As the precursor awards continue unabated through the month of December, I’m going to be providing a weekly update highlighting the films that have won and lost momentum through the precursor awards (this will be in place of my prior weekly article “Oscar Preview”. Today, we look back at the results of the New York Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review, Satellite Awards nominations, Spirit Awards nominations and the Producers Guild of America nominations. This is a healthy spread of award bodies from indie to big budget, and a nice broad spectrum of critics groups.

But, before we get into this week’s winners and losers, let’s take a look at what’s coming up this week:

Week 10

Feb. 1 – Academy Awards Ballots Mailed
Feb. 4 – Annie Awards
Feb. 4 – Art Directors Guild Awards
Feb. 5 – Online Film & Television Association Awards
Feb. 6 – Oscar Nominees Lunch

Big Winners

The Artist was perhaps the biggest winner of this week’s Oscar nominations. While there were only two precursors held this past week, both after the nominations were announced, it was clear The Artist was going to have one of the biggest tallies on Nominations Morning. This was indeed the case, but it was the Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild awards that proved The Artist was the week’s biggest winner. Not only did director Michel Hazanavicius win the DGA prize for Best Director (one of the most accurate precursors in history), but actor Jean Dujardin muddied up the Best Actor waters by winning a surprise award from SAG for Best Actor. Dujardin wasn’t even considered by most to be in the race and considering how few members of SAG had probably seen the film or were likely to love him compared to the likes of George Clooney or Brad Pitt, he managed to triumph. This shows that there’s broad support for the film and is very likely to be this year’s big Oscar winner.
Hugo didn’t do too badly this week, earning the most nominations of any film for this year’s Oscars. While Scorsese could have used a DGA win to catapult him into the lead for the Oscar, there’s no denying that the communities love for him and his film is genuine.
The Tree of Life was seemingly on life-support going into Oscar nomination morning. Even the DGA, formerly a strong Terrence Malick booster, didn’t even give him a nomination for the film. So, although we still thought it had a chance, its chances had diminished dramatically so much that when Malick not only showed up in Best Director, but the film picked up a corresponding Best Picture nomination, we were a little taken aback, but the precursors had been proven right. The film was liked well enough to sneak into the race even against the growing odds against it.
Moneyball wasn’t about to be outdone this year and although it didn’t earn Bennett Miller his second nomination for Best Director, the film not only earned nominations for Best Picture and actor Brad Pitt, but supporting actor Jonah Hill carried his SAG nomination over to the Oscars. While I wouldn’t say any of these nominations were a surprise, the film had a strong presence at the Oscars even though it didn’t fit the typical Oscar mold.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy didn’t make it into Best Picture. Yet, Gary Oldman persevered without a SAG nomination to earn a Best Actor nod while the film picked up nominations for Adapted Screenplay and, surprisingly, Best Original Score. BAFTA was more enamored with the film, so it was surprising that it didn’t make the final Best Picture slate, but the final run was no less impressive.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the film that probably denied Tinker a Best Picture nomination. Saved until the very end of the announcement, Jennifer Lawrence announced the shocking ninth nominee for Best Picture, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This was foreshadowed by a nomination for Max von Sydow whose prospects had looked almost as dim as the film’s. Yet, in the end, the film managed to disprove precursor wisdom and claw its way into the Oscar race with a paltry two nominations.

Big Losers

Hugo may have been the most nominated film of the year, but as I mentioned earlier, Scorsese didn’t win the Best Director prize from the DGA. Several people I read were thinking he would win the Directors Guild prize and create a potential for a split at the Oscars. While this is still a possibility, the chances have diminished dramatically. The film still has plenty of opportunities for prizes on Oscar night, but any hope for the big ones are all but snuffed out by the DGA results.
Drive received an Oscar nomination for Best Sound Editing. That’s it. Despite performing well at the BAFTA nominations and earning plenty of praise from critics, the Ryan Gosling starrer couldn’t manage more than a perfunctory Sound Editing nomination. The screenplay, the sound mixing and many other elements were in competition, but ultimately voters didn’t care much for the film. And did I mention Albert Brooks? The biggest omission of the morning came when the Best Actor slate was announced without precursor-leader Brooks. More than anything, his lack of nomination shows just how little Academy voters appreciated the film, which is unfortunate.
Shame was probably the most injured film of the day. In spite of several awards and a raft of support for his performance, Michael Fassbender couldn’t parlay is amazing year into an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Was the film too racy for Oscar voters? Did the story about sex addiction just turn them off? Who knows the precise reason, but there’s no denying that Fassbender’s is now one of the best performances never nominated for the Oscar.
The Adventures of Tintin was thought to be a sure thing for a nomination for Best Animated Feature, but when the first title read out was A Cat in Paris, prognosticators around the world were in shock. Here was a film with pedigree befitting a win, which it would have done had it been nominated. Yet, no category seems more limited to the “Boys’ Club” than Animated Feature. For years, they have ignored anything even remotely motion-capture animated. Even though Monster House was a nominee, the voters in this category seem to go out of their way to ostracize anyone who would create a film in that method.
We Need to Talk About Kevin was another film that SAG voters appreciated, but Oscar voters did not. Tilda Switnon’s fierce performance in the film was one of the most talked about and honored performances of the year. Could it have suffered the same fate as Drive and Shame, too violent for Oscar voters? No one will know for sure, but there’s no doubt that Kevin was one of the most injured films of the week.
Take Shelter seemed to be rising in many estimations. After several high profile wins through precursor season, many were starting to see Michael Shannon’s performance as a potential surprise nomination threat. Yet it was SAG nominee Demian Bichir’s Oscar mention for A Better Life that proved to be one of the year’s big shockers.

Individual Analyses

Directors Guild of America Awards

And the race for Best Picture ended with the DGA as it often does. The DGA is one of the most accurate precursors around. It’s Best Director winners go on to win Oscars so frequently that betting against the DGA winner is almost a sure way to lose money. Almost as accurate (likely due to the Academy’s penchant for honoring their Best Picture selection with the Best Director prize), the DGA also likes to predict Best Picture winners. One of the reasons we were all so reticent to give The Artist unequivocal support as the prediction for Best Picture was that DGA is so often accurate. Yet, like last year when the DGA honored big screen neophyte Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech, the DGA win has all but cemented the Best Picture race by simply acknowledging that The Artist has across-the-board support.

Screen Actors Guild Awards

There are two things that can be said about the SAG Awards. The first is that they love the biggest ensemble. The second is that The Artist is nearly unstoppable. On the first point, you have only to look at the individual cast lists for the Best Cast prize to know which one SAG voters are more likely to pick. In this case, The Help had twelve names whereas its nearest competitor, Bridesmaids had only nine. Furthermore, in seeing the Best Supporting Actress win by Octavia Spencer and later the Best Actress win by Viola Davis, the Best Cast result was unquestionably going to The Help. This doesn’t mean Oscar will agree. They sometimes do, but other statistics are more likely to sink the chances of this year’s Best Cast winner. Still, it’s proof the film has solid support among actors, but not so much among other groups (as evinced by the film’s paucity of nominations at the Oscars.