Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

A typical awards night for Martin Scorsese -- the whole room adores him, but the competitive awards go to somebody else's film.

After the last couple of weeks, I think it might be time to ask if a genuinely competitive Oscar race is even possible anymore. The season dawned with no consensus whatever, and numerous credible candidates in all slots. But now, this slew of awards has somehow turned the (you'd think) modest leads of Christopher Plummer & Octavia Spencer into a replay of Christoph Waltz/Mo 'Nique. The Artist, even while being only modestly seen by audiences, has to be viewed as a potential sweep-through candidate. And the late-breaking Dujardin wins seem to ticket him for a sure win. (Had Oldman triumphed here instead, it would have seemed a great, wide-open race) Only best actress remains marginally competitive, but you can dismiss tonight's result as pure Anglo-centrism and say SAG made the call there, too, with Davis' more emotionally direct work likely to beat Streep.

I fear the Oscars are on the verge of becoming the dog wagged by the tail. The last real surprises -- Cotillard/Swinton -- seem a long time ago. The lead-in awards seem ever more determined to not express opinion but create a climate for victory -- a climate to which Oscar voters have succumbed with ever more numbing predictability. The hell of this is, the Oscar is STILL the award that counts, for most. When Kathryn Bigelow spoke of "the thrill of a lifetime", she wasn't talking about the Broadcast award or the BAFTA, or even the DGA -- she meant the Oscar. I doubt Jason Reitman rerains fond memories of all the precursor prizes he won two years ago; all he'll recall is that he lost the Oscar. But the fact that all these preparatory prizes have openly set themselves up as guideposts has taken all the juice out of the season.

I hope I'm wrong about this. It's possible The Artist won't glide through two weeks from now the way it did tonight (remember, we all thought The King's Speech was headed for some similar sweep, and its haul was a more restrained four prizes in the end). And maybe the voters can come up with a jaw-dropper, which is by its very nature unpredictable. But it's been so long since such a thing happened, I'm beginning to think it's an artifact of another age.

Maybe, but maybe she's rightfully annoyed with him for the e-mail that was circulated last week via a third party remding Hollyood Reporter subscribers, many of whom are AMPAS members, that it's been 29 years since she's won an Oscar.

Big Magilla wrote:Between switching back and forth between the Bafta and the Grammys and dozing off I managed to watch the Cinderella moment where Colin Firth retrieves Streep's shoe and places it back on her foot. Nice speech as usual with lots of thank-yous with one glaring omission - no mention of Harvey.

Maybe she's saving it for February 27.

Between switching back and forth between the Bafta and the Grammys and dozing off I managed to watch the Cinderella moment where Colin Firth retrieves Streep's shoe and places it back on her foot. Nice speech as usual with lots of thank-yous with one glaring omission - no mention of Harvey.

Viola Davis probably still has loads of traction despite Streep's Bafta win. Davis' is a homegrown vice just as Streep's was for the Brits.

This, minus the Spencer win, is how I want the Oscars to turn out for the top six awards.

http://www.cinemasight.com/precursor-53 ... ards-2011/

I just have to say that I had never expected Dujardin to become the frontrunner, but with SAG and BAFTA under his belt, he's now in the lead...who would have thought that three months ago? Harvey Weinstein, for good or ill, is the best Oscar campaigner in history. His films won 9 awards altogether including seven for The Artist and two for The Iron Lady. And those who thought Streep would fall behind the pack with Viola Davis in the race, look out...she's coming on strong in the home stretch.