With The Golden Globes nominees being announced, and the Screen Actors Guild ones just a few days before, if you were refusing to believe this was awards season, then you better believe we're smack bang in the middle of it.

Silver Linings Playbook represents one of the more lighthearted Oscar hopefuls, despite the fact it deals with subjects like bi-polar disorder and death. Sombre topics indeed, but the film is very much marketed as a romantic comedy, with a specific brand of 'funny'. 

Four Golden Globe nominations for best comedy or musical, actor and actress nominations for Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, and a Best Screenplay one increase Oscar hype for the film, and considering films like Lincoln, Life of Pi and The Master are in contention, Silver Linings might be the light dose of comedic relief needed.

That said, Django Unchained is being seriously talked about for best film, and, like Silver Linings, it approaches a very serious subject: slavery in America, but will approach it with director Quentin Tarantino's brand of dark comedy. 

Reviews have been fairly good for Silver Linings, and its achieved a score of 90% on film score aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said of it, "This is a date movie that doesn't offer the sophistication it thinks it does, but is as enjoyable and good-natured as the genre requires."