Movieline

Austria, Not Australia

How do you know when you've hit the saturation point of Oscar coverage? Probably when you instinctively draw parallels between a banner year for Austria (three nominations total for natives Christoph Waltz, Michael Haneke and Christian Berger) and a miserable year for Australia, which, for the first time since 1998, failed to supply a single acting nominee. (The country's beloved Foreign-Language hopeful Samson and Delilah was snubbed as well.) In fact, the only Aussies headed to the Kodak Theater in contention are Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey, nominated for their live-action short Miracle Fish. Down under, indeed. [THR, ABC]