Thursday, January 13, 2011

Oscar Nomination Predictions 2011

Here they are, as promised.

But first, before presenting to you these nominations that you can take to the bank, let me make some comments.  Originally in this post, I wrote up some "Oscar subplots for 2011," but that ended up being over 2000 words and basically blew up into a post of its own.  Then, I was planning on discussing the minutia behind just about every prediction...I started doing that and that ended up being like 2000 words also.  Long story short, this post, unedited or restructured, would have ended up passing as a term paper at most colleges.  I figured I would save you the time.

However, let me just say this: predicting Oscar wins after the nominations have been announced is fairly easy; but predicting noms themselves, not so easy.  If you pay attention all the way through awards season (actually, if you just read anything at all during the awards season), the race shapes up pretty solidly by the time Oscar night rolls around.  The Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, Writer's Guild, etc...all are highly indicative of who will prevail come Oscar night.  Yes, there are a few curveballs thrown every once in a while, a la Crash beating Brokeback Mountain in 2006 for Best Picture (although the reason for this may have been anti-gay motivated more than anything).  There's almost always a surprise in one of the acting categories as well (last year was an exception to this rule).

However, predicting Oscar nominations is a trickier game.  Obviously, having 5x or 10x the number of movies to predict in each category is part of the reason for this.  It's gonna be difficult to get everything right in any given category--I'm shooting for 4/5 or 8/10 in all of the categories.  If you can pull off a straight 5/5 or 10/10 though, you look like a genius (I will).

For my predictions, I'm only doing the "above the line" categories, meaning only Picture, Director, Acting, and Screenplay categories.

So here they are, in all of their glory:



The Social Network is still the film to beat this Oscar season.


Best Picture
The Social Network
The King’s Speech
The Fighter
Black Swan
Inception
True Grit
Toy Story 3
The Kids Are All Right
127 Hours
Winter’s Bone

Best Director
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
James Franco, 127 Hours
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Robert Duvall, Get Low

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Mark Ruffalo gave one of my favorite performances of the
year in The Kids Are All Right.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Hailee Steinfield, True Grit
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech               
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Mila Kunis, Black Swan

Best Adapted Screenplay
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
127 Hours
True Grit
Blue Valentine 

Best Original Screenplay
The King’s Speech
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
Another Year
Black Swan

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What? Michael Douglas can't get any love? He has CANCER for cryin' out loud!

adamsrearwindow said...

Too bad for him the field is loaded...if he had campaigned hard in supporting for Wall Street 2 then he might have had a shot simply because of the cancer.