No surprises here, except for two:
1. The Zero Dark Thirty tie with Skyfall in Best Sound Editing... I guess the had to give something to Zero Dark Thirty, as it's sort of a US military/CIA B.S. propaganda film. Exactly the same thing happened with The Hurt Locker 3 years ago, same director (Kathryn Bigelow), same B.S. propaganda film exploiting lame redneck war theories to sell movie tickets.
2. Best Documentary Feature going to Searching for Sugar Man, and leaving out three others that were far superior: The Gatekeepers; Five Broken Cameras; and The Invisible War... I guess here too, politics played a heavy role in determining the winner, but as documentary films go, the other ones hold much more value - and courage - to make. The first two, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the third one, about the systemic rape cases in the US military against women. All of them touchy subjects for Hollywood. They played it light & safe and went for the one about music.
I know the Oscars are a sham all right... but they are getting way too shameless.
As for all the others, no big surprises. Argo was OK, also politically correct propaganda without much artistic merit. Lincoln's historical inaccuracies and Daniel Day Lewis also not a surprise, but boring as hell.
Frankly speaking, this years' nominations were a bit mediocre. I guess the thing I liked the most was that Zero Dark Thirty didn't win anything relevant. I would be a real shame if they pulled another Hurt Locker move again.
Cheers!