ScottFeinberg.com

By Joey Magidson
Film Contributor
And Scott Feinberg
The Hollywood Reporter

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The morning of the Oscar nominations is always an interesting time for me. A full year of predictions, hunches and plain old guesses comes down to an announcement that either humbles or validates all of my work.

Sometimes, it does both at the same time, and often, it just plain puzzles me. Once in a while, though, there are some real surprise Oscar nominations that come down the pike and take nearly everyone by surprise.

For this Top 10 list, I’m teaming up with the namesake of this site, Scott Feinberg, to tackle a piece on some of the most surprising Oscar nominations of the last 10 years. With the Academy Award nominations just around the corner on Jan. 10, we’re writing this post to remind people that there’s simply no such thing as a slam-dunk with these awards. Does the name Dreamgirls ring a bell?

We’re only going to be looking at the big six categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress, but as a bonus, Scott picked a special 11th choice. Consider this a super-sized Top 10 list!

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By Scott Feinberg
The Hollywood Reporter

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Every Sunday through the Oscars on Feb. 24, The Hollywood Reporter‘s lead awards analyst Scott Feinberg will post an updated “Feinberg Forecast,” which will reflect his latest take on the standings of the contenders in each of the major categories.

The Broadcast Film Critics Association, of which I am proud to be a voting member, held its 17th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards last night at the historic Hollywood Palladium. The group found something to like about virtually all of the top Oscar contenders – The Artist (best picture, director, costume design, score), The Help (best ensemble, actress, supporting actress), The Descendants (best actor), Midnight in Paris (best original screenplay), Hugo (best art direction), Moneyball (best adapted screenplay), War Horse (best cinematography — tie), The Tree of Life (best cinematography — tie), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (best editing), Bridesmaids (best comedy), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (best young actor/actress), Drive (best action movie), Beginners (best supporting actor), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (best makeup, sound), Rango (best animated film), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (best visual effects), and A Separation (best foreign language film) — but did it tell us anything that we didn’t already know about how the Oscar race might pan out? I think so.

My five primary takeaways are these …

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I’m very pleased to bring you the eleventh episode of “Feinberg & Friends,” THR’s weekly podcast about the awards race.

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Steven Spielberg’s epic adaptation of the novel and Broadway play War Horse had its world premiere Sunday night at Lincoln Center’s Avery Hall, just feet from where the theatrical production is continuing its blockbuster run. Spielberg was on hand before the film to introduce the vast majority of the film’s large ensemble, including the film’s three big up-and-comers, 21-year-old Englishman Jeremy Irvine, 21-year-old German David Kross and 15-year-old Frenchwoman Celine Buckens, as well as veterans David Thewlis (who also stars in The Lady) and Emily Watson (who was twice nominated for the best actress Oscar in the 1990s). Regretfully, Spielberg noted, the 18 horses that played the title character “Joey” — the true star of the film — were unable to attend.

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By Sean O’Connell

“Pulp Fiction.” “The English Patient.” “Good Will Hunting.” “Shakespeare in Love.” “Chicago.” “The Aviator.” “Gangs of New York.” “The Reader.” “The King’s Speech.”

For decades, Harvey Weinstein’s name has been synonymous with the Academy Awards, and his influential fingerprints have been all over the Oscar season.

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It’s hard to argue that the actress Meryl Streep – who has garnered 16 Oscar nominations (more than any other male or female in history), two of which resulted in wins — is under-appreciated by the Academy. That, however, is precisely what I’ve felt the urge to do since screening the latest film in which she stars, Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, earlier this week.

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Few actors seem timeless, as if they could have fit into a Golden Age film just as easily as a film of the present day, but one who does is Ralph Fiennes.

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The vast majority of this year’s awards hopefuls have already played at least once on the festival circuit (Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, and/or New York) and/or gone into general release. Most of those that have not are set for October or November releases. But a select few others are being held until December, the last month in which they are eligible to qualify for Oscar consideration this year, and only being selectively screened for the press before then, if at all.

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Why was I projecting that the best cinematography Oscar would go to Wally Pfister (“Inception”) rather than Roger Deakins (“True Grit”) even before this evening’s announcement that Pfister had topped Deakins to win the American Society of Cinematographers’ ASC Award? For one very simple reason: neither Pfister’s nor Deakins’s name will actually be on the Oscar ballot.

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