There are only a few days until the nominations are announced for the 85th Academy Awards and you can feel the tension in the air from the 405 to the 101. Potential nominees, Oscar consultants and studio execs all have something on the line whether it’s prestige, their reputation or a marketable number of nominations to help a prestige flick get into the black. And for those that care too much this is likely the most nerve wracking week of the entire season. For awards fans? It’s close to heaven.
Unlike last year, the best picture race is a tossup and will absolutely feature a few films missing the cut that many assumed would make it. Moreover, the best actress, supporting actor and supporting actress categories will also leave a few deserving performances on the cutting room floor. Of course, honors such as adapted screenplay and director almost always have too many worthy candidates than slots to fill so the bubble bursting game is nothing new. The difference, however, is that everyone’s wondering how the shortened screener schedule and online voting will affect the results. Will the voting pool skew younger? Will it be a smaller pool because too many people didn’t realize the deadline was last Friday? Will it be weighted more in favor of films that were released and likely seen before December or the holidays? No one will know the answers to any of those questions until Thursday morning. In the meantime, however, Kris Tapley, Guy Lodge and I rundown some of the contenders clearly on the bubble in the embedded story gallery below.
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