Willie Waffle

This Woman in Black is frightening. 

More frightening than an ex-girlfriend. 

More frightening than Hillary Clinton chasing after Bill with a frying pan in her hand. 

More frightening than Kathie Lee Gifford without her makeup. 

Daniel Radcliffe stars as Arthur Kipps - an early 20th century barrister in London suffering since his wife passed away during child birth 4 years ago.  Struggling to be a father and not performing well at work, Arthur is being given one last chance to save his job and impress the firm's leadership.  

A wealthy widowed client out in the countryside has passed away, so Arthur needs to head out there, wrap up her affairs and the sell the old, creaky house in which she lived.  However, the young lawyer starts to realize everyone in town is not happy to see him, strange things start to happen upon his arrival, and he keeps seeing this strange, ghastly woman in black.

Set in 1988, and based on the true story, John "He Should Have Gotten a 1988 Hair Cut" Krasinski stars as Adam Carlson - a TV reporter in Alaska who bounces around the state filing human interest stories, who finds the story of a lifetime.  At one of the most northern tips of the state, Carlson has come across three California Gray whales trapped under the ice after winter moves in a bit quicker than normal. 

Their only way to survive is to continue to bob up and down through one small hole in the ice, since the only other break in the surface is five miles away, which is too far for them to swim without coming up for air.  Now, as the story becomes an international sensation drawing the attention of every news organization, Adam tries to bring together a motley crew of people who can help save the whales,  including:

His ex-girlfriend, Rachel (Drew Barrymore), who runs the Alaska branch of Greenpeace,

The Communist ruled Soviet Union,

The Reagan White House and staffer Kelly Meyers (Vinessa Shaw),

No, this is not the story of Albert Brooks saying good-bye to the world after being snubbed for an Oscar nomination.  However, it could be the story of Seal (dude, you are not going to do better than Heidi Klum, so apologize and beg her to take you back before she hooks up with some international billionaire who owns his own fleet of yachts). 

Sam Worthington stars as Nick Cassidy - a former cop convicted of stealing a $40 million diamond from New York's largest real estate king, David Englander (Ed Harris, who looks shockingly thin in this movie, I wanted to pass my popcorn up to him on the screen to make sure the guy had something to eat).  Despite exhausting the appeals process, Nick still claims he is innocent, and isn't willing to take this injustice sitting down.

So, the dude escapes from prison and makes his way to Manhattan.  He checks into the Roosevelt Hotel, has one fine last meal, and steps out onto the ledge.  Everyone is worried he wants to jump, but he requests police negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) with a much different plan in mind.

Liam Neeson plays Ottway - a sniper hired to protect Alaskan oil workers from the various wolves that surround their base camp.  Of course, a heavy snowstorm quickly is moving in, which forces them to evacuate.  During the flight, the plane suffers some sort of malfunction and crashes.  Now, abandoned in the middle of nowhere, the survivors have to start making their way south to civilization, but find themselves outnumbered by hungry hungry wolves. 

Who will survive and who will be eaten?

Who will become wolfy chow?

Set around the turn of the 20th century Dublin, Glenn Close is Albert Nobbs - a woman who has been posing as a man to work as a waiter/butler at a fancy hotel in order to raise enough money to start her own business. 

Times are tough, employers have no respect for the employees, and jobs are not easily found (sound familiar?), so Nobbs does everything to keep her secret and her job.  However, this lonely lifestyle is about to be upended by the arrival of two new employees, Joe (Aaron Johnson) and Hubert (Janet McTeer), who might expose her secret. 

Will Albert be unmasked?

Will she reach her goals?

I will forever eat my words for saying Jonah Hill will never get an Oscar nomination.  However, the formerly corpulent comic actor scored the adulation and respect so many in Hollywood crave today.  Am I the only one who is fearing the upcoming ads for the 21 Jump Street movie that will be touting Oscar Nominee Jonah Hill?

What are some of the other surprises? 

For a complete list of nominees, go here.



Best Picture

Under the new rules, we could have anywhere from 5 - 10 nominees, and the number of first place votes were of paramount importance, so I never thought those first place votes would be spread out over 9 nominees.  I was convinced The Artist, War Horse, The Descendants, The Help, and Hugo were locks for nominations (and Hugo surprisingly leads the competition with 11 total Oscar nominations), but welcome to the party Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Tree of Life.    

