Leave it to the British Academy to throw a few curve balls into the Oscar proceedings. And by curve balls, I don't mean Moneyball actor Jonah Hill. After three years of 5-for-5 accuracy with Best Film, the BAFTA group is flirting with a bad year. Apart from Oscar guarantees The Artist, The Descendants and The Help, BAFTA nominated likely Oscar no-show (hopefully not) Drive and cusp nominee Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's no surprise Tinker did so well with a British group, but Drive is definitely not the kind of film they'd typically find award-worthy. This sets up the most interesting race for Oscars we've seen in some time. Usually you can toss a handful of British-centric nominees from the list for American-friendly ones, but which ones leave and which ones stay will be an interesting discussion for the next week.

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

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The ACE, not known for their Oscar accuracy (even when picking 16 nominees across four categories), have made a few unusual choices (like the very dramatic My Week with Marilyn for Comedy/Musical), but few of the choices are actual surprises. With this nod, The Descendants solidifies its place in the Oscar race as it wasn't exactly a fantastically edited piece. Of course, the usual suspects are here, but for the likes of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Drive and The Help this isn't a great result.

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: American Cinema Editors.

The Awards

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The Golden Globes have now been awarded. There are some muddied waters and a lot of spread-the-word mentality. None of the award winners were especially unlikely, nor were any of them likely to give us a hint of who the Oscar winners will be. So much good this year makes for an interesting awards season, which may ultimately end up rather boring as the guilds start handing out awards and defining our topics of conversation until the end.

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

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The Golden Globe awards will be announced tonight. I'll be live tweeting the event and updating the winners post here on Cinema Sight. Drop by and watch the updates if you can catch them live and feel free to discuss them in the comments section or in the forums. Check out Twitter if you want to see what I have to say.

Below are the winners of this year's Broadcast Film Critics Association's Critics' Choice Awards. All technical achievement categories are included and most of the choices were spread evenly across many films with Drive winning Best Action Film the only really exciting choice.

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

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A couple of nominees here have no Oscar chance, but it's an interesting an eclectic list. And with their history, three to four nominees here will carry home Oscar nominations, which makes Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy's chances pretty good since neither Method nor Jane Eyre could compete.

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

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A day later than their own timeline dictated, the ASC has finally announced their nominations. The big news is that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a film no one exactly saw claiming a nomination here, especially for a frist-time nominee, managed to sneak its way into this list over the likes of Oscar winner Eduardo Serra for Harry Potter and four-time ASC nominee Janusz Kaminski for War Horse. Also surprisingly absent is Manuel Alberto Claro for Melancholia, a film which may have divided many, but which had amazing cinematography nonetheless. With these nominations, support for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is much stronger than previously expected and that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is very likely to earn a Best Picture nomination while Tinker is now the biggest dark horse candidate out there. This is also the only prize that's keeping Terrence Malick's film in the running. Had it missed out, his chances would have all but evaporated.

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: American Society of Cinematographers.

The Awards

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Just an informative piece about the TFCA choice for Best Canadian Film. Note the winner received a $15,000 prize. It's also the Canadian entry to the Academy Awards 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.

The Award

Best Canadian Film

Monsieur Lazhar

Apparently, these were released back in mid-December. Someone forgot to tell their website operator. As for their awards? The Descendants gets some love from one of the few groups to recognize it in other than Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay. The rest of the list seems fairly straight forward with Meryl Streep picking up a much needed prize and Janet McTeer getting some recognition as well.

UPDATE: I've added the precursor data history for the last five years and now you can see why I really wish these guys had better prominence. Outside of the Foreign Language Film category (which they've failed four of five times to predict nominees), only once in the last five years and in only one category (Original Screenplay) have they failed to give their award to a future Oscar nominee. That's the most impressive win-to-nomination ratio of all precursors. While their winner predictions aren't perfect, they are fairly accurate in a number of categories, so if you're on the below list, an Oscar nomination is guaranteed (except A Separation and even that has a very good shot). And several of these may win as 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.

Award Tallies

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Another unoriginal slate of winners gives the Vancouver Film Critics, voting late, a place among the has-beens this awards season. Their entries for Canadian films are at least interesting and fresh. The nominations were announced almost a week ago and their awards announced yesterday, but they weren't covered by most media outlets and I didn't have them in my list of groups to track (though I should have).

So, here are both nominations and awards combined with the winners in bold. Also, since I wasn't prepared for them, the group data section below is incomplete. I'll work on it as soon as I can and update the post accordingly.

UPDATE: I've updated the precursor data for the last five years. And looking at these, all of the winners this year should be considered heavy contenders for nomination, the same can be said for all of the nominees as well. Vancouver has a great track record in both respects. However, for winners, don't take their word for gospel, especially not in Best Picture, Best Director or Best Supporting Actress. Matter of fact, other than their Best Picture selection, the other two are good bets for failing to be Oscar nominees, with Malick even an unlikely nominee.

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

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The big news here is that two names (Woody Allen and David Fincher) weren't really expected to be on this list today. Yet, here they are, moving both films into surefire Best Picture contention. Steven Spielberg, Tate Taylor, Terrence Malick, Bennett Miller, Nicolas Winding Refn and to a lesser extent Stephen Daldry all took major hits with this announcement. However, we do have an idea where Oscar voters may be situated. Honestly, I'm not sure what to think of this list yet. I'll have to ruminate.

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 Nominations

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The Visual Effects Society changed things up a little this year by adding a category for Virtual Cinematography, removing the Effects Animation and Short Film Visual Effects categories, and splitting the Created Environment category in two for live action and animated feature. Other than that, this looks pretty close to what I would expect from the group. Harry Potter, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers are all solid performers on the live action end. And while The Adventures of Tintin leads the list, it's an unimportant statistic from the perspective of the Oscars. Their accuracy is really good with most of their choices picking up corresponding Oscars. Look for four or five of the Best Visual Effects nominees to come from the Visual Effects in an Effects-Driven film category and maybe one from Best Supporting Visual Effects. I'd expect either Captain America or Pirates of the Caribbean to be displaced by Hugo. And considering the 10 finalists for the Visual Effects nomination, I could very much see that happening. Both Real Steel and The Tree of Life took big falls with this announcement.

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: Visual Effects Society.

Nomination Tallies

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