Andrew provided a round-up of this morning’s Academy Award nominations and gave his preliminary thoughts on who is in, who is out, what he likes to take home a few prizes.

I thought I’d take another look, overlaying a couple of the lenses that interest us here at The Stake. Here are a few observations that have occurred throughout the day:

2013 was a good year for black storytellers making films about the black American experience. And while many of those films were thought to be contenders for nominations-Fruitvale Station and The Butler were both considered possibilities for various categories-the Academy clearly decided that one “black movie” was sufficient. 12 Years A Slave brought in 9 nominations, and is considered by many to be the front-runner for Best Picture.

As for individual nominees of color, three actors made the list. Two from 12 Years, Chiwetl Ejiofor (Best Actor) and Lupita Nyong’o (Best Supporting Actress); Minneapolis actor Barkad Abdi received a Best Support Actor nod for Captain Phillips. In non-acting categories: Director Steve McQueen and writer John Ridley were nominated in their respective categories for 12 Years. The musician Pharrell is also nominated for his song “Happy”, from Despicable Me 2. Rumors of Pharrell’s chance at EGOTing are already floating.

Also of interest of late has been how celebrated cinema scores on the Bechdel Test, and the presence and characterization of women characters in cinema. While the question of whether the Bechdel Test offers value for evaluating individual films is debatable, it does provide a helpful reference for marking the landscape of any collection of films.

Of the 9 films nominated for Best Picture, 5 films fail the test: Captain Phillips, Gravity, Her, 12 Years a Slave, and Wolf of Wall Street. That leaves 4 Best Picture nominees that include 2 women who talk to each other about a subject other than a man: American Hustle, Dallas Buyer’s Club, Nebraska, and Philomena.

Other notes of interest:

Alfonso Cuaron, the Mexican filmmaker behind Gravity, is nominated in three categories: Director, Editing, and Best Picture.

Congratulations to Julie Delpy, on her second nomination for Writing with this year’s nod for Before Midnight, which she shares with Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater. She was nominated in 2004 with the same co-writers, for Before Sunset.

Another big congratulations to Megan Ellison, nominated for two Best Picture films this year, American Hustle and Her. This is only the 4th time a producer has had 2 films up for the top award in the same year. That Ms. Ellison is only 27 years-old only makes her accomplishment with Annapurna Pictures more impressive.

Steve McQueen becomes the third African-American nominated for Best Director. He was preceded by John Singleton for Boyz ‘n the Hood, and Lee Daniels for Precious. Neither went home as winners.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins was nominated for the 11th time for Prisoners. Deakins was previously nominated for such beautifully filmed titles as No Country For Old Men, Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and Kundun. He has never won. Unfortunately for Mr. Deakins, I don’t think this will be his year.

I’m glad to see that Saving Mr. Banks was shut out from the list of major categories (it received one nod, for Best Score). I haven’t seen it and don’t care to, but it carried itself with an obvious “Academy Voters will love this stuff” aura of self-celebration and importance. Some have suggested that perhaps this snub is a signal that the younger Academy voters are finally outnumbering the old-guard? Probably not. If anything, it probably signals that 2013 was a damn good year for the moving-pictures.

The Grandmaster, Wong Kar-wai‘s beautiful, if awkwardly constructed (there’s a Chinese cut I’m waiting for to see if it corrects obvious flaws), ode to the martial arts master Ip Man, received 2 nominations, for Cinematography and Costume Design. In perhaps the most unbelievable factoid I learned from this year’s nominations: this is the first time a Wong Kar-Wai film has ever been nominated for an Oscar in any category. That it did not receive a Best Foreign Film nod is unfortunate, if understandable if the US version was submitted.

[Editor's note: This post has been edited to correct a factual error. Julie Delpy is not the fourth woman to receive multiple writing nominations. There have been many. We regret the error]