Someone's Having the Best Breakfast of His/Her Life

Well, the Oscar nominations have been announced, and let's check our predictions. Below are the actual nominees, followed by the people who we guessed would get them. And yes, we wimped out in three of the categories when we couldn't decide who would get the final spot, so in the parenthesis are our best guesses for who would get the final nomination spot.

(melissa leo in "the fighter")

Best Actor-
The Nominees: Colin Firth, Jesse Eisenberg, James Franco, Jeff Bridges, Javier Bardem
We guessed: Colin Firth, Jesse Eisenberg, James Franco, Mark Wahlberg, (Jeff Bridges or Javier Bardem)

-Wahlberg didn't come through as we thought he would, but his consolation prize is the fact that the film he worked so many years to make, "The Fighter", got a nod for Best Picture. And in Bardem's case, it looks like Oscar campaigning works. His movie, "Biutiful", got absolutely no attention, but everyone in Hollywood that saw it crowed loudly about Bardem's performance and started the peer pressure train in motion to recognize Bardem. It worked.

Best Actress-
The Nominees: Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Annette Bening, Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Williams
We guessed: Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Annette Bening, Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore
 
-Julianne Moore didn't make it; Michelle Williams snuck in to take her spot. We didn't see that one coming.

Best Supporting Actor-
The Nominees: Christian Bale, Geoffrey Rush, John Hawkes, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner
We guessed: Christian Bale, Geoffrey Rush, John Hawkes, Mark Ruffalo, (Andrew Garfield, Jeremy Renner or Robert Duvall)

-Jeremy Renner got the final spot, as we guessed that he might, but we're a little surprised that Andrew Garfield didn't; Garfield had all the early buzz.

Best Supporting Actress-
The Nominees: Melissa Leo, Hailee Steinfeld, Jackie Weaver, Amy Adams, Helena Bonham Carter
We guessed: Melissa Leo, Hailee Steinfeld, Jackie Weaver, Amy Adams, (Mila Kunis, Lesley Manville, Barbara Hershey, Sissy Spacek or Dianne Wiest)

-We didn't know who would get that final spot, and we didn't even come close to guessing it. It probably would have gone to Mila Kunis, but Helena Bonham Carter snuck in to take it away from her.

We didn't guess which ten movies would get nominations for Best Picture, but here are the ten which earned them:
"The King's Speech", "The Social Network", "Toy Story 3", "Inception", "True Grit", "Black Swan", "The Fighter", "The Kids Are All Right", "127 Hours", "Winter's Bone".

 -We're thrilled that "Winter's Bone" snuck in to take a spot. It didn't get a lot of mainstream attention, but it's a hell of a good movie. And from its lack of nominations, it looks like "The Social Network" is continuing to lose steam as a possible big winner on Oscar night. If it doesn't win Best Picture, it will be because it peaked too early, winning too many awards too early, which makes the Oscar voters want to reward other movies which they feel haven't gotten their due, (the underdog effect). Or it could be because of what many have whispered, that the Academy is still mostly older folks, who don't appreciate Facebook or the young whippersnappers who they think are too obsessed with it.

(jennifer lawrence and john hawkes in "winter's bone")

We don't care much about the Directors, but the biggest snub of the morning seems to be Christopher Nolan's failure to get a Best Director nomination for "Inception", which got eight nominations overall. It looks like the Coen Brothers got his spot for "True Grit".

Now, as far as who will win the highly coveted trophies, we think Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo should go ahead and start writing acceptance speeches. See you on Feb. 27!