- Aside from the 84th Annual Academy Awards™, there was no bigger week this year at The Awards Circuit than this one. Sunday began with three critics groups — Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Boston Film Critics and New York Film Critics Online — announcing their winners and runners-up for the best in Film 2012. Zero Dark Thirty continued its dominance with the critics groups, but wavering contenders like Dwight Henry and Joaquin Phoenix a hefty boost by winning “Best Supporting Actor” and “Best Actor,” respectively, from LAFCA. As this was going on, we managed to successfully debut our first-ever LIVE Power Hour Podcast. Ann Dowd, winner of the National Board of Review’s “Best Supporting Actress” award, was an utter delight as our guest and we wish her all the best in this highly competitive awards season.
Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 12/16)…
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Categories: Circuit Round-Up Tags: anna belickis, Best Original Song, clayton davis, Daniel Ashtiany, Golden Globe Nominations, Joey Magidson, joeys dvd pick of the week, John H. Foote, Joseph Braverman, Mark Johnson, Mike Ward, Nicole Melkonian, oscar predictions 2013, oscars 2013, Robert Hamer, SAG Nominations, Sizing Up series, Ted, Terence Johnson, Tiff Chai, Zero Dark Thirty
 We’re at the end of the line. Of course I’m speaking of none other than the making of early groupings of the hopefuls for each major Oscar category. This is the last one for the season, and tackles the Best Original Screenplay race. I freely admit that my success rate is still to be ultimately determined with this year’s crop of articles, but I’m feeling good about things. The precursors have now begun, so this final piece for the year has a bit more fact in its favor than those prior ones. It’s going to be a top heavy list again (like with Adapted Screenplay), but it’s still a deep one in my humble opinion. I did my best to be thorough though. I think most of you will find these rankings pretty interesting, but we shall see about that one, since this category is thought of by some to be pretty weak…or at the very least a big of a mess.
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 We’re coming to the end of the Sizing Up series at The Awards Circuit, which is of course the making of early groupings of the hopefuls for each major Oscar category, in case somehow you forgot. This is the second to last and tackles the Best Adapted Screenplay race. For now though, we’ll focus here on the category at hand. I admit that my success rate is still to be determined with this year’s crop of articles, but that kind of comes with the territory of Oscar prognostication, and I’m feeling good about my picks so far. Perhaps I’m getting wiser with age, but then again…maybe not. Both this screenplay article and the next one tackling Original Screenplay will be a tad lighter than usual, not in terms of the number of films/scripts but in the number of big time contenders held within, mainly because they’re the only categories that really limit what you can work off of, so it’s a little harder to not be top-heavy. I did my best though, so I think I deserve a bit of credit for that! I think most of you will be happy with these rankings, but that ultimately remains to be seen, I suppose.
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The Sizing Up Series continues with a look at the slate of Best Supporting Actress contenders. As always, this is as large a grouping of the hopefuls as possible (excluding some no shot contenders and members of bigger ensembles…or else this could have 50 or more people in the article), categorizing them by their assumed likelihood of a nomination come the big morning. Oftentimes, more than a few of the Best Picture nominees wind up with some form of representation here, and this year I think there will be more than a little correlation, but of course absolutely anything is possible with the Academy. We shall see what happens in the end, but enough talk for the time being. I know what you’re all here for, so let’s go right ahead and take a look at the contenders for Best Supporting Actress and size up the field! Read more on Sizing Up: Best Supporting Actress…
Categories: Article Tags: Alicia Vikander, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Adams, analysis, Anne Hathaway, Annette Bening, Bella Heathcoate, Best Supporting Actress, Cate Blanchett, Charlize Theron, Cody Horn, Elizabeth Olsen, Emily Blunt, Emma Watson, Helen Hunt, Isabelle Hupert, judi dench, Julia Stiles, Kerry Bishe, Lorraine Toussaint, Marion Cotillard, olivia colman, Olivia Williams, Oscar hopefuls, Ruby Sparks, Sally Field, Scarlett Johansson, Sizing up, Sizing Up series
 We’re into the Supporting categories now, and this one is a decently large scale grouping of the hopefuls for Best Supporting Actor, excluding of course some no shot contenders and certain members of bigger ensembles, or else this could have had 40 or 50 people in the article. I’m categorizing them by their assumed likelihood of a nomination come nomination day, but that shouldn’t surprise you by now. A couple of things to keep an eye for this category specifically is that it has a decent amount to do with which films get nominated for Best Picture ultimately, and this is also the place where comedy can actually make a dent in the race, not to mention overlooked/veteran actors, though neither could be a factor this year, oddly. Quite often, more than a few of the Best Picture nominees wind up with some form of representation here. For 2012, I think absolutely anything is possible.
