Oscars 2014 Nominations: 10 Things We Learned About This Year's Picks

8. The 'Old White Voter' Stereotype Has Been Overestimated

The cliché goes that Oscar voters only know how to be three things: old, white and psychologically marooned in days of yore. It's why meaningful 'prestige' pictures €“ safe bets unlikely to offend but likely to educate €“ have in the past tended to clog up Oscar ballots. But this year, there is no Driving Miss Daisy or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close rotting out the rest of the barrel €“ the frontrunners are all critically-acclaimed films with a contemporary edge. Dallas Buyers Club, Nebraska and Philomena are modern indies through-and-through, while there are not one but two sci-fis up for Best Picture (Gravity and Her), which is virtually unheard of for Oscar. The most prestige-y picture of the lot, 12 Years a Slave, is defiantly the work of an auteur, and is unflinching where prestige movies of the past would look away. Meanwhile, American Hustle, which is essentially an ecstatic disco romp about nothing, is all over the 2014 nominations. Even The Wolf of Wall Street is up for Best Picture, and that's after Martin Scorsese was confronted and told he should be "ashamed of himself" by an older member following an Academy screening.