We're only about 40 days away from the announcement of the 72nd Oscar nominations, and the various precursor awards are not bringing out a true front runner, instead a number of different films are emerging as front runners together, so it is still shaping up as a very unpredictable year for the Oscars.
There were a couple of other precursor awards announced before the New Year and one after the New Year, so here's an update on what their choices were.
The San Diego Film Critics Association, which are not necessarily one of the biggest precursors, recently announced their selections:
San Diego Film Critics Awards
- Picture: American Beauty
- Runner Up: Being John Malkovich
- Actor: Kevin Spacey - American Beauty
- Runner Up: Russell Crowe -- The Insider
- Actress: Annette Bening - American Beauty
- Runner Up: Reese Witherspoon -- Election
- Supp. Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman - Flawless
- Runner Up: Haley Joel Osment - The Sixth Sense
- Supp. Actress: Thora Birch - American Beauty
- Runner Up: Angelina Jolie -- Girl, Interrupted
- Director: David Lynch - The Straight Story
- Runner Up: Sam Mendes - American Beauty
- Original Screenplay: Being John Malkovich
- Runner Up: American Beauty
- Adapted Screenplay: Election
- Runner Up: The Cider House Rules
- Foreign Film: Tango
- Runner Up: Run Lola Run
The San Diego critics definitely liked American Beauty, awarding it three of the actor's prizes as well as Director and Picture. American Beauty has really been the only film you could partially consider a frontrunner, given that it has claimed more Best Picture choices from the various critics organizations than any other film, and especially the most recent ones,
It also claimed the Best Picture prizes from the Broadcast Film Critics and the Online Film Critics Society. It was thought that American Beauty might be too dark a film to be Oscar's favorite, but with no other clear front runner, this film may just be the one to walk away with the Oscar gold.
On to the other awards announced this week and last ...
American Beauty racked up four prizes in the third annual Online Film Critics Society Awards, including best picture, best director (Sam Mendes), best actor (Kevin Spacey) and best ensemble cast. Reese Witherspoon was named best actress for her role in Election. The supporting nods went to Haley Joel Osment for The Sixth Sense and Catherine Keener for Being John Malkovich.
