84th Academy Award Nominations

Well, here they are for better or worse (mostly worse):

Best Picture:      The Artist (10)

                         The Descendants (5)

                         Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2)

                         The Help (4)

                         Hugo (11)

                         Midnight in Paris (4)

                         Moneyball (6)

                         The Tree of Life (3)

                         War Horse (6)

Best Director:   Woody Allen; Midnight in Paris

Michael Hazavinicus; The Artist

                        Terrence Malick; The Tree of Life

Alexander Payne; The Descendants

                        Martin Scorsese; Hugo

Best Actor:       Demian Bichir; A Better Life (1)

George Clooney; The Descendants

                        Jean Dujardin; The Artist

                        Gary Oldman; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (3)

                        Brad Pitt; Moneyball

Best Actress:      Glenn Close; Albert Nobbs (3)

                          Viola Davis; The Help

                          Rooney Mara; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (5)

                          Meryl Streep; The Iron Lady (2)

                          Michelle Williams; My Week with Marilyn (2)

Best Supporting Actor:  Kenneth Branagh; My Week with Marilyn

 Jonah Hill; Moneyball

                                     Nick Nolte; Warrior (1)

                                     Christopher Plummer; Beginners (1)

                                     Max von Sydow; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Best Supporting Actress:              Berenice Bejo; The Artist

                                                   Jessica Chastin; The Help

                                                   Melissa McCarthy; Bridesmaids (2)

                                                   Janet McTeer; Albert Nobbs

                                                   Octavia Spencer; The Help

Best Adapted Screenplay:            The Descendants: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash

                                                    Hugo: John Logan

                                                    The Ides of March: George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Beau Willimon (1)

                                                    Moneyball: Aaron Sorkin, Stevan Zallian & Stan Chervin

                                                    Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan

Best Original Screenplay:              The Artist: Michael Hazanavicius

                                                    Bridesmaids: Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig

                                                    Margin Call: J.C. Chandor (1)

                                                    Midnight in Paris: Woody Allen

                                                    A Separation: Asgar Farhadi (2)

Best Animated Film:     A Cat in Paris (1)

                                   Chico & Rita (1)

                                   Kung Fu Panda 2 (1)

                                   Puss in Boots (1)

                                   Rango (1)

Best Song:           The Muppets; “Man or Muppet” (Bret McKenzie) (1)

                           Rio; “Real in Rio” (Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown & Siedah Garrett) (1)

Best Score:       The Adventures of Tintin; John Williams (1)

The Artist: Ludovic Bource

                        Hugo: Howard Shore

                        Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Alberto Iglesias

                        War Horse: John Williams

Best Cinematography:   The Artist: Guillaume Schiffman

                                    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Jeff Cronenweth

                                    Hugo: Robert Richardson

                                    The Tree of Life: Emmanuel Lubezki

                                    War Horse: Janusz Kaminski

Best Film Editing:          The Artist: Anne-Sophie Bion & Michel Hazanavicius

                                    The Descendants: Kevin Tent

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall

                                    Hugo: Thelma Schoonmacher

                                    Moneyball: Christopher Tellefson

Best Costume Design:   Anonymous: Lisy Christi (1)

The Artist: Mark Bridges

                                    Hugo: Sandy Powell

                                    Jane Eyre: Michael O’Conner (1)

                                    W.E.: Arianne Phillips (1)

Best Art Direction:         The Artist: Lawrence Bennett/ Gregory S. Hooper

                                      Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: Stuart Craig/ Stephanie McMillan (3)

                                      Hugo: Dante Ferretti/ Francesco LoSchiavo

                                      Midnight in Paris: Anne Seibel/ Helene Dubreuil

                                      War Horse: Rick Carter/Lee Sandales

Best Sound Mixing:         The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Ren Klyce, Michael Semanick, David Parker & Mark Weingarten

                                       Hugo: Tom Fleischman & John Midgely

                                       Moneyball: Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco & Ed Novick

                                       Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush & Peter J. Devlin (3)

