It’s December and things are really starting to roll now. In just a matter of days the big critics groups will begin weighing in on the best of the year and the final Oscar contenders will be screened. Before all of this calamity renders even these predictions null and void, lets take a gander.

Moving Up
-At this point, Nebraska has certainly put everyone on notice and campaigners for 12 Years and Gravity should be very concerned that this movie keeps impressing everyone. This round of predictions sees the screenplay move up to number two, picture up to #5, Will Forte finally cracks the supporting lineup as does director Alexander Payne.

-Philomena moves into the adapted screenplay lineup on some strong word of mouth and positive vibes from screenings. Dench is also probably firmly in that number four slot in Best Actress.

-Frozen has announced itself as one of the best films of the year and as such has taken firm hold of the Animated Film category as well as Original Song. I am THISCLOSE to putting it in a sound category or two.

Moving Down
-American Hustle screened this week and the reaction was…interesting. While everyone seems to think that the film will get a lot of nominations, I needed a bit more oomph from these reactions to keep me from moving the film out for buzzier titles.

-August: Osage County is slowly but surely losing ground by virtue of category fraud, a shaky script and an ending folks decry more than love.

-Monsters University is now out of score and number two in animated feature.

Other Notes
-The Wolf of Wall Street is going to screen this week and with a 3 hr running time and some showy material, could shake up the race a lot.
-On that note, don’t sleep on Lone Survivor stealing that last Best Picture spot from Lee Daniels’ The Butler.
-Every week I want to change the sound nominees but for now they shall stay the same.

VIEW FULL PREDICTIONS HERE