Let's hear it, folks! I want to hear what you think will get nominated for what category this year.

I'll take a shot at the six big categories:

Best Supporting Actor:

Christian Bale, The Fighter (winner)
Justin Timberlake, The Social Network
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
Sam Rockwell, Conviction
Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Best Supporting Actress:

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right (winner)
Milla Jovovich, Stone
Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
Keira Knightley, Never Let Me Go
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Best Actress:

Natalie Portman, Black Swan (winner)
Anne Hathaway, Love and Other Drugs
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Noomi Rapace, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Lesley Manville, Another Year

Best Actor:

Colin Firth, The King's Speech (winner)
Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine
James Franco, 127 Hours
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Jim Broadbent, Another Year

Best Director:

David Fincher, The Social Network (winner)
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Mike Leigh, Another Year
David O. Russell, The Fighter

Best Picture:

The Social Network (winner)
127 Hours
Blue Valentine
Toy Story 3
Inception
True Grit
The Fighter
Another Year
The Kids Are All Right
Black Swan

I've got a feeling that Firth is pretty much an early lock for The King's Speech. Fincher also feels like the one to beat when it comes to Best Director. Both of the Best Supporting categories, as well as Best Actress, are wild cards at the moment until more buzz is built for certain performances.

Picture:
The Fighter
Inception
The Social Network*
The Kids Are All Right
Tree of Life
Black Swan
Toy Story 2
True Grit
Hereafter
Winter's Bone

Director:
David O'Russell, The Fighter
David Fincher, The Social Network*
Chris Nolan, Inception
Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right

Actor
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
James Franco, 127 Hours*
Mark Whalberg, The Fighter
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine

(side note: would this be the youngest group of best actor nominees, Duvall withstanding, ever?)

Actress
Anette Benning-The Kids are All Right*
Jennifer Lawrence-Winter's Bone
Natalie Portman-Black Swan
Lesley Manville-Another Year
Robin Wright-Penn-the Conspirator

Supporting Actor:
Justin Timberlake-The Social Network
Andrew Garfield-The Social Network
Christian Bale-The Fighter
Ed Harris-The Way Back*
Mark Ruffalo-The Kids Are All Right

Supporting Actress:
Julianne Moore-The Kids Are All Right*
Mila Kunis-Black Swan
Barbara Hershey-Black Swan
Melissa Leo-The Fighter
Andrea Riseborough-Brighton Rock

It's too early for me to start making any kind of predictions, except for the fact that I agree that Colin Firth will likely win Best Actor. I mean, when you have a movie about a British guy trying to help a member of British royalty speak proper English, why bother nominating anyone else?

Does anyone think the last Harry Potter movie has a shot at a best picture nom in 2012?

I was wondering that the other day. The answer's probably no, but I might be wrong. The Best Actor nominees have never been as young as, say, the Best Supporting Actress nominees.

If I may: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_and_youngest_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees


It's hard to say. They'll still need to be doing ten nominees, plus the movie will have to be super fucking good. It had a shot, but then again, so does Zoolander 2.

I haven't been following the "buzz"-worthy pictures so far but I'll repeat what I've said here a few times:

Inception needs to win Best Editing. I haven't seen a picture edited as tightly in a while. Except for Scott Pilgrim. The editing in that one comes close. I doubt that it'll be nominated though.



I really, really doubt it. Weren't reviews for the last installment a bit below those of the previous efforts? I may stand corrected.

Nope. They were actually the second highest among top critics (only being beaten by Prisoner of Azkaban).

Inception's editing was nasty. The action scenes were borderline incoherent.

That doesn't mean it won't win.

Well, of course not. If Avatar can win for a category that it shouldn't even be eligible for, anything can happen.

I got a bit interested in this and being a social scientist (well, at this point, I guess an apprentice social scientist), I decided to gather some data on it. I only went back twenty years, so the data set is very incomplete, but it appears that my predictions (which will soon change to include Colin Firth) would be the youngest in recent memory, and even with Firth swinging it a bit higher, might still be.

Here's the dataset, for anyone who is interested:http://www.leafontheweb.com/oscars.xls Feel free to expand on it (or to visit my still very much in development site ).

