Why so serious? Oscars 2013 to air tonight

Heavy on history and suffering, there is little room for humour in this year's edition of the Oscars, further confirming the American Academy's status as an austere - even sombre - affair that fails to address contemporary films as a medium for entertainment, or vivacious artistic experimentation.

However, in a year that has lauded the box-office-shattering Lincoln and Les Miserables, the prestigious ceremony has allowed a few diamonds in the rough to slip into its already bloated Best Picture category (expanded to accommodate 10 films last year, it features nine this time).

Though Quentin Tarantino is fast becoming a fixture of the awards as his career moves from cult maverick to a national treasure of American cinema, it's still a refreshing jolt to see his hyper-violent slavery revenge epic Django Unchained go neck-and-neck with the likes of Lincoln, which wrangles with the same themes in a decidedly different register.

Also, the appearance of Beasts of the Southern Wild in all of the main categories might signify something of a gear change for the traditionally rather 'safe' Academy. The proof of the pudding will of course be in the eating - or, in this case, just how many golden gongs Behn Zeitlin's magical realist re-imagining of a seemingly post-Hurricane Katrina floating shanty town (featuring exclusively non-professional actors sourced from its indigenous setting in New Orleans), takes home. But notwithstanding the fact that Zeitlin's raw and heartfelt coming-of-age story - think a Disney film as borne out of a collaboration between Werner Herzog and Terrence Malick - generated plenty of goodwill thanks to an online guerrilla campaign and an army of loyal fans (among them Avengers Assemble actor Tom Hiddelston, who tweeted that it was 'so beautiful I thought my heart was going to burst'), it is telling that the Academy opted to show its support for a ragged independent film of its kind.

Another quirk is the predominance of the Austrian-French co-production Amour - which swept up the European Film Awards and whose director, Michael Haneke, was in Malta to accept the honours last December. It's not surprising that the harrowing drama about an aging couple whose relationship is severely tested after the wife (Emmanuelle Riva) suffers a stroke has been slotted in as a Best Foreign Language nominee. What is unique, however, is that it's also snuggled up to the Hollywood heavyweights - a Best Picture win for Haneke could make (recent) Oscar history.

Perhaps an exception that proves the rule (only to disprove it again) with regards to how the Academy operate is the lauding of David O. Russell's comedy-drama Silver Linings Playbook, whose equally-decorated leads are the ascendant Hollywood superstars Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, Limitless) and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, Winter's Bone).

In a lot of ways it is perfect Oscar fodder: with a somewhat flabby running time, it tells a shaggy dog story of one man overcoming a personal hurdle (in this case, mental illness), aided/hampered by a fellow sufferer who may just turn out to be a love interest. But in style and approach, it's an indie beast if there ever was one. Russell, enjoying something of a second-wave career, punctures the drama with black humour, films with a nearly documentary-like shaky cam and extracts some wonderfully humane performances from his cast: over and above Cooper and Lawrence, Robert de Niro thankfully plays a fully rounded human being once again, and the previously shrill Chris Tucker (Rush Hour) tones down his shtick to unveil a shockingly understated performance.

Ben Affleck's Argo - a stranger-than-fiction true story about a group of CIA operatives who smuggle into Iran disguised as a film crew in order to rescue a group of American embassy officials - has become a more confident bet for Oscar bookies after its positive performance in ancillary award ceremonies (among them the Golden Globes and the Baftas).

But the other, far more topical tale of US-Middle East conflict - Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, which details the final days of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden - has not reached our shores yet - which is a shame, given that the Jessica Chastain-starring military thriller has been a talking point even before it's released... and discussing a controversial, hotly-debated film after the smoke has cleared robs us of its immediacy, doesn't it?

A live stream of the ceremony will be made available online  - http://oscar.go.com/ - but be prepared to sleep in before work on Monday: the ceremony begins at 01:00 on 25 January, Malta-time