Personal Oscar Predictions

[Big Magilla]

Best Actor is iffy

Makeup maybe, but...

Art Direction: The Artist; Hugo; Harry Potter; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; War Horse

Costume Design: The Artist; Hugo; Immortals; Jane Eyre; W.E.

[Sabin]

All four of J. Edgar's nominations will be due to the fact that it's a weak year and likely one will be ousted, probably Costume Design. Makeup is an especially egregious inclusion.

Best Actor - Leonardo DiCaprio
Best Art Direction
Best Costume Design
Best Makeup

[Reza]

I don't know what other nominations J. Edgar could reasonably be expected to pick up. Leonardo DiCaprio is the film's strongest suit. He could be a Best Actor nominee, but George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Jean Dujardin have the momentum and Gary Oldman is long overdue for recognition so even his once seeming sure bet nomination is in question. Could it get a sole nomination for Best Picture? Yes, but that's awfully tough to do.

The film could figure strongly in a number of the technical categories. After all it is a period film.

[Big Magilla]

I think J. Edgar is a possibility if they nominate ten films this year, but at this point no one knows if there will be 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 films. It will not be nominated if there are 5 or 6.

The reason I think it has a chance is because this is a film that could appeal to the older voters who are still apparently the most powerful bloc. Combined with the bloc that is easily persuaded by Harvey Weinstein, they helped The King's Speech to its victory last year. This year both blocs could be united again behind The Artist, but not necessarily. War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close also skewer toward this bloc as do Hugo and to a lesser extent, J. Edgr.

I don't know what other nominations J. Edgar could reasonably be expected to pick up. Leonardo DiCaprio is the film's strongest suit. He could be a Best Actor nominee, but George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Jean Dujardin have the momentum and Gary Oldman is long overdue for recognition so even his once seeming sure bet nomination is in question. Could it get a sole nomination for Best Picture? Yes, but that's awfully tough to do.

[anonymous1980]

But still, you're overlooking the fact that J. Edgar is STILL not a critical or a commercial success. Even internet-cinephile-reviled Best Picture nominees/winners still got fairly good-ish reviews from middlebrow critics landing them in a fresh 60% of Rotten Tomatoes and they did do well commercially. J. Edgar didn't even reach that level. Perhaps years from now, some critics and film theorists will brand it an underrated/overlooked Eastwood masterpiece. But Oscar is not about a film's reputation years from now. It's about a film's reputation right this moment.

Actually, the main reason I think J. EDGAR could still sneak in with a Best Picture nomination is because of all the other nominations I am pretty sure it will end up with.

Right now, I think it would be LUCKY to have two or three nominations, AT BEST. I think Leonardo DiCaprio still has a legitimate shot at Best Actor and it may still score in a couple of tech categories. For Best Picture, I think there are at least 15 movies that have a better shot at a nomination. 15 movies that are better reviewed and/or have better box-office. The Academy may love Eastwood but I don't think they love him THAT much that they'd vote for his work regardless.

[rolotomasi99]

As Disraeli famously said, there are three types of lies, "lies, damn lies and statistics". Box office and cirtical huzzahs may get Oscar voters to see films, but not to vote for them. As my grandmother used to say, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". Basically it boils down to waht they like. They like to be entertained, moved and enlightened, not necessarily in that order and not necessarily by all three in the same film.

Right now I'm thinking The Artist; The Descendants; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and War Horse and either Hugo or Moneyball if there are only five nominees, both if there are six. After that the crystal ball in my head becaomes very clouded.

Exactly! Critical acclaim can certainly help encourage Academy members to seek out an obscure film or put it on the top of their screener pile, but it cannot make them like it, nor can it dissuade them from liking something. That is all I was saying about the Academy's interest in what critic's think.

I agree J. EDGAR has an uphill battle for Best Picture. THE ARTIST, THE DESCENDANTS, and WAR HORSE are the ones I feel comfortable saying will be nominated for Best Picture. EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE I think has a very good shot at being nominated simply because of director Stephan Daldry's Svengali power over the Academy.

Actually, the main reason I think J. EDGAR could still sneak in with a Best Picture nomination is because of all the other nominations I am pretty sure it will end up with. Since expanding the field to 10 nominees, any film with more than four nominations has made it into Best Picture. Two years do not give us enough of a pattern to determine a "rule", but it is what made me think the film could have a shot. There are six nominations it has a good chance at (Actor, Supporting Actor, Make-up, Set, Costume, and Cinematography; seven with Screenplay, if it is lucky), and I just thought it might be somewhere lower down on enough people's ballots to wind up in BP. However, maybe this is no longer possible with the confusing new math they use to decide the Best Picture field.

