BY JOE TYRRELL

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The annual approach of Oscar has some of our New Jersey Newsroom reviewers feeling grouchy and searching for a Master, while others come to this year’s roundtable with Amour in their hearts.

Along with the usual errors and omissions, the Academy cast a broader net than usual with this year’s nominations. The results are categories where, even when the voting outcomes may be foregone conclusions, the entries are competitive in quality.

With its earlier schedule this year, Sunday’s Academy Awards will follow hard on the heels of the Independent Spirit Awards to be distributed Saturday. Oscar contenders “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild” highlight that event.

Anticipating all this are NJN analysts Nancy Mandell, Miriam Rinn, Paula Schwartz and your loyal scribe.

In my ostensibly humble opinion, 2011 was the best year for American movies since the 1970s. By that standard, 2012 was decent. Looking over the nominations, Academy voters got about 80 percent of them right, a fairly high percentage.

Miriam Rinn: Since the movie I think should win the Oscar for best film and best direction, “The Master,” isn’t even nominated, I’m less enthusiastic about the event than usual.

Paula Schwartz: I thought this year was better than last year and a big improvement over years where the win was so predictable, like the time “Slumdog Millionaire” won every award.

Nancy Mandell: After so many years writing about movies, you wouldn’t think that Oscar nominations could still amaze me, but they do. Like Miriam, I’m appalled that “The Master” did not make the list of best pictures, particularly since with the option to name 10, the Academy only found nine to nominate! Did someone miscount?

JT: “The Master” is a startling oversight; perhaps the Scientologists struck back? While the nominees are a respectable group, all have their detractors. Even “Amour,” which I greatly admire, doesn’t send you out of the cinema whistling a happy tune. So let’s air the gripes first.

MR: I don’t uphold the most common complaints about “Django Unchained” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” but I wasn’t too keen on either. Like Quentin Tarantino’s other films, “Django” is a loving homage to a genre, in this case, the spaghetti Western, so it’s irrelevant to complain about historical inaccuracy or over-the-top violence. But it felt flabby and unfocused, continuing 20 minutes past its natural end.

“Zero” does not justify torture nor does the film condemn it; it presents it as something that the CIA did. More damaging to the film is the lack of characterization or deeper themes. The dogged agent Maya has no dimensions other than her persistence, and we don’t get any particular insight into the culture of the CIA or the national mood after 9/11. The last 20 minutes of the film are indeed exciting, but they seem to belong to another movie.

With its use of nonprofessional actors, swirl of colors and the astonishing little girl at its center, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” seduces the viewer. But that encourages many people to ignore the heavy-handed, hectoring tone, the shameless romanticizing of squalor and degradation, and the lack of any plausible outcome.

NM: “Zero Dark 30” starts and ends with the kind of energy director Kathryn Bigelow brought to her Oscar-winning “Hurt Locker,” but drags on through the middle of much of its 2 hours and 58 minutes!  “Argo” is Ben Affleck at the top of his game (acting and especially, directing), but this true-life caper film is notable mainly for supporting performances by Alan Arkin (nominated) and John Goodman (not).

I give Ang Lee millions of points for “Life of Pi” but while computer-generated effects might earn my vote in another year, they don’t really deserve to be in the company of “Lincoln,” “Django” and even “Les Miserables” — a lavish, gorgeous if overly long epic that I preferred to the original stage presentation, but that spends too much time closing in on its actors’ vocal chords.

As for “Silver Linings, “ I found it a pleasant movie whose effort to present the effects of mental illness on a close-knit, supportive family is riddled with inconsistencies… in short, overrated.

JT: My hideous secret is that I enjoyed all these movies. But it is peculiar that Hollywood sent two more valentines to the CIA, the people who got us into this mess. As noted above, “Zero” suffers from Mark Boal’s episodic and jargon-riddled script. “Argo” is a previously true story turned to hokum before our eyes, positioning itself as the lead-in for the next war.

PS: I don't think the Academy can vote "Argo" best film without looking silly but it's possible they will surprise everyone. Ironically, it would be the safe choice, except for the controversy that the Academy created in not nominating Ben Affleck for best director.

The Academy has in years past looked to the Directors Guild of America nominations for guidance. By pushing up the Oscar schedule this year, the Academy missed that steady hand and went a little loopy, forgetting Affleck.

JT: But enough negativity, what did we like?

PS: I admit to feeling some aversion when it comes to saying what is "best" whether talking about an actor or a movie. To me it's almost like when I used to go to the Westminster Dog show and I'd see 10 identically beautiful Golden Retrievers lined up and I always wondered how the judges decided which one was the "best" when they were equally gorgeous.

Still, to get an Oscar nomination a foreign film has to be better than the American films and the performances have to be drop-dead amazing, which is how I feel about "Amour." I think "Amour" is the best movie of the year with "Silver Linings Playbook" close behind. I would be happy with either winning.

I loved "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and give the Academy credit for nominating first-time feature film director Behn Zeitlin for a movie that is out of Hollywood's comfort zone and stars non-professional actors.

MR: Absent “The Master,” “Lincoln” seems to me to be the most worthy of a best picture award. It’s the best film Steven Spielberg has made in years, mostly because he has an excellent script by Tony Kushner to balance his beautiful visuals. “Amour” is one of the best films I saw all year, but I’m not sure why it is nominated in the best-picture category as well as best foreign language film.

NM: “Lincoln” is a triumph for Stephen Spielberg and, of course, his eponymous lead actor, Daniel Day-Lewis. Beautifully acted, written and directed, its authentically recreated interiors and exteriors are a treat to observe. It has the stature and dignity Hollywood likes to preserve with an Oscar. “Lincoln” will walk away with the lion’s share of the awards, almost everything for which it has been nominated.

It would certainly be riskier of the Academy to honor my personal favorite, “Django Unchained,” a tour de force for Quentin Tarantino and a film whose energy, color, wit and bravado actually held my attention for its full 2 ½ hours.

JT: Intimately observed, superbly acted, compassionate and chilling, “Amour” is by far the best movie I saw in the past year. Among the nominees, I also loved “Beasts of the Southern Wild” for its wild originality, child’s version of magical realism and, of course, Quevenzhané Wallis. Of those likely to win, I would be pleased with “Silver Linings Playbook.”

This was also a good year for animation. My particular favorite is “Pirates! Band of Misfits” from the Wallace and Gromit folks, but Tim Burton is back in fine form with “Frankenweenie.”

Whew, that’s a lot of talk. The Oscar Roundtable is going to take a brief intermission. We’ll return with our favorites in directing and acting.