                                       War Horse: Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson & Stuart Wilson

Best Sound Editing:      Drive: Lon Bender & Victor Ray Ennis (1)

                                    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Ren Klyce

Hugo: Philip Stockton & Eugene Gearty

                                    Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Ethan van der Ryan & Erik Aadahl

                                    War Horse: Gary Rydstrom & Richard Hymns

Best Make-Up: Albert Nobbs: Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston & Matthew W. Mungle

                         Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II: Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight & Lisa Tomblin

                         The Iron Lady: Mark Coulier & J. Roy Helland

Best Visual Effects:          Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II: Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler & John Richardson

                                       Hugo: Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman & Alex Henning

                                       Real Steel: Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor & Swen Gillberg (1)

                                       Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White & Daniel Barrett (1)

                                       Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler & John Frazier

Okay, I want to know how Stephan Daldry movies keep getting nominated for Best Picture when they keep getting horrendous reviews. First The Reader, now Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? Scott Rudin, please find another director to produce their work and cram down award people's throats. May I suggest Christopher Nolan? He's been shafted enough times (by your Reader, I might add). Kinda shocked that you backed down from promoting The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in favor of EL&IC.

I'm going to violate my compulsive need to watch every award film this year because I refuse, flat out f'n refuse, to see The Tree of Life. I have been tortured enough times with Malick's poetry as narrative structure way of telling stories and the trailers for this movie only tell me one thing: his pretense is firing on all cylinders with this film. His movies will have the best cinematography to them, but have you ever looked at a pretty picture of nothing? That's a Terrence Malick movie. Next film.

I'm ecstatic that Hugo is the most nominated movie this year! Couldn't be happier! Do I think it'll win? No, because Harvey Weinstein is cramming The Artist down every Academy voter there is. Again, The Artist is cute, very well made, but for me, it's too nostalgic of a movie to win. If (I should really say when) the Academy awards the Artist Best Picture, it'll be the deathnail for the Academy by proving how out of touch they are with the real world and that their tenured voters should really be re-examined.

Why, oh, why does the Academy's sound branch have to keep nominating Michael Bay's movies. They're loud. That's it. They're noise and screaming. That's not a well-mixed movie. Half the time, you can't even tell what the hell they're saying outside of Shia consistently screaming "OPTIMUS" at the top of his lungs. If anything, a true blessing would be to turn the acting in a Michael Bay movie completely down since no one really cares about the characters or story anyway. And this is what you nominated over Super 8's fantastic sound design and mixing? Shame Academy's sound branch. Nothing but shame.

Should I point out a correlation between the number of nominations for both Transformers: Dark of the Moon and The Tree of Life? Just saying, pretty pictures with no stories do not a good movie make.

I'm glad the Academy's branch recognized Real Steel for visual effects. Right now, the race is between Harry Potter and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (with underdog Hugo in the mix), but Real Steel's use of motion capture didn't go unnoticed. I'm happy there.

Academy's music branch: You're messed up. You have too many rules and regulations to determine what qualifies for a Song and Score nomination. You screwed up too many years now for too long for me to take you seriously anymore, but this year's inclusion of only two songs for Best Song is just the final nail in the coffin for me. While I'm overjoyed at the prospect of Man or Muppet winning Best Song (you know what, I'm gonna play it on my itunes now to enjoy it again. I LOVE that song), this category has become a joke after 2006, only doing one thing right ("Falling Slowly" from Once winning). First, you say that the song has to be utilized in the movie in some manner, we can only determine that you're favoring musicals or movies about music over all others (pretty f'n elitist, if you ask me). Then you say that only two songs from a movie can get nominated, which indicates that you're not allowing musicals and movies about songs to get nominated. Then you declare certain scores ineligible for utilizing previously written pieces of score, but give awards to Babel, a movie that utilized a very well known piece of previously written music in a crucial point of the film...and you show said point as the nominee?!? I guess what I'm trying to say, Academy's Music Branch, is WHAT THE F*** ARE YOU MORONS DOING OUT THERE?!!!!

