Expected:
- American Hustle and Gravity lead the pack, nominated for ten each, while 12 Years a Slave is right behind them with 9 (it slightly underperformed by missing a cinematography nod, but landed all the key nominations needed to win Picture). This is clearly a three way race for the top prize.
- Cate Blanchett remains the frontrunner in Actress, but since Amy Adams made the cut, I think she can seriously give her a run for her money, because she's now the only non-winner in that category.
- Actor is wide open, but I'm thinking it's between Leo and McConaughey for the win, with Ejiofor a spoiler.
Snubs:
- Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass out for Actor and Director, replaced by Christian Bale and Alexander Payne, while Barkhad Abdi still gets in for Captain Phillips. Booo. Captain Phillips deserved those nominations, both Hanks and Greengrass did incredible jobs.
- Emma Thompson out for Amy Adams and not Meryl Streep (she can still get nominated for apparently anything).
- That cinematography miss for 12 Years. What were they thinking? Sean Bobbit had some of the most amazing shots of the year, next to only Gravity.
- Saving Mr. Banks only gets a single nomination for Score. Not so upset about that one.
- Hyped documentaries Stories We Tell and Blackfish not nominated for Best Documentary.
- Pacific Rim snubbed in Visual Effects.
Surprises:
- American Hustle becomes David O. Russell's second movie in a row to land all four acting nods, which is a truly impressive feat. He's now directed his actors to 11 Oscar nominations in his last three movies.
- Dallas Buyers Club way over performs by getting into makeup, screenplay, picture and editing, which tells us it may have been a top five nominee.
- Jonah Hill gets into supporting actor despite no other precursors!
- The entire makeup category, which nominated Jackass and The Lone Ranger (also nominated in visual effects). I mean, seriously?
- That song, "Alone, Yet Not Alone," from a movie no one on this planet has ever heard of. It's a very, very suspicious nomination, because the co-composer of this thing is apparently an Academy governor and former chief of the music branch. After last year's debacle resulting in only two nominees from some really worthy candidates, this is just more evidence that the Academy needs to burn down this entire branch and rebuild it from the ground up. It's ridiculous and the most embarrassing nominee of the morning.
- I predicted all nine nominees for Best Picture this year! (That's the first time that's ever happened).
