Oscar Nominations Reaction

As you may have seen, the Oscar nominations were out bright and early this morning. Now it’s time to do the postmortem on my predictions and find out what it all means and what and whom may walk away with the gold.

Best Picture

How I Did: 8/9

Pretty happy with my Best Picture predictions! Most of all, I’m glad I hit the number nine pick on the head, as this category can be anywhere from 5-10 nominations. The eight films I correctly guessed: Amour, Argo, Django Unchained, Les Miserbles, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty. My only misstep was including Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master back in my predictions. It ended up being the indie film Beasts of the Southern Wild that received the ninth slot instead.

Overall, no real surprises here. Beasts of the Southern Wild had been on my earlier prediction lists but eventually fell off and I always listed it as a contender. Skyfall and Moonrise Kingdom were two pics that seemed to be picking up steam. They didn’t make the cut and I never predicted they would. Most of all, I’m glad to see my Django pick turned out right! With this category, I’ll give myself a nice little pat on the back…

Best Director

How I Did: 2/5

And with these picks, you can slap me on the back as hard as you like. Still, I can’t feel that bad because nobody and I mean nobody envisioned the five directors that got nominated this morning.

Why? For starters, as I’ve written about, Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), and Ben Affleck (Argo) have been considered shoo-in nominees for a couple of months now. Many experts were predicting a close three-person race between them to win the award. The most shocking thing about the Oscar announcements today is easily the exclusion of Bigelow and Affleck for Best Director. I wasn’t as sure about my other pick, Tom Hooper for Les Miserables but figured he’d get in. He didn’t.

The three that replaced my picks: David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook which is not a big surprise. Then there’s Michael Haneke for Amour, which is a fairly big surprise. Then there’s Benh Zietlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, which is a complete and utter jaw-dropping shock. The only other pick besides Spielberg I got right is Ang Lee for Life of Pi. How these nominations for Best Director affect the Best Picture cannot be overstated.

Let me explain in simple terms. When a movie wins Best Picture, it’s Director is always nominated. The last time that didn’t happen was 23 years ago when Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture and its director Bruce Beresford wasn’t nominated. In the 84-year history of the Oscars, a movie winning Best Picture without the director being nominated has happened three times. You do the math.

This is very unexpected because this year’s Oscars seemed to feature a really open field for Best Picture winner, much more than normal. Argo, Les Miserables, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty were all seen as very real possibilities to win the award. With these Best Director nominations shocking Hollywood, the race is totally reshaped. It is now highly unlikely that Argo or Les Mis or Zero Dark Thirty will win Best Picture. By my count, that leaves Lincoln as the undisputed front runner to nab the top award and Steven Spielberg in a position to take home his third directing honor.

I would expect both Life of Pi and Silver Linings Playbook to take those other three movies place as the dark horse candidates to win Best Picture and Director.

To add to the surprise, as I explained in my directing nominations predictions earlier this week, the Directors Guild of America (DGA) nominations are usually a safe prognosticator of this category. Those came out earlier this week and their five picks mirrored my predictions for the Oscar category. In the last ten years, the DGA nominations have exactly matched the Oscar nominations three times. It’s been four out of five – six times. It’s only been three out of five… just one time. This is the first time ever that only two DGA nominees became Best Director Oscar nominees. Wow.

Best Actor

How I Did: 4/5

As I’ve written about extensively, there were six actors competing for five slots. I incorrectly had Bradley Cooper from Silver Linings Playbook off the list. He made it and John Hawkes from The Sessions was the odd man out. I’m most pleased that I still included Joaquin Phoenix for The Master when most other predictors had him out. With Cooper and Phoenix in, they join Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Denzel Washington (Flight), and Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables).

Best Actress

How I Did: 4/5

Again, no major surprises here. I wrongly predicted Marion Cotillard for Rust and Bone and it was 9 year-old Quevenzhane Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild that made it instead. My four correct picks: Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, Emmanuelle Riva in Amour, Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, and Naomi Watts in The Impossible. This category did make a bit of history today: Wallis, at 9, is the youngest ever nominated for this category and Riva, age 84, is the oldest ever recognized for this award.

Best Supporting Actor

How I Did: 4/5

Well, I picked the wrong Django actor. Instead of Leonardo DiCaprio, it was Christoph Waltz who made it Tarantino’s film. He’ll join my correctly predicted Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln, Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master, Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook, and Alan Arkin in Argo. Little history here, too: this is the first time where all nominees are previous winners. Waltz won for another Quentin flick, Inglourious Basterds. Jones won in 1993 for The Fugitive. Hoffman won for Capote in 2005. De Niro won Supporting Actor in 1974 for The Godfather – Part II and Best Actor in 1980 for Raging Bull. Arkin won in 2006 for Little Miss Sunshine.

Best Supporting Actress

How I Did: 3/5

This is always a tough category to predict and I didn’t fare as well here. I correctly got Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables, Helen Hunt in The Sessions, and Sally Field for Lincoln.  I incorrectly guessed Maggie Smith for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Ann Dowd for Compliance, which I knew was a bit of an outside-the-box pick anyway. In their place for the two slots: Amy Adams for The Master and Jacki Weaver for Silver Linings Playbook. Strangely enough, my initial Supporting Actress predictions from October were exactly right! Guess I should have stuck with them, but alas only three for five here.

Other Observations

Silver Linings Playbook did something very rare today. By getting nominations in all four acting categories, it became the first picture to do that in 31 years, since 1981’s Reds. While Skyfall didn’t get that Best Picture nomination some were guessing, Adele got nominated and let’s hope she performs that great Bond theme during the ceremony!

So where does this leave us now that nominations are out? Before the ceremony, I’ll write a post predicting the winners. Here’s where my head’s at now:

As discussed, Lincoln is now the clear favorite to win Best Picture, based on the directors that were left out of that category. This leaves Spielberg as the favorite, too. However, the Academy showed a lot of love to Life of Pi today and I believe Ang Lee now poses a real threat to Spielberg.

For Best Actor, I’m glad I can finally say this since nominations are out: Daniel Day-Lewis is going to win. 99.9% sure. Only Jackman poses a small threat and by small, I mean .1%.

Best Actress still looks like a toss-up between Lawrence and Chastain, with Riva as a potential spoiler.

Best Supporting Actor looks more wide open and the possibility of a surprise winner is not hard to envision here. I would say Tommy Lee Jones is the slight favorite.

The category of Supporting Actress has seen its share of upset winners over the years. If anyone other than Anne Hathaway wins, it would be an upset. She is the clear front runner in this race.

So there you have it, my loyal readers! The nominations are out and I did pretty decent except for Best Director. Check back later for my final picks for winners, which I’ll make in every single category, as opposed to the six biggies I focused on here. Stay tuned!