Thanks for correcting my spelling mistake as well in the thread title.

Looking forward to forum members poll.

Few facts from the Academy

85TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS

SIDEBARS

In the acting categories, four individuals are first-time nominees (Bradley Cooper, Hugh Jackman, Emmanuelle Riva, Quvenzhané  Wallis). 

Nine of the nominees, including all of the Supporting Actor nominees, are previous acting winners (Daniel Day-Lewis,  Denzel Washington, Alan Arkin, Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, Christoph Waltz, Sally Field, Helen Hunt).

Jessica Chastain is the only one of this year's acting nominees who was also nominated last year.  She received a Supporting Actress nomination for The Help.

At 85 years old, Emmanuelle Riva becomes the oldest Best Actress nominee.  Nine-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis becomes the youngest

Best Actress nominee.  This marks the first time since the earliest Awards that records for the oldest and youngest nominees in a single acting category have been set in the same year.  The oldest nominee across all the acting categories remains Gloria Stuart, who was 87 when she received a Supporting Actress nomination for Titanic (1997).  The youngest acting nominee overall is Justin Henry, who was eight years old when he received a Supporting Actor nomination for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).

Amour is the fifth film to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film.  The others were Z, which won the Foreign Language Film award in 1969; The Emigrants, a Foreign Language Film nominee in 1971 and a Best Picture nominee in 1972; Life Is Beautiful, which won the Foreign Language Film award in 1998; and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the Foreign Language Film winner in 2000.

Emmanuelle Riva’s nominated performance is in French.  Five performers have won Academy Awards for roles using spoken languages other than English.  They are Sophia Loren (1961, Actress in Two Women), Robert De Niro (1974, Supporting Actor in The Godfather Part II), Roberto Benigni (1998, Actor in Life Is Beautiful), Benicio Del Toro (2000, Supporting Actor in Traffic) and Marion Cotillard (2007, Actress in La Vie en Rose).  In addition, Marlee Matlin received the 1986 Best Actress award for a performance almost entirely in American Sign Language.

Silver Linings Playbook is the first film to receive nominations for Best Picture, Directing, Writing and all four acting categories since Reds (1981).

Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg share the record for the most Best Picture nominations for individual producers with eight each.

With his Best Picture nomination for Argo, George Clooney joins Warren Beatty as the only individuals to have competitive nominations for Best Picture, directing, writing and acting.

John Williams has more nominations than any other living person, extending his lead with 48 (the only person with more is Walt Disney at 59).  Woody Allen has the second-highest number of nominations among living persons at 23.  Williams also extends his record for the most music scoring nominations with 43.

Michael Kahn is now the most-nominated film editor, having received his eighth nomination this year.

Thomas Newman’s nomination for Original Score for Skyfall is his eleventh and brings the total for members of the Newman family (Alfred, Lionel, Emil, Thomas, David and Randy) to 87, more than any other family.  With his Original Screenplay nomination for Moonrise Kingdom, Roman Coppola becomes the sixth member of the extended Coppola family (Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Talia Shire, Nicolas Cage and Sofia Coppola) to receive a nomination, for a family total of 24.

Best Picture Release Dates:
Beasts of the Southern Wild - June 27, 2012
Argo - October 12, 2012
Lincoln - November 9, 2012
Silver Linings Playbook - November 16, 2012
Life of Pi - November 21, 2012
Amour - December 19, 2012
Zero Dark Thirty - December 19, 2012
Les Misérables - December 24, 2012
Django Unchained - December 25, 2012

Age:
Trintignant would be oldest leading actor at 82 years
Riva would be oldest leading actress at 85 (Gloria Stuart is oldest over all acting noms)
Q. Wallis would be youngest nominee in leading actress at 9 years (Justin Henry is youngest over all acting noms at 8 years and most likely Jackie Cooper is also younger at 9 years.)  Honorary winners who are younger include: Shirley Temple (6), Vincent Winter (7), Margaret O'Brien (8).

Info:  Jennifer Lawrence would be the 3rd youngest 2-time actress nominee, and the 4th youngest 2-time acting nominee (Angela Lansbury, Sal Mineo, Kate Winslet)

Nomination spans:
Maggie Smith would have nominations spanning 48 years (first nom for Othello, 1965 38th), second only to Katharine Hepburn spanning 49 years (1932/33 6th - 1981 54th) Alan Arkin would have nominations spanning 47 years (first nom for The Russians Are Coming, 1966 39th).

Kathryn Bigelow:
First woman to have more than one directing nomination
First woman to be nominated for directing and picture twice (only other woman to have dir & pic noms is Sofia Coppola) Only the sixth woman to have more than one pic nom.

