My 2013 Academy Award Nominations reactions

by

Julien Faddoul

PICTURE

American Hustle – Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison, Jonathan Gordon

Captain Phillips – Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca

Dallas Buyers Club – Robbie Brenner, Rachel Winter

Gravity – Alfonso Cuaron, David Heyman

Her – Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze, Vincent Landay

Nebraska – Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa

Philomena – Gabrielle Tana, Steve Coogan, Tracey Seaward

12 Years a Slave – Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen, Anthony Katagas

The Wolf of Wall Street – TBD

9 out of 9 correct! I feel validated in my relentless feeling before-hand that all those people predicting Saving Mr Banks were making a foolish mistake. It is a shame about Inside Llewyn Davis though.

DIRECTOR

American Hustle – David O. Russell

Gravity – Alfonso Cuaron

Nebraska – Alexander Payne

12 Years a Slave – Steve McQueen

The Wolf of Wall Street – Martin Scorsese

3 out of 5, missing Payne and Scorsese for Paul Greengrass and Spike Jonze. This isn’t really too shocking because it was a seven-person race and two had to be left out.

ACTOR

American Hustle – Christian Bale

Dallas Buyers Club – Matthew McConaughey

Nebraska – Bruce Dern

12 Years a Slave – Chiwetel Ejiofor

The Wolf of Wall Street – Leonardo DiCaprio

4 out of 5, missing Bale for Tom Hanks. Now this is shocking! I feel quite bad for Hanks, who did some of his best work in decades, being left out in favour of Bale’s hamming (which makes American Hustle a nominee in all four acting catgeories). I was right about Leo though. This is now McConaughey’s to lose.

ACTRESS

American Hustle – Amy Adams

August: Osage County – Meryl Streep

Blue Jasmine – Cate Blanchett

Gravity – Sandra Bullock

Philomena – Judi Dench

4 out of 5, missing Streep for Emma Thompson. Wow. I though Thompson was lock! I guess they couldn’t decide between Streep and Adams.

SUPPORTING ACTOR

American Hustle – Bradley Cooper

Captain Phillips – Barkhad Abdi

Dallas Buyers Club – Jared Leto

12 Years a Slave – Michael Fassbender

The Wolf of Wall Street – Jonah Hill

4 out of 5, missing Hill for Daniel Bruhl. No one campaigned better this year than Jonah Hill, so don’t be too shocked.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

American Hustle – Jennifer Lawrence

August: Osage County – Julia Roberts

Blue Jasmine – Sally Hawkins

Nebraska – June Squibb

12 Years a Slave – Lupita Nyong’o

4 out of 5, missing Hawkins for Oprah Winfrey. We can all assume now that Lee Daniels’ The Butler peaked too early (it was completely shut out).

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

American Hustle – David O. Russell, Eric Warren Winger

Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen

Dallas Buyers Club – Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack

Her – Spike Jonze

Nebraska – Bob Nelson

4 out of 5, missing Borten/Wallack for the Coen Brothers. This is the exact WGA list.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Before Midnight – Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke

Captain Phillips – Billy Ray

Philomena – Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope

12 Years a Slave – John Ridley

The Wolf of Wall Street – Terrence Winter

5 out of 5 correct! We can now call Before Midnight an Oscar nominated movie.

ANIMATED FILM

The Croods – Chris Sanders, Kirk DeMicco, Kristine Belson

Despicable Me 2 – Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, Chris Meledandri

Ernest & Celestine – Benjamin Renner, Didier Brunner

Frozen – Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho

The Wind Rises – Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki

4 out of 5, missing Despicable Me 2 for Monsters University. This is only the second timr Pixar has been snubbed (Cars 2), but it is especially strange here since Brave won last year.

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

The Broken Circle Breakdown – Belgium

The Great Beauty – Italy

The Hunt – Denmark

The Missing Picture – Cambodia

Omar – Palestine

3 out of 5, missing Omar and The Missing Picture for Two Lives and The Notebook. I am genuinely surprised to see The Missing Picture here, which I felt for sure was going to be too weird for the Academy. Whatever.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Grandmaster – Philippe Le Sourd

Gravity – Emmanuel Lubezki

Inside Llewyn Davis – Bruno Delbonnel

Nebraska – Phedon Papamichael

Prisoners – Roger Deakins

4 out of 5, missing Le Sourd for Sean Bobbitt’s 12 Years a Slave. Bobbitt’s snub here is probably the most shocking, most out-of-the-blue of the whole list.

