2013 Awards Season: Les Mis Leads Ways as Surprises Dominate

January 14, 2013

Hollywood Foreign Press Association handed out their awards last night, and the trend of surprises continues. Les Miserables led the way with three awards, only one of which I was truly expecting. Meanwhile, Argo won more awards than Lincoln. I don't think anyone was predicting that.

The categories and winners are...

BEST FEATURE - DRAMA

BEST FEATURE - COMEDY OR MUSICAL

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST SCREENPLAY

ACTRESS - DRAMA

ACTOR - DRAMA

ACTOR - COMEDY OR MUSICAL

ACTRESS - COMEDY OR MUSICAL

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

SUPPORTING ACTOR

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

BEST SCORE

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Notes and Reactions...

  • Les Miserables won three awards, which is a shock, because its reviews were only good and not award-worthy. In fact, I've seen it on a number Worst of the Year lists.
  • Lincoln went one for seven. I'm not sure if this really hurts its Oscar chances; after all, it is not going to lose Best Director to Affleck on Oscar night.
  • Argo beating Lincoln for Best Dramatic Film might go down as the biggest surprise of Awards Season, unless it repeats this feat at the Oscars.
  • Les Miserables beat The Silver Linings Playbook for Best Comedy / Musical, which is an upset if you look at their reviews, but not if you look at historical norms. Awards Season voters tend to reject comedies, so an epic musical certainly has a leg up on the competition.
  • Ben Affleck was snubbed for an Oscar nomination, but he won for a Golden Globe for Argo. That was not expected.
  • Django Unchained hasn't performed as well as expected during Awards season, but Quentin Tarantino did earn a surprise win for Best Screenplay, while Christoph Waltz picked up the win for Best Supporting Actor.
  • Jessica Chastain's win for Best Lead Actress in a Drama for Zero Dark Thirty was one of the lest surprising events of the night. The fact that it was the film's only win was a bit of a surprise.
  • The same is true for Daniel Day-Lewis's win for Best Lead Actor in a Drama. The only surprise with that win was that is was Lincoln's only one.
  • I thought Bradley Cooper would beat Hugh Jackman. Then again, a lot of people complained that Hugh Jackman wasn't as good as the original Broadway performance in the role, and that was maybe an unfair comparison.
  • Jennifer Lawrence's win for Silver Linings Playbook was one of the rare non-surprises of the evening. I was hoping the film would perform better overall.
  • If Anne Hathaway doesn't win the Oscar for Les Miserables, I would suspect there's something wrong with the voting.
  • I thought vote-splitting between Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz would give Tommy Lee Jones and Lincoln the win. I was wrong.
  • Brave was the clear choice for Best Animated Film in my mind, but it isn't a Pixar classic, so I thought it might be snubbed.
  • Given its Oscar performance, Amour was an easy pick for Best Foreign Language Film.
  • Life of Pi was clearly made to win awards, but it had to settle for just one last night, Mychael Danna for Best Score.
  • Skyfall was good enough to win awards, but it is the wrong genre. At least Adelle won for "Skyfall".

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Filed under: Awards Season, Lincoln, Life of Pi, Brave, Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained, Argo, Les Misérables, Silver Linings Playbook, Amour, Ben Affleck, Jessica Chastain, Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Tommy Lee Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Quentin Tarantino, Christoph Waltz, Mychael Danna