They've arrived! Nominations morning is to Oscar nerds what Christmas morning is to an optimistic young child. Both enthusiastically hop out of bed in a world where all things are theoretically possible and everything is awesome (or not if you're The Lego Movie, apparently). Though, as always, the Academy is like the distant relative who never looked at your Christmas wish list and ends up giving you things you don't actually want and forgetting to get you some of the things you wanted most.

In the end, a Wes Anderson movie that was released last March and a daring artistic vision from Alejandro G. Iñárritu lead the pack with nine nominations for The Grand Budapest Hotel and Birdman, respectively - and our frontrunner is still probably an intimate film by Richard Linklater that began production over a decade ago. The Academy may have made some poor choices, but those facts are still kind of incredible when you stand back from the noise and ponder that that is what this year's race has boiled down to. Though The Imitation Game might still render all that uniqueness moot and barrel right down the middle towards a consensus victory. We'll know soon enough.

The CineDrunk crew hashed out our initial thoughts in a brief podcast below, recorded right after the nominations were announced. If you'd like to see what my final predictions looked like click here. Check out the full list of 2014 Oscar nominees and commentary after the jump!