Oy vey iz mir, the hyperbole! Inception's certainly more "eligible" for an editing nomination than Avatar was for cinematography, as all films have some sort of editing. Of course that's not what you're arguing, but I felt that should be said.

Although I don't remotely agree that the action scenes were borderline incoherent, certainly we can agree editing is not just about action, right? Weaving in and out of dreams and dreams within dreams isn't action, it's structure. Structurally, Inception has a lot going for it. Thus, it's the frontrunner for a Best Editing nomination and win.

By the way: dug the dataset, firefly.

No, I was mainly bringing Avatar up just to be a spiteful dick. I have a girlfriend who doesn't let shit go. The Academy doesn't. I'm trying to redress the imbalance.

The reason I bring up action is because it's the easiest way to examine a film's editing style. If an editor is muddying up the geography, crossing the wrong line at the wrong time, or otherwise doing something weird, it might occasionally bug you in a talky scene. But you'll notice it much more immediately when things start to rev up. The point isn't that Inception's editing is only bad in the actions scenes, but that the action scenes most readily demonstrate what Inception's editing does wrong.

What you're talking about, in the case of getting in and out of various levels of dreaming, is the film's deep-level structure--where writing and editing become blurred. I can't say for sure, but I'm reasonably certain that this stuff was planned out in the script before the film got to the editing stage.

At the top level of the editing (the basic level of "connect this shot to that shot in a way that makes sense, then connect the groups of shots together into scenes that make sense, such that everything makes the right point at the right time"), Inception often makes unconscionable boo-boos. You can expect that stuff out of today's chop-socky action movies, but your expectations would be higher for a much smarter film--which Inception obviously is. A movie that's so meticulously planned ahead of time shouldn't be slapped together so carelessly at the final stage.

That's not to say that Inception is more guilty than any other movie, but that guilty movies probably shouldn't win Oscars in the category in which they're guilty.

Gee, would you listen to that? Top level this, deep level that. I sound almost like a character in the movie.

I guess we'll just have to disagree Ken. I saw nothing wrong with the editing in the action scenes and thought the way the different dream levels were edited together was brilliant. Especially those where the van is falling in super slow-mo for the 'kick'. The movie keeps moving between the levels and back to shots of the falling van in such a tight manner that it ratchets up the tension several levels.

If you think Inception's action sequences are nearly incoherent then I'd hate to find out your opinion of films whose action scenes actually are incoherent or anywhere near it.

My Oscar faculties have been off for a good, long while... it started when I incorrectly bet that Clive Owen would take home the trophy for Closer. Downhill downhill ever since. Downhill.

They'd be nutty not to give Andrew Garfield the nom for his gonna-be-a-major-actor turn in The Social Network. Like the thoroughly persuasive performance by Carey Mulligan in An Education, it will be nominated but won't win. They should do a movie together. And they did: Never Let Me Go. Haven't seen it, waiting for at least 5 people to say something really positive.

Inception is an easy pick for the big categories.

True Grit, if it's in the mold of what the Coens have accomplished recently, could be their third nomination for their fourth film in a row. I'm sure they don't really care.

That's all for now as the main contenders haven't been released yet. That is, if this year is like any other year.

Just so everyone knows well in advance, if JB does that Oscar competition again this year, I'm copying Pedro's answers and then changing one at random. I figure that's my best shot because my pulse is so far off the radar on these things.

I will be getting drunk on Oscar night by picking the winner in every category and then taking a shot when I get one wrong. That's a fun way to pretend like you care about the ceremony.

I'm not exactly quiet about it.

To be fair to Inception (and Nolan's other movies), I think things clear up a bit when it really matters. I'll never get tired of hyping the zero G sequence, because, to me, that's a glimpse of what Inception could be. It's a legitimately well-crafted vignette of cinema.

I got a good laugh from this. You've made a sick man feel a little bit better.

If James does do the Oscar competition this year, I might do one of a few things.

1. I'll be an asshole and put fake answers leading everyone astray, and then change them at the last second.

2. I'll be an asshole and just hold off on voting until the last second.

3. I won't be an asshole.

On a side note, I think I'll incorporate that drinking game in a few years. I won't be 21 until March 12, and the ceremony's on February 27.