The Oscar Nominees were just announced this morning at 5:30 AM. I seriously can't believe some of these nominees. And I am seriously blown away that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow were not nominated for Best Director. I know that a lot of people are freaking out right now. I knew that Cloud Atlas would get nothing but I was really hoping a miracle could happen but it did not. The acting categories were all pretty much what we had expected. See how Jackie and I did with our predictions below. I put a "J" for Jackie and a "B" for Brad if we predicted the correct nominee. I gave us a lower case "j" and a lower case"b" if we picked it as one of our strong possiblities...

Best motion picture of the year

• “Amour” B J
• “Argo” B J
• “Beasts of the Southern Wild” b J
• “Django Unchained” B J
• “Les Misérables” B J
• “Life of Pi” B J
• “Lincoln” B J
• “Silver Linings Playbook” B J
• “Zero Dark Thirty” B J

Achievement in directing

• “Amour” Michael Haneke b
• “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Benh Zeitlin
• “Life of Pi” Ang Lee B j
• “Lincoln” Steven Spielberg B J
• “Silver Linings Playbook” David O. Russell J

We are once again right in the middle of awards season. The Golden Globes are on Sunday, January 13th. The Oscar Nominations usually come out after the Globes are aired, but they are out a bit earlier this year. The Oscars take place on Sunday, February 24th this year. The Oscar Nominations come out this Thursday, the 10th of January. They came out last year on the 24th of January! So this is the time of year when I like to get together with my coworker Jackie and talk about what we think will be nominated. And also what we hope is nominated. I basically like to pretend that we are members of the Academy putting in our votes for the various Oscar categories. If you are feeling nostalgic for last year's Oscars, here is our Oscar Nominations Predictions from 2011. We both did pretty good last year. If you include our possible picks, Jackie beat me in her predictions by 5 picks. She got 45 out of 49 nominations correct. I got 40 out of 49 correct. I never imagined that Extremely Loud would have made it into last year's top 9 Best Picture nominations. But there is always a movie like Crash or Finding Neverland that somehow sneaks into 5 or 10 nominations for Best Picture. I don't think there will be a movie like that this year. There are simply too many good movies this year. But you never know! Jackie and I both see a ton of movies every year and of course have our opinions about what our favorite films and performances were.

Are you ready? Here we go...

63%

✓ BEST PICTURE: The Artist
X COSTUME DESIGN: Mark Bridges - The Artist  /  My pick: Lisy Christl - Anonymous
✓ ORIGINAL SONG: “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets - Bret McKenzie (music & lyrics) 
X LEADING ACTOR: Jean Dujardin - The Artist  /  My pick: George Clooney - The Descendants
✓ DIRECTING: Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
X ANIMATED SHORT FILM: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore - William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg  /  My pick: A Morning Stroll - Grant Orchard & Sue Goffe
✓ SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer - Beginners
X DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Undefeated - TJ Marin, Dan Lindsay & Rich Middlemas  /  My pick: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory - Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky
✓ LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: The Shore - Terry George & Oorlagh George
X LEADING ACTRESS: Meryl Streep - The Iron Lady  /  My pick: Viola Davis - The Help
✓ DOCUMENTARY SHORT: Saving Face - Daniel Junge & Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
X SOUND EDITING: Philip Stockton & Eugene Gearty - Hugo  /  My pick: Ren Klyce - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
✓ SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer - The Help
X FILM EDITING: Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  /  My pick: Kevin Tent - The Descendants
X SOUND MIXING: Tom Fleischman & John Midgley - Hugo  /  My pick: David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce & Bo Persson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
✓ ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango - Gore Verbinski
✓ FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: A Separation - Asghar Farhadi
✓ VISUAL EFFECTS: Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann & Alex Henning - Hugo
✓ ART DIRECTION: Dante Ferretti (production design) & Francesca Lo Schiavo (set decoration) - Hugo
✓ MAKEUP: Mark Coulier & J. Roy Helland - The Iron Lady
✓ ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash - The Descendants
X CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Richardson - Hugo  /  My pick: Emmanuel Lubezki - The Tree of Life
✓ ORIGINAL SCORE: Ludovic Bource - The Artist
✓ ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris

So only two films on my best of list received nominations this year (Drive and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). My worst of list tends to be a pretty good indicator of what gets recognized by the Academy, though.

BEST PICTURE

1. The Artist
   
2. The Descendants
   
3. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
   
4. The Help
   
5. Hugo
   
6. Midnight in Paris
   
7. Moneyball
   
8. The Tree of Life
   
9. War Horse

Regarding The Tree of Life winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Jury Head Robert De Niro said, "It had the size, the importance, the intention, whatever you want to call it, that seemed to fit the prize.” That's pretty much the exact opposite of what'll win the Best Picture Oscar. Comprehensibility and competence are the valued attributes here. If there's an ideological point, then it had better go down easy. Charm helps, too. So what's more charming than the competent and comprehensible The Artist? Hugo doesn't quite fit the bill, but it tries. And, just like its major competitor, The Artist has the added advantage of celebrating American cinema. The Descendants is solidly mediocre, too, and with a cheap social message, but I think people probably perceive it as more of an example of solid writing and acting, not as a "magical" experience (less charm, in other words). Additionally, Harvey Weinstein knows how to win Oscars.