2013 OSCAR NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED

Breaking from tradition with the announcement arriving almost two weeks early, this morning, Emma Stone and (with another unusual twist) this year's host, Seth MacFarlane presented the nominations for the 2013 Academy Awards.

With a sign of what to expect on this year's telecast, Mr. MacFarlane came out and shook-up the proceedings by doing a brief stand-up routine before calling Ms Stone out of the audience. Although they got the reporters laughing, most of the jokes were either stale or just a bit too edgy so early in the morning (most particularly the joke regarding Harvey Weinstein and the Best Supporting Actress nominees) and unnecessarily delayed getting those nominations out.

In regards to the actual nominations, there were no real major surprises with the exception of nine year-old, Quvenzhané Wallis for Best Actress, which I am very happy about and Bradley Cooper's nomination for Best Actor which I'm less impressed about. Popcorn flicks were left in the dust as "Skyfall" only received technical awards while "The Dark Knight Rises", surprisingly, got absolutely nothing, There were nine Best Picture nominees this time with "Lincoln" leading the field with the most nominations at twelve. I don't know if this is some kind of record but in the Best Supporting Actor race, all five nominees have already won an Oscar.

The 85th Annual Academy Awards will be presented on February 24, 2013 at the Dolby Theater on ABC.

Here is a complete list of the nominations: 

Best Picture 
"Amour"
"Argo"
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"
"Django Unchained"
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Zero Dark Thirty"

Best Director 
Michael Haneke, "Amour"
Benh Zeitlin, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
Ang Lee, "Life of Pi"
Steven Spielberg, "Lincoln"
David O. Russell, "Silver Linings Playbook"

Best Actor 
Bradley Cooper, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln"
Hugh Jackman, "Les Miserables"
Joaquin Phoenix, "The Master"
Denzel Washington, "Flight"

Best Actress 
Jessica Chastain, "Zero Dark Thirty"
Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Emmanuelle Riva, "Amour"
Quvenzhané Wallis, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
Naomi Watts, "The Impossible"

Best Supporting Actor 
Alan Arkin, "Argo"
Robert De Niro, "Silver Linings Playbook"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "The Master"
Tommy Lee Jones, "Lincoln"
Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained"

Best Supporting Actress 
Amy Adams,"The Master"
Sally Field, "Lincoln"
Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables"
Helen Hunt, "The Sessions"
Jacki Weaver, "Silver Linings Playbook"

Best Adapted Screenplay 
Chris Terrio, "Argo"
Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
David Magee, "Life of Pi"
Tony Kushner, "Lincoln"
David O. Russell, "Silver Linings Playbook"

Best Original Screenplay 
Michael Haneke, "Amour"
Quentin Tarantino, "Django Unchained"
John Gatins, "Flight"
Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, "Moonrise Kingdom"
Mark Boal, "Zero Dark Thirty"

Best Foreign Language Film 
"Amour" (Austria)
"Kon-Tiki" (Norway)
"No!" (Chile)
"A Royal Affair" (Denmark)
"War Witch" (Canada)

Best Animated Feature Film 
"Brave"
"Frankenweenie"
"ParaNorman"
"The Pirates! Band of Misfits"
"Wreck-It Ralph"

Best Production Design 
"Anna Karenina"
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"

Best Cinematography 
"Anna Karenina"
"Django Unchained"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Skyfall"

Best Original Score 
Dario Marianelli,  "Anna Karenina"
Alexandre Desplat, "Argo"
Mychael Danna,  "Life of Pi"
John Williams, "Lincoln"
Thomas Newman,  "Skyfall"

Best Original Song 
J. Ralph, "Before My Time" from "Chasing Ice"
Walter Murphy & Seth MacFarlane, "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from "Ted"
Mychael Danna and Bombay Jayashri, "Pi's Lullaby" from "Life of Pi"
Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth, "Skyfall" from "Skyfall"
Claude-Michel Schonberg, Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil, "Suddenly" from "Les Miserables"

Best Sound Mixing
"Argo"
"Les Miserables"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Skyfall"

Best Film Editing 
"Argo"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Zero Dark Thirty"

Best Documentary Feature 
"5 Broken Cameras"
"The Gatekeepers"
"How to Survive a Plague"
"The Invisible War"
"Searching for Sugar Man"

Best Documentary Short Subject 
"Inocente"
"Kings Point"
"Mondays at Racine"
"Open Heart"
Redemption

Best Animated Short Film 
"Adam and Dog"
"Fresh Guacamole"
"Head over Heels"
"Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare"
"Paperman"

Best Live Action Short Film 
"Asad"
"Buzkashi Boys"
"Curfew"
"Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)"
"Henry"

Best Costume Design 
"Anna Karenina"
"Les Miserables"
"Lincoln"
"Mirror Mirror"
"Snow White and the Huntsman"

Best Makeup and Hairstyling 
"Hitchcock"
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
"Les Miserables"

Best Visual Effects 
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
"Life of Pi"
"The Avengers"
"Prometheus"
"Snow White and the Huntsman