Going out on a limb in a few categories (and ruining their record in Best Actor), the Online Film & Television Association has made several eclectic choices and quite a few that are likely to carry over to the Oscars. I don't have a lot to say since I run the organization, so here are the winners.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

Award Tallies

Click here to continue reading this article

The Art Directors Guild awards have been announced and the expected winners took home prizes led by likely Oscar winner Hugo. In spite of it taking home a special achievement award, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 was also named Best Fantasy Art Direction, which was further notable considering this was the franchise's fifth nomination and only their first competitive win.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

As promised, I have posted the history of this particular guild on my website. You can find it by following this link: Art Directors Guild.

The Awards

Click here to continue reading this article

The winners for the 20th Annual Annie Awards have been revealed in a live-streamed telecast that suffered lag issues towards the end, but was genuinely more funny than a lot of other awards shows out there. Rango took the prize for Best Animated Feature, which should give it a leg up for the Oscars. It also won three other prizes over Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Adventures of Tintin's two awards each. Although Rango took the top prize, Panda's Jennifer Yuh Nelson was named Best Director suggesting support for Rango wasn't nearly across the board...that or animators don't really like non-animators honing in on their craft (no Gore Verbinski, you're still a live action director to them).

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

Award Tallies

Click here to continue reading this article

The SAG Awards are often reflective of the larger body of popular opinion, but not necessarily of Oscar predilections. Just looking at the statistics at the bottom of the page, you can see the only perfect correlation comes from Best Actor, a category that isn't likely to repeat for them this year. Matter of fact, their other three winners for individual performances are more likely to carry over to Oscar than Best Actor. And the two actresses hope that the 3-for-5 match-up between SAG and Oscar won't hurt their chances, though considering what Harvey's probably seen from this, he's gotta choose between Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams and push hard.

As for that cast win? It was really not at all surprising. SAG has a penchant for giving their Ensemble (or Cast) award to the largest ensemble, deeming bigger equal to best. This has caused them to mismatch Oscar's Best Picture award quite frequently. And even with that record, they've corresponded three times in the last five years, their bizarre decisions to pick both Slumdog Millionaire and No Country for Old Men may have lulled some prognosticators into a false sense of security with regard to their potential to match up. Then there's Inglourious Basterds and Little Miss Sunshine in the last five years that show they aren't necessarily above failures. The Help is very likely to fall into this latter category. Simply being the most widely-seen film in the category certainly helped. I don't expect this result to carry through to the Oscars since the film obviously didn't have across-the-board support if it couldn't get nominations from the directors, writers or editors within the Academy.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

As promised, I have posted the history of this particular guild on my website. You can find it by following this link: Screen Actors Guild.

Award Tallies

Click here to continue reading this article

And tonight, as I expected, the race for Best Picture ends. The Artist won the award it needed to in order to become the key juggernaut of the season. We now have both Best Director and Best Picture at the Oscars sewn up...tomorrow's SAG awards will still leave some mystery, but we might have a few more clues. As for the accuracy of this guild? In five years, they've been perfect. You have to go back to 2000 when Ang Lee beat Steven Soderbergh for the DGA prize for the last time the DGA and Oscar winners didn't match for Best Director. More recently, it was 2005 the last time the DGA pick didn't also win Best Picture. So, there's always a possibility of an upset, but I think we've got a fairly foregone conclusion this year.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

As promised, I have posted the history of this particular guild on my website. You can find it by following this link: Directors Guild of America.

The Awards

Click here to continue reading this article

The nominations have been announced. I'm still looking for the remaining nominations, but here are my initial thoughts on the currently available list: Extremely Loud managed to hang on long enough to earn a Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor nomination, but didn't make it in Best Director. Other shocks: The Tree of Life held on and stayed in the race despite a lot of failures. While Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy surged, it didn't get the nomination it most deserved: Best Picture. The Adventures of Tintin was rejected by the Academy's animation branch giving Rango the unequivocal lead in that race.

Terrence Malick made it into the list of Best Director nominees, but Steven Spielberg and Stephen Daldry did not. Demian Bichir and Gary Oldman made it into Best Actor, but Michael Fassbender did not. Rooney Mara is in Best Actress, but Tilda Swinton is not. Von Sydow took the place of critic's darling Albert Brooks. Melissa McCarthy managed to make it all the way through, but Shailene Woodley unfortunately did not. 50/50 and Win Win were ignored in favor of Bridesmaids and Margin Call. The Ides of March hung on to a nomination in Adapted Screenplay over The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Help was shockingly ignored, blocking it from any chance of winning Best Picture (if the lack of Best Director didn't already guarantee that).

(UPDATE 1: The full nominations list is here, but missing one nominee in Art Direction.)

