This week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences completed its annual duty of kicking off Oscar season. With the festivities officially ‘kicked off’, nomination voting is open, with a membership of nearly 6,000. These prestigious awards often have a controversial outcome, but for true Oscar fans, that’s just part of the fun of speculating and preparing for the long awards show each year. Of all the hundreds upon hundreds of potential best picture contenders, only ten will have the honor of a nomination, and only a few actually have a chance of winning. Spending some time watching satellite TV before the Oscars race, especially the major award-winning movie channels, will produce a host of movies that network officials think have a fighting chance. Watching the ‘big show’ is more fun when you’ve seen the movies that are being talked about, isn’t it? Most people don’t have time to watch all the nominated movies in the short time before they’re released and the Oscars event, so that means it’s time to start some speculation. With only about a month between the award nominations and the actual awards, there’s never a time like the present to hunker down in front of the TV and watch some of these top movies in high definition via satellite.
Coming from the Disney camp, there has been a lot of push behind two movies specifically, Secretariat and Toy Story 3. Critics are generally rooting for the movie which was, and in some ways still is, more anticipated than the box office numbers. I would believe The Social Network. While it may not have been a fan-favorite in theaters, the internet generation and mainstream audience are probably to blame for simply downloading pirated versions of the movie and calling it quits. Other big favorites for Best Picture include Hereafter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, Love & Other Drugs, Miral, Somewhere, The Tree of Life, The Way Back, Rabbit Hole, True Grit, Fair Game and London Boulevard. . . That list alone is a project that needs to be completed before the end of February, but if you’ve already seen most of this year’s most acclaimed movies, it may be time to move on to other lists.
The early Best Director nominees don’t yield anything that isn’t already on the Best Picture list, but the Best Actor and Actress categories do have the likes of Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine, and Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Best Supporting Actor features some originals with Bill Murray in Get Low, Rebecca Hall in The Town and Naomi Watts in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.
As with any other Oscar year, there are a number of repeats that make the list of what to watch more manageable. Just to make sure you don’t miss a thing, try a combination of Internet research and satellite TV, looking for the best movie channels. Within a week or two, you’ll have seen all the potential Oscar nominees on the list and can declare yourself a true Oscar expert!