Oscar Nomination Reaction

NPH will be hosting this year's Oscars,
who will be joining him at the ceremony?

People like to say that awards don't matter, they're not wrong. Citizen Kane, regarded by many as the greatest film of all time (I've never seen it), famously failed to win best picture. Martin Scorsese had to wait three decades to win his Oscar, but no one doubted he was a master filmmaker beforehand. Peter O'Toole never won an Oscar, yet he'll always be a film legend. Films about famous dead Brits in Shakespeare In Love & The King's Speech defeated two of my favorite films, Saving Private Ryan & The Social Network, but I'll fight you if you think that makes any sense. 

Still, awards don't entirely not matter. They can change a career. Just getting nominated can give an actor a legitimacy they previously lacked (See: Jonah Hill), or a writer/director the ability to get a project green lit that never would've seen the light of day otherwise. Also, they're fun to debate! With that in mind here's a look at this year's Academy Award nominations, & my thoughts on various major categories. 

Here were my pre-announcement predictions for Best Picture, in order of my confidence in their being nominated:

1. "Boyhood" 
2. "Birdman" 
3. "The Imitation Game" 
4. "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
5. "The Theory of Everything" (The first 5 are locks)
6. "Whiplash"
7. "American Sniper"
8. "Selma"
9. "Nightcrawler"

"Everything is Awesome" from The Lego Movie is the first nominee announced, for Best Song. Is it too much to hope that description will be accurate for these nominees? Probably.