PRODUCTION DESIGN

American Hustle – Judy Becker, Heather Loeffler

Gravity – Andy Nicholson, Rosie Goodwin, Joanne Woollard

The Great Gatsby – Catherine Martin, Beverly Dunn

Her – K.K. Barrett, Gene Serdena

12 Years a Slave – Adam Stockhausen, Alice Baker

3 out of 5, missing American Hustle and Her for Saving Mr Banks and The Hobbit. This is the first Tolkien outing to not appear in this category, but I am so happy for K.K. Barrett.

COSTUME DESIGN

American Hustle – Michael Wilkinson

The Grandmaster – Chang Suk Ping

The Great Gatsby – Catherine Martin

The Invisible Woman – Michael O’Connor

12 Years a Slave – Patricia Norris

4 out of 5, missing Chang Suk Ping for Daniel Orlandi’s work on Saving Mr Banks.

FILM EDITING

American Hustle – Jay Cassidy, Crispin Struthers, Alan Baumgarten

Captain Phillips – Christopher Rouse

Dallas Buyers Club – John Mac McMurphy, Martin Pensa

Gravity – Alfonso Cuaron, Mark Sanger

12 Years a Slave – Joe Walker

4 out of 5, missing Dallas Buyers Club for Thelma Schoonmaker. This is a rather disappointing set of editing nominees, I have to say.

SOUND MIXING

Captain Phillips – Chris Burdon, Mark Taylor, Mike Prestwood Smith, Chris Munro

Gravity – Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead, Chris Munro

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Christopher Boyes, Michael Hedges, Michael Semanick, Tony Johnson

Inside Llewyn Davis – Skip Lievsay, Greg Orloff, Peter F. Kurland

Lone Survivor – Andy Koyama, Beau Borders, David Brownlow

3 out of 5, missing Lone Survivor and The Hobbit for 12 Years a Slave and Rush. Rush was also completely shut out.

SOUND EDITING

All is Lost – Steve Boeddeker, Richard Hymns

Captain Phillips – Oliver Tarney

Gravity – Glenn Freemantle

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Brent Burge

Lone Survivor – Wylie Stateman

3 out of 5, missing All is Lost (yay!) and The Hobbit for Rush and World War Z. World War Z should be here.

VISUAL EFFECTS

Gravity – Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, Neil Corbould

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton, Eric Reynold

Iron Man 3 – Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Erik Nash, Dan Sudick

The Lone Ranger – Tim Alexander, Gary Brozenich, Edson Williams, John Frazier

Star Trek Into Darkness – Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Ben Grossmann, Burt Dalton

3 out of 5, missing The Lone Ranger – what the? – and Star Trek for Pacific Rim and World War Z.

MAKEUP/HAIRSTYLING

Dallas Buyers Club – Adruitha Lee, Robin Mathews

Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa – Stephen Prouty

The Lone Ranger – Joel Harlow, Gloria Pasqua-Casny

2 out of 3, missing Dallas Buyers Club for American Hustle. Like Before Midnight, we can now call Bad Grandpa an Oscar Nominee.

ORIGINAL SCORE

The Book Thief – John Williams

Gravity – Steven Price

Her – William Butler, Owen Pallett

Philomena – Alexandre Desplat

Saving Mr Banks – Thomas Newman

3 out of 5, missing Williams (ugh, again) and Butler/Pallett for Hans Zimmer and Golden Globe winner Alex Ebert.

ORIGINAL SONG

Alone Yet Not Alone – “Alone Yet Not Alone”

Despicable Me 2 – “Happy”

Frozen – “Let it Go”

Her – “The Moon Song”

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom – “Ordinary Love”

Who cares, although no Lana Del Ray.

DOCUMENTARY

The Act of Killing – Joshua Oppenheimer, Signe Byrge Sørensen

Cutie and the Boxer – Zachary Heinzerling, Lydia Dean Pilcher

Dirty Wars – Richard Rowley, Jeremy Scahill

The Square – Jehane Noujaim, Karim Amer

20 Feet from Stardom – TBD

3 out of 5, missing Dirty Wars (which in retrospect seems obvious) and Cutie and the Boxer for Blackfish and God Loves Uganda.

I did not predict the awards for Documntary Short Film, Live-Action Short Film and Animated Short Film, but a full list of nominees can be found here.