The following article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad. It's reprinted here with some updates...
Though you might feel like you’ve been hearing “Oscar buzz” for months, it’s always good to be reminded that timetables are askew and “buzz” is a lot faster/noisier than the real thing. Academy members don’t actually start filling out their nomination ballots until Friday morning!
They’ll have one week to determine which movies and performances are in the running for the industry’s most coveted golden statues. Each year some adult-oriented movies risk going wide without Oscar’s blessing while others lay in wait, banking on Oscar favor to help sell them to a wider audience. One of the pictures that’s trying the lay-low-until-Oscar game is the gay coming-of-age drama Call Me By Your Name. Though it’s been in theaters for six weeks it still hasn’t expanded past major markets and is only on 115 screens (stateside) at this writing. It’s poised to become either one of the biggest Oscar players or one of the most “snubbed”. So this seems as good a time as any to share some anxiety about it...
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Thursday, January 4, 2018 at 2:00PM 
The WGA nominations are out as as always they must be taken both seriously and not at all when considering Oscar predictions. Due to the WGA's very strict rules they often deem films ineligible that Oscar has no such aversion to (for instance, the WGA never honors animated films... not that any of them are really in the Oscar running this year).;)
