1. Best Foreign Language Film And Best Documentary Feature Are Still The Least Predictable Categories
With awards season, everything is pretty much sewn up by the time the Oscars come around. By now, we know Alfonso Cuaron will win Best Director, that 12 Years a Slave will probably win Best Picture, or that Cate Blanchett, Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong'o will be taking home acting prizes. So, apart from a snub or two (mostly predictable), there wasn't much about yesterday's Oscar noms announcement that was surprising. That is, aside from the nominations for Best Documentary and Best Foreign Language Film. There were some shock omissions for Best Doc Stories We Tell and Blackfish among them but most unpredictable was the Foreign Language Film category, as ever. No nomination for landmark Saudi Arabian entry Wadjda; nothing for Asghar Farhadi's The Past; and Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster, which was the only foreign language pic to receive nominations outside of Best Foreign Language Film (aside from Ernest and Celestine and The Wind Rises, themselves trapped within the Animated Film category), didn't even get a nom in the category. Meanwhile, the most noticeable absentee, the Cannes-blasting Blue is the Warmest Colour, was deemed ineligible; maybe we'll see it at next year's ceremony.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
