Tired and tense Hollywood set for Oscar nominations

By Andy Goldberg Jan 21, 2012, 10:34 GMT

Los Angeles- The folks of the Hollywood film industry usually only get up before dawn if they have a particularly grueling shooting schedule. But they will rise at the ungodly hour of 5.30 am Tuesday morning for the annual unveiling of the Oscar nominees - timed to make the headlines on the morning news shows.

Many of those involved in the celebrated silent movie The Artist will be able to save themselves the bother. The film is virtually certain to be nominated in many of the top categories, such as best picture, best actor, best director, best score and best actress.

Moreover, since most of the main contributors are French, they have a comfortable seven-hour time difference, which means they can watch the proceedings with a croissant and café au lait at lunchtime.

They might even crack open a bottle of champagne for an early celebration as the Oscar seems theirs to lose. All but three of 31 film critics polled by award site Goldderby.com said the silent movie tribute to Hollywood's golden years would win the best picture Oscar.

Their certainty is based on several factors, not least being the film's performance at the Golden Globes last week, where it garnered a leading three trophies. The movie has also scored consistently high in other awards, including the Holllywood guild awards, whose voting members comprise the majority of the Oscar panel. There's also the fact that it focuses on Hollywood's favourite subject - itself - and that no other truly worthy Oscar fare is competing against it.

As Patrick Goldstein, the Oscar expert of the Los Angeles Times put it after canvassing his pals in the Academy: 'Voters aren't that taken with the competition. The Descendants has earned some love.but academy members aren't persuaded that its story lines held together especially well. War Horse was dismissed as old-fashioned and overblown. Midnight in Paris: lightly likable. Moneyball: smart but unemotional. The Help: squishy and condescending. Hugo: gorgeous but lugubrious. The Iron Lady: a showcase for Meryl Streep, but a slight story. The Tree of Life: Yipes - what were critics thinking?'

Such blasé attitudes are actually pretty regular at this time of year, when voters are suffering from movie watching overload as they try to run their eye over the dozens of films in the Oscar running. The first six of those films are almost certain to be in the best picture nominations, but there is still room for plenty of surprises thanks to a change in the Oscar voting rules in which the top ten films that garner more than five per cent of the first place votes will be nominated in the best picture category.

This should give more variety to the competition, benefiting the kind of films that are usually left out of the Oscar running, such as the taut but gruesome thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the raunchy chick flick Bridesmaids. The other places could go to My Week With Marilyn, J Edgar, Drive or Shame.

There will of course be plenty of crossovers in the major categories. Martin Scorsese (Hugo), Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Alexander Payne (The Descendants) and David Fincher (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) are considered possibilities for the best director nominations.

The best actor competition will pit The Artist's Jean Dujardin against The Descendants' George Clooney, and Moneyball's Brad Pitt with Leonardo DiCaprio (J Edgar) and Michael Fassbinder (Shame) tipped to round out the top five.

The best actress competition is likely to feature Viola Davis from The Help, Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady), Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn), with other contenders including Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs, Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin and Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.