Who Will Be The Oscar Acting Surprises & Snubs?

 by Christopher James

Does Golden Globe + SAG + Critics Choice automatically equal Oscar?It’s been a busy week of precursors. With the Golden Globes, SAG Awards and Critics Choice Awards all announced, we have a lot more clarity on the acting categories in the Oscar race. How accurate are these precursors when it comes to predicting Oscar nominees? Let’s dive into the stats and see if this can help us solve who will be our Oscar nominated actors.

For the purposes of analysis, we looked back from 2003 - 2019, as 2003 was the first year the Critics Choice awards had five nominees. Now they have expanded to eight nominees in some categories, but that’s another rant for another time...

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"Mank" leads the Critics Choice Nominations

Mank and Minari led the 26th annual Critics Choice nominations with 12 and 10 nods respectively. The ceremony this year will be held on March 7th on the CW with Taye Diggs hosting (and if you missed the TV nominations, those came out a couple of weeks ago). Since there are so many nominees in each category (it's getting ridiculous in lead acting!) we'll be mostly talking about who was left out. That's the takeaway in each category when you keep expanding the number...

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Eligible for "Best Original Song"

Thanks to The Wrap for providing this list that though it's a pity (as with all of these types of list) that it's taken so long for it to arrive. Now we have barely a moment to think on it before Oscar whittles it down to 15 songs on February 9th. The complete list is after the jump and we've put 25 titles in bold that we think have a great shot at the finalist list...

 PLEASE NOTE, THE NAMES LISTED ARE WHO PERFORMS THE SONG. WE DON'T KNOW WHY THE LIST WAS ORIGINALLY SHARED THIS WAY BUT IT IS ONLY THE SONGWRITERS WHO ARE NOMINATED IF A SONG MAKES IT TO THE OSCARS... 

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Oscars: 238 eligible documentaries — but what will make the shortlist?

By Glenn Dunks

18 of the staggering 238 hopefuls in Best Documentary Feature

Yes, you read that right. Two-hundred and thirty-eight (238!) films have qualified for this year’s Best Documentary Feature category. That’s up from the previous record number of submissions, a lowly and pathetic 170 in 2017. Pfft. From Acasă, My Home (which we reviewed here just last week) to Zappa, the full list is available on the Academy’s website.

This incredible high figure can of course be partly explained by the extended eligibility period. After all, documentaries are among the only breed of movie that doesn’t necessarily get slotted in seasons; there’s always new, great content getting released every week either through theatrical or digital platforms...

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The Emperor's New Link(s)

Heads up! At Movie City News the first "Gurus of Gold" charts are up with yours truly along with several other pundits - apparently I'm the only one nervous about Riz Ahmed's Oscar prospects and the one who is most certain about One Night in Miami's prospects. Extremely grossed out that Aaron Sorkin makes the top five in Best Director. Yes, he's a talented writer but come on now... that's a different skill set.

• Vulture an oral history of the making of The Emperor's New Groove
• Variety 'Actors on Actors' gets Steven Yeun and Riz Ahmed talking
• Digital Spy on WandaVision's use of tv tropes to give away its secrets 

Amazing cast for HBO miniseries, new Kelly Reichardt, and terrifying Pee Wee after the jump...

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