Best Picture
“The Artist” Thomas Langmann, Producer
“The Descendants” Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” Scott Rudin, Producer
“The Help” Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
“Hugo” Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
“Midnight in Paris” Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
“Moneyball” Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
“The Tree of Life” Nominees to be determined
“War Horse” Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Directing
“The Artist” Michel Hazanavicius
“The Descendants” Alexander Payne
“Hugo” Martin Scorsese
“Midnight in Paris” Woody Allen
“The Tree of Life” Terrence Malick

Hugo leads the nominees with 11 nods overall, while The Artist comes a close second with 10. However, when it comes to Best Picture Winner, you can pretty much discount all the nominees which didn’t also get a Directing nomination. That makes Spielberg’s War Horse the dark horse people probably weren’t expecting it to be. It’s tempting to consider Midnight In Paris a serious contender, particularly since it’s widely considered to be Woody’s best and most accessible film in year, but it’s far more likely to take the Original Screenplay Oscar rather than anything more major. It’s also wonderful to see Malick’s masterpiece The Tree of Life up in the big two categories, although it’s unlikely to cause any upset given how polarizing it is. I have yet to see The Descendants, but from what I’ve heard it’s a perfectly fine yet nothing special film, which means the two to watch are once again Hugo and The Artist. Which is interesting, considering both films are about this history of cinema. My money is on The Artist to continue its sweep of all the big awards this year. Yes, Hugo is directed by Scorsese, but it’s a family film, whereas The Artist is more adult-oriented. Additionally – and ironically – Hugo details the historic achievements of an early French filmmaker, whereas the French film The Artist is a glamorous look at silent era Hollywood.

Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in “A Better Life”
George Clooney in “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”
Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Brad Pitt in “Moneyball”

Neither Clooney or Pitt have won a Leading Actor Oscar before, although Clooney probably has the most realistic shot at a win. Oldman is also so respected as a character actor that it’s hard not to think he too has a chance, although voters will probably think it’s enough that he’s been nominated on this occasion. Dujardin has already won a ton of awards though, and if The Artist continues to dominate the Oscars, it’s highly probably he’ll steal the win here too. If there is an upset, however, Clooney is the man to do it.

Actor in a Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in “My Week with Marilyn”
Jonah Hill in “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte in “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer in “Beginners”
Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

This is a tough one to call, and not just because I haven’t seen any of the films… First of all, let’s discount Jonah Hill immediately (one of these things is not like the others…) Even so, that leaves us with a very tight race between four very established actors. Of the four, I think von Sydow’s chance of a win is least. Although Warrior has gotten a lot of critical praise, most people haven’t heard of it, so let’s assume Nolte won’t win either. That puts us in a two-way race between Branagh and Plummer. It’s a tough one, alright. Plummer won the Golden Globe and has been twice nominated for an Oscar without a win, but I’m going to give Branagh the edge since he plays a real life legend and his Oscar nominations without a win outrank Plummer’s at five.

Actress in a Leading Role
Glenn Close in “Albert Nobbs”
Viola Davis in “The Help”
Rooney Mara in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams in “My Week with Marilyn”

This is a solid category (for the Oscars). I would absolutely love to see Glenn Close take the little gold man home since she absolutely deserves it for Albert Nobbs, but considering that few people have seen the film and that she’s up against some stiff competition, the chances are slim. That pretty means Mara can forget it. Davis is in with a good shot, but she’s not in the same category as Streep and Williams. While you would be a fool to ever discount Streep when she’s nominated for something, I’m going to say Williams has the best shot. She plays Marilyn Monroe for christsakes! In summation: Solid category, Williams for the win, Close for the spoil?

