There really is a lot to say about the value of a nomination at the Academy Awards. As trite as it sounds, it is an incredible honor just to be nominated. Chances are, only one nominee is walking away with the award–two if the votes line up perfectly.

Still, in recent years, it’s become more common for critics groups to seemingly predict the Oscar winners rather than champion lesser-seen performances that can use the exposure. Do the majority of film critics really think that one performance stands above all others in a given year? I doubt it.

As an example, compare the Academy Award nominees for Best Actress to what the LAMB site–a user-submitted collection of blogs about film–came up with as the top 5 performances of the year.

Oscars:

• Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
• Viola Davis, The Help
• Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
• Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

LAMBs (ranked):

1. Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2. Viola Davis, The Help
3. Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
4. Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
5. Juliette Binoche, Certified Copy

The acting branch of the Academy Awards and a wide-ranging group of film enthusiasts only agreed on two choices: Mara and Davis. With LAMBs voting, all of the ballots were weighted. Your number one choice got ten points and your number five choice got six points. With the Oscars, the number one votes are the ones that matter most. In both cases, it comes down to favorites.

It’s interesting to note that with the Oscar nominees, only two Best Actress candidates did not see their film go wide: Close and Streep. The rest either opened wide or expanded before the ballots were sent out. Visibility plays a big role in getting an Oscar nomination. If you make the film available to voters and keep the discussion going, you’re more likely to be nominated than performers who were in lower-budgeted films with less of an ability to keep the film in the discussion.

One would hope that the voters had the opportunity to see all the films nominated in major categories before voting. I doubt that’s the case. If you’re a working film professional, you just might not have the time to get to them all. Same with members with families and other obligations that eat into time. At that point, it stops being about which performance is the best and turns into a contest of who wins over the most fans. Even critics don’t see every film that comes about because every film doesn’t open wide or offer critics screenings.

Would changing the word “Best” to “Outstanding” or another adjective change the way we view the awards process? To be nominated, you have to do something that stands out in a good way. People have to like your work. That does not mean it is objectively the best, but that’s what the post-Oscar discussion always turns into. How did x beat y when y was clearly better? To who? You? Film is subjective and sometimes you need to see the common beliefs shaken up to understand the role of recognizing good work.

I, for one, am a big fan of the Oscar night upset. It can be quite exciting to see a performer, writer, director, or other film professional grab Oscar glory when they were counted out. The acting categories in particular always seem like a good place to hope for the upset, even if the critical consensus in recent years makes those surprises less likely to occur.

I’m going to stump for four acting nominees who will most likely not walk away with the Oscar on Sunday night. It’s an honor to be nominated, for sure, but being able to say “Academy Award winner” on the DVD/Blu-ray cover can sway some people to see a great performance.

Best Actress: Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

The big takeaway from going through reviews of Albert Nobbs is that people expected a very weighty drama. That’s not what Albert Nobbs is. It’s a fairy tale. A woman disguises herself as a man for her entire adult life hoping to make her dreams come true on her own terms. It’s a step up from “The Little Mermaid”–a young woman is willing to sacrifice everything she knows and loves to have a chance at living out her dreams–or “The Red Shoes”–a woman spends her entire life working for God’s forgiveness for a big sin she committed as a young girl. But by how much?

Glenn Close is not doing explosive acting that jumps off the screen. She is living the role of Albert. Until Janet McTeer shows up and pushes Albert out of his carefully constructed roleplay, Albert does not waver from the calm and conscientious role of a butler. Close gets one flashy scene–handled perfectly–before Albert starts to grow as a character.

The beauty of Close’s work is how tightly she hold Albert in. Only when Albert is alone does Close allow him to even consider the possibility of a more adventurous life. The rest is a perfect portrait of a controlled person who begins to loosen up one pence at a time.

Will Win: Viola Davis, The Help

Best Actor: Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I don’t always go for the quiet and controlled performances. Gary Oldman just managed to make subtle stand out as loud as explosions.

Oldman’s Smiley is the fuse waiting to set off the bomb in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. His job is to keep his cool and force everyone else to give up information. Only once in the film does he lose it and that’s when you realize how strong Oldman’s performance is.

You have a man who is able to manipulate people with no more than a knowing stare and a pencil-thin almost-smile. Late at night, he finishes off a bottle of scotch and begins to relive the one failure he had in his lengthy career as a spy. It starts off as a quiet retelling to a young colleague until he’s suddenly living that moment again. Even when he explains what happened and why, he’s recreating his own inner monologue from when the mistake happened. By the time he realizes what he let the other man get away with, it’s many years too late. He slips back into observance mode and doesn’t ever play his hand again.