(UPDATE 2: The tallies are posted. Still no word on the missing Art Direction nominee.)

(UPDATE 3: Found the missing Art Direction nominee. The nominations list is now complete.)

Nomination Tallies

Click here to continue reading this article

In the sea of Oscar prognosticators masquerading as critics groups, the one group I would have expected to be more in line with the current Oscar dialogue was the Online Film & Television Association which has positioned itself as one of the prime prognosticators in the precursor field. So, imagine how refreshing it was to see the members of that group nominate such an interesting and eclectic field of nominees. There are still plenty of Oscar baity selections, but with titles like Drive and Shame in the Best Picture race along with selections like Ezra Miller for Best Supporting Actor, Vanessa Redgrave for Best Supporting Actress and Steve McQueen for Best Director, it's a refreshing list for Oscar-weary eyes. (As a caveat, I am the founder and organizer of the OFTA, so I am a bit biased about these, but my commentary is my own and as objective as I can possibly be)

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

Nominations Tallies

Click here to continue reading this article

Last night, the Producers Guild of America announced their award winners pushing Oscar season into a new tone with the first guild awards of the year. When commercially successful films like The Help and Bridesmaids lose out to a commercially unsuccessful film like The Artist, the race is pretty much over. Although the DGA will likely try to throw a wrench in the works next weekend, the Best Picture race is pretty much at a close. The Artist has picked up enough major prizes to become a juggernaut and any other outcome would be a complete surprise.

And Steven Spielberg should be smiling. With this win, The Adventures of Tintin moves into a position to become this year's Oscar winner over critical favorite Rango. However, there's a caveat. In 2006 when Pixar lost its second Best Animated Feature award in a loss to Happy Feet, Cars had sealed up both the PGA and Annie Award prizes, so this result isn't final. The only differences here are the facts that Rango wasn't exactly a crowd-pleasing blockbuster. While it did solid box office numbers, it did so much earlier in the year and wasn't a $200 million beheamoth like Happy Feet, it performed on the level of most animated features, which isnt' much of a feat. There also wasn't the grumbling that Pixar's film wasn't quite up to the quality level of past efforts dogging The Adventures of Tintin. We'll see though, anything can still happen here and I wouldn't be surprised if Rango still eked out a win.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

As promised, I have posted the history of this particular guild on my website. You can find it by following this link: Producers Guild of America.

The Awards

Click here to continue reading this article

In all but one of the last four years, the 5 nominees for Sound Editing came from this slate of nominees (the Sound Effects/Foley and Dialogue/ADR categories in specific with an odd pickup from the Animation list in the years Pixar did well). So, you can expect no other nominees than what are here. With three nominations and a nod at the Cinema Audio Society yesterday, Super 8 looks like it will double dip the sound categories this year. Add in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and War Horse and you may have four in the field. As for the fifth spot? I'm guessing Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, but it could be Transformers or Drive as well. Of course, it could be any combination of those seven, so we may have to wait and see.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

As promised, I have posted the history of this particular guild on my website. You can find it by following this link: Motion Picture Sound Editors.

Nominations Tallies

Click here to continue reading this article

The French and English made strong showings at the London Critics awards with The Artist and several British stars claiming prizes or even American stars playing British characters. The only real surprises were Sareh Bayat for Best Supporting Actress and the tie between Meryl Streep and Anna Paquin. The rest of the choices fit the London Critics quite well.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

Awards Tallies

Click here to continue reading this article

Leave it to the Costume Designers Guild to throw a wrench in the works. I fully expected most of these nominees, but the exclusion of Anonymous which would usually be catnip for these guys makes no appearance. Meanwhile, most of the major Oscar contenders for Best Picture are here with the exception of Moneyball and The Tree of Life. I wouldn't have expected Moneyball, but The Tree of Life seemed like it could fit in here. Usually, there's one surprise Oscar inclusion and I'm thinking it may be Anonymous with four of these (likely The Artist, The Help, Hugo and maybe Jane Eyre) joining them. Of course, Harry Potter and the iconic jacket from Drive could get them both in the competition.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

The Nominations

Click here to continue reading this article

One of the moderately accurate precursors picked several films I wouldn't have expected. I'm glad to see Hanna on this list, but the rest could be nominated or not and I wouldn't care (I'd prefer no Super 8, but what can you do). I'm surprised not to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo here and a few others being missing is a bit surprising as well, but more time for analysis later.

In addition to the nominees and/or winners listed below, this year, we're giving you a quick background on each individual precursor including founding year, first awards year and a glimpse at how many predictions the group has gotten right in the last five years. This data can be found below.

As promised, I have posted the history of this particular guild on my website. You can find it by following this link: Cinema Audio Society.

The Nominations

Click here to continue reading this article