After months of speculation, tomorrow morning the race for Oscar nominations will be over. After crunching the imaginary numbers, I’ve decided to put my proverbial money where my mouth is.
Here are my predictions for tomorrow’s Academy Award nominations…
BEST PICTURE
Argo
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life Of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Argo, Django, Les Mis, Pi, Lincoln, Silver, Zero are all locks. The Academy can nominate 5 to 10 films and I think they will choose 8. The buzz for Skyfall has been picking up steam and I think the academy will choose the blockbuster over the artsy The Master.
BEST DIRECTOR
Ben Affleck (Argo)
Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)
Ang Lee (Life Of Pi)
Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
I think QT sneaks in, while Russell and Hooper are left out.
BEST ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
John Hawkes (The Sessions)
Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Denzel Washington (Flight)
Phoenix is the wild card here. Bradley Cooper could easily have his spot, but I feel that the Academy takes Phoenix more seriously than Cooper.
BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Marion Cotillard (Rust & Bone)
Jennifer Lawrence (The Silver Linings Playbook)
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Naomi Watts (The Impossible)
Chastain and Lawrence are the only sure things. Cotillard and Watts are solid bets. I don’t see Helen Mirren getting that 5th spot for a movie like Hitchcock. I think Riva gets in for the critically acclaimed foreign film Amour.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Javier Bardem (Skyfall)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
When people start talking about who got snubbed, this category will have the most snubs. The five actors I picked are all worthy, but I’m still leaving out DeNiro and Waltz. Toughest race to predict.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams (The Master)
Judi Dench (Skyfall)
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Despite noms for GG and SAG, I have my doubts that Kidman gets nominated for The Paperboy. Dench will ride the Skyfall wave into that 5th spot.