That scene-long slip into showing gives away all of Smiley’s tells. You see the way his eyes open or close, his mouth moves, his breathing changes, his posture shifts, and all his other physical tells when he knows he’s onto something. Suddenly, his quiet performance becomes a guessing game. Does the slight head tilt to the left mean he has an in? Or does it mean that he’s second-guessing himself again? Wait. Why did he just leave the room when he seemed like he was onto something? Oldman’s performance gives you one cipher halfway through the film that unlocks his entire performance. You miss that and you won’t understand why some people really hope he upsets on Sunday night.

Will Win: Jean Dujardin, The Artist

George Clooney is close, but Dujardin has the Best Picture momentum going for him.

Best Supporting Actress: Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

As much as I appreciate what Glenn Close did in Albert Nobbs, I firmly believe that Janet McTeer gives the best performance of any acting nominee in any category this year. This is not a slight against her fellow Supporting Actress nominees, either; it’s a strong field this year.

It comes down to this. McTeer was tasked with doing everything Glenn Close does in Albert Nobbs, only amplified in every possible way. If Albert has to have a confrontation with another man, McTeer’s Hubert has to almost get into a fight. If Albert is sad, Hubert has to weep. If Albert falls in love, Hubert has to be the most romantic man on the planet. That McTeer makes the exaggerated could-be foil of Albert so believable is a sign of a great performance.

Hubert is so convincing as a man that Albert doesn’t even consider the possibility that he might also be a woman. If the reveal scene never happened–and it’s early in the film, too–you wouldn’t know Hubert wasn’t a biological man unless you recognized Janet McTeer from another film. McTeer’s is arguably the most wide-ranging performance of any nominee and she nails all the tonal shifts.

Will Win: Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Supporting Actor: Nick Nolte, Warrior

Nick Nolte plays a hard to like character in Warrior. He’s an alcoholic. He abused his family so badly that his wife and one of his sons left him. Shortly after, his other son abandoned him.

When Warrior begins, Nolte’s Paddy Conlon is an extremely conflicted man. He got sober and his family still won’t talk to him. He tries to rebuild his relationship with his two sons as they train for a huge MMA tournament and they won’t happen. Paddy is a broken shell of a man who wants nothing more than a little affirmation that maybe he didn’t destroy everyone he loved.

Only Meryl Streep faces the same challenge as Nick Nolte in his Oscar-nominated performance: a big scene with horrid dialogue. Nolte’s flashiest moment is the most absurd in the film. Yet, you can’t take your eyes off of him. He sells an unending series of cliches in such a believable way that you almost think Warrior could overcome its soap opera style and become a believable drama in the end. It doesn’t, but Nolte helps close out the final moments of the film on a high note.

Will Win: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Do I honestly think any of the front runners will lose? Not really. The biggest chance for the acting upset is Best Actor because Jean Dujardin and George Clooney could split enough votes for a third nominee to take the win. Brad Pitt and Gary Oldman seem the most likely.

In the end, does the award itself mean so much to the film industry? Yes and no. It’s a great marketing tool and a great honor. But will it change the opinions of people who saw and didn’t care for a particular winner? No. Will it make people pulling for the other nominees feel better that their favorite lost? No. But it will play into the clout of the Academy Awards in pop culture. For all the jokes about the irrelevance of the ceremony, winning an Oscar still holds weight in the memory bank of pop culture knowledge.

Thoughts? Love to hear them.

I can honestly say I was one of the people happy to learn that the Academy Awards were going to expand to ten Best Picture nominees. My favorite films that stood a chance of getting into the top 5 never came through and I figured more nominees meant more good films being recognized. I was right to an extent. Films like District 9, Winter’s Bone, and 127 Hours that would normally get nowhere near the Best Picture podium saw nominations alongside more traditional Oscar tastes.

After two years of guaranteed nominations for ten films, the Academy Awards announced a new voting scheme that would provide anywhere from five to ten nominees depending on votes. The goal is to be voted number one on at least five percent of the ballots to even be eligible for Best Picture. The scheme gets more complicate than that (if a front runner secures a certain percentage of the vote, the number two votes on those ballots count as number one votes), but that’s the gist of it.

The result in the first year of the new scheme is nine nominees for Best Picture: The Artist, The Descendants (haven’t seen), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo (saw, did not review or care for), Midnight in Paris, Moneyball (saw, so not the target audience), The Tree of Life, and War Horse (did not see). How the awards fell just shy of ten nominees we’ll never know. We’ll also never know for sure which film was on the brink of that Best Picture nomination that looks so nice on a DVD/Blu-ray cover.

