And Now Things Get Serious (PGA Nominations)

Happy New Year.  Musings and Stuff took an unexpected break for the holidays, and all the exhaustion that comes with this time of year, but it's time to start fresh as the 2013 Oscar Race is ever solidified (for better or worse) by today's announcement of the nominees of the best of the year from the Producers Guild Association of America.

The nominees are:

• 12 Years a Slave
• American Hustle
• Blue Jasmine
• Captain Phillips
• Dallas Buyers Club
• Gravity
• Her
• Nebraska
• Saving Mr. Banks
• The Wolf of Wall Street

The PGA have been a streak with the Best Picture Oscar since No Country For Old Men's victory in 2007, so the outcome here will more than likely be our eventual king of 2013.  Some the usual suspects (Captain Phillips, American Hustle, Gravity, Nebraska, 12 Years a Slave) arrive and are safe, but the remaining line-up is a bit harder to read, prompting confusion and more questions.

Is Blue Jasmine, long ago abandoned as the Cate Blanchett-only show, now a possible Best Picture nominee?

Can Dallas Buyers Club, fresh from its inexplicable SAG Ensemble nomination, join the fray?

Are Wolf of Wall Street and Her, passionately loved (and some corners hated) auteur projects, safe?

Just how telling is that lazy nomination for Saving Mr. Banks?

And of the snubs-- neither Inside Llewyn Davis, Lee Daniels' The Butler, Fruitvale Station, August: Osage County, Prisoners or All is Lost made the cut.  Are they DOA?  Interestingly, the Weinstein Company and their typically plentiful crop of prestige films didn't make the cut this year.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE (Almost didn't feel the need to include because it's just so depressing)

• The Croods
• Despicable Me 2
• Epic
• Frozen
• Monster's University