From my predictions, the film's with more than 1 nomination break down like this (not including Best Picture, Animated, Foreign, or Song categories):
WAR HORSE (9)
HUGO (8)
THE ARTIST (7)
J. EDGAR (7)
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (5)
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (5)
THE DESCENDANTS (4)
THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (4)
THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN (3)
THE TREE OF LIFE (3)
THE HELP (2)
ALBERT NOBBS (2)
THE IRON LADY (2)
SUPER 8 (2)
SHAME (2)
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (2)

Obviously number of nominations does not directly determine Best Pictures chances, but it must factor in somewhere. That is really the main reason I included J. EDGAR.

As for ranking Best Picture chances (which started this whole mess), I would revise it to look more like this:
1. WAR HORSE, THE ARTIST, THE DESCENDANTS
2. EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, HUGO
3. THE TREE OF LIFE
4. J. EDGAR, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, THE HELP, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, MONEYBALL
5. THE IRON LADY, THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN, THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, YOUNG ADULT
6. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, SHAME
7. DRIVE, BEGINNERS, WIN WIN, ALBERT NOBBS
8. MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, CORIOLANUS, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN
9. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, SUPER 8, A DANGEROUS METHOD, CARNAGE
10. THE IDES OF MARCH, MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, MARGIN CALL, 50/50

[Big Magilla]

Ads Disraeli famously said, there are three types of lies, "lies, damn lies and statistics". Box office and cirtical huzzahs may get Oscar voters to see films, but not to vote for them. As my grandmother used to say, "you cna lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". Basically it boils down to waht they like. They like to be entertained, moved and enlightened, not necessarily in that order and not necessarily by all three in the same film.

Right now I'm thinking The Artist; The Descendants; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and War Horse and either Hugo or Moneyball if there are only five nominees, both if there are six. After that the crystal ball in my head becaomes very clouded.

[Dien]

I distinctly remember The Reader being in the 40 percentile for the longest time, even well into award season. Did the score increase after the nomination (probably due to it being expanded)?

[The Original BJ]

Well, if we're going to start throwing out RT rankings...I'd point out first that both The Blind Side and The Reader -- the lowest rated Best Picture nominees in recent years -- squeaked on to their respective lists with 66% fresh, and 62% fresh respectively. How that bodes well for J. Edgar's 41% is a mystery, to me.

I certainly would never suggest that there's any kind of DIRECT correlation to the year's 5 (or 10) most acclaimed films being nominated over somewhat less acclaimed films, (obviously I don't expect Le Havre's 98% fresh to get it on the ballot), but I maintain that an effort with as poor notices as J. Edgar is going to have an uphill battle. Given that it wasn't a box-office sensation and there are a slew of far more acclaimed/popular efforts that also seem viable Best Picture candidates (i.e. not the sixth film in a superhero franchise or a cartoon), I just can't view it as anywhere near on par with many of the Best Picture candidates with far stronger credentials.

But, of course, predictions are personal and we can only see how it will play out.

[Dien]

I use both RT and Metacritic as a starting point. If I haven't seen it by that point, then I see what friends and family say about it - or I come to this board. But even that can be dangerous.

[OscarGuy]

Rolo, the RT tomatometer is a harder nut to crack than you might think. One of the major requirements is to be part of a recognized film critic organization. That's not the only one, but it's a major one. They review each application individually. The OFCS has very strenuous membership guidelines and we screen our members very carefully. We aren't infallible, but we are a tough organization to become a member of. After RT was bought by Flixster, the general relationship between the OFCS and RT was severed (they still host our forums, but not our website). When that separation occurred about two years ago (maybe more now, I've lost track), OFCS members were no longer automatically granted a place on the tomatometer. We have new members that still are not on the tomatometer. It's not as "let them all in" as you might believe.