But we sure can speculate about which films were the likely contenders. Here are what I believe to be the four most likely contenders for that tenth slot.

Rango

I just heard the sound of a hundred web browsers closing. Allow me to explain. Though Rango only received one Academy Award nomination (Best Animated Feature), it has done very well on the awards circuit. It won top honors at the Annies, the BAFTAS, the Broadcast Film Critics Awards, National Board of Review, Online Film Critics Society (totally not relevant but fun to point out), and Visual Effects Society Awards. The only film to beat it at other ceremonies, The Adventures of TinTin, did not receive a single Oscar nomination. Furthermore, Howard Shore would have been a lock for Best Original Score had he submitted himself for the nomination; he chose not to.

What we’re dealing with here is trends. Animated films have been doing better in the Oscars since the introduction of Best Animated Feature. Films like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up have been nominated in key categories on the strength of solid stories, good box office return, and incredible polish. True, those are all Pixar films, but the point still stands.

Rango did well at the box office, had a strong story, and was incredibly polished. Critics liked it, audiences liked it, and animation and visual effects professionals liked it. If Shore submitted himself, the music branch would have had the film on their minds, as well. I’m not saying that every year with a guaranteed ten Best Picture nominees would have included an animated feature. I’m just saying that I think a stronger push from Rango‘s studio could have earned the film some surprising nominations.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy could (and arguably should) have been a contender in a number of categories. Sure, it was nominated for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It could have also been recognized for Costumes, Art Direction, Editing, Direction, and Picture. In fact, the BAFTAs did just that. They even nominated the film for Cinematography and Sound.

It’s easy to see how a period thriller of Cold War paranoia with a strong ensemble cast and clever execution could have been a Best Picture nominee. The voters who would go for this are the same voters who helped secure Winter’s Bone four nominations last year. I can only say it was a matter of momentum that stopped this film short. An earlier release would have meant more discussion of the film before the nominations were due.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

There is a case to be made about momentum and the Academy Awards. Last year, David Fincher’s The Social Network spent much of the awards season as the frontrunner until The King’s Speech suddenly dominated the conversation. The year before that, the original Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo made great headway in a Best Actress campaign for star Noomi Rapace. The time seemed right to recognize the Stieg Larsson series with some Oscar glory.

The way the nominations fell down puts The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in the interesting position of previous near-misses like The Dark Knight and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. How do films get so many key nominations over Best Picture nominees and yet fall out of the running for Best Picture?

In the case of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, great editing, cinematography, sound mixing/editing, and actress were not enough to get Best Picture votes. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close got more votes Best Picture and only wound up with one additional nomination. The Help did the same thing with three acting nominations, two of which are in the same category. A film that the technical branches and the acting branch rewarded in such key categories seems like it probably was close to getting in for Best Picture.

Bridesmaids

Another odd choice, but it makes sense in a strange way. Bridesmaids was a huge box office hit. The screenplay and Melissa McCarthy’s show-stealing performance have been talked about since the film came out. As unlikely as those nominations seemed in the spring, they made sense by the fall and came true in the winter.

What no one expected was how much some of the big precursors would like the whole film. The Producers Guild nominated the film for Best Picture, the Screen Actors Guild nominated them for Best Ensemble–the equivalent award to Best Picture–and the Writers Guild nominated the film for Best Original Screenplay.

Bridesmaids is not the kind of film you can easily imagine the Academy Awards going for. Yet, if you followed the key awards trends, it looked like the film was gaining momentum at the right time. It fell short of a Best Picture nomination in the end, but didn’t go down without a fight.

So which one was it?

Barring a squirrely occurrence like the not-nominated Young Adult being the number six slot in Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Editing, and Director, I would have to say the most likely contender for that tenth slot was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The BAFTAs went gaga for it in the early voting round, putting almost the entire cast on the longlist for Actor or Supporting Actor in their tiered voting. It snuck in seemingly out of nowhere for Best Actor and Best Original Score at the Oscars, showing a wide range of support in different branches for the film. The political content seems fresh and relevant even in the period setting of 1970s Cold War espionage. It’s also a very stylish film hinging on a unique flashback concept that would appeal to the film as art voters.

Sometimes it’s fun to work these scenarios out.

Thoughts? Love to hear them.

