Arts: The Movie Club

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The Movie Club The Movie Club Oscar nominations: Bigelow and Tarantino snubbed, Affleck likely sad. By Dana Stevens Posted Thursday, Jan 10, 2013, at 03:38 PM ET Dear all, What a lucky break that the announcement of this year's Academy Award nominees happened to coincide with the week of Movie Club. This time, instead of responding to the choices in an early-morning vacuum (ah, the ineffable loneliness of that dark, echoey room where industry types gather at 5:30 a.m. to hear the words of the Delphic oracle!), I get to kibitz and dissect the nominations with you all. It's like getting to sit on the bleachers with the coolest kids in school during prom. So I propose we take a break from our conversation of the year's movies for a lightning round of Oscar talk. What were the surprises? For me, the biggest ones came in the best director category—nary a nomination for Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, or Tom Hooper, making it unlikely that any of their films will take the big prize (since winners in the Best Picture category have generally tended to be nominated for their directing as well). And Benh Zeitlin and David O. Russell—the former a 30-year-old Hollywood outsider, the latter a notorious hothead not known for his people-pleasing skills—were unexpected inclusions on the list for, respectively, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook. Ben Affleck, whose Argo got a surprising amount of recognition in other categories (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score, Best Editing, and a Best Supporting nom for Alan Arkin), was also shut out here. Wonder if he'll ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Argo, F--k Yourself What's Lost if the Voting Rights Act Falls? The Lesson of RGIII	Advertisement
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