The Artist is having its first screening here in Toronto as I write this so it will be interesting once a new batch of critical reactions hit the wire for Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film. I know a lot of people are rooting for it, but I don’t see it being the Oscar-nominated darling everyone else does. But that’s the problem with Oscar predictions, it’s not at all about personal opinion, but the opinion of the Academy.
In the Best Actor category I’m not as confident as I was in my first batch of Best Actress predictions I posted yesterday. After seeing The Descendants last night I feel safe in saying George Clooney will be nominated. His performance in the film is flawless and probably the best one I’ve seen all year… so far.
I also saw Moneyball yesterday and think Brad Pitt‘s performance is also likely to secure a nomination at this point, but his I’m not as entirely confident about.
My current front-runner, and yes, again I am putting my confidence in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, is Leonardo DiCaprio. On top of the Eastwood and DiCaprio pairing, we’re also talking about a performance based on a real person and DiCaprio just seems like he’s getting close to that point of being “due” after being nominated for an Oscar three times and never winning.
And if you want to talk about due, I also have Gary Oldman for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Considering he’s never been nominated for an Oscar it almost makes me think he’s a shoo-in for a role that’s already earning positive buzz after its Venice premiere.
In fifth I’m currently going out on a bit of a limb with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50) over The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin. I’ve seen both films and with this one I’m using a bit more of my personal opinion than I probably should, and maybe by the time nominations roll around I will have been converted. But for now I’m putting my money on JGL.
However, with those six names we are only scratching the surface. I’ve yet to see many films including Anonymous starring Rhys Ifans, Michael Fassbender in both A Dangerous Method and Shame, Christoph Waltz in Carnage, Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo and Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary. And it doesn’t even stop there, but I will.
Instead of listing off names here I will direct you to my full list of 21 contenders where I have ranked them from top to bottom and included my thoughts on each. But, for reference, I have included my top five in order directly below:
- Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar)
- George Clooney (The Descendants)
- Gary Oldman (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)
- Brad Pitt (Moneyball)
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50)
My next batch of predictions will arrive on Monday when I will reveal my first Best Supporting Actor predictions. For now, if you haven’t yet checked out the new Oscar Predictions homepage click here and be sure to bookmark it as it will be updating frequently over the next several months.
As the season continues any update I make to the predictions will be revealed on that page and as more and more categories are revealed the page will begin to fill up as we head toward Tuesday, January 24 when the Oscar nominations will be announced.
