar telecast “Skyfall” will presumably be part of a special retrospective on the 50-year-old James Bond franchise. Any other year a Bond montage might be a routine bid for the pop audience. But after the mass killings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., and with Hollywood receiving criticism for its reliance on showy violence, the tribute may pose a challenge for the event’s producers, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who will have to decide whether to serve up their killer-spy with or without his guns blazing.
The Academy has fought a perennial battle to win younger viewers and to maintain the ratings for its telecast, even as its voters have leaned toward smaller films and sober fare.
For Mr. MacFarlane, who was nominated as writer of the lyrics for “Everybody Needs a Best Friend,” from“Ted,”the biggest challenge may be the need to wring laughs out of so many serious pictures.
But he is trying.
“If you don’t know who I am, just pretend I’m Donny Osmond,” he said, getting mileage from a crack about his own baby face. “We’ll get along fine.”
Source: http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com
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