What a year.

We kinda knew where this one was going early, with two films getting 13 and 16 nominations. It also seemed very early on that it was gonna be a relative One Battle After Another sweep. And for anyone holding out hope it was gonna end up about even, that Casting win sure put to bed any possibilities of a change in that. And other than that, we got mostly chalk. No real major surprises. A tie, but even those two were the two choices most people were figuring. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Brief notes on the ceremony — Conan was great. That opening was fantastic and he landed a couple of really great jokes throughout. The performances were great too. Probably not the best idea to put “Golden” on so late. There’s nothing that says Song can’t be given out early. It’s a TV show. If you cared about the flow of the show, you’d have made wholesale changes years ago. Also, Javier Bardem is a real one. Respect to him forever.

Otherwise, I think the right film won, and most of the right stuff won. There’s nothing that happened that made me upset. It’s rare you get through an awards season like that. Read the rest of this page »

We broke a lot of barriers this year — multiple foreign Best Picture nominees, the overall nominations mark, a brand new category for casting, the highest concentration of nominations among top films. This year has six films with 8+ nominations. I don’t even have to look to know that’s the most there’s ever been.

Which tells me that, ultimately, we’re probably gonna settle into what’s been happening the past few years, which is sweeps at the top, and then a couple of categories that could go in surprising ways near the bottom of the ballot. So… mostly the same as always.

Though this year feels more fun because it feels like at least two acting categories (if not three) can legitimately go multiple ways. Normally we have three locked acting categories and one that feels open. There’s only one locked acting category at the moment. But then, below the line looks fairly locked. So it balances.

This is a year where I revel in focusing on a scorecard than straight winners and losers, because it’s pretty clear what the contenders are. So I don’t really have a horse in the race for what’s gonna win. I’m just gonna let them do what they do and see if I can figure it out. I’m also fortunate that a lot of things I like are going to win, so there’s very little room for disappointment and mostly I’ll just be happy for what wins. Read the rest of this page »