Oscar Noms Interesting, Reveal Predictable Oscars

The 85^th Oscar nominees are out, and while everyone is scurrying to claim every nominee a “surprise,” I’ve been accustomed to the deepest surprises when I tune in that fateful (now Thursday) morning at 5:30am.  I have rarely been hurt by snubs, however.

This year, the surprise “snub” was the lack of Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow in the Best Director category.  Certainly, a hard year to score a nomination, but I sincerely thought, with all of the promoting on Los Angeles television (the wrong place to advertise I guess), that the film would have enough support to contend with Lincoln for Best Picture, especially after having won several critics’ awards.

Now, there’s no stopping Steven Spielberg’s biopic of our 16^th President.  The question is, how many awards will it take.  With a number of acting awards (each of whom have won at least once already), it could come away with the most awards in years (or potentially EVER if it’s a clean sweep).  However, look for some noise to the other films that scored several nominations.  Silver Linings Playbook looks to have more support with Hervey Weinstein backing it, and it now appears Jennifer Lawrence may edge out Jessica Chastain for Best Actress (unfortunately), pending what the SAG voters decide.  Look for the film to surprise in another acting category and/or screenplay.

Life of Pi will most likely have a mini-sweep a la Hugo last year, but it really depends on how the other films, such as Anna Karenina, promote their films.  Or if Lincoln just takes Cinematography and Editing.

Unfortunately, there was nothing from Skyfall, nor any “out-of-nowhere” nominations that I was looking for.  Where was the Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Best Picture nomination from last year.  Or The Blind Side? Amour was a pleasant surprise in the Best Picture category, but it was no surprise to those in the previous years.

However, I may be spoiled, as are many followers.  In recent years, the Academy has dispersed the awards amongst two or three films in order to “share the love.”  That doesn’t seem to be the case this year.  It seems that we will have no surprises, and, for the first time in several years, we will a see a film that wins the majority of the awards. The question only remains, how many little gold men will Lincoln take away?

Well I can’t decide until I’ve seen the Golden Globes this Sunday.  As you may know, the Globes are painfully predictable when it comes to films, but when it comes to their TV nominations, it is literally as if, in every category, the award that you think has the least chance of winning, wins.  I fear that the Globes might begin to go crazy with giving awards to smaller pictures to incentivize people to go see them (and possibly like them!), or even do like the National Board of Review used to do in the 1930s and 40s, and intentionally give awards to films not nominated for Oscars.  But just giving outside possibilities, I’ll just see you all when Lincoln wins everything.