Oscars 2013: Some Thoughts

Oscars 2013: Some Thoughts

The Academy Awards nominations offer up some surprises this year, but overall, it's a fairly safe year for the Awards season and no real surprise to see Lincoln take so many nominations. Life of Pi also scores highly, but it remains to be seen if it will win on the day.

Having seen the full list of the 2013 Oscar nominations, all I can say is that there is a clear front runner now - Lincoln - and a few which missed the list which should have been there (ie glaring omissions and major snubs).

The big glaring omissions to me were John Hawkes in The Sessions for best actor (Helen Hunt also scored on the supporting front) and Leonardo Di Caprio in Django Unchained. These are egregious mistakes from the Academy which are a real surprise as their roles clearly stood out this year.

As for best actress, what a surprise to see the tender young Quvenzhané Wallis of Beasts Of The Southern Wild score a nomination. She was pretty damn good in this - and I did miss out on picking her. No surprise that Emmanuelle Riva scored a nomination for Amour; her role in that was devastating. And it's impressive to see Michael Haneke's film get a nod for the best flick, rather than being confined to a minority category. I don't think it will win, but you can't have it all, right? Riva and Wallis at 84 and 9 are the oldest and youngest people ever to be nominated for the Awards.

The Silver Linings Playbook was widely tipped to be part of this list. Having not yet seen the film, I can't comment on its merits - but it must be impressive for Bradley Cooper to score the nomination - and it caps off a great cinematic year for young Winter's Bone star Jennifer Lawrence, who's clearly Hollywood's next big thing.

It's a surprise not to see Ben Affleck get a directing nod for Argo and to see Kathryn Bigelow losing out for Zero Dark Thirty. Both would have seemed shoo ins earlier. And I can't help but feel Spielberg doesn't really deserve it for Lincoln.

While The Hobbit may not have matched the Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring for nominations (LOTR FOTR scored 13 noms), it’s no surprise the technical side of the film picked up awards. Rightfully so, given that the 48 Frames per second was game-changing for the cinematic experience.

It’s not a surprise that The Hobbit didn’t score major nominations – since the first Lord of The Rings film debuted back in 2001, a lot of the cinematic landscape has changed. Hollywood had never really seen a fantasy epic like it, since Star Wars. But since then, we’ve had the likes of Avatar which changed the landscape for FX films. That, from James Cameron, didn’t pick up wins from any major nominations but scored for technical achievements.

The Academy voters don’t have a previous track record in recognising fantasy films as Oscar worthy – preferring to go for films which could be seen as more worthy (such as Lincoln).

But Sir Peter Jackson and the team shouldn’t perceive this as a major snub – after all, the Return of the King swept the Oscars when the final film in the franchise was released. In fact, if anything the aspects of the film which really raised the bar and were Oscar worthy have been recognised and that in itself should be a cause for celebration.

Well, we'll see which Golden statue winners come along on the day....but for now, let me know your winners  thoughts on the Oscar nominations in the comments section!