There are a few categories that are worth paying attention to when the Oscar nominations come out tomorrow morning. Some are the typical ones to look at while other less flashy categories are doing something quite unusual to deserve a closer look.

Best Picture

Gone are the years of the automatic ten-wide field. While this helped bring attention (presumably) to smaller films with dedicated fan bases like Winter’s Bone and A Serious Man, it also meant that (potentially) films that received very few votes at all could be best picture nominees over films with many more votes. How? Weighted voting.

It comes down to this. To be nominated for Best Picture, you need number one votes. Each Academy member ranks their top five films in order of preference. Number one votes count before number two votes, etc. That means, in the past few years, a minority of number one votes could be nominated over a majority of number two votes. Eliminating a ten-wide field doesn’t prevent that from happening, but it does do more to support the popular choices.

This year, the top 5 nominees will be selected no matter what. That is the base threshold for Best Picture nominations. Where the variance comes in is how many other films can get in. Once the top 5 are selected, the rest of the votes are counted. Any film receiving at least 5% of the number one votes becomes a Best Picture nominee. If no other film has 5% of the votes, there are only five nominees. If more than five films have 5% of the vote (after the top 5 are selected), only the top 10 vote-getters are Best Picture nominees.

Best Picture is important this year just to see how this new voting experiment goes. Will enough films get 5% of the vote to have more than five Best Picture nominees? Will it be the popular animated film, the box office smash, or the quiet art/foreign film that benefits from the change? We find out tomorrow.

Best Supporting Actress

We have a very unusual situation in Supporting Actress. Melissa McCarthy, the brassy breakout star of monster hit comedy film Bridesmaids, has been doing very well for herself during the precursors. Problem? It’s hard to imagine a performance widely remembered for a gross-out humor scene in a bridal boutique’s bathroom gaining Oscar traction.

McCarthy’s performance is strong. It’s just in a very unusual, not-Academy-friendly, film. The last time I can find that the Academy went big for a comedy film that casts such a wide net–sight gags, violence, puns, dark humor, edgy humor, gross-out humor–was Blazing Saddles. It’s a fitting enough comparison. Madeline Kahn was nominated in this category for playing a sex-crazed cabaret singer with schticky, scene-stealing moments. McCarthy plays a sex-crazed bridesmaid with schticky, scene-stealing moments.

The big difference is that the Academy has not gone for prior films from Judd Apatow regardless of quality. By the time Blazing Saddles was nominated, Mel Brooks was an Academy Awards regular. Judd Apatow has not seen his films nominated. The only difference between Bridesmaids and his previous films is a focus on female characters. Is that enough to break through?

It’s hard to imagine a broad comedy performance getting in for Best Supporting Actress, but tomorrow could be the day. McCarthy’s performance is so strong that it might be impossible to ignore.

Best Original Score

There’s a big novelty this year with Best Original Score: none of the front-runners have been disqualified. For the past few years, critical darlings like Karen O and Johnny Greenwald have been disqualified for allegedly using too much pre-existing material in their scores. The suggestion was preposterous in those two cases–they were disqualified for the director including a licensed song and a public domain song in an otherwise all original score film, respectively–and it’s refreshing to see that the field is open this year. Even The Tree of Life escaped suspicion when it incorporates a lot of public domain music around the original scoring.

It’s been years since we’ve seen all of the possible score nominees in contention. That doesn’t mean that the Academy won’t disqualify someone today (they’ve done it the day before the nominations came out before), but it hasn’t happened yet. Fingers crossed.

Best Animated Feature

I know there is a vocal minority of people who want Andy Serkis to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor this year. His performance as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes is strong, but it’s motion capture work. Mocap is still a dirty word for actors who fear the technology will eliminate their livelihoods. The argument goes if anyone can become anyone or anything else, why can’t all roles be played by only a few actors from now on? It’s a legitimate concern to enough actors that I can’t see Serkis getting in anytime soon.

However, there is a category where motion capture techniques are gong to be put on trial and that’s Best Animated Feature. Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of TinTin has been one of the rotating cast of possible nominees swinging in and out of the precursor nominees. When it makes the shortlist, it has a bad habit of winning. However, it’s not making all of the best of lists or nominations.

The Academy Awards have not been kind to motion capture animation in the past. No mocap film has been nominated in Animated Feature. To put it in perspective, foreign language animated films have a better track record in the category than big budget Hollywood (heavily promoted, widely available) mocap animated films.

TinTin could be the film to change that. The pedigree is so high and the execution so strong that it might not be possible to turn a blind eye to motion capture animation again.

Thoughts? Love to hear them.