Flavorwire

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Argo (Chris Terrio)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin)
Lincoln (Tony Kushner)
Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
Life of Pi (David Magee)

THE PLEASANT SURPRISE: This was the first nomination announced for Beasts of the Southern Wild, a Sundance favorite whose tiny budget, summer release, and exclusion from some of the bellwether awards had its fans scared that the Academy would overlook it. They needn’t have worried.
THE HEAD-SCRATCHER: None, really, in this category; all five scripts were bandied about as possible nominees, and fairly deserving.
THE SNUBS: We weren’t as wild as everyone else for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but plenty of prognosticators were predicting writer/director Stephen Chbosky (who wrote the original novel) would pick up a nomination here. And if a Les Miserables sweep was in the cards, it would’ve gotten a nod here. It wasn’t, and it didn’t.