What makes RT difficult to use as a source of quality estimation is in the way the meter is set up. Fresh is anything with a 60% or better rating. Other than the most important critics (read: major names), all critics have to submit their own links, comments and ratings. Personally, if I'm submitting a 2.5 star film, I decide whether it would be fresh or rotten. Anything above that I place as fresh and below rotten, but each person has their own criteria and submits accordingly. Then there's the issue that it only counts positive reviews versus negative reviews. Two films with an 80% fresh rating could be received entirely differently between critics. One could be beloved by all 80% and the other could be merely liked. It's why a film like Puss in Boots has an 82% fresh rating. If you click on the film, it shows an average score of 6.8/10. That score is based on some arcane, unfathomable algorithm based on the submitted rating (submitting your reviews, you choose fresh and then also give it a rating, but some people use a 10 scale and others (like me) use a 4 and still others use 5... Shame, which has an 80% rating would appear to be a more poorly reviewed film than Puss in Boots. Until you click on the link and find that the average rating for Shame is 7.6/10. That's a marked difference.

If you want accuracy from RT (or at least a better understanding of how people view the film), click it and check the average rating. Let's use the three holiday films as an example: Muppets has 97% fresh with a 7.9/10 rating (not much better than Shame, but significantly higher in terms of fresh rating). Hugo has a 93% fresh with an 8.3/10 average rating. Arthur Christmas has 92% fresh and a 7.2/10 rating.

So, if you use fresh ratings, the ranks are:

1. The Muppets
2. Hugo
3. Arthur Christmas
4. Puss in Boots
5. Shame

But the average rating ranks them:

1. Hugo
2. The Muppets
3. Shame
4. Arthur Christmas
5. Puss in Boots

Metacritic is more accurate, but their abject exclusivity (almost predominantly print critics) skews their numbers towards older film critics leaving out a lot of new voices.

[rolotomasi99]

I thought THE KING'S SPEECH winning Best Picture over THE SOCIAL NETWORK definitively proved the Academy does not give a rat's ass what the critics think,

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to use The King's Speech over The Social Network (or Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas, Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction, Titanic over L.A. Confidential, etc.) to make an argument like this. If you want to argue that Oscar's most recent outcome proved that the year's critical darling isn't always the Academy's darling, fine, I'd agree with you. But to suggest that the Academy "does not give a rat's ass what the critics think," well, there I'd have to disagree with you strongly.

It remains an uphill battle for films with poor critical notices to get Best Picture nominations. Sure, some, like massive box office hit The Blind Side, have overcome the odds (though it's likely even that placed only in a must-have-ten field). To suggest that J. Edgar -- a film about which basically no one is terribly excited -- is running ahead of (or even equal to) Scorsese's enthusiastically praised, big-budget period drama and Woody Allen's biggest success story in decades, seems WAY out on a limb.

Yeah, I guess it would be like THE DARK KNIGHT (94% RottenTomatoes) or WALL-E (96% R.T.) being snubbed for Best Picture for something like THE READER (62% R.T.).

I believe the Academy is made up of people. Some of them have sophisticated tastes and want to nominate a film like THE TREE OF LIFE for Best Picture, and some have mainstream tastes and want to nominate a film like THE HELP for B.P. Some folks like films that make them cry (EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE), some like films that make them laugh (MONEYBALL), some like films that wow them with spectacle (WAR HORSE), some like films that make them feel smart (MIDNIGHT IN PARIS).

Likewise, there are critics who think JACK AND JILL was hilarious and DRIVE was horrid. Critics are not infallible in their opinions, and with RottenTomatoes recognizing just about anyone these days as a movie critic I would not consider their R.T. score as the final word on a film's quality. I think J. EDGAR and HUGO were equally well made. I think both of those films were slightly better than MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. I cannot know for sure what the Academy thinks, but I do know they will make their minds up for themselves rather than let some jerk with a computer who calls himself a movie critic tell them what film's they can and cannot nominate.

I think J. EDGAR was well done, but I think what might help it with the Academy was how it felt almost like a film from the 1950's. I think their are some older folks in the Academy who might respond better to Eastwood's style of storytelling over Scorsese's. I think both directors have had strong careers, and both made films this year which deviated from their usual fare. For Eastwood, it was making a sweet gay love story. For Scorsese, it was making a sweet children's story.

I think what critic's think can reflect what the Academy thinks, just like the box-office for a film can also reflect how a certain film might be more appealing to Academy members. I do not think, however, Academy member's en masse decide they absolutely cannot nominate a film because the R.T. score is too low or it did not make enough money. The Academy nominates whatever they like. Sometimes their tastes are reflected by the reviews or the box-office, and sometimes their tastes veer away from what the critics or the general public feel.

Other than THE DESCENDANTS, THE ARTIST, and WAR HORSE, I really have no idea what the Academy will nominate for Best Picture (or how many nominees there will even be). HUGO, J. EDGAR, THE TREE OF LIFE, THE HELP, EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, SHAME, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, THE IDES OF MARCH, and MONEYBALL are all possibilities. I would not count any of them out.

