Ponder this year's Academy Award nominees and you'll see a theme of nostalgia -- and a French flavor. "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's gentle 3D tale of a movie-loving orphan living in a train station in 1930s Paris, came out on top with 11 nominations, including best picture, director and adapted screenplay. "The Artist," a black-and-white love letter to early Hollywood, earned 10 nods, including first-time nominations for its French director (Michel Hazanavicius), star (Jean Dujardin, in the best-actor category) and ingenue (Berenice Bejo, for supporting actress).
And Woody Allen set a record for writers, earning his 15th career nomination in the original screenplay category for "Midnight in Paris." The film was also recognized for best picture, director (Allen's seventh nomination in that category) and art direction. Its story? A contemporary American in Paris gets magically transported into the 1920s literary scene.
The Academy named an unprecedented nine films to the best picture list, thanks to a change in the rules that required each nominee in that category to be a first-place vote on at least 5 percent of ballots. (For the past two years, the category has had 10 slots; before that for many decades, it was five.) Also on the slate: "Moneyball" (with six total nominations), "War Horse" (also six), "The Descendants" (five), "The Help" (four), "The Tree of Life" (three) and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (two).
The acting categories featured some new faces, in the form of first-time nominees like Demian Bichir (best actor, for "A Better Life," a drama about immigrants in east Los Angeles that played Seattle briefly last summer), Rooney Mara (best actress, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"), Octavia Spencer (best supporting actress, "The Help") and Melissa McCarthy (best supporting actress, "Bridesmaids"). Among the veterans, Meryl Streep notched her record-setting 17th acting nomination (for "The Iron Lady"), and the supporting-actor category was noted for having three nominees 70 and older: Nick Nolte ("Warrior"), Christopher Plummer ("Beginners") and Max von Sydow ("Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close").
Among the surprises in other categories: Terrence Malick beat out the likes of Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood for a directing nomination for "The Tree of Life"; the Iranian film "A Separation" received not only a foreign-language film nod but a nomination for best original screenplay; a Pixar film (this year's eligible one: "Cars 2") did not make the list for best animated film; and only two original songs were deemed worthy of recognition in the best song category -- an all-time low. (Perhaps more of them should have been in French.)
The Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Billy Crystal, takes place Sunday, Feb. 26. Let the campaigning begin ...
