¤ 85th Academy Awards Nominations / Oscars ¤

I will try include everything you need to know about the 85th Academy Awards in this post so that you are all set before the show Feb 24th. I have tried to make this post as coherent as possible, so stick with me even though it is going to be a long one. (Use Ctrl+F if you want to find specific category or nominee).

FULL LIST OF NOMINEES

The live stream was very poor quality and so are all the videos too, but you'll get the idea. Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone announced the nominations this morning (or day if you live in Europe like me). MacFarlane will host the main event in February and if he is as funny as he was today, the show will be great!

- The 85th Academy Awards -

I'll start with few words about the ceremony itself.  It will be held Feb 24th at the Dolby Theater (previously Kodak Theater, but after filing for bankruptcy Dolby bought the sponsorship for the theater). Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show and Ted, will be hosting. Neil Meron and Graig Zadan, producers of Smash, Hairspray and Chicago, are producing. Don Mischer, who has directed and produced a whole lot of live events and award ceremonies (including last years Oscars), is directing.  Rob Ashford is doing the choreography. He is well known for his work in Broadway and East End and he also walked away with Emmy Award for choreographing the 81st Academy Awards with the famous Hugh Jackman and Beyonce musical segment. Derek McLane was chosen to do the set. He has worked previously with Zadan and Meron on Broadway productions.

- 4th Annual Governors Awards / Honorary Oscars -

There is a lot happening before the main event itself, including the 4th Annual Governors Awards, which were created so that the presentation of Honorary Awards in the main event could be cut out, since that has proven to be the most boring part of the show because most of them are unfamiliar to the bigger audiences. This years winners were D.A. Pennebaker (one of the pioneers of cinema verite-documentaries), Hal Needham (stuntman, worked a lot with Burt Reynolds), George Stevens Jr (mostly recognized as the founder of AFI, American Film Institute) and Jeffrey Katzenberg (CEO of Dreamworks Animation who won the Humanitarian Oscar for his work on helping inner-city artists realise their dreams). I wouldn't have mentioned the Governors Awards, but they are pretty essential part for producers, managers, directors and actors to lobby for an Academy Award nominations. And of course its a good place to practice your red carpet poses for the big event.

-  NOMINATIONS -

Best Director:

Ang Lee (Life of Pi), Michael Haneke (Amour), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild).

I was quite surprised of the love the Academy gave for Amour and Beasts of the Southern Wild. It is pretty unusual for a foreign film (Amour, Austria) to get so much nominations. Benh Zeitling was a surprise too getting nominated over Tom Hooper (Les Miz) and Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty).

Best Film:

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

After the Academy revised the Best Film category to include anything from 5 to 10 films, this category has become much more unpredictable. In my opinion they included pretty much everyone I expected, except Skyfall, though it was not completely realistic that a James Bond movie would get nominated. The Master was maybe the most surprising omission, but the subject of the film is maybe bit too provocative for some academy members.

Best Actress:
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of The Southern Wild), Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

None of these were actually surprising, since there were so many good actresses trying to get nominated, like Marion Cotillard. Fun facts: If Wallis wins, she'll be the youngest winner (9 years) and if Riva wins she'll be the oldest winner (86 at the day of the awards).

Best Actor:

Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Denzel Washington (Flight).

I was a bit surprised that Phoenix got nominated after what he said about the Academy. This one of the categories where the winner is pretty much locked already, Daniel Day-Lewis, but anything can still happen.

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Helen Hunt (The Sessions), Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

This category has been wide open throughout the whole voting season with Ann Dowd (Compliance) and Judy Dench (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) among the names suggested for this category. I was surprised to see Helen Hunt as supporting actress and not as leading, but at least she got nominated.

Best Supporting Actor:

 Alan Arkin (Argo), Robert DeNiro (Silver Linings Playbook), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

Fun fact: All nominees have won Academy Award before.

Best Original Song:

(click on the name to open the song on YouTube)

Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth - Skyfall (performed by Adele), from Skyfall

J. Ralph - Before My Time (performed by J.Ralph, Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell), from Chasing Ice

Mychael Danna and Bombay Jayashri - Pi's Lullaby (performed by Bombay Jayashri), from Life Of Pi

Walter Murphy and Seth MacFarlane - Everybody Beeds a Best Friend (performed by Norah Jones), from Ted

Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boubil - Suddenly (performed by Hugh Jackman) from Les Miserables

That's all the categories I'll do this time. I'll be back with my Golden Globes post next week. And I hope you'll bookmark this page, so you can easily open it while watching the Oscars 24th February. 

In the end, I'll share with you the animated short film nominated last year, La Luna. It's so adorable_