Okay, I guess we're going to have to refer to him as Academy Award nominee Jonah Hill. And we can finally call Gary Oldman an Oscar nominee! That's right, for the first time in his career, Gary Oldman has finally been nominated for an Oscar! The race is between George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but hey, he's finally scored his first nomination. And I'm ecstatic about Rooney Mara getting a nomination. She had a daring role to take on, she had a lot of expectations to live up to (especially since Noomi Rapace did such a good job with it no more than two years ago) and she's an excellent role model of strong independence for women. Granted, I haven't seen We Need to Talk About Kevin, so I don't know if Tilda Swinton did a nomination worthy performance, but bravo, mon chere. And Melissa McCarthy! I'm so happy she made it in also. She took a role that could have been dismissible and became not only a scene stealer, but managed to deliver a great message for heavy set women out there in both the film and with her performance also.

The Ides of March getting nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Okay. Fine. One nomination, that works for me. As long as it isn't Best Picture, I'm happy.

I don't think this year is going to be very exciting unless it starts to look like Hugo's going to win (which, if it does, I will personally kiss everyone in the room I'm with). The Artist will sweep a few categories, the winners are pretty much give ins, but the big story here is, does anyone really care about the movies nominated?

My Predictions for 84th Academy Awards

I hope everyone will excuse my rush job in writing this:

Best Visual Effects:          Okay, let’s just get the sure fire nominees out of the way: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo and Rise of the Planet of the Apes are all in. If they don’t get nominated, then it will be one of the biggest shocks among this year’s nominees. Since we already know what the semi-finalists are, then it’s simply a matter of whittling out the other seven semi-finalists. The Marvel films, Captain America and X-Men: First Class, will fail to make the cut (believe it or not, but a comic book movie has to REALLY catch on in the mainstream in order to become a nominee like The Dark Knight, Iron Man or Spider-Man), so that only leaves five others. Real Steel used some impressive motion capture work to create life-like reference material for the robots, but it’s under $100 million will be a hard hurdle to overcome, so it will have to remain a loveable longshot. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol may sneak in if there’s plenty of support for it, but outside of one impressive explosion of the Kremlin and a stunning Dubai sequence, it may be seen as too light (much like a similar finalist, The Bourne Ultimatum). That leaves three others. I’m gonna have to suck it up and admit that Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be called an Oscar nominee, if only because of this category, so there’s your fourth. Now the battle comes down to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Tree of Life. Now Tides was able to gain a couple of Visual Effects Society nominations, indicating that the series is still considered visually impressive by the pros. However, The Tree of Life has been getting a lot of buzz for not using computer graphics and relying on natural effects for its Creation of the Universe sequence (which was a grueling 18 minutes long). So, will it be quantity or quality for the last nominee. Well, my predictions are:

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

- Hugo

- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

- Rise of the Planet of the Apes

- Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Best Make-Up:                 Again, we have the luxury of having finalists here, but unlike visual effects, there are no clear front runners. This won’t be like Pan’s Labyrinth or The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King where there was no doubt who was going to win make-up, but in a day and age where prosthetics have been giving way to digital replacement, make-up has become a bit underutilized. Case in point, the finalists are: Albert Nobbs, Anonymous, The Artist, Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo, The Iron Lady. Now, I can tell you for a fact that Anonymous is out because there are no industry veterans that worked on the make-up, plus the film didn’t make that big of waves to be remembered. While Albert Nobbs had an industry veteran (Matthew W. Mungle), the movie had primarily one make-up job to worry about: turning Glenn Close into a woman disguising herself as a man, slight work, but nothing revelatory. The same could be said for The Iron Lady, however, the transformation of Meryl Streep to Margaret Thatcher was a bit more impressive, so that may be a possibility. As for the Best Picture contenders (The Artist and Hugo), there was a lot of period make-up and a lot of wig work, but I didn’t see the type of prosthetic work that the Academy typically likes to award. Which brings us to the last two: Harry Potter I think is going to make it in (for the first time in this category), maybe even win (a first win for the entire series). But the big question everyone was asking was what the hell is Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life? Well, after looking it up, the movie is about the true story of a French singer who grew up in Nazi-occupied Paris and the movie follows his life until his death in 1991. So about fifty years of aging make-up, yeah, the make-up branch loves that. That being said, my predictions are:

