2013 Academy Awards | experience it all.

As we inch closer to the 85th Academy Awards the nominations tallied by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were announced today. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln received the most nominations, 12 of them in fact. The period piece is up for Best Picture, Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones), Best Supporting Actress (Sally Field), Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Tony Kushner), Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score, Production Design, and Sound Mixing. Life of Pi is close behind with 11 nods including Best Picture, Best Director (Ang Lee), and Best Adapted Screenplay (David Magee). The remaining Best Picture contenders are Amour (5 nods total), Argo (7), Beasts of the Southern Wild (4), Django Unchained (5), Les Miserables (8), Silver Linings Playbook (8), and Zero Dark Thirty (5). Daniel Day-Lewis is up against Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), and Denzel Washington (Flight) for Best Actor. Clawing for Best Actress are Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour), Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), and Naomi Watts (The Impossible). The movies up for Best Animated Feature are Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates!, Band of Misfits, and Wreck-It Ralph.

Who got snubbed? The biggest shockers are those who were not nominated for Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Tom Hooper (Les Miserables), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), and Ben Affleck (Argo; he also wasn’t nominated for Best Actor). Big acting snubs include Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained) and John Hawkes (The Sessions). No technical nominations for Flight or Prometheus. Not a single nod for Rian Johnson’s Looper, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas. And blockbuster The Avengers only managed to land a single nod for Visual Effects.

Jump after the break to see all the nominations. The 85th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Family Guy‘s Seth MacFarlane, airs live Sunday, February 24 on ABC. Watch some of MacFarlane’s latest promos below.
Continue reading 2013 Oscar nods are in! →

It was announced today that Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, is set to host the 85th Academy Awards. MacFarlane is hot off his Saturday Night Live hosting stint and his motion picture directorial debut Ted which garnered over $420 million worldwide.

Oscars producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron had this to say about the newly minted host. “We are thrilled to have Seth MacFarlane host the Oscars. His performing skills blend perfectly with our ideas for making the show entertaining and fresh. He will be the consummate host, and we are so happy to be working with him.”

MacFarlane responded to the news like this: “It’s truly an overwhelming privilege to be asked to host the Oscars. My thoughts upon hearing the news were, one, I will do my utmost to live up to the high standards set forth by my predecessors; and two, I hope they don’t find out I hosted the Charlie Sheen Roast.” And with a video featuring his dad, embedded after the break.

In addition to his many voices (Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show), MacFarlane has a Grammy-nominated big-band jazz album under his belt, Music Is Better Than Words, so you can expect the jack of many trades to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps with a musical number, amongst other gags.

The Oscars air live Sunday, February 24 on ABC. Continue reading Seth MacFarlane is hosting the Oscars →