Best Picture:
Scott Rudin has 4 pic noms in the last three years
Spielberg and Kennedy extend their best pic nom count to 8; most of any persons since the award started going to individual producers beginning with the 1951 (24th) awards
George Clooney becomes only the second person (along with Warren Beatty) to have competitive nominations for picture, directing, writing and acting. (n.b. Chaplin honorary 1927/28 (1st) - To Charles Chaplin, for acting, writing, directing and producing "The Circus.")

Family groups:
Roman Coppola would be the 6th member of the Coppola family to be nominated (matched only by the Newmans)
Thomas Newman would bring the total noms for the Newman family to 86+, more than any other family.

John Williams:
Extends his record for most noms of any living filmmaker with 48 noms
Extends his record for most music scoring noms with 43 noms

Film Editing:
Michael Kahn would become the most nominated film editor with 8 noms

For Lang:
France extends its lead of most noms to 37.
France and/or Canada would have 5 noms in the last 10 years

Makeup:
Rick Baker extends his lead for most noms to 12.

Sound Editing:
Richard Hymns would have the most noms with 9

Christopher Boyes:
Has the most nominations of any person over the last 10 years (2003 76th - 2012 85th) with 9+ noms

Visual Effects:
Chris Corbould multi-noms: only 4 people have 2 vis fx noms in same year: Glenn Robinson (1976), Richard Edlund (1984), Tom Woodruff (1992), John Frazier (2007).  No one has had 3 noms in same year.
John Frazier and/or Joe Letteri would have 6 noms in this category over the last 10 years (2003 76th - 2012 85th)

Les Miserables info:
Last musical nommed for best picture was Chicago (2002 75th) [there have been other music-related films after this, just not musicals er se]
Last actress nommed from a musical was Penelope Cruz, Nine (2009 82nd)
Last actor nommed from a musical was Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd (2007 80th)

It doesn't hurt their Best Picture chances as much as it would seem... although it would help their chances a bit if the directors were nominated too.

There are often disconnects between Best Picture and Best Director, because - as with all branches - directors nominate directors.   The one category where everyone votes is Best Picture.    When the two don't sync up, it's a hint that a director made a film that many people loved... but the director themselves isn't necessarily loved by fellow directors for some reason.

Spielberg had to wait years to get his first director nom (and only when he went all serious and made The Color Purple), Streisand was snubbed multiple times... there are lots of examples. 

I have no trouble believing that there are members in the Director's Branch who have issues with Quentin the Loose Cannon, or Ben Affleck the pretty-boy who wants to play director, or That Girl Who Already Won, etc.   (Please note that these aren't MY assessments of those directors, just speculating on what other folks might be thinking.)

But whether his/her fellow directors love him or not, their movies were popular enough to get Best Picture noms from the Academy at large.    And the Academy members who loved Zero Dark Thirty and Argo enough to make them Best Picture nominees are the exact same people who are now going to vote for the winner.

Seconded.

If there's any justice in this world, Hathaway will walk away with Best Supporting Actress.

Best Actor will probably go to Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Picture to Lincoln.

Haven't seen any of the noms for Best Animated Feature save Brave, which I didn't care for, but ParaNorman has been getting positive buzz from everyone I've heard talk about it, so why not that one.

I'm partial to Adele, so I'm hoping "Skyfall" will pick up best song; it's too bad nothing from Les Mis is eligible save "Suddenly", which was rather bland.

I'll bet on the potential upset for VFX and say Life of Pi will take the crown.

So, a nine year old is up for best actress, a leading actress is up for best actress in a supporting role and one film is up for both best film and best foreign film.

Not sure where I am going with this, just pointing them out.

Agreed.    I'd say that's the safest bet of any category this year.

Yeah, I'd give it to Anne too

Just watched it, actually.

I have now seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi, The Invisible War, Bones Brigade, and How to Survive a Plague. Versailles is staring me in the face, but I can't pull the trigger on that one.

I watched Versailles today. I found it fascinating for a while, but it lost me in the second half. It's not a bad film by any means, but I personally wasn't all that interested in it. I'm very interested in The Invisible War, though.

If that happens then it will be the first time an actor directed by Steven Spielberg wins an Oscar.

Let's look at some numbers for Spielberg at the Oscars.

12 actors directed by Spielberg have been nominated. No actor has ever won under his direction.
Lincoln and Schindler´s list both have gotten 12 nominations.
The Color Purple got 11 nominations and no oscars.
Spielberg has directed 27 pictures. Four of them did not get any nominations (Sugarland Express, Always, Terminal and Indy 4).
Out of the 23 pictures that have gotten nomination, only six of them have gotten best actor nominations.

So yeah... if it happens then it will be a breakthrough for Spielberg.

Last edited by AshDigital (2013-01-13 00:09:06)

It's hard to say. But we have seen many times that two strong performances in a single year can split the votes so that the third comes out on top. One example is when Anna Paquin won best supporting actress (the theory is that the other four were all stronger but Paquin edged out of it because none of the other could get a runaway margin).