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 I’m back once again ladies and gentlemen to do some more Sizing Up! This time around I’m going to be tackling the somewhat slight Best Actress field. For many, this is the worst category of the majors this year and for some the hardest to figure out, especially in terms of a victor. The ultimate winner won’t be of my concern too much now, but I’m seeking to try and make sense of the category and see which ladies can actually get to the final 5. Lots can change between now and the nominations, but this is where I think things currently stand, and it’s certainly a rather fluid list now. At the very least, it’ll be interesting to see how this matches up to the eventual slate of nominees, since so much is sort of guesswork with Best Actress.
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Categories: Article Tags: Amy Adams, analysis, Aubrey Plaza, Best Actress, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, elle fanning, Emmanuelle Riva, Entertainment/Culture, Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Jesus Henry Christ, judi dench, Julie Delpy, Kathleen Turner, Keira Knightley, Laura Linney, Leslie Mann, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marion Cotillard, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, melanie lynskey, melissa leo, Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams, naomi watts, New York City, Oscar hopefuls, Rashida Jones, Sizing up, Sizing Up series, Toni Collette, Viola Davis, Zoe Kazan
 Ladies and gentlemen, we come now to part 3 of the Sizing up series. This one is as close to an all-encompassing grouping of the hopefuls for Best Actor as possible (excluding some no shot contenders). I’m looking to categorize them by their assumed likelihood of a nomination come the big morning, but clearly there’s plenty of guesswork at play here as well. For my money, this is the most competitive category outside of Best Picture and possibly Best Director. There’s a bunch of top-tier contenders that all could win, let alone get nominated, so this is a bit of a top-heavy category.
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Categories: Article Tags: analysis, Andy Samberg, Anthony Hopkins, Best Actor, Bill Murray, Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Colin Farrell, Daniel Day-Lewis, Entertainment/Culture, Hugh Jackman, Jack Black, Jake Gyllenhaal, jamie foxx, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Joaquin Phoenix, John Hawkes, Liam Neeson, Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey, Oscar hopeful, paul rudd, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Gere, Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Sizing up, Sizing Up series, Tom Hardy, TOM HOLLAND
 Sizing Up Series continues with an in-depth look at the Director candidates for this year’s Oscar ceremony. As was the case last year, there are a few things to keep an eye for this particular category. One obviously is that a lot will have to do with which films get nominated for Best Picture at the end of the day. The other is the possibility of a Lone Director nod. It used to be something that happened, but it hasn’t come close of late. Now, with us in the brave new-ish world of anywhere from 5 to 10 nominees, it keeps the idea of the lone director alive, though it’s going to be unlikely for one to wind up breaking through. Not impossible, mind you…but I wouldn’t count on seeing it this year, or too many instances going forward.
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Categories: Article Tags: analysis, ang lee, Ben Affleck, Ben Lewin, Best Director, Christopher Nolan, David O. Russell, Director, Drew Goddard, Dustin Hoffman, Gus Van Sant, Jonathan Dayton, Juan Antonio, kathryn bigelow, Martin McDonagh, Michael Haneke, Mike Newell, Noah Baumbach, Oscar hopefuls, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Lorenz, Roger Michell, Sacha Gervasi, Sizing Up series, Stephen Chbosky, Steven Soderbergh, Steven Spielberg, Terrence Malick, Tom Hooper
 It’s that time of the year again folks! The name of the game here is to make an early grouping of the hopefuls for all the main categories. Beginning with Best Picture and categorizing the contenders by their assumed chances. I’m not ashamed to admit that my success rate has been only decent with these in the past, but that kind of comes with the territory of Oscar prognostication and I’m hoping for a good showing this year. This time around I’m sticking with last year’s model of a larger slate than in previous years, which still has to do with the relative uncertainty that this year’s race has surrounding it again. For one thing, how many nominees will we ultimately have? Less than the 9 we had last year? How many films will actually be able to get the required amount of #1 votes to qualify for a nomination? All of this remains to be seen of course, but for now, I’ve tried to grab all the viable contenders for Best Picture and laid them out for you below. Lots can change between now and the nominations, but this is where I think things stand now at this current and precarious moment. At the very least, it’ll be interesting to see how this matches up to the eventual nominees (last year I correctly predicted 6 of the 9 eventual nominated films from the article).