- The Artist
- Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Best Sound Mixing:         We still have two sound categories and I’m glad they keep them separate. One awards the design and originality of the sound effects and how well they establish a mood, create an environment or inhabit a time frame and the other, this one, awards the mixing of all the sound elements together (dialog, effects, music, etc). So, if you’re ever in a movie theater and you can’t hear the lines the characters are saying, but you hear the effects and music clearly, that’s a lazy mixing job. This year is probably the first time you won’t see the top Best Picture candidate, The Artist, up for this award (unless the Academy decides to be INCREDIBLY bias and think a mono-score only movie is worthy), but there are plenty of other Best Picture contenders to make the list, namely Hugo. Scorsese movies, especially period ones, have an incredibly good track record for being nominated for Best Sound and this one with its surround sound landscape of gears grinding all over the theater should be no exception. It’s in, ditto The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which utilized a lot of subtle uses of sound, much like Fincher’s Social Network (which was also nominated last year). It may be a long shot since it failed to get a Cinema Audio Society nomination, but should support for the movie hold, I think it’ll sneak in. Moneyball also got a CAS nomination for Best Sound, but I wonder if it might be considered too subtle for an Oscar nomination. Now for the fun action movies this year, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol may have not gotten a CAS nomination, but then again, neither did Wanted and it got both sound nominations back in 2008. I think with the incredible support that movie’s been getting along with stellar box office, it’s definitely in. Super 8 also got a CAS nomination, it has a really respected team behind it (10 time Oscar nominated team Andy Nelson & Anna Behlmer) and it also blended strong, over the top action sequences with subtle, period sound work. It’s definitely in. Now, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides made the other CAS nomination, so it’s not completely unheard of for it to get nominated in this category, but I wonder if the whole Pirates franchise has run its course with the Academy as a whole, so I’m not calling it to get nominated here. I think War Horse may sneak in here, but it’s very faulty at this point and it could miss out to any of the other aforementioned movies, including the final CAS nominee Hanna or Drive. So, my predictions are:

- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

- Hugo

- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

- Super 8

- War Horse

Best Sound Effects:         Like I said above, this is the category that awards the design and originality of the sound effects and how well they establish a mood, create an environment or inhabit a time frame. Since there aren’t any semi-finalists for this category anymore, it becomes a crap shoot. Most of the Sound Mixing nominees will get nominated here, except for last year, when only two made both lists. This time, I don’t think there’s going to be much of a difference, seeing as how four of these movies required a lot of original work to be done to them. The period work of Hugo, the action sequences of Mission: Impossible, the period war sounds of War Horse and the period sci-fi sounds of Super 8, all stand with incredibly good chances to get nominated. The final slot I think is going to go to either the period fantasy work in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the bombastic sci-fi work of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, or the primate revolution work in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Or it could be a completely out of left field nominee like Hanna, Drive or Fast Five. Well, I’m going to stick with the four carry-overs from Sound Editing and this other one:

- Hugo

- Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

- Super 8

- War Horse

Best Cinematography:                   For those of you who wonder why there are so many technical awards, it’s because there’s so many aspects that go into making an incredible movie that deserve to be recognized. Cinematography is definitely one of them. Do you like the way a film looks? Do you like the camera angles? Do you notice how the simplicity of shadows, lighting and color contribute to the movie’s overall success? Where would The Dark Knight be without its wonderful blend of blues and sepias blending handheld cameras and swooping IMAX crane shots?