Midnight in Paris should not have been a surprise, since it has nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Writers Guild Awards (showing a broad base of support across every branch of The Academy), and I am pleased by the late campaign pushing Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close into the running, but I never thought Moneyball had enough people pushing it as their favorite, #1 choice. 

Tree of Life can thank the new rules for this nomination as people either love it or hate it, and a large enough group of Oscar voters loved it.  That group was possibly 5% of voters because you only needed 5% of first place votes to have a chance at a Best Picture nomination.  Think of Tree of Life as the Ron Paul of these Oscar nominees.  It might be a small base of support, but these people are sticking with it no matter how dire and slim the chances of victory.   

The movie with the most nominations goes on to win the Oscar for Best Picture about 70% of the time, so Hugo can make a claim to being the favorite (each branch of The Academy votes for the nominees in its category, so having the most nominations means you have a broad base of support from all members of The Academy from actors to directors to sound engineers, etc.).  However, I still think The Artist is the movie to beat. 

Best Actor

Leonardo DiCaprio and his swimsuit supermodel of the month girlfriend will be on the outside looking in after he was passed over for a nomination (like I predicted), but we did get one surprise, that shouldn't have been a surprise. 

The Academy has come up with a new way to pick nominees that no one has ever used before, so who will be able to understand and take advantage of the new rules?  This is another example of how the campaign counts, no matter how much anyone wants us to believe the Oscars are all about the art.

Which movies will be nominated for Best Picture?

The Artist

War Horse

The Descendants

Bridesmaids

The Help

Hugo

This year, to be nominated for Best Picture, the movie must receive at least 5% of the first place votes cast, which means a film with a passionate base of voters will be able to overcome one that might have more support, but tepid support. 

Being everyone's second or third favorite movie won't help very much (which is why I think Moneyball and Midnight in Paris get stepped over like Fredo).  Yes, Midnight in Paris has support from the Producers, Directors, Writers and Screen Actors guilds, which in another year would make it a sure thing for a Best Picture nominee, but I have yet to hear anyone anywhere argue Midnight in Paris is the best movie of the year.  It is in your top five, when being #1 counts more than ever this year. 

Additionally, The Academy has determined we will have anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees, as opposed to the set number of 10 nominees we have enjoyed the past few years.  If 7 movies have 5% of the first place votes, we get 7 nominees, so good luck trying to predict the number of nominees on top of all of that.     

Because of all of this, I think Bridesmaids gets a nomination.  While it is not uncommon for a comedy to be nominated for Best Picture, so many of the recent comedy pictures with nominations had some sort of drama element to them (Lost in Translation, Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, The Kids Are All Right).  Bridesmaids, even with its sense of heart and soul, is about as comical as a comedy gets, and many voters want to see a true comedy included with true dramas, which is why the movie has been nominated at the Producers Guild and Screen Actors Guild awards. 

Also, I think War Horse gets a nomination because the old guard of Hollywood will coalesce around this movie as a traditional, big movie Best Picture nominee.  I still think it is Bore Horse, but fans of sweeping epics have embraced War Horse.  

The Help, The Artist and The Descendants have all been included in just about every awards' discussion from critics groups to Golden Globes to Guild awards, so you have to consider them locks for nominations (with The Artist emerging as a frontrunner after winning Best Picture at The Producers Guild Awards), while Hugo has support from the Directors and Producers guilds, as well as an early win at the National Bord of Review, which shocked everyone and propelled it into the discussion for an Oscar.

Who could shock and surprise?  Watch out for The Tree of Life.  It is one of the most devisive movies of the year, but people who support it truly, passionately love it, which could help if these fans and voters list it as their first place choice.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy the announcements on Tuesday morning around 8:38 AM EST.  We'll talk about the nominees all week long.   

This year's list of nominees for Best Actor will resemble a list of Hollywood royalty, but you can always expect someone to try to crash the party.  This year, that guy is doing so silently.

Who will be nominated for Best Actor?

George Clooney - The Descendents

Jean Dujardin - The Artist

Brad Pitt - Moneyball

Michael Fassbender - Shame

Gary Oldman - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

That's right.  I left Leonardo DiCaprio off the list!!!! 

