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| “Did we get nominated?” |
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the nominations for their 85th annual shindig on Thursday, and since every idiot with a laptop is publishing their predictions, why not me?
Because there is so much prognostication, there seems to be little left to the imagination, but there could be some surprises. Of course, we don’t even know how many nominees for Best Picture will be. I’ll start there.
Best Picture
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
If the list goes to ten we could see Amour, Django Unchained, or The Master. I think all of these are sure bets except for Moonrise, which is partially a fingers crossed guess.
Best Director
Ben Affleck, Argo
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
The DGA nominated all of these except Russell, substituting Tom Hooper instead. I think the general malaise about Les Mis may cost Hooper a nod.
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
John Hawkes, The Sessions
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Denzel Washington, Flight
I’m pretty confident about this quintet. Joaquin Phoenix has faded. Would be surprised by any other names.
Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
The big question here is whether Quvenzhane Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild will be nominated. Signs currently point to no. In typical Academy category confusion, she may get put into the Supporting category. If she doesn’t get nommed, expect Watts to take her place. The other four seem certain.
Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Argo
Javier Bardem, Skyfall
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Leonard DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz may split the Django vote and allow something interesting to happen, like Bardem being the first performer ever nominated for a James Bond film.
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Again, there are four sure bets and one wild card. It could be Jacki Weaver from Silver, and Nicole Kidman has shockingly got nominations from the Globes and SAG for The Paperboy, but I’ll go with old reliable Maggie Smith in a movie old people seemed to love.
I’ll be back on Friday to break it all down and either crow about my correct predictions or eat crow about my wrong ones.
Argo was so good.
There isn’t a movie before what, November on here? Besides Beasts of the Southern Wild, maybe?
Moonrise Kingdom. Exotic Hotel. And Argo was released in October.
It seems like every year since the mid-2000s Amy Adams has been in Oscar contention. Sooner or later she’ll break through you’d think.
Sally Field and Helen Hunt are both interesting cases for Oscar noms. Both previous winners but their film careers largely petered out during the 2000s so it would be a good comeback from either of them just to get nominated.
SLP seems to have faded from the reckoning, perhaps in part because its BO performance in America so far seems underwhelming.
Re: films released early in the year not getting nominated, am I right in saying that Silence Of The Lambs was the last BP winner to be released during the first half of a year?
No, there have been others. Just off the top of my head: Braveheart, Gladiator, and Crash were all released in May or thereabouts.
The Hurt Locker also got its official US theatrical release in late June, just barely making under the “first half of the year” deadline. That was an especially convoluted case, too, since the movie originally premiered at the Venice Film Festival the previous September. I’m surprised it was eligible for the 2009 Oscars, actually.
On the flipside of the deadline, Forrest Gump was released on July 6, 1994.
It depends on when the film is released in NY/LA. For instance, Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight, first released in 1952, got an Oscar nomination 20 years later, because that’s when the film was released in the U.S.
Well, Brian, you were right about John Hawkes not being a lock. Also shocked that Bigelow was not nominated for director. More later in a lengthy post.
Russell for Linings-
But no Affleck or Bigelow?
Argo was *aces*. I’m kinda shocked.
All the Best Supporting Actor nominees are previous winners.
Not one nomination for Alex Cross. Madness.