As for the movies this year, there are incredible arrays of beautiful looking movies. Typically, we can look to the American Society of Cinematographers awards for what will either be 4 or even all 5 choices. This year, they selected The Artist, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Tree of Life. All five have an excellent chance to get nominated, but there is always at least one movie (or two) that end up with an Oscar nomination without getting an ASC nomination also. The movies that have the best chances are War Horse or J Edgar. Both movies have lost steam over the race as well as failed to gather reviews necessary to keep it running throughout the race, but the camera work may be impressive enough to gain a nomination. The ASC nominees that are certain to carry over into nominations are The Artist, Hugo and The Tree of Life. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could hold on because of last minute support for the film and the likelihood that it will get nominated for Best Picture. That leaves Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as the most likely to be shunned come Oscar nominations, but don’t count it out, either, as momentum and support has built up for that movie also. Another movie not to count out is Drive, which might nab Newton Thomas Sigel his first nomination in a stellar career. Still, my predictions are:

- The Artist

- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

- Hugo

- The Tree of Life

- War Horse

Best Film Editing:              After being the sole editor for my last movie, I can tell you this is one category that you may not notice often when watching a movie, but is truly an invisible art and definitely worthy of being broadcast. I keep reiterating these points because people complain about the show running long and cutting the technical awards. I disagree. In fact, I enjoy the technical categories so much more than the main awards themselves sometimes.

With that in mind, I think we’re going to see at least four best picture nominees getting film editing nominations (five if War Horse sneaks in) because…that’s typically how it goes. The movies with the best chances of winning usually get nominated here. So, you can bet on The Artist and Hugo getting in. Last year’s editing winners, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, will get in with their slick work for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That just leaves two more slots open. Another Best Picture nominee will usually fit in here and I think Moneyball’s incredible editing between locations, games, old game footage and dialog scenes will help it to get in. As for the final slot, I’m thinking Michael Kahn’s first transition into editing digitally will get welcomed in, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t get nominated. The other movies that could win out could be another Best Picture nominee (The Descendants or The Help) or a wonderfully crafted action film (Drive). Either way, my predictions are:

- The Artist

- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

- Hugo

- Moneyball

- War Horse

Best Costume Design:    This is one of the most difficult categories to predict because you’re never sure which way the branch is going to swing (and what they’ve seen). It can be as subtle as I Am Love or Milk or it can be from such obscure origins as The Imagination of Dr. Parnassus or Curse of the Golden Flower. So no matter what, predictions are typically difficult, but I’ll still try. Why? Because it’s fun.

So, there’s usually one Best Picture nominee in (if there’s a period costume drama in the race), and those nominees will be The Artist, The Help and Hugo, all three of which received nominations from the Costume Designer’s guild. As for the obscure movies, well, there’s the extravagance of the Shakespearian drama Anonymous, the style of the Victorian set Jane Eyre, the glamour of the 1950s in My Week with Marilyn, The pre-WWII look of W.E. or the complex designs of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. I don’t think people are rushing to award Madonna’s critically ravaged directorial debut in W.E. or will even remember Sherlock Holmes come Oscar night. So, that makes my predictions:

- Anonymous

- The Artist

- The Help

- Hugo

- Jane Eyre

Best Art Direction:           I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is my favorite Oscar category because I LOVE a movie with stylish set design (Dark City, Blade Runner, the Star Wars trilogy, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I could go on forever). Having said that, there was only one movie this year that really took my breath away with its set design and that was Hugo. Thankfully, all of the precursors so far have thought so and it’s the most likely to get nominated, possibly even win. As for the others, I’m thinking the sweep of The Artist will carry over here as well, maybe even upset Hugo. The final Harry Potter will have another chance to get nominated and has a great chance, seeing as how Potter has always had the most luck in this category (it has been nominated three times in this category, more than any other category). The 1960s class differences in the south portrayed in The Help could be given special recognition as it is likely to get a large amount of nominations. The support for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy could also sneak in here also, as its 1960s British covert underworld could be recognized also. Movies that could also sneak in are Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, War Horse, Anonymous, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, J Edgar or The Tree of Life.

