Cate Blanchett among the nominees for the 2014 Academy Awards
IT IS shaping up as a golden year at the Oscars for Australia, with Cate Blanchett, Catherine Martin and a posse of other Australians nominated.
IT IS shaping up as a golden year at the Oscars for Australia, with Cate Blanchett, Catherine Martin and a posse of other Australians nominated.
Her performance in Blue jasmine led to rave reviews, and her Oscar nomination was almost a foregone conclusion.
And now that Cate Blanchett has been confirmed on the ballot, bookmakers are taking their turn to predict who will walk away with the best actress statue – and it seems the bookies share the enthusiasm for our home-grown talent.
With the early odds coming through, Blanchett is leading the competition with odds of 1/7 or 1/8 from names such as Coral, Ladrokes and SkyBet.
Sandra Bullock, for her role in space thriller Gravity, is her closest competition, with odds of 1/8 and 1/9 from most of the leading names.
The rest of the pack - Amy Adams in "American Hustle", Judi Dench in "Philomena", and Meryl Streep in "August: Osage Country" - trail behind, suggesting that unless there is an upset on the night, it is between Cate and Washington-borne Bullock who will take the prize.
Blanchett was nominated for her role as a New York socialite on the decline in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine. Martin received a double Oscar nomination - costume design and production design - for The Great Gatsby, a similar feat she achieved for Moulin Rouge! more than a decade ago.
Martin's Aussie collaborator Beverley Dunn joins her on the production design nomination, but Baz Luhrmann was snubbed for a directing nomination for the film.
The con-artist comedy American Hustle and the 3-D space odyssey Gravity lead the Academy Awards with 10 nominations each, including nods for best picture.
Nine films were nominated for best picture. The other nominees are 12 Years a Slave, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Her, Nebraska, The Wolf of Wall Street and Philomena.
SEE THE FULL LIST OF 2014 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
12 Years a Slave narrowly trailed Gravity and American Hustle with a total of nine nominations.
The Samuel Goldwyn Theatre inside the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters already had an Australian flavour before Blanchett's name was announced, with former Home & Away star-turned Thor superhero Chris Hemsworth on stage helping reveal the nominations.
Battling Martin for the costume design Oscar is Sydney's Michael Wilkinson who was nominated for American Hustle.
Australian visual effects wizard Dave Clayton has been nominated for his work on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Clayton was also nominated last year for the first Hobbit film.
The film about Australian Mary Poppins author PL Travers, Saving Mr Banks, received a cold shoulder from the Academy.
It received just one nomination, original score.
It was hoped Saving Mr Banks' Australian producer Ian Collie would get a best picture nod and screenwriter Sue Smith for original screenplay, but they were bypassed.
The most notable omission by the academy was Tom Hanks, whose lead performance in Captain Phillips was widely considered a shoo-in.
GALLERY: OSCAR NOMINATIONS 2014
Robert Redford, expected by many to be nominated for the shipwreck drama All Is Lost, also missed out on a best actor nod. Redford has never won an acting Oscar.
And perhaps the most unlikely Oscar contender is Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, which is in the running for the Makeup and Hairstyling prize.
Jackass star Johnny Knoxville tweeted: "Holy hell, an Oscar nomination for Stephen Prouty for makeup and hairstyling in bad grandpa!! Wahooo!!!!"
The best actor nominees are Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), Bruce Dern (Nebraska), Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street), Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) and Christian Bale (American Hustle).
"I'm at home in Malibu, having a cup of tea, catching the sunrise. My newborn's walking around. ... What a great alarm clock and news to wake up to this morning," McConaughey said.
DiCaprio, who has never won an Oscar, said he was "deeply humbled" by his acting nod.
"The Wolf of Wall Street has been a passion project of mine, and I found the role to be one of the most challenging and rewarding of my career," he said, tweeting his congratulations to his fellow Wolf of Wall Street nominees.
Congrats to my fellow nominees, @JonahHill, Marty, Terry Winter and #WolfofWallStreet family for the #Oscar noms.
— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) January 16, 2014Disney's making-of-Mary Poppins tale Saving Mr. Banks also failed to land either a best picture nomination or a best actress nod for Emma Thompson.
The best actress nominees are Amy Adams (American Hustle), Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Sandra Bullock (Gravity), Judi Dench (Philomena) and Meryl Streep (August: Osage County).
"It's a very good thing to wake up to; we were all asleep," said Adams, who said she was proud to be both Her and American Hustle. "As for celebrating today, maybe we should go out for a family hike? Then again, everyone looks pretty tired around here right now."
Dench said filming Philomenia had been a "wonderful experience."
"This is just the loveliest news," said Dench, who previously picked up a best supporting actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.
Adams said she and her family woke up to the news, and might celebrate by going for a hike, while Dench said her nomination was "just the loveliest news."
With her nomination, Streep pads her record for most acting nominations. This is her 18th nod, including three wins, the last for playing Margaret Thatcher in 2011's The Iron Lady.
But many enjoyed their first Oscar nomination, including Ejiofor, McConaughey, Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave), Barkhad Abdi (a limo driver before being cast in Captain Phillips) and Jared Leto, who had devoted himself to music before returning to play a transsexual in the Texas HIV drama Dallas Buyers Club.
"Yesterday I was doing jury duty, today I woke up with an Academy Award nomination," said Leto. "Only in America."
Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street was one of the biggest question marks of an awards season that has often left many guessing. The nearly three-hour Wall Street extravaganza of money, sex and drugs became a lightning rod of debate, with many questioning whether it glamorised the infamous trader Jordan Belfort.
But The Wolf of Wall Street landed big nominations: best picture, best actor (DiCaprio), best director (Scorsese, his eighth for directing) and best supporting actor (Jonah Hill).
"I am in complete and total shock," said Hill. "I honestly was not expecting this, on a level you can't even imagine."
Also doing well were Spike Jonze's futuristic romance Her (five nominations, including best original screenplay for Jonze), and Alexander Payne's black-and-white road trip Nebraska (six nominations, including best director for Payne).
Julia Roberts, who was nominated for best supporting actress for August: Osage County said she "simply could not be more excited right now".
"This was certainly a once in a lifetime experience and the recognition from it is an absolutely thrililng bonus," she said.
Roberts, who took home an Oscar for Erin Brokovich, will go up against Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle), Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave), Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) and June Squibb (Nebraska).
One of the day's biggest winners was the 27-year-old producer Megan Ellison, the daughter of billionaire Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
Her Annapurna Pictures produced two of the best-picture nominees (American Hustle and Her) as well as the Wong Kar-Wai martial arts drama The Grandmaster. Ellison celebrated by tweeting "17!'' - the total nominations her films received.
Though historically the most-nominated films have taken home best picture, that's not been the case in recent years. In six of the last 10 years, the most-nominated film hasn't triumphed in the end, including last year when Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, with 12 nominations, was beaten by Ben Affleck's Argo.
This year's Oscar's telecast on March 2, with Ellen DeGeneres hosting for the second time, has particular pressure on it to live up to the increasingly popular Golden Globes.
Hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have helped boost ratings for the Globes the last two years, and drawn good reviews. The Academy Awards have meanwhile struggled to freshen up its more prestigious brand.
The 44-year-old Blanchett has been nominated five previous times - Elizabeth in 1999, The Aviator (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2007), I'm Not There (2008) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2008).
She won an Oscar for best supporting actress for The Aviator.
Blanchett is the red hot favourite to win the best actress Oscar for Blue Jasmine after claiming the Golden Globe on Sunday.
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