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Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln’ nabs 12 nominations

BEVERLY HILLS: US Civil War-era drama Lincoln won 12 Oscar nominations on Thursday, narrowly edging out the fantasy shipwreck tale Life of Pi, while several top filmmakers were snubbed for the coveted director’s award.

Director Steven Spielberg’s story of President Abraham Lincoln’s battle to end slavery was nominated for best picture along with Life of Pi, which received a total of 11 nominations, and LesMiserables, which had eight nominations.

Iran hostage drama Argo, French language drama Amour, Osama bin Laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty, comedy Silver Linings Playbook, Quentin Tarantino’s Django-Unchained, and mythological film Beasts of the Southern Wild rounded out the category.

The Oscars are given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and this year’s winners will be named at a ceremony in Hollywood on February 24.

“There isn’t any one film that’s way above all the others,” Academy president Hawk Koch said after the nominations were announced.

“I don’t know who’s going to win and I don’t think anyone is going to know until they open that envelope at the end of the (Oscars) show,” Koch said.

Daniel Day-Lewis, pictured, nom- inated for his towering performance as Abraham Lincoln, is seen as the frontrunner for the best actor award. Hugh Jackman, who plays a reformed petty thief in LesMiserables, also was nominated in the category.

In the race for best actress, Jessica Chastain was nominated for her role as a CIA agent in Zero Dark Thirty as was Jennifer Lawrence for playing a young widow in Silver Linings Playbook.

Lincoln also picked up nominations for best director – Spielberg – best supporting actors – Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones – as well as for best adapted screenplay and costumes. James Bond film Skyfall won five nominations, including best original song and cinematography, but the British secret agent movie missed out on a coveted best picture mention.

The screen adaptation of musical LesMiserables will compete in eight categories, including best supporting actress for Anne Hathaway as tragic heroine Fantine.

But the director’s short-list contained four major snubs – Tom Hoop- er ( LesMiserables) Ben Affleck for Argo, Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty and Tarantino for his violent slavery- era Western Django Unchained.

“Ben Affleck as best director is something I would have liked to have seen on the list. But overall, it’s pretty much as expected,” comedian Seth MacFarlane, who will host the Oscar ceremony, said.

ZeroDarkThirty, which recounts the decade-long hunt for Bin Laden, picked up five nods, including best screenplay for Mark Boal.

But the omission of Bigelow in the best director’s category may bode ill for the movie’s Oscar hopes. – Reuters