Actress in a Supporting Role
Bérénice Bejo in “The Artist”
Jessica Chastain in “The Help”
Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids”
Janet McTeer in “Albert Nobbs”
Octavia Spencer in “The Help”

Chastain and McCarthy both belong to be here, but their performances were both more comedic than dramatic, which at the Oscars usually translates to a nomination is enough. Bejo is riding on the wave of The Artist‘s success and has boosted her chances by getting nominated as Supporting rather than Leading, but most of the attention has been on her co-star Dujardin, so I’d be very surprised if she secured a win. McTeer gave an incredible performance in Albert Nobbs, and for my money she portrayed a far more realistic man than Glenn Close. However, I think the safe money is on Spencer to repeat her Golden Globe win.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“The Descendants” Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
“Hugo” Screenplay by John Logan
“The Ides of March” Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
“Moneyball” Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin Story by Stan Chervin
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” Screenplay by Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan

I think this is essentially a three-way race between Hugo, Moneyball and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Moneyball because of the pedigree of its writers, although I don’t think it will go all the way. Hugo has a serious shot given it leads the nomination count and it’s a real chance for a major win here since The Artist isn’t cramping its style. Ultimately, though, I’m going to pick Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for the win since it’s much more densely plotted and it serves as a throwback to the 70s era of Hollywood film-making, whereas Hugo is merely whimsical.

Writing (Original Screenplay)
“The Artist” Written by Michel Hazanavicius
“Bridesmaids” Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
“Margin Call” Written by J.C. Chandor
“Midnight in Paris” Written by Woody Allen
“A Separation” Written by Asghar Farhadi

Very interesting to see A Separation here – hopefully that’s a clear indicator that it will win Best Foreign Picture, but it’s unlikely to have a win here. Frankly, I’d never heard of Margin Call and while Bridesmaids may have been the breakout comedy hit of the year it wasn’t, what’s the word? – good. Essentially, what this category comes down to is The Artist and Midnight in Paris. this could be the category where the fact it’s a silent film counts against The Artist. To me, this one is obvious. It’s Midnight in Paris for the win all the way.

Normally, I would bother to discuss a few of the other big categories such as Cinematography and Original Score, but given that I expect The Artist to more or less sweep everything, there doesn’t seem to be much hope. The one exception to this is that I really, really hope that Hugo wins for Best Score because I really, really loved it. It probably won’t though.

Here are all the other nominees:

Animated Feature Film
“A Cat in Paris” Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
“Chico & Rita” Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
“Kung Fu Panda 2″ Jennifer Yuh Nelson
“Puss in Boots” Chris Miller
“Rango” Gore Verbinski

Art Direction
“The Artist”
Production Design: Laurence Bennett; Set Decoration: Robert Gould
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″
Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
“Hugo”
Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
“Midnight in Paris”
Production Design: Anne Seibel; Set Decoration: Hélène Dubreuil
“War Horse”
Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales

Cinematography
“The Artist” Guillaume Schiffman
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Jeff Cronenweth
“Hugo” Robert Richardson
“The Tree of Life” Emmanuel Lubezki
“War Horse” Janusz Kaminski

Costume Design
“Anonymous” Lisy Christl
“The Artist” Mark Bridges
“Hugo” Sandy Powell
“Jane Eyre” Michael O’Connor
“W.E.” Arianne Phillips

Documentary (Feature)
“Hell and Back Again”
Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
“If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front”
Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
“Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory”
Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
“Pina”
Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
“Undefeated”
TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas

Documentary (Short Subject)
“The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement”
Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
“God Is the Bigger Elvis”
Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson
“Incident in New Baghdad”
James Spione
“Saving Face”
Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
“The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom”
Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen

Film Editing
“The Artist” Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
“The Descendants” Kevin Tent
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
“Hugo” Thelma Schoonmaker
“Moneyball” Christopher Tellefsen

Foreign Language Film
“Bullhead” Belgium
“Footnote” Israel
“In Darkness” Poland
“Monsieur Lazhar” Canada
“A Separation” Iran

Makeup
“Albert Nobbs”
Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″
Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
“The Iron Lady”
Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Music (Original Score)
“The Adventures of Tintin” John Williams
“The Artist” Ludovic Bource
“Hugo” Howard Shore
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” Alberto Iglesias
“War Horse” John Williams

Music (Original Song)
“Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets” Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
“Real in Rio” from “Rio” Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown Lyric by Siedah Garrett

Short Film (Animated)
“Dimanche/Sunday” Patrick Doyon
“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
“La Luna” Enrico Casarosa
“A Morning Stroll” Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
“Wild Life” Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