I know you have read all about my theories regarding the Screen Actors Guild and its influence on which actors get nominated in the Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories.  That's why I have predicted Clooney, Dujardin and Pitt will follow up those SAG nominations with Oscar nominations.

The other two SAG nominees, DiCaprio and Demian Bichir (A Better Life), benefited from the earlier nomination date for the SAG Awards this year.  When the voting was taking place in late November and early December, DiCaprio looked like a sure thing with his performance in J. Edgar, while Bichir was the beneficiary of an aggressive, early-in-the-season campaign by Summit Entertainment (A Better Life was one of the first DVDs I received as a Critics' Choice voter).   

However, Bichir has disappeared from almost all Oscar talk, and DiCaprio has seen his prospects fade as J. Edgar did not have the box office returns nor the critical and awards acclaim one might expect from a Clint Eastwood movie.  It has been forgotten. 

Instead, Fassbender, while in a lesser movie than J. Edgar, has become the talk of the town for his wonderful performance in Shame.  I am not sure Oscar voters are ready to nominate a guy who engages in full frontal nudity in a movie with an NC-17 rating, but Fassbender also put in strong performances in X-Men: First Class and Jane Eyre this year, so he has the respect of voters, who will want to reward him somehow.

Meanwhile, I think voters want to reward Oldman for a fabulous career.  As DiCaprio fades, I have seen Oldman's stock rising as sentiment builds to reward an accomplished actor who has never been nominated. 

Who is the frontrunner?  You have to consider Clooney the favorite to win the Oscar.  Only Dujardin seems to have any chance of challenging him.

This year was a banner year for women in movies, and that makes it even more difficult than ever to predict which ones will be nominated, and which one will win.  In reality, all five of the potential nominees could have won the category in a normal year, and even a couple of snubs would have been sitting in the Kodak Theater as nominees if this was 2011, 2010, 2009, etc. 

So, who will be nominated for Best Actress?

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Viola Davis, The Help

Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Again, we look to the Screen Actors Guild for some guidance here.  Remember, actors nominate actors at the Oscars, and many of these voters belong to the Screen Actors Guild, which has released its list of nominees and will hand out its awards on January 29.  A few years ago, it was Halle Berry's win at the SAG Awards that presaged her Oscar win, so don't take them lightly. 

All five women above were nominated for SAG Awards, so I feel safe predicting them here.  However, Glenn Close could find herself on the outside looking in.  When the SAG nominations were announced in December, Close and her film, Albert Nobbs, were taking a traditional path to Oscar contention by having a small release in December, then expanding that release throughout January to capitalize on possible Oscar nominations. 

Yet, Albert Nobbs quickly has become a forgotten film as Roadside Attractions and its PR firms have failed to get any buzz building for the movie.  This leaves her vulnerable to a challenge from a young, newly acclaimed actress like Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) or Elizabeth Olson (Martha Marcy May Marlene)  I still wish Charlize Theron would get more attention for her turn in Young Adult, but that ship has sailed.  The movie never took off, and might end up being one of those you catch on DVD or on TV in a few years and find yourself surprised at how good it was.

Who is the favorite?  The SAG Awards should shed some light on this January 29.  Streep has her best chance to win her first Oscar since 1983 (even though she has a record 16 nominations to her name, she hasn't won since Sophie's Choice), but the Viola Davis train feels like it is coming down the tracks.  She is a well respected actress, who many feel deserves some recognition, and The Help has been building momentum throughout the campaign season.

It's a movie you have heard a great deal about, but haven't had a chance to see, since it has been withheld from 99% of country until this week.  Luckily, the wait was worth it for those who aren't afraid to let some emotion creep into their movie going experience.

Thomas Horn stars as Oskar Schell - a troubled 9-year old boy still suffering from the loss of his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks), who was a victim of the September 11th terrorist attacks.  Thomas and Oskar had a special bond forged by the father's efforts to create adventures and mysteries for Oskar to solve, which would help him develop social skills he lacked. 

Now, a year later, as he goes through his father's belongings, Oskar finds a vase with a key in it.  Only in an envelope with a last name on it, Oskar thinks the key is part of what could be the last puzzle his father gave him to solve, and he is off to find the lock this key will open, while confronting a horrible secret he has been holding on to for far too long.