Oscar Nomination Q&A

Now that the nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced and we have had 24 hours or so to chew on them, it is time to answer a few of the most essential questions. You can read a full list of nominees here.

Q: Prior to the nominations you kept making snide jokes about how the Academy had already gone ahead and given Daniel Day Lewis the Best Actor Oscar since he was playing Abraham Lincoln.

A: And I promptly issued a public apology upon actually seeing the movie. If the Academy really did go ahead and give him the Oscar (and they probably did) it was probably because they saw the dailies.

Q: So, to recap, he’s nominated for the Oscar but he’s ‘probably’ already won the Oscar even though he hasn’t ‘formally’ won?

A: Probably. In fact, a blogger at the Hollywood Free Press tweeted a photo of Day Lewis at a Starbucks with what appeared to be a latte in one hand and an Oscar in the other. Then again, that might just have been his Oscar from There Will Be Blood. If I was him, I’d take it to Starbucks with me.

Daniel Day Lewis probably already has his Oscar he’s going to win.

Q: Best Actress appears to be a battle royale between Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook).

A: I’m predicting Lawrence.

Q: Not just because you are an unabashed, totally biased Silver Linings Playbook fan?

A: Not at all. I also consider myself an unabashed, totally biased fan of Chastain’s work but she will fall victim to a Ron Rosenbaum-style attack by The Capital Hill Gang – Sen. Diane Feinstein, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Carl Levin – who will helpfully ignore such persnickety nonsense as the looming debt ceiling or gun control to spend their time writing an aggrieved open letter to the Academy asking them not to vote for Chastain.

Q: Wait, wasn’t Ron Rosenbaum’s Kate Winslet attack a complete fail? Didn’t she win for The Reader anyway?

A: Oh! Right! I always forget! Plus, Lawrence just went on the record as saying “acting is stupid.” You think actors in the Academy will stand for that?

Q: But that quote is entirely out of context!

A: ‘Context’? What’s ‘context’? Jessica Chastain for the win!!!

Hey! Chastain! Watch it! McCain, defender of cinematic virtue, is coming after you!

Q: Hold your horses there, pal. Don’t think The Capital Hill Gang doesn’t have some clout. Kathryn Bigelow, director of Zero Dark Thirty, did not land a nomination.

A: Wait, what?! It can’t be! It can’t! I already paid for all those posters!

Q: What posters?

A: The posters touting the steel cage director’s chair match between Spielberg & Bigelow, first one to knock the other one out with a megaphone wins! My advance team started putting them on Hollywood Blvd last night! I paid a FORTUNE for those things!

Q: You could just change the posters to tout the steel cage director’s chair match between Spielberg & Michael Haneke, nominated for directing Amour.

A: He’s French! No one at the Academy will vote for the French guy.

Q: A French guy won Best Director last year! And his French film won Best Picture!

A: That’s because it was a silent called The Artist. No Academy members actually knew it was French. If it had been a talkie called L’Artiste, Alex Payne doubles down.

Q: What about Ben Affleck losing out a directing nod for Argo?

A: I don’t think that Academy liked that “So you want to come to Hollywood, act like a big shot without actually doing anything? You’ll fit right in.” line.

Q: In Les Miserables, Anne Hathaway, of course, belted out I Dreamed A Dream before looking right into the camera, shouting, “Wassup, suckas?!”, grabbing a microphone shaped like an Oscar statue, and then rapping Kanye West’s Who Gon Stop Me? So, who IS who gon stop her charge to the Best Supporting Actress Oscar? Can anyone?

A: Sigh. I had dreamed a dream that in her acceptance speech Nicole Kidman thanked Zac Efron for letting her pee on him. Alas, it’s not to be.

Q: Supporting Actor is a heavyweight field, all five already own Oscars. Tommy Lee Jones gets to give a Big Speech in Lincoln but Alan Arkin plays a heroic Hollywood producer in Argo and Hollywood producers love seeing movies about Hollywood producers and the prodigal Robert DeNiro has returned wearing a Bill Bergey jersey and, of course, Phillip Seymour Hoffman is The Master-

A: We all know Amy Adams runs that relationship.

Q: But then couldn’t Amy Adams manipulate everyone into voting for Phillip Seymour Hoffman?

A: But Scien- er, “The Cause” was an outlier, a fringe group. She can’t influence the whole of the Academy.

Q: So you’re predicting……

A: Christoph Waltz in Django Unchained.

Q: Really? Even though he just won a couple years back?

A: My good man, the éclat of a performance is not subject to temporal length but merely its congenital attributes.

Q: Speak English!

A: Ok. I’m actually predicting Robert DeNiro.

Q: Really?

A: Hey, I’m an unabashed, totally biased fan of Silver Linings Playbook.

I predict Robert DeNiro AND Jacki Weaver to win because I don’t hide my biases.

Q: With neither Bigelow or Affleck landing nods in the Directing category, does this indicate their respective films are going to get swept away in the Best Picture race in Lincoln’s wake.

A: Had a chance this morning to talk with Myron Plotz, associate director of The National Backlash Research Institute (NBRI) in Oceanside, California, and he was devastated. Just devastated. He had been eagerly awaiting a two-horse race between ZDR and Lincoln trading backlash like a hot potato with Argo and the stench of its own backlash lurking in the corner. Alas, it was also not to be.

Q: Perhaps Beasts of the Southern Wild, the little indie that could, will spring a surprise?

A: Ha ha ha! No, no, no. The Academy likes to throw a bone to little indies that could in an effort to appear ‘with it’ but it does not like to see them win.

Q: So Mr. Plotz is counting on Lincoln in a runaway?

A: Myron expects Lincoln to be subject to more backlash the more foregone its victory becomes. The backlash will not prevent that victory, however, though the backlash will then increase ten-fold post-victory. Just like last year. And the year before. Sigh.

Q: But you liked Lincoln!

A: I loved Lincoln! I just thought this Best Picture race was going to have some juice! But apparently the Academy decided to downgrade this race from little-to-no suspense to just strictly no suspense. Come to think of it, they should have let Ben Affleck or Kathryn Bigelow direct the Oscar telecast.

Q: Why’s that?

A: They are the only two who could have taken the telecast and still wrung suspense out of the pre-determined outcomes.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE NOMINATIONS? SOUND OFF BELOW!