[ITALIANO]

I think the neorealist aspects of Il demonio cannot be ignored - the on-location shooting, the focus on the poor, the provincial settings, the non-professional actors, the natural light, the lusty melodrama of the story. It is simply balanced with aspects of horror, erotica and exploitation.

But I'd settle for labeling it 'a great film and a potent feminist work that should be more widely seen'.

It's an interesting movie. As you certainly know, the leads were played by professional actors - Dahlia Lavi for example was an Israeli actress who had become very famous in Italy during those years. It's true that it contains elements of realism which are unusual for a horror movie (and it has a semi-documentaristic approach), but neorealism is something else.

And it's, by far, Brunello Rondi's best and most original movie (as a director; he was of course a highly respected, Oscar-nominated screenwriter).

[The Original BJ]

I thought THE KING'S SPEECH winning Best Picture over THE SOCIAL NETWORK definitively proved the Academy does not give a rat's ass what the critics think,

In my opinion, it's a real stretch to use The King's Speech over The Social Network (or Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas, Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction, Titanic over L.A. Confidential, etc.) to make an argument like this. If you want to argue that Oscar's most recent outcome proved that the year's critical darling isn't always the Academy's darling, fine, I'd agree with you. But to suggest that the Academy "does not give a rat's ass what the critics think," well, there I'd have to disagree with you strongly.

It remains an uphill battle for films with poor critical notices to get Best Picture nominations. Sure, some, like massive box office hit The Blind Side, have overcome the odds (though it's likely even that placed only in a must-have-ten field). To suggest that J. Edgar -- a film about which basically no one is terribly excited -- is running ahead of (or even equal to) Scorsese's enthusiastically praised, big-budget period drama and Woody Allen's biggest success story in decades, seems WAY out on a limb.

[rolotomasi99]

Why do you think J. Edgar is still above Hugo and Midnight in Paris? It's got wildly mixed to negative reviews with the critics. (It's about 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, last time I checked). The Academy has cooled on Eastwood lately. Invictus and Hereafter both got better reviews and failed to get in Best Picture.

I think J. Edgar would be lucky if it manages a nod for Leo and maybe for Makeup. And that's it.

I thought THE KING'S SPEECH winning Best Picture over THE SOCIAL NETWORK definitively proved the Academy does not give a rat's ass what the critics think, just like THE HURT LOCKER winning over AVATAR definitively proved the Academy does not care how much money a movie makes.

As I recall, many people (including myself) thought CHANGELING was going to be completely snubbed by the Academy, but then it was nominated for Actress, Costume, Set, and Cinematography.

I likewise think J. EDGAR has a good shot at being nominated for Set, Costume, Cinematography, plus Actor and Supporting Actor. Screenplay I am not sure of, but I do not currently see five certain nominees so I included it in that category. As for Make-up, if they do not nominate J. EDGAR what exactly are they going to nominate? With CG becoming cheaper and more realistic, it might be time to retire the category. In the past RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, AVATAR, and the Harry Potter films would have used make-up to create their creatures, but now they just use computers.

With at least six nominations very likely, I figured J. EDGAR could find its way into the Best Picture top ten.

I would love for HUGO to be nominated for Best Picture, and I made that list before the NBR awards brought some attention to it. Given how they snubbed SHUTTER ISLAND though, we cannot assume the Academy is going to nominate it just because of Scorsese. The fact that two animated films have been nominated for Best Picture since the field was expanded gives me hope a kid's movie can be seen as a serious contender. HUGO will definitely be nominated for Set and Costume (which I think it will win), and will likely be nominated for Score. Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Sound Editing, Song, and Make-up are also possibilities. If it receives all the nominations, than a BP nom is pretty likely.

As for MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, I would say it has a very good shot at a Best Picture nomination, but I keep thinking back to how VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA was not nominated for Screenplay. I know Penelope Cruz won Supporting Actress, but the snub to Woody was surprising since he is the most nominated screenwriter ever (13 noms). I definitely think MIDNIGHT IN PARIS will be nominated in Screenplay, but no other categories. A SERIOUS MAN was nominated for Best Picture with just a Screenplay nomination, so it is possible.

Bottom line, I may have ranked J. EDGAR higher than HUGO and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS in the Best Picture category, but it was really not by much. They all have a very good chance of being nominated for BP, and they all have an equal chance of being snubbed in that category.