IT’S THE ANNUAL column that nobody much enjoys. Once again, Screenwriter attempts to select the nominees for next year’s Oscars.
If you’re in any doubt that the Academy plays it safe, then a glance at last year’s efforts will set you right. We correctly predicted five of the nine nominees before anybody outside the editing suite had seen a second of footage. Donning our sackcloth, we admit that The Artist wasn’t even on the widest ring of our radar. But that’s still a pretty good hit rate.
Befuddled by the Academy’s weird new rules (at time of writing, we again expect between five and 10 nominees for best picture), Screenwriter names 10 titles in order of likelihood.
The nominees are . . .
* LincolnSteven Spielberg directs Daniel Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. Day Lewis had better keep February free.
* The MasterPaul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to There Will be Blood stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as the founder of a kooky religion.
* The SurrogateJohn Hawkes (already favourite for best actor) plays the poet Mark O'Brien. Will the Academy go for a film about a paralysed artist who hires a sex surrogate? Does Santa Claus own a big sack?
* On the RoadWalter Salles has been outside the Oscar circle since The Motorcycle Diaries. But his adaptation of Jack Kerouac's perennially annoying screed of hip gibberish will surely reopen the door.
* BraveWhen the Academy increased the number of nominees, a place seemed reserved for the relevant year's Pixar flick. Sadly, Cars 2 was so bad it didn't even make it into the animation race. The company's latest is set in prehistoric Scotland.
* Les MisérablesTom Hooper's adaptation of the smash musical, with Hugh Jackman in the lead, looks like a sure-fire inclusion. Don't forget, however, the disaster that was Phantom of the Opera.
* Anna KareninaJoe Wright tackles a novel that has too often been served badly by film-makers. Cerainly it will look nice. Wee Keira Knightley stars as the doomed heroine.
* The Hobbit: An Unexpected JourneyCould familiarity breed contempt? All three Lord of the Rings pictures were nominated. It doesn't look as if Peter Jackson is altering the tone too much. Seems reasonably secure.
* Zero Dark ThirtyThis is the current title of Kathryn Bigelow's film about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. She's already Oscar royalty.
* The Dark Knight RisesOut there on the internet, youngish men still fume about the exclusion of The Dark Knight from that year's best-picture shortlist. Will the oldsters at the Academy fling them a bone?
What’s missing? Two literary adaptations (Baz Lurhmann’s The Great Gatsby and Ang Lee’s The Life of Pi) feel a bit shaky from this great distance. Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained might be a little too off the wall. The Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis is currently down for a 2013 release.
We’ll know all in a mere 10 months.
