Jim Keller
I maintain that one can liken the Oscar race to a horserace with each studio betting on its thoroughbreds hoping to place. In the analogy, the studio is the owner, public relations is the jockey, and the horse is the actor or film. Here I’ve included my rankings as they stood on the eve of Oscar nominations—the number in parentheses indicates my placement following nominations. I chose eight nominees for Best Picture out of a possible ten. All other categories reflect five nominees. The picks that appear in black text within the table were my original nominee picks, and those in red represent actual nominees that I had not chosen.
Because Christian Bale and Michael Shannon have history of sneaking in at the last minute, I chose to go with them. (See Bale’s Best Actor nomination in 2014 for American Hustle and his Best Supporting Actor nomination in 2016 for The Big Short and Shannon’s supporting role last year for Nocturnal Animals). That’s the thing about the Oscar race: just because you try not to get burned, doesn’t mean you won’t in the end.
With that, I give you my current Oscar predictions:
