85th Oscar Nominees

Wow, this year was definitely interesting! Every year the Oscar love to mess us up, throw in surprises, and throw in a ton of snubs, this year not excluding. I had attempted to guess the nominees, but it looks like my guesses weren't too accurate.

Best Picture
Amour
Life of Pi
Argo
Lincoln
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Django Unchained
Zero Dark Thirty
Les Miserables

Out of these 9 (again, 9! I had been thinking it would be a smaller batch this year but hey), the "for sure 6" I had predicted are all in there, while Django and Beasts were the next in line. However, I did not predicted Amour being nominated, which was surprising for me! (8/9)

Best Director
Michael Haneke- Amour
Benh Zeitlin- Beasts of the Southern Wild
Ang Lee- Life of Pi
Steven Spielburg- Lincoln
David O. Russell- Silver linings Playbook

Now here's the category where everything kind of went out the window for me. I had though Bigelow, Lee, Spielburg, Affleck were sure things, with Russell and Hooper vying for the last spot. How wrong I was. Haneke and Zeitlin were able to sneak in here. The Academy obviously has huge support behind these 2 films that I wasn't expecting. The biggest, most obvious snub here is poor Ben Affleck. I had been rooting for Argo since I watched it back in October, and thought of everyone Spielburg and Affleck were locks in this category. Well, snubbed before, snubbed again I guess. (2/5)

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper- Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis- Lincoln
Hugh Jackman- Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix- The Master
Denzel Washington- Flight

We all knew Phoenix had a better chance of getting in here than anywhere else, but with his exclamation of awards being stupid, and the fact he'd been snubbed many other places, many overlooked him for nomination. However Phoenix made it in. All the other 4 nominees were expected. I'm very pleased to see Cooper in here. While I was skeptical of him before I saw SLP, he was definitely a standout for the whole movie. Very excited! (4/5)

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain- Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence- Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva- Amour
Quevenzhane Wallis- Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts- the Impossible

The biggest surprise here is the exclusion of Marion Cotillard. She had racked up a lot of nominations for her work in Rust and Bone, and while she wasn't a lock for a nomination, she was the most likely of the bunch vying for spots. And again, we see more support for Amour (I really should've taken this films possibilities more seriously, am I the only one who didn't see any of this coming?). And interestingly, we have both the youngest ever nominee and oldest ever nominee for Best Actress, which is always interesting. Either way, it's a two horse race between Chastain and Lawrence at this point. (4/5)

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin- Argo
Robert De Niro- Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman- The Master
Tommy Lee Jones- Lincoln
Christoph Waltz- Django Unchained

Arkin, De Niro, Hoffman, and Jones were all expected nominees. And it was a definite race for the last spot between the guys from Django (Waltz, DiCaprio), Javier Bardem, and anyone from Les Miserables. While I had predicted DiCaprio to get nominated (and earlier in the year to win!) it seems his co-star Christoph Waltz has decided to nab his second Oscar nomination. (4/5)

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams- The Master
Sally Field- Lincoln
Anne Hathaway- Les Miserables
Helent Hunt- The Sessions
Jacki Weaver- Silver Linings Playbook

No huge surprised here. The 5th spot had been up for grabs for a while and while names like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Nicole Kidman, and Jacki Weaver were thrown around, Weaver stole it. (4/5)

Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

Not a huge surprise, but Beasts of the Southern Wild took the spot of Les Miserables. All the others were predicted and no surprises here. (4/5)

Best Original Screenplay
Amour
Django Unchained
Flight
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty

Flight was able to sneak in here and steal the spot from The Master, which seemed a likely nomination given how they recieved acting nominations in 3 categories. Alas, Flight being nominated is not hugely surprisingly. (4/5)

Best Animated Feature
Brave
Frankenweenie
ParaNorman
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck-It-Ralph

Personally, I didn't see The Pirates! making it in over Rise of the Guardians, but hey, what do I know about Animated Movies? (4/5)

Best Cinematography
Anna Karenina
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

Honestly, to me, the technical awards are pretty much up for grabs. Though, 4/5 of these nominees were also up for the American Society of Cinematographers Awards, and Django also managed to get a nomination. (3/5)

Best Film Editing
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

I got this whole category right! And honestly, this is what Best Director should've looked like, but anyway...
(5/5)

Best Original Score
Anna Karenina- Dario Marianelli
Argo- Alexandre Desplat
Life of Pi- Mychael Danna
Lincoln- John Williams
Skyfall- Thomas Newman

I had been hoping for a Dark Knight Rises score win from the beginning but I guess it wasn't to be so. Also, I knew Desplat would be in, but whether it was for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty I was unsure. Glad to see him in either way. The surprise here (ish) is for Thomas Newman for Skyfall. Newman is no stranger to this category, but chances are he won't win (again). (3/5)

Best Original Song
"Before My Time"- Chasing Ice
"Everybody Needs a Best Friend"- Ted
"Pi's Lullaby" Life of Pi
"Skyfall"- Skyfall
"Suddenly"- Les Miserables

I had no idea what I was doing for this one other than "Suddenly" and "Skyfall". I'm really happy to see Pi's Lullaby in here. It really is lovely and I thought it was a longshot adding it in to my nominees. Nominations for Ted and Chasing Ice were unexpected. Brave and Django were shut out of this category. (3/5)

Best Sound Mixing 
Argo
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall

Academy decided to go with already recognized films rather than blockbuster films. Though the exclusion of Zero Dark Thirty is interesting. Same with Flight. However, I'm not complainig. The more nominations for Argo the better! (2/5)

Best Sound Editing
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty

This year, only 3 films match up between Mixing and Editing. Usually its 4, or 5. Nice to see a little variety, though I still feel like these categories are so similar. (2/5)

Best Production Design
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit
Les Miserables
Lifeof Pi
Lincoln

The Hobbit managed to sneak in here, which is great, because the production design truly was so good. Anything technical for the Hobbit is definitely deserved! (4/5)

Best Visual Effects
The Hobbit
Life of Pi
The Avengers
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsmen

The biggest omission here is Cloud Atlas, which I heard had very good visual effects. However, Snow White and the Huntsmen had pretty good effects. But Life of Pi is the overall winner here so it doesn't even matter. (4/5)

Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina
Les Miserables
Lincoln
Mirror, Mirror
Snow White and the Huntsmen

I was really hoping to see more Moonrise Kingdom love, but sadly there's barely any. Though it is interesting to see both Snow White films competing against each other. However I'd love to see Anna Karenina take this one. The costumes are divine in that film. (4/5)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Hitchcock
The Hobbit
Les Miserables

The biggest surprise here is no nomination for Lincoln! With all the nominations it had, I'm surprised it wasn't included in here! This category could really go to anyone at this point! (1/3)

Well, overall, the only real big surprises/snubs for me was in Best Director. And with Affleck and Bigelow out on that category, it looks like Lincoln will definitely be the movie to compete against. I'm still hoping something like Silver Linings Playbook or Life of Pi will win (I liked these 2 films infinitely better), but we'll see. I scored pretty well this year, getting 4/5 on most categories and an overall score of 69/97, meaning I got 70% of the nominees right, which is definitely a lot better from last year.

Anyway, Happy Oscar Season everyone! And may the Academy be ever in your favour!