Oscar Nominees: Best Original Screenplay

My predictions: 4/5, picking “The Hateful Eight” over “Straight Outta Compton”
My ballot: Come back in February!
The nominees: Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, Inside Out, Spotlight, Straight Outta Compton

I didn’t notice the egregious snub here, which is Quentin Tarantino not being nominated for “The Hateful Eight,” a film that, whatever issues you might have with it, has an undeniably well-written screenplay. Instead, we get “Straight Outta Compton,” which fortunately didn’t crack Best Picture but gets nominated for a screenplay I didn’t find terribly compelling. It’s nice to see “Ex Machina,” which also scored in Best Visual Effects, here, as well as “Inside Out,” which only showed up in Best Animated Feature aside from here. “Bridge of Spies” I can take or leave, and hooray for “Spotlight,” which didn’t end up experiencing any backlash today, even scoring two unguaranteed acting bids (even if they’re not the right ones).