The Oscars are finally over.  The front-runner, The Artist, won the awards race by picking up Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Hazanavicius), Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Best Costume Design, and Best Score.  There were also some big upsets as “locks” like The Tree of Life for Best Cinematography and Rise of the Planet of the Apes for Best Visual Effects were no match for Hugo, which ended up taking those categories and three more (Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Art Direction).  As for nice surprises…not really (unless you loved Hugo).

It was a forgettable year for the Oscars, and Billy Crystal, turning in his safe, predictable, and family-friendly routine was the perfect fit for a year that screamed “Don’t rock the boat!”  Last year’s Oscars took a chance on pairing Anne Hathaway and James Franco, and the show was a mess.  This year, they played it safe and the ceremony was still dull.  Quite simply, there was no films to root for and the “upsets” were for the establishment.  It was also funny to have the show and actors celebrate the theater when audiences are moving to OnDemand services, and studios are trying to make the theatrical release window even shorter.   Hit the jump for a full list of the winners, click here for mine and Adam Chitwood’s Oscar predictions (he did way better than me), and click here for my live-blog of the ceremony.

If you’re wondering who’s going to win in the screenplay competitions at this year’s Academy Awards, the WGA has made some safe bets even safer.  THR reports that the Writers Guild of America has awarded Woody Allen for Best Original Screenplay for Midnight in Paris, and Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash picked up the award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Descendants.  Midnight in Paris beat out 50/50, Bridesmaids, Win Win, and Young Adult.  The Descendants won out over The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Help, Hugo, and Moneyball.

I don’t think either Midnight in Paris or The Descendants are  a “lock” for the Oscars, but they’re pretty close.  The Descendants doesn’t have a serious contender in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.  Original Screenplay is a bit trickier since The Artist is in there, but I think the Academy’s respect and admiration for Allen will earn him his first Oscar since 1987′s Hannah and Her Sisters.

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards have finally been unveiled. Many of the categories have fallen in line just as most have predicted (I fared alright with my predictions, but not great), with Hugo scoring 11 nods, followed closely by The Artist with 10. The biggest surprises are War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close getting in for Best Picture, the exclusion of The Adventures of Tintin from Best Animated Feature, and The Tree of Life nabbing Best Picture and Best Director nods (hooray!). On the snub side of things, despite landing the most precursor critics awards of any other actor in the race thus far, Albert Brooks was denied a Best Supporting Actor nod for his stellar work in Drive (boo). Additionally, Tilda Swinton was overlooked for giving the best performance of the year in We Need to Talk About Kevin, and AMPAS has no love for Michael Fassbender‘s haunting work in Shame.

There’s still plenty to be happy about, as Gary Oldman has his first ever Oscar Nomination (yes, that’s right) and Melissa McCarthy is a Best Supporting Actress nominee. Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees. The 84th Academy Awards will be presented by Billy Crystal on February 26th.

As I’ve been covering awards season pretty extensively here on the site over the past few months, I figured it would be appropriate to (foolishly) try to predict the upcoming Oscar nominations. It’s been a fairly tame year, as a few frontrunners were singled out early in the race and have held their ground throughout the grueling awards season. We haven’t been without a few surprises, as Steven Spielberg’s War Horse took a massive tumble following snubs from most of the major guilds, and David Fincher has surged back into the race bringing his adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with him.

Though there are plenty of safe bets when it comes to the 2012 Oscar nominations, there are still a few wildcards and tricky categories. I’ve put on my prognosticating cap (those interested can purchase one of these nifty hats at your local Target) and compiled a list of who and what I think will make the cut. Hit the jump to see how I think the nods will stack up when they’re announced on January 24th.

The American Cinema Editors have announced their list of nominees for the 62nd Annual Eddie Awards. Before you brush editing off as an insignificant category, take note that no film has won the Best Picture Oscar without at least a Best Editing Eddie nomination in 20 years. Martin Scorsese’s longtime collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker was nominated for her work on Hugo, as were last year’s Oscar winners Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Other films singled out include The Artist, The Descendants, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, and Young Adult.

On the television side of things, Breaking Bad, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Friday Night Lights, and Game of Thrones all landed nods. Hit the jump to see the full list of nominees. ACE’s 62nd awards ceremony, hosted by Patton Oswalt, will be held February 18th.

I’ve just spent the past three hours watching and live-blogging the 2012 Golden Globe Awards.  My brain feels mushy.  After the jump and presented without comment is a list of this year’s winners. If you don’t even want to hit the jump, The Artist and The Descendants won Best Comedy/Musical and Best Drama, respectively.  If you want to awards prognosticate, I’ll save you the trouble: both were nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.  Those nominations haven’t been announced yet, but they were nominated.  Trust me.  I’m a professional.

Also, feel free to sound off on the winners and losers.  Lord knows I’ve been doing it for the past three hours.

With each passing awards ceremony, it’s looking more and more likely that we’re in for a fairly boring/predictable Oscars this year. The Artist continues to dominate the precursor ceremonies as it took home the Best Picture and Best Director prize at the Critics Choice Awards. On the acting side of things, George Clooney was named Best Actor for his work in The Descendants, and Viola Davis won Best Actress for The Help. The Artist is our clear frontrunner headed towards Oscar night, and I don’t really think anything else will be able to take it down. I can’t really complain about any of the acting wins, though for what it’s worth I think Brad Pitt gave the best performance of the year in Moneyball.

Elsewhere, Drive won Best Action Movie (though it’s really a drama) Bridesmaids won Best Comedy, and Rango was named Best Animated Feature. Hit the jump to see the full list of winners.

