Oscar Nominations Are In!

There was a time when I looked forward to getting up at 7:30 am Central time just to see the Oscar nominations announced. This is not that time.

But this morning, whether I was watching or not, actor Chris Hemsworth and Cheryl Boone, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, showed up at 5:30 Pacific time to tell us who's in and therefore who's out and who has been egregiously overlooked among the 2013 crop of movies.

Who's in? The slippery Abscam pic American Hustle and space adventure Gravity, with ten nominations each. American Hustle managed the nifty trick of scoring nominations in seven of the top categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress and Original Screenplay. That gives American Hustle a chance to join It Happened One Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Silence of the Lambs as a "Big Five" winner, a category reserved for those rare films that can win the Best Pic, actor, actress, director and screenplay awards. It's a tough row to hoe. Annie Hall managed four of the five (no Best Actor for you, Woody Allen), as did Mrs. Miniver and Gone With the Wind, who also missed out on Best Actor wins, while American Beauty got everything but Best Actress. Can American Hustle win Best Picture, for Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence and for its screenplay? Unlikely.

Gravity and 12 Years a Slave are the current Best Picture frontrunners, with Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Her, Nebraska, Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street also nominated.

Contenders for Best Actor include Christian Bale as the sleazy guy with the comb-over in American Hustle, Bruce Dern as the grizzled oldster looking for lottery winnings in Nebraska, Leonard DiCaprio as the corrupt stockbroker in The Wolf of Wall Street, Chiwetel Ejiofor as the man captured and sold into slavery in 12 Years a Slave, and Matthew McConaughey as the feisty HIV positive patient in Dallas Buyers Club who isn't taking no for an answer when it comes to possible treatments. Who will win? That is one jam-packed category.

The Best Actress nominees are also an impressive bunch. Cate Blanchett is at the top of the list for her role as a depressed Blanche Dubois type in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine. She is joined by Amy Adams, a slinky con woman forced to work for the Feds in American Hustle, Sandra Bullock as an astronaut lost in space in Gravity, Judi Dench as Philomena, a mother looking for her son, and Meryl Streep as a different sort of mother, one with a drug problem and a vicious tongue in August: Osage County.

Who's left out? Robert Redford for All Is Lost, Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks are the most obviously overlooked, while the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis is the biggest snub for Best Picture.

The Supporting Actor category consists of Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips), Bradley Cooper (American Hustle), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave), Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club), with Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine), Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle), Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave), Julia Roberts (August: Osage County) and June Squibb (Nebraska) contending for Best Supporting Actress.

Golden Globe winning director Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) will take on Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Alexander Payne (Nebraska), David O. Russell (American Hustle), and Martin Scorsese (Wolf of Wall Street) for Best Director honors.

If you want to see the complete list of nominees, including trailers for their movies, click here for the official Oscar site. As you can tell by the poster at the top of this post, Ellen DeGeneres will host the 2014 Oscar ceremony, which will be broadcast live on ABC on Sunday, March 2.

Oh Those Crazy Globes!

I made predictions for the Golden Globes last week, knowing full well that the 90-ish voters in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are the very definition of unpredictable, so it was no surprise that I went 9-for-20, or just under 50 per cent. I am going to count that as a victory, actually. There is no way in the world anyone would've predicted Jacqueline Bisset would win in the Globes' weird Supporting Actress category, where mini-series, TV movies, TV comedies and TV dramas are all lumped together. Ditto Andy Samberg and Brooklyn Nine Nine. Well, actually, I probably should've figured that one, given the Golden Globes voters' tendency to go for the new and shiny the first year a show is out. See: Girls last year.

Amy Poehler on the red carpet

Even if my crystal ball was a bit murky, I'm pleased as punch that Amy Poehler won finally for Parks and Recreation, and Robin Wright was singled out for her brittle, brilliant performance in House of Cards on Netflix. I said I would cheer loudly if Poehler won, and I did, and I said I would be happy whoever won in the crowded Best Actress in a Drama category. And I was.

What did I get right? Breaking Bad and Bryan Cranston, Behind the Candelabra and Michael Douglas, Alfonso Cuaran winning Best Director for Gravity while 12 Years a Slave got the Best Picture prize, Jared Leto's drag in The Dallas Buyers' Club taking Best Supporting Actor, American Hustle picking up the comedy film prize, and, of course, Cate Blanchett winning Best Actress in a Drama for Blue Jasmine. But everybody knew that was going to happen.

I am considering giving myself half credit for Jon Voight, since I pointed out that he is exactly the kind of performer the Globe voters love, and Amy Poehler, since I said I would cheer if she won. Ah well. Better luck next year.

Best Dressed? Lupita Nyong'o

Biggest oversights? That Lupita Nyong'o didn't win for 12 Years a Slave, that Aaron Paul and Corey Stoll were shut out in the mega Supporting Actor on TV arena, and that Leonardo DiCaprio beat out Bruce Dern as the Best Actor in a Drama.

The good news is that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler established themselves as the best hosts of anything ever, even if I could've done without the DiCaprio/supermodel's vagina joke. But the opening monologue, Fey's son Randy from a previous relationship, and the crack about George Clooney preferring deep space to spending time with a woman his own age were loopy and wonderful.

Juliana Margulies

The big question is always who wore what best. Nobody really blew it big time, although Sandra Bullock's multicolored Prabal Gurung dress wasn't very flattering, and Jennifer Lawrence's Dior gown looked more like a couple of kitchen-size trashbags with handy twist ties.

Lupita Nyong'o and her regal Ralph Lauren gown took top honors for me, followed by Juliana Margulies in a smashing black and gold Andrew Gn design that looked perfectly comfy and perfectly pretty at the same time. I loved the fact that it had pockets, plus the not-too-huge princess shape was perfect for her.

Amy Adams

I also liked Amy Adams' snazzy halter dress -- she's been wearing a lot of those to stay in that American Hustle mood -- in a red-on-red color combo that was different and yet arresting. That the gown came from Valentino makes it even more 70s inspired.

And Kerry Washington gets special mention for a beautiful cream-colored Balenciaga that showed off her pregnancy in style, as you can see below. Drew Barrymore and Olivia Wilde also came to the event clad in maternity wear, but Washington was the class of the class in pregnancy fashion.

Kerry Washington

Meanwhile, Emma Thompson told much of the fashion story when she took off her shoes and then tossed them over her shoulder when she was presenting. How do the lady stars stay upright in those things, anyway? Thompson brought her martini glass with her, illustrating the other theme of the Golden Globes. Keep the liquor flowing and the acceptance speeches will be as wacky as Jackie Bisset all night long.

It was a strange and silly night, as the Golden Globes usually are. Some righteous winners, a few oddities and upsets, everybody taking forever to get to the stage, bizarre hairdos (on male winners this time), lame bits for presenters, jokes that aimed under the belt... Yep. That's the Golden Globes all right.