Another Year And Another Official Lineup

Once again my annual predictions for Lead and Supporting Actor at the Oscars.

With lead, as with last year, I'm going with the SAG line up. Which gave me 4 out of the five correctly. This could be a year where they line up perfectly since there is no reason not to believe it, since all of their films have been performing well essentially to back them up. The two obvious alternatives of Tom Hanks, and Joel Edgerton came from films which already had their moment. In both cases it seemed like SAG should have been their boost to keep their momentum going, and it was not. BAFTA should be kept in mind but no one seems like an obvious alternative for the Brits. It is notable that Denzel Washington has never received a BAFTA nomination so him missing out technically should not be a surprise if it happens again. The man I predict will take that spot then would be Andrew Garfield for his other film Silence since you can be double nominated at BAFTA, and Garfield is the only Englishman in contention. Of course barring some random contender like when Andy Serkis got nominated for a film that got released the following year, or they might move Hugh Grant to lead or even Dev Patel. Even in those cases I highly doubt any of those scenarios will transfer to the Oscars, in Garfield's case it is literally impossible. That leaves only one late hitter hanging around, old Michael Keaton for the Founder. I don't see it happening but it could. Everything seems to be right for the main five though, even Mortensen with his film also over performing.

For supporting I cannot choose the SAG five, it just doesn't work that way. This is not 2014 in terms of the amount of supporting contenders, where everything seemed settled with a set five. I actually think this could get shaken up more than even my predictions given that last year seven of the SAG nominees did not carry over, though 2014 there were only three that did not carry over, but still there is likely to be some wiggle room. One of those misses can already be found in Best Actress, but how about the rest? There is no reason to doubt Bridges or Ali, so that leaves the rest. I talked myself into dropping Dev Patel, since I thought at first "hey if they love Lion they ought to include Patel", but there is no reason to assume that. The reason being Patel missed out for Slumdog Millionaire, the clear number one contender that year which Lion is not this year, despite the fact he received both a SAG and a BAFTA nomination. My replacement is early front runner Liam Neeson despite the odd anti-nomination propaganda which is strangely worded around his screentime, which he has more than enough as supporting actor nominees go, rather than the actual quality of his performance. As long as Silence makes its impact with the Academy, as Wolf of Wall Street did so late, I think Neeson could get in. After all Lucas Hedges isn't safe either though, since SAG will embrace younger actors often more frequently than Oscars. Grant also could fall to his film losing steam, but doesn't seem like it will be the case. There are problems though with the other actors hovering around the five. The Nocturnal Animals boys not only are fighting among themselves but their film isn't exactly Academy catnip. Issey Ogata and Ben Foster both have internal competition, though the lack of double nominees could be broken this year, it just is very hard to bet on.