Movie City Maniacs

The award nominations are being announced so fast and furiously these days that if you aren’t paying attention the prohibitive Oscar favourites will be crowned without you even noticing.

Case in point, the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America all released their nominees over the past two days.

These folks matter because many in their membership are also Oscar voters and their lists tend to mirror the Academy. Speaking of which, it looks like the top nominees have been set, and probably in this order:

Brokeback Mountain; Good Night, and Good Luck; Crash; Capote; Munich; A History of Violence; Walk the Line

I’m reserving my judgment as there are still a few on that list that I haven’t seen yet, so I’m off to the theatre again this weekend. I will say that I’ve seen Brokeback, and while it was a good film I spent most of the screening wondering when it was going to be a great film. That’s not to say it won’t win Best Picture, I just don’t think it is.

Other interesting tidbits:

Russell Crowe is back in the actor’s race with the SAG nod, but it appears to be Philip Seymour Hoffman’s to lose. Cinderella Man, though, doesn’t seem to have much of a shot anymore.

Crash has become a fave over the last two days after being nothing but a dark horse. Nominations from all of the guilds tends to help, despite being missed by the Golden Globes.

King Kong is mostly being ignored and will likely have to be happy with a podium full of technical awards, that it will have to share with Narnia. Good thing Peter Jackson already has enough that he wouldn’t notice if he misplaced one anyway.