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Categories: Article Tags: analysis, Anna Karanina, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, best picture, Lincoln, Not Fade Away, Oscar, Oscar hopefuls, Ruby Sparks, Sizing Up series, The Cabin in the Woods, The Master, the New York Film Festival, The Promised Land, Timothy Green
 Now that we’re just one week away from the Academy Award nominee announcements, some categories are becoming narrowed down in a more literal sense. Best Makeup and Visual Effects have a “Bake-Off,” where only a few eligible contenders are squeezed into a small group until being squeezed further into the final set of nominees. It’s one of those arbitrarily weird competition rules that strikes me as unnecessary and even a little douchey, especially in Visual Effects, since inspired and creative minimal uses of special effects are grouped in with films that are crammed with varying qualities of CGI and are almost always the ones that suffer (see: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World for last year’s ceremony). “Hey guys, good job making the finali-oops, you didn’t get nominated LOL!” Luckily, Makeup’s Bake-Off had many sighing a breath of relief with their choices, or, more perhaps more accurately, omissions… Read more on Sizing Up the “Bake-Off” Fields…
Categories: Article Tags: anonymous, Best Makeup, Best Visual Effects, captain america, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, Hugo, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, Real Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Sizing Up series, the artist, The Iron Lady, The Tree of Life, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, X-Men: First Class
 Often called “the invisible art” of the movies, editing is a crucial and frequently undervalued (and misunderstood) element of filmmaking. Even more debatable is how to judge what “best” editing entails. Is it more commendable when an editor cuts a mediocre film out of pure garbage, or if they simply make impeccable footage flow well for the finished product? Is a film full of quick cuts more award-worthy than one comprised of long takes? Can we even compare the editing of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol to the editing of The Tree of Life? These are questions that even die-hard cinephiles have a hard time addressing, and Academy members – at least based on their voting habits – don’t really bother with. The rule of “Most” applies here as always; thrillers with tons of cuts and ensemble films split across multiple plot strands have a historical advantage here. More importantly, however, is just how crucial this category is to the Best Picture race. Simply put, it is very rare for a film to win the top prize without a Best Editing nod. The last one to do so was Ordinary People…31 years ago. So with that, let’s see what we’ve got…
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 So what could one possibly say about Best Costume Design that one couldn’t possibly infer from all of my previous installments? Even non-Oscar watchers could tell you that the most ornate and attention-grabbing costumes get the lion’s share of these prizes, meaning that period pieces and fantasy films almost always clean up here (but almost never science fiction…go figure). Unfortunately, that means a lot of more subtle, mood-specific costumes are passed over for films that look like either history museums or fashion shows. More interestingly, a film does not necessarily have to be a hit elsewhere to be recognized here. Indeed, sometimes an outright critical dud can make it to the winner’s circle on the strength of their costumes alone. I’ll just briefly go through what few contenders we have to keep our eye on here… Read more on Sizing Up the Costume Design Field…
 Continuing with our look at the crafts categories is the favorite of many an Oscarphile, and it’s easy to see why. After all, aren’t the specific lighting and camera choices made by a DP what distinguishes cinema as, well, cinematic? As with Best Art Direction, the Academy historically tends to nominate the “most” of this category rather than necessarily the most unique, aesthetically striking or groundbreaking uses of camera work in a given film. The “prettiest” films showcasing picturesque locales and dramatic lighting usually have the advantage here, as well as just plain being an Academy darling. However, in recent years this category has yielded some winners outside the usual Oscar beltway; certainly a CGI-heavy blockbuster and a stark sci-fi heist thriller don’t usually come to mind when thinking of noticeable cinematography.
With that said, this category seems to be the most “locked” of all the crafts races. Nothing is completely set in stone, but the same five – maybe six – films so far are way ahead of the pack here, but first, let’s take a look at what is not getting in: Read more on Sizing Up the Best Cinematography Field…
 As with anything else in life, all good things must come to an end…and here is no exception. This is my last “Sizing Up” column of the year, though have no fear about other categories being covered. Robert is going to be diving into the techs soon enough in the coming days and weeks (beginning with the Best Art Direction category, I believe), so be on the lookout for that. He’s more than got them covered. Anyway, this is the last one, and tackles the Best Original Screenplay race. I freely admit that my success rate is still to be determined with this year’s crop of articles, and that I waited until after the first precursors this week to try and enlighten me a bit, but that kind of comes with the territory of Oscar prognostication. I’m a bit more confident this year than usual about them, just like I was with Adapted Screenplay a few weeks back (sorry for the delay). It’s going to be a top heavy list, but it’s still a deep one in my opinion. I did my best to be thorough though, so credit where credit is due for that! I think most of you will find these rankings pretty interesting, but we shall see about that one. Enough delays though, let’s get on with this final list of mine and go forth and size up the Best Original Screenplay field!
