Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at 1:00PM The Cinema Audio Society have announced their nominations for their 53rd annual awards. Though they can help us see what's on the mind an in the ears of sound professionals, they don't necessarily tell us what's coming down the Oscar pike in Oscar's two Sound categories...
Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at 10:18AM 
La La Land was the not unexpected leader for the BAFTA nominations. Slightly less known ahead of time was what film would threaten its leader status and that is arguably more surprising: divisive Nocturnal Animals tied for second place with the not very divisive Arrival with nine nominations each.
The film suffering the most this morning from lack of BAFTA love is surely Loving, which had the advantage of a popular new homegrown star Ruth Negga but missed in all categories but for "Rising Star" for Ruth Negga. The nominations in all categories after the jump...
Friday, January 6, 2017 at 1:00PM 
by Brian Zitzelman
As a vital player in Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea, which at this point in the Oscar race appears a lock in many a category, if not particularly a frontrunner in any of them, Lucas Hedges might seem preordained to be a member of the Best Supporting Actor club in the months to come.
However, Hedges isn't - hopefully - getting in by shear wave of momentum for the movie. His Patrick is a vital, memorable part of the Manchester puzzle...
Friday, January 6, 2017 at 10:22AM by Nathaniel R
Are you biting your nails yet? No prediction for this year's Best Actress shortlist can come without some degree of "I could be getting this very wrong!" nerves. We've been Oscar watching for a long time and it's genuinely never looked this open this late in the game (with the possible exception of 2003 but for nearly the opposite reason). If Best Actress is not a five-way lock up by now (and it often is) it's usually at least settled but for a minor battle between two women for the "just happy to be nominated" fifth spot. This year is different. Seven women remain strong and precursor supported and virtually any combination of five names seems possible as long as you include both Emma Stone (with the reliable boost of leading a Best Picture frontrunner) and Natalie Portman (with the reliable boost of Oscar's deep-deep love for mimicry).
We always believed that Isabelle Huppert was a genuine threat for a Best Actress nomination this season for her phenomenal star turn in Elle. It wasn't so much that Elle, in which she plays a video game enterpeneur who becomes obsessed with her rapist, was a a fresh look at an old star (against type) or right in Oscar's wheel house (a dark comedy about rape. LOL, no). The appeal instead is that in Elle is a suffusion of everything that's special about Huppert: her superior intellect, fascinating opacity, tortured psychology, and her daring sexuality. Oscar would be wise to pounce in a year where the media has been this celebratory about her unique place in the cinematic landscape. 'It's time!' feelings don't generally come around all that often for true iconoclasts or women of a certain age. She's both so they must act now.
Binoche, Cotillard, Adjani, Deneuve
Here's another far more superficial but still excellent reason why Isabelle Huppert needs to be nominated...
Thursday, December 29, 2016 at 12:24PM by Jorge Molina
During the 85th Academy Awards, there was a somewhat arbitrary musical tribute to three modern musicals in between Seth MacFarlane's sexist monologue and Jennifer Lawrence's fall: Chicago, Dreamgirls, and Les Misérables. Besides being the soundtrack of my college experience, I noticed that all three had one thing in common: they had all won Oscars for their Supporting Actresses.
This threw me into a rabbit hole of IMDb pages, Wikipedia charts, and showtune playlists to look into the historic relation between movie musicals, supporting actresses, and the Academy Awards. If I’d put this much effort into my thesis, I might have graduated in time...
