The Oscar nominations will be announced this Thursday morning at 7:30 AM Central Time. It’s a fairly easy year to predict the nominations, as most categories seem to have only about six or seven real contenders vying for slots. I don’t expect any huge surprises, but there are always one or two underdogs, usually in the acting categories, that make the Academy’s list. I’ll cover what the Academy decides upon Thursday morning, but for right now, here are some of my choices if I had an Oscar ballot.
Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis “Lincoln”
Joaquin Phoenix “The Master”
John Hawkes “The Sessions”
Denzel Washington “Flight”
Jack Black “Bernie”
Daniel Day-Lewis seems to be an absolute lock for the win here. And it’s hard to argue with his monumental work in “Lincoln”. (My praise here: http://exm.nr/Wjgwpk) Hard to argue with the others I’ve listed too, or Hugh Jackman in “Les Miserables” or Bradley Cooper in “Silver Linings Playbook” for that matter. Still, I’d love it if the Academy found room for Jack Black. He certainly put the black in that black comedy, but he also gave it a lot of heart. It’s a small, independent film that deserves some big-time recognition and it would be very cool if the Academy were edgy enough to nominate Black.
Best Actress
Naomi Watts “The Impossible”
Marion Cotillard “Rust & Bone”
Zoe Kazan “Ruby Sparks”
Rachel Weisz “Deep Blue Sea”
Jennifer Lawrence “Silver Linings Playbook”
Is Naomi Watts the most unheralded big star in Hollywood? She’s given great performance after great performance, from “Mulholland Drive” to “21 Grams” to “King Kong” to “Fair Game” and yet doesn’t ever seem to get as much due as say, Kate Winslet or Cate Blanchett. I think they’re great, but so is Watts. And now she does perhaps her best work ever, as a mother trying to survive a tsunami and save her family, and she is considered on the 'Oscar bubble'. I hope not. I not only am hoping she's nominated I hope she goes on to win for her incredibly raw, physical and brave performance.
Best Supporting Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman “The Master”
Tommy Lee Jones “Lincoln”
Javier Bardem “Skyfall”
Ewan McGregor “The Impossible”
Tom Holland “The Impossible”
Hoffman and Jones are a lock, and both are totally deserving of all the accolades and awards they are receiving. Three actors on my list will likely not be called, but I wish they were. Tom Holland and Ewan McGregor are heartbreaking as they fight to survive the dreaded Thailand tsunami and its aftermath. And Javier Bardem makes for one of the most memorable Bond villain in decades. It would be the first time any actor from 50 years of Bond films got an Oscar nomination, and he would, if I had a vote.
Best Supporting Actress
Helen Hunt “The Sessions”
Sally Field “Lincoln”
Ann Dowd “Compliance”
Anne Hathaway “Les Miserables”
Charlize Theron “Snow White & the Huntsman”
Anne Hathaway may be an absolute lock to win this season. (So say most of the Oscar prognosticators: bit.ly/VuNpB7) But the other actresses I’d nominate were equally as outstanding. For my money, it’s one of the strongest supporting actress categories in years. Dowd might have had the hardest role, playing the good-hearted but gullible fast food manager falling for a terrible practical joke in “Compliance” but I doubt enough Academy members have seen it. And the fantasy genre rarely figures in the acting categories so Theron’s nuanced work as the evil queen will probably go unnoticed. And I wish that certain nominee Helen Hunt was considered more of a contender this year. I think she gave the female performance of the year. She was naked, physically and emotionally, and her work was a marvel.
Best Picture
“Lincoln”
“Life of Pi”
“The Sessions”
“The Impossible”
“Frankenweenie”
I’ve already picked my 10 best in a previous post (bit.ly/VkPe3m), and if the Academy indeed sees fit to nominate 10 pictures this year, well, I’ve had my say. But if they could only pick five like they used to, these are the ones I’d like to see called.
It’s a shame that the Best Animated Feature category seems to have somehow blocked any cartoon from going farther at the Oscars, but I’d love to see “Frankenweenie” up for Best Picture. That pipe dream may seem as dead as Sparky was half an hour into the film, but remember he was resurrected! The Academy has nominated genre pictures for Best Picture before, so there is hope. “District 9”, “Inception”, and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy all were nominated for the top accolade. And they even gave a couple its highest honor. "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" won (2003), and so did a horror movie (Egads!) when “The Silence of the Lambs” won Best Picture in 1991. So perhaps Tim Burton will have a great day on Thursday, instead of the expected good one.
We shall see…
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