- The Artist

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

- The Help

- Hugo

- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I’m running low on time tonight, so I’ll list out my nominees along with potential upsetters:

Best Adapted Screenplay:            The Descendants

                                                                The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

                                                                The Help

                                                                Hugo

                                                                Moneyball

(Potential Upsetters: War Horse, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

Best Original Screenplay:              The Artist

                                                                Bridesmaids

                                                                50/50

                                                                Midnight in Paris

                                                                A Separation

(Potential Upsetters: Win Win, Young Adult)

Best Animated Film:       The Adventures of Tintin

                                                Arthur Christmas

Kung Fu Panda 2

                                                Puss in Boots

                                                Rango

(Potential Upsetters: Cars 2, A Cat in Paris, Rio, Gnomeo & Juliet)

Best Song:           Albert Nobbs; “Lay Your Head Down” (Brian Byrne & Glenn Close)

Gnomeo & Juliet; “Hello Hello” (Bernie Taupin & Elton John)

                                The Help; “The Living Proof” (Mary J. Blige, Thomas Newman & Harvey Mason Jr)

                                The Muppets; “Life’s a Happy Song” (Bret McKenzie)

                                The Muppets; “Pictures in My Head” (Jeannie Lurie, Aris Archontis & Chen Neeman)

(Potential Upsetters: “Star Spangled Man”; Captain America, “Man or Muppet”; The Muppets)

Best Score:         The Artist: Ludovic Bource

                                The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

                                The Help: Thomas Newman

                                Hugo: Howard Shore

                                War Horse: John Williams

(Potential Upsetters: The Adventures of Tintin, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2)

Best Picture:      The Artist

                         The Descendants

                         The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

                         The Help

                         Hugo

                         Midnight in Paris

                         Moneyball

                         

(Potential Upsetters: Bridesmaids,War Horse, The Tree of Life)

Best Director:    Woody Allen; Midnight in Paris

                         David Fincher; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

 Michael Hazavinicus; The Artist

                         Alexander Payne; The Descendants

                         Martin Scorsese; Hugo

(Potential Upsetters: Tate Taylor; The Help, Bennett Miller; Moneyball, Steven Spielberg; War Horse)

Best Actor:          George Clooney; The Descendants

                           Jean Dujardin; The Artist

                           Michael Fassbender; Shame

                           Gary Oldman; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

                           Brad Pitt; Moneyball

(Potential Upsetters: Ryan Gosling; Drive, Leonardo DiCaprio; J Edgar, Michael Shannon; Take Shelter)

Best Actress:      Glenn Close; Albert Nobbs

                          Viola Davis; The Help

                          Rooney Mara; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

                          Meryl Streep; The Iron Lady

                          Michelle Williams; My Week with Marilyn

(Potential Upsetters: Tilda Swinton; We Need to Talk About Kevin, Elizabeth Olsen; Martha Marcy Mae Marlene, Charlize Theron; Young Adult)

Best Supporting Actor:  Kenneth Branagh; My Week with Marilyn

                                     Albert Brooks; Drive

                                     Jonah Hill; Moneyball

                                     Ben Kingsley; Hugo

                                     Christopher Plummer; Beginners

(Potential Upsetters: Max von Sydow; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Nick Nolte; Warrior, Patton Oswalt; Young Adult, John Hawkes; Martha Marcy Mae Marlene)

Best Supporting Actress:              Berenice Bejo; The Artist

                                                    Jessica Chastin; The Help

                                                    Melissa McCarthy; Bridesmaids

                                                    Octavia Spencer; The Help

                                                    Shailene Woodley; The Descendants

(Potential Upsetters: Janet McTeer; Albert Nobbs, Carey Mulligan; Shame, Vanessa Redgrave; Coriolanus)