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 We’re coming to the end of the first part of an annual tradition for me here at The Awards Circuit, which is of course the making of early groupings of the hopefuls for each major Oscar category. This is the second to last one, and tackles the Best Adapted Screenplay race. After I finish, I’ll be turning it over to Robert to handle the tech categories, something he’s very capable of doing, and I’ll be excited to read his take. For now, we’ll focus here though. I willingly admit that my success rate is still to be determined with this year’s crop of articles, but that kind of comes with the territory of Oscar prognostication, and I’m a bit more confident this year than usual about them. I guess I’m getting wiser with age. Both this screenplay article and next week’s one tackling Original Screenplay will be a tad lighter than usual, not in terms of the number of films (or in these cases films and their scripts) but in the number of big time contenders, mainly because it’s a the only categories that really limit what you can work from, so it’s a little harder. I did my best though, so at least give me credit for that! I think most of you will be happy with these rankings, but that ultimately remains to be seen, I suppose. Enough delays though, let’s get on with the list and size up the Best Adapted Screenplay field!
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 Here we are at part 6 of my series of articles that deal with how to rank the chances of the various Oscar contenders in each of the major categories. This one is, of course, on the slate of Best Supporting Actress contenders. As always, this is as large a grouping of the hopefuls as possible, excluding some no shot contenders and members of bigger ensembles, and categorizing them by their assumed likelihood of a nod come nomination morning. A few things to keep an eye for this category in particular is that, as with Best Supporting Actor last time around, it has a decent amount to do with which films get nominated for Best Picture, and this is the place where overlooked/veteran actresses can sometimes get the elusive first nomination, though young women make dents too. Oftentimes, more than a few of the Best Picture nominees wind up with some form of representation here. This year, I think there will be more than a little correlation, but of course absolutely anything is possible with The Academy. We shall see what happens, but enough talk for the time being. Let’s go right ahead and take a look at the contenders for Best Supporting Actress and size up the field!
Read more on Sizing Up the Best Supporting Actress Race…
 We come now to part 5 of my series of articles that deal with how to rank the chances of the various categories of Oscar contenders. This one is as large a scale grouping of the hopefuls for Best Supporting Actor as possible (excluding some no shot contenders and members of bigger ensembles…or else this could have 40 or 50 people in the article), categorizing them by their assumed likelihood of a nomination come nomination day. A few things to keep an eye for this category specifically is that it has a decent amount to do with which films get nominated for Best Picture, and this is the place where comedy can actually make a dent in the race, not to mention overlooked/veteran actors. Quite often, more than a few of the Best Picture nominees wind up with representation here. This year, I think there will be plenty of correlation, but of course absolutely anything is possible. My couple of preview notes are mostly something to keep an eye on as the season progresses for the Supporting gentleman looking to score a nod. We shall see what happens, but enough talk for the moment. Let’s take a look at the contenders for Best Supporting Actor and size up the field!
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 As you all no doubt are aware of by now, an annual tradition for me here at The Awards Circuit is to make an early grouping of the awards hopefuls for all the major categories, organizing them by their assumed chances at a nomination. I freely admit that my success rate has been rather mediocre over the years with these articles, but that kind of comes with the territory of Oscar prognostication. I manage to usually highlight the right films and people, but not always in the right order. Alas… This time around I’m going to be tackling the Best Actress field. For many, they think this is already a sewn up category, but I say “not so fast” to that. Lots can change between now and the nominations, but this is where I think things stand at this moment, and it’s a much more fluid standing than most believe it to be. At the very least, it’ll be quite interesting to see how this list matches up to the eventual slate of nominees. I expect to do well, but how well? Enough chatter though, let’s get on with it and move to the newest list!
Read more on Sizing Up the Best Actress Race……
 We come now to part 3 of an annual tradition for me here at The Awards Circuit…my series of articles that deal with how to rank the chances of the various categories of Oscar contenders. This one is as all encompassing a grouping of the hopefuls for Best Actor as possible (excluding some no shot contenders), categorizing them by their assumed likelihood of a nomination come the big morning. A few things to keep an eye for this category specifically is that very little will have to do with which films get nominated for Best Picture, as opposed to when I discussed Best Director. Quite often, only 1 or 2 of the Best Picture nominees winds up with any real damage in the acting categories. This year, I think it will have a bit more correlation than usual, but I think there will definitely be at least one nominee from a film without any other major love. It’s something to keep an eye on as the season progresses. We shall see what happens, but that’s enough chatter for the moment. Let’s take a look at the contenders for Best Actor and size up the field!
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