As we move ever closer to the Academy Awards, the director’s guild has just announced the five nominees who will contend for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011. The DGA’s are a major prognosticator for the Best Director award at the Oscars, as only six times has the DGA winner not gone on to win Best Director. This year’s nominees include Martin Scorsese for Hugo, Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, Michel Hazanavicious for The Artist, Alexander Payne for The Descendants, and David Fincher for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Hit the jump for more, including my thoughts on the nominees.

The Writers Guild of America has announced their nominations for the 2012 Writers Guild Awards, and some of their nominations are pretty terrible.  It’s nice to see nominations for Young Adult, The Descendants, and Bridesmaids.  It’s less nice to see nominations for slavish adaptations of poorly written novels like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Help.  There’s also a major snub for awards-season favorite The Artist, and before you mention the “no dialogue” aspect, there’s still a script and the movie was in contention.  The documentary nominations also overlooked the terrific Project Nim in favor of Pina, which is borderline unwatchable for anyone who doesn’t love modern dance.

Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  Winners will be announced at the 2012 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday, February 19th. [Correction: The Artist was deemed ineligible by the WGA, but it's still a snub since the WGA's rules are kind of stupid in the first place]

The Producers Guild of America has announced the nominees for their 2012 awards.  The PGA chose ten nominees this year for Best picture, but the Oscars will choose between five and ten.  The PGA nominees include the usual suspects (The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo) as wellas movies that have stagnated in the awards race or never really got it into (Moneyball, The Help, The Ides of March).  If you want to get a good prediction for the Best Picture Oscar, the PGAs can be a good barometer.  Follow the PGA choice to the Director’s Guild of America choice to Best Director and finally to Best Picture.

Among the TV nominees were 30 Rock, Modern Family, Game of Thrones, and Mad Men.  I’m going to be generous and assume Breaking Bad was ruled ineligible and that’s why it wasn’t nominated.  Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.

The 2011 Golden Globes nominations have been announced.  I don’t pay them much attention as an awards barometer since their nominations can be purchased (the Globes are run by the shoddy Hollywood Foreign Press Association) and the event is more to get a bunch of celebrities in a room together and hand them an over-valued award.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not a fun show to watch and this year should be plenty entertaining with Ricky Gervais returning to host.

As for the nominees, you’ll find the usual suspects: The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, The Help, and Midnight in Paris.  I have to give the Globes credit for having a separate comedy category, which allows actors like Brendan Gleeson (The Guard) and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids) to get nominated.  As for “snubs” (again, it’s tough to take the Globes nominations seriously), nothing from The Muppets was nominated for Best Song .  Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  Winners will be announced on January 15th.

Critics organizations have been doling out their honors for 2011 and for the most part, I feel like the nominations have been fair.  Today, the Screen Actors Guild announced their 2011 nominations and it’s Snub City (which is adjacent to Neglectedville and south of Ignoredtown).  The only nomination I really appreciate is Demian Bichir getting nominated for A Better Life.  It was a solid but underseen movie and he’s great in it.  There are some actors who I feel are more deserving of a nomination, but the guy deserves a career boost.

I can’t say the same for moronic nominations like Leonardo DiCaprio for J. Edgar, Nick Nolte for Warrior (everything he says sounds like a belch), and Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs.  The biggest snub is Albert Brooks being overlooked for Drive.  Critics’ organizations were showing him a lot of love and I’m not sure why SAG isn’t.  Other idiotic snubs include Michael Fassbender for Shame, Woody Harrelson for Rampart, Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes for Martha Marcy May Marlene, Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia, Charlize Theron for Young Adult, and Shailene Woodley for The Descendants.  Hit the jump for the list of nominations, which also include the nods for TV actors.  Winners will be announced on January 29th.

This awards season, the fastest way to a critic’s heart is probably through their passion.  Hugo was named the Best Picture by the National Board of Review, and The Artist received the top prize from the NYFCO and BFCA.  Both films now lead the Broadcast Film Critics Association’s Critics Choice Awards with 11 nominations a piece.  The other nominees for Best Picture were The Descendants, Drive (which looks like it’s not going out of this awards season without a fight), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Midnight in Paris (thought this would be doing a little stronger, but it’s still hanging in there), Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and War Horse.

Other noteworthy nominations include Andy Serkis for Best Supporting Actor (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), and allowing six nominees in the acting categories allows me to forego anger over most snubs (John Hawkes for Martha Marcy May Marlene deserves as Best Supporting Actor nomination over Nick Nolte for Warriror).  Hit the jump for the full list of nominees.  Winners will be announced on January 12th.

The nominations for the 27th Annual Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning with The Artist and Take Shelter each nabbing five nominations. In addition to The Artist and Take Shelter, Drive, 50/50, The Descendants, and Beginners will duke it out for the top prize. Absent from the Best Feature list is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, though the film was recognized in Best Supporting Male (Corey Stoll) and Best Cinematography. Also of note, Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes landed nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Male for Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Ryan Gosling and Woody Harrelson were both singled out in Best Actor for Drive and Rampart respectively.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations. Recognizing the best in independent film, the awards will be handed out on February 25th, the day before the Oscars.

And so our 2012 Oscar Preview has come to a close. Over the past three days we’ve brought you our coverage of how the race stacks up for Best Supporting Actress and Actor, Best Actress and Actor, and Best Animated Feature, Screenplay, as well as the technical categories. Today, we’re covering the big ones: Best Picture and Best Director. There are two early frontrunners for the big prize, but we’ve still got a number of unseen pics that could play the spoiler. As for the director race, does Steven Spielberg have a shot at his first trophy in over a decade, or will an Oscar virgin take home the prize? Hit the jump for the current state of the race in the Best Picture and Best Director categories.