RECEIVED WISDOM: The Nominations

"The biggest shock waves at the Academy this morning were clearly over the omission of Ben Affleck‘s direction of Argo and Kathryn Bigelow‘s absence forZero Dark Thirty. Both are still nominees as co-producers of their Best Picture-nominated films, but this has to sting." — Deadline Hollywood  

"It's "Lincoln" vs. "Silver Linings Playbook" vs. "Life Of Pi" For Best Picture. Things could, of course, change over the next few weeks, but despite picking up Best Picture nominations, three of the hopefuls seemed to take a fairly major knock today. Famously, the last time a film won Best Picture without at least a nomination for Best Director was "Driving Miss Daisy" in 1989, which means that, by missing out in the latter category, "Zero Dark Thirty," "Argo" and "Les Miserables" all have an uphill battle to fight." — The Playlist   

"The Producer's Guild Awards (1.26) is the one to watch as far as where this race is going." — Pete Hammond   

"Five of the 9 nominees have terrifying scenes involving drowning/ flooding/ watery-death... Beasts of the Southern Wild - for Hushpuppy drowning is the end of the world, hurricanes as apocalypse. Those shots of drowned animals and her thoughts about them having no daddies? Heartbreaking. The Impossible - tells a true story of survival from the 2004 Thai tsunami... Life of Pi - at the center of an ungainly expository drama, is a miniature visual masterpiece about a shipwreck and a tiger and boy sharing a boat alone in the vastness of the ocean. Moonrise Kingdom features a big storm and flood. Amour - has flooding but in which context we shouldn't say. Zero Dark Thirty -the waterboarding torture sequence is what keeps everyone talking though it's a tiny part of the movie. But still: horrific." — Nathaniel Rogers 

"For the first time in, like, forever most of the Oscar frontrunners for Best Picture have either made $100 million or are barreling towards that as we speak. Box office for “adult fare” has been off the charts this year and is the story of 2012." — Awards Daily 

"The New York Film Festival - showing a more selective line-up than any other major one except Telluride - was the big winner when the Oscar nominations were announce this morning. The two films with the most nominations - "Lincoln" (12) and "The Life of Pi" (11) both world premiered at their event (the former as an unannounced surprise screening, the latter Opening Night), while "Flight" (Best Actor and Original Screenplay nominee) was their closer." — IMDB 

"Lincoln will win Best Picture" — Jeff Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere 

"With this morning's nominations, they may have played by the book in some respects -- pretty much everyone saw that field-leading haul of nods for Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" coming -- but in many others, they were on excitingly independent-minded form, freed from the lockstep of Guild thinking." — Guy Lodge, In Contention  

"The exemplary fact of this year’s Oscar nominations is the acknowledgment of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” in four major categories (Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay)." — Richard Brody, The New Yorker 

 "I am told by a Weinstein consultant that Harvey Weinstein listened to the announcement and said he was more excited by this Oscar morning than any since the first Miramax movie was nominated nearly 25 years ago. He has reason to be excited by the performance of Silver Linings,which becomes the first film since Reds in 1981 to have Picture, Screenplay, Directing and acting nominations in four categories." — Deadline Hollywood 

"Cannes, then, remains a potential Oscar kingmaker, even as the festival concerns itself largely with auteurs who will never see the inside of the Dolby Theater" — Guy Lodge

"Emmanuelle Riva Could Win Best Actress" — The Playlist