Oscar Nominees: Best Actor in a Leading Role

My predictions: 4/5, picking Oyelowo over Keaton
My ballot: Come back in February!
The nominees: Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), Bradley Cooper (American Sniper), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Michael Keaton (Birdman), and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)

Even though the Michael Keaton snub didn’t happen, I’m happy that I was able to predict that both Steve Carell and Bradley Cooper would make it in over the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ralph Fiennes, and Timothy Spall. This lineup comes at the expense of David Oyelowo, one of the stronger actors of this bunch whose performance was good, but his film ended up with a paltry two nominations, one for Best Song and one for Best Picture. An interesting fact about this category is that there’s only one returning nominee, and it’s third consecutive nomination. Puzzlingly, that’s Bradley Cooper. Who would have expected Anyway, this is a pretty good list even if it doesn’t match up entirely with what I’ll pick next month. Even “Foxcatcher” performed well in a sense today (more on that later), so these films are all in decent shape.

My current bet to win: I think Redmayne is still out front ahead of Keaton.