Short Film (Live Action)
“Pentecost” Peter McDonald and Eimear O’Kane
“Raju” Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
“The Shore” Terry George and Oorlagh George
“Time Freak” Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
“Tuba Atlantic” Hallvar Witzø

Sound Editing
“Drive” Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Ren Klyce
“Hugo” Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
“War Horse” Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom

Sound Mixing
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Bo Persson
“Hugo”
Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
“Moneyball”
Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco and Ed Novick
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin
“War Horse”
Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson

Visual Effects
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″
Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson
“Hugo”
Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
“Real Steel”
Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier

Yes, that’s right, my new blog. I’ve tried my hand at blogging in the past in different incarnations both at this domain (although on a different platform) and at another ill-conceived blog.

What was wrong with my last blog? Well, things started off well. I was determined to post something – anything – new every single day. That lasted about a month. It was good because it got me writing, but the consistency of topics and quality was awful. Looking back now, some entries are downright embarrassing. I rambled from issue to issue, covering things are disparate as film, entrepreneurship and politics. I’ll grant you that those topics might be neatly connected and relevant under certain circumstances, but not in my old blog.

So what’s new here? Why will this blog be different? How will it be better? Critically, this blog will have a central focus from which I will steadfastly refuse to deviate as much as possible. Actually, one reason why I decided to preserve the old blog was just in case I get an overwhelming impulse to post something totally irrelevant, I can always do so there. The focus of this blog is Storytelling. Primarily, this means film/cinema/movies, but no medium is out of bounds. Photography, radio plays, literature and comic books are all welcome.

Here’s a bit of info about me. Hey, it’s a blog. It’s meant to be self-indulgent some. I’m a lifelong fan of stories. Growing up I would take photos of my Ghostbuster toys arranged in different poses and then write a story to go along with them. When I was a little older a show called The X-Files became a worldwide phenomenon and I became obsessed with it. Soon after the show completed it’s nine season run, I started looking for something to fill the void and I fell in love with cinema in general, which is what I ended up studying at university.

I have remained a lover of cinema ever, but over the past two or three years my frequent trips to the theatre have waned significantly. Not because I fell out of love with film, but life’s other demands got more demanding, leaving me with precious little free time. To be honest, it is now a rarity rather than the norm that I will see a new release in the cinema. Standard practice now is for me to catch up months later once the DVD is finally available for rental. Hopefully, life will be more accommodating of regular-ish trips to the cinema in 2012.

So of course, you shouldn’t expect this blog to be a catalogue of hot-of-the-presses film reviews. What it will be is a relatively random collection of essays. I chose the title Words & Pictures & Sounds because it rather conveniently leaves the door open to discuss pretty much anything I want, but there will hopefully be a thorough sense of consistency here. My aim when writing will be to provoke a thoughtful sense about the art being discussed. That doesn’t mean every entry will be an academic style essay, though. I’m a fan of top ten lists as much as the next person. I also hope to post some samples of my own art here. I am a writer (largely screenplays) but I want to start dabbling in prose. I intend to post some of my experiments on here occasionally too. I also hope to pursue other artistic endeavors which I can share here. I sometimes take photos I’m proud of. I used to make short films but haven’t done any in years. I used to paint even longer ago. I hope to start reengaging with these old pursuits and publicly display the fruits of my labor right here.

Finally, please let me assure you that there will likely be no consistency to my posting schedule. I don’t want a self-imposed routine of posting because I want every entry to be well considered and not rushed to post just to meet some imagined deadline. I want to do this because I want to do this. If I achieve an average of one post per week over the next year, then great. If not, then it’s not the end of the world. For that reason, I encourage you to subscribe to this blog at any time through any of the options available in the sidebar. You can also follow me on Twitter @DaiTexas where I’ll make it known whenever I have a new blog post. FYI, my tweets cover a much broader spectrum that this blog will. Favorite topics include film, soccer, boxing, politics, marketing, business and Scotch.

Thank you once again for visiting and thank you so much if you’ve managed to read through this entire piece of drivel. I promise the next post will be far more interesting.