So American Hustle is going to take the Best Picture Oscar…right? And I’m probably going to win that $50 bucks from Glenn Kenny after all. Or will Gravity take it? I don’t think so. I think the David O. Russell payback factor that I mentioned a long time ago (the quality and popularity of The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook added to Hustle means he’ll be almost unbeatable) was one of the reasons Hustle took ten nominations. How odd that Russell’s biggest-ever Academy contender is a film that I like and respect but don’t really love.
The Movie Gods want 12 years A Slave to win Best Picture, naturally. As I do. As a lot of people do. Can the softies be guilt-tripped into admitting that the film’s moral force plus the stunning cinematic artistry injected by Steve McQueen and John Ridley overwhelms or at least balances out the cruelty and brutality? I’d like to think so but…
At 23, Jennifer Lawrence has now been Oscar-nominated three times — for Best Actress in Winter’s Bone in 2011 and Silver Linings Playbook last year (resulting in a win) and now for Best Supporting Actress in American Hustle. She’s the youngest actress ever to have been so honored. Plus she’s really rich and hot and everything else. I loved her in Hustle also, but the award should go to 12 Years A Slave‘s Lupita Nyong’o.
Congratulations to the films that landed the most Oscar nominations this morning — 10 for Hustle and Gravity, 9 for 12 Years A Slave, 6 for Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club and Nebraska, 5 for He and Wolf of Wall Street. And extra double triple quadruple congrats to Wolf of Wall Street‘s Jonah Hill, who surprised everyone (even me) with a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Only one smarty-pants Oscar prognosticator — The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg — predicted a Jonah nomination.