Behold! The Oscar Nominations!

First things first. The full list of nominees, for your perusal, is over here. I'm afraid that I still haven't seen a good chunk of the major contenders so I can't comment too much on how strong or weak I think the nominees are this year. However, I can talk about the politics a bit, and the state of the awards race.

There's probably only one question on every Oscar prognosticator's mind today, and that would be "Amour"? Specifically, how did a emotionally devastating French-language end of life narrative directed by one of Europe's most dedicated cinema sadists end up with five nominations, including "Best Picture"? There was some talk of it picking up acting awards, and Emmanuelle Riva did pop up in the Actress in a Leading Role category, but I don't know anyone that had this as a remotely likely Best Picture contender. If a movie about the travails of senior citizens was going to be in the running, the expectation was that the lighter and funnier "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" might have a shot. "Amour" also beat out "Moonrise Kingdom," which was building buzz for months, but in the end only came out with a Best Original screenplay nomination. Also absent is "The Master," not a big surprise honestly, since it wasn't nominated in most of the preliminary contests. I'm still puzzled at how weak the support has been though, considering how much the critics love this and how everyone was talking about it back in September.

The directing category brought even bigger surprises though. Usually this category mirrors the top contenders in the Best Picture category, but this time around I'm not so sure that's true. Theres' no Tom Hooper, to the relief of some, who didn't appreciate all the wide-angle close-ups in "Les Misérables." But there's also no Ben Affleck for "Argo" or Katherine Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty." Send a sympathy card to Quentin Tarantino, because he's not here either. Instead, we have the expected Steven Spielberg for "Lincoln" and Ang Lee for "Life of Pi," dark horse David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook," even darker horse Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild," and dear god, never in a million years would I have predicted Michael Haneke for "Amour," in the running for a Best Director trophy. Where does this leave our Best Picture race? I have no idea. "Lincoln" is the most likely winner because it's the most conservative and popular choice, with the most nominations, but you can't ignore the groundswell of support for "Beasts" and "Amour" either. And I wouldn't count out "Les Misérables" or "Argo" or "Zero Dark Thirty" just yet, which secured plenty of other nominations to potentially offset a missing Best Director nod. Boy, this is going to be an interesting year.

Turning to the acting categories, this is where "The Master" got its only nominations, for Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. Phoenix and Adams were big question marks after they failed to secure SAG Awards nominations, as the SAG Awards are usually considered a strong predictor of the Oscars - but it looks like that wasn't true this year. The Best Actor nominations aside from Phoenix have been pretty much decided for a while now. I'm a little disappointed John Hawkes from "The Sessions" got squeezed out in the end, and I really have to see "Silver Linings Playbook" to figure out what the hell Bradley Cooper pulled off to put himself in this kind of company. Then again, he doesn't have a chance against Daniel Day Lewis, who is most likely going to win again. I'm glad the Best Actress category found room for both Emmanuelle Riva and Quvenzhané Wallis from "Beasts of the Southern Wild," though that meant Marion Cotillard for "Rust and Bone" and Rachel Weisz for "The Deep Blue Sea" were out. I'd happily swap out Naomi Watts for one of them. She was perfectly fine in "The Impossible," but not at the same level. Jessica Chastain for "Zero Dark Thirty" and Jennifer Lawrence for "Silver Linings Playbook" remain the frontrunners.

The Supporting categories can usually be counted on for some interesting, oddball nominations, but they're both pretty boring this year. Alan Arkin in "Argo" and Robert De Niro in "Silver Linings Playbook" in Best Supporting Actor both feel like unfortunate legacy picks, when there was a wealth of more interesting performances to choose from. I'm surprised only Christoph Waltz got recognized for "Django Unchained," when Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson were just as good. Maybe the Academy was a wary of nominating them for playing such vile and terrible villains. And maybe that's why Javier Bardem for "Skyfall" isn't here either. The lack of Matthew McConaughey, however, is deeply disappointing. In Best Supporting Actress, it's good to see Helen Hunt back, especially for a role in "The Sessions" that had so much onscreen nudity. Jacki Weaver's work in "Silver Linings Playbook" hasn't been getting much buzz at all, and I'm not sure what to make of her inclusion here over Ann Dowd for "Compliance" and Nicole Kidman for "The Paperboy." On the other hand, it's a relief to find that Maggie Smith for "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" isn't here, which looked like it was going to be a real possibility a few weeks ago. My guess is that Philip Seymour Hoffman and Anne Hathaway will walk away with the statuettes.

The Best Writing nominees mirror the Best Picture nominees again, except subtract "Les Misérables," which pretty much transcribed the stage musical, and add "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Flight," which cements their positions as runner-ups for the bigger awards. The lack of "The Master" here suggests that Paul Thomas Anderson wasn't even close. Best Cinematography includes Seamus McGarvey for "Anna Karenina" and Roger Deakins for "Skyfall," which both made decent showings in the smaller categories. There's a good chance that Deakins could win this, because he's overdue for the honor, and the Academy is making a special effort to recognize the James Bond franchise this year. That wasn't quite enough to secure the acting nominations that some were predicting, though, so we'll have to wait and see. In Best Editing, "Les Misérables" is missing again, which is not a good sign, because the category is another key predictor of which movies have the most support. "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" appear instead. These two pictures may not have the most nominations, but they have them where it counts.

In the Best Animated Feature category, it looks like this year's foreign import slot will go to "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" instead of something really obscure, like "The Rabbi's Cat." I'm okay with this, since "Pirates!" didn't get much attention Stateside and deserves the acclaim. That also puts three stop-motion features in the running, a nice little move of solidarity behind an animation sub-genre that Boxofficemojo pointed out didn't have a very good year financially. Among the Best Foreign Language Films, it's inevitable that "Amour" is going to win, since it got that Best Picture nod. I haven't seen most of the nominees here, but I am surprised that France's crowd-pleasing "The Intouchables" wasn't nominated after making the shortlist.

Now for some odds and ends. "Chasing Ice" didn't make it into the Best Documentary category, but got a Best Song nomination for "Before My Time." Eiko Ishioka, longtime collaborator of Tarsem Singh, posthumously received a nomination for Costumes in "Mirror, Mirror." She passed away last year of pancreatic cancer. The Best Art Design Category has been renamed Best Production Design, and Best Makeup is now Best Makeup and Hairstyling. One of the contenders in both categories is "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," which only came up with three nominations this time around. The third was for Visual Effects, alongside "The Avengers" and "Prometheus." Meanwhile, Television's "The Simpsons" have their first Oscar nomination, for "Maggie Simpson in 'The Longest Daycare,'" which is up for Best Animated Short Film.

Films completely shut out include "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," "The Dark Knight Rises," "The Promised Land," "Hyde Park on Hudson," "Arbitrage," "Looper," "Rust and Bone," and poor "Cloud Atlas," which I was hoping would at least get a Best Score nod.

Oh, and as a last note, Seth McFarlane is hosting the Oscar telecast this year, and the Academy managed to scrounge up a nomination for him too. He's up for the Best Song category, having written the lyrics to ""Everybody Needs A Best Friend" for "Ted."
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