Well, they announced the Oscar nominations yesterday, and much-lauded import Amour is opening today (review below the jump), so if you're curious about the hype and don't mind having a downer of a Friday night ... you're set. Other films opening this week include the Robert Carlyle drama California Solo (Dennis Harvey's review here), Marlon Wayans horror spoof A Haunted House, Ryan Gosling-in-a-fedora cop flick Gangster Squad, and (at the Roxie), teen-skater doc Only the Young.

Also! The Pacific Film Archive's "The Hills Run Red: Italian Westerns, Leone, and Beyond" series starts this week. Plenty of good spaghetti western action to be had; check out my round-up here. Read on for more short takes on this week's releases.

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Congratulations, Mr. President. Better luck next time, Ms. Bigelow, Mr. Affleck, and Mr. Anderson.

Yep, as you already know, the Oscar nominations were handed down this AM. Like every year, there were some predictable picks and some shocks, snubs, and head-scratchers. The ceremony is Feb. 24; I predict it'll be a three-way tie for Best Dressed among Jennifer Lawrence, Denzel Washington, and Quvenzhané Wallis. As for the big five categories ... let's discuss. (Full list of nominees here!)

Best Picture: Nine nominees but no spot for The Master or dark horse The Dark Knight Rises. Lincoln, which raked in the highest number of nominations overall, is a shoo-in. Second place: Silver Linings Playbook, followed by upstart indie Beasts of the Southern Wild.

The rest: Amour (will win Best Foreign Language Film); Argo, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, and my original pick to win, Zero Dark Thirty (these all have lesser chances, since their directors weren't nominated); and Life of Pi (likely to clean up in the technical categories).

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At last, the movie most likely to challenge Lincoln for Best Picture opens in San Francisco, with an even wider release coming next week. Check out my review of Zero Dark Thirty here. Highly recommended, and even if it doesn't snag the top trophy, look for Jessica Chastain to win Best Actress. (More Oscar predictions here, in case you're getting your pool in order extra-early.)

Also this week: Texas Chainsaw 3D (the first two films in this series, I'll defend to the death ... no interest in seeing this one, frankly), a re-release of Luis Buñuel's 1970 drama Tristana, and freewheeling New Orleans doc Tchoupitoulas (reviews of the latter two after the jump).

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