LES Misérables is leading the Oscar pack with nominations including best foreign-sounding film and best cockney accent in a French-based film.
This year’s introduction of new, more cosmopolitan categories including an award for the most unforeign-seeming foreigner is a riposte to those who accuse the Oscars of glorifying a handful of Hollywood movies.
Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is up for longest film and best opportunity for white actors to use racial epithets.
Argo, directed by Ben Affleck and set in the late 1970 during the Iranian hostage crisis has been nominated for best excuse to feature cool actors looking cool smoking indoors and on airplanes.
It is also in the running for best storyline to rescue a feelgood ending from an otherwise disastrous episode in American history.
Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, about the killing of bin Laden is in line for both the most surprising ending and best use of numbers in a title to convey macho suspense.
Daniel Day-Lewis, meanwhile, is strongly tipped to pick up the annual Daniel Day-Lewis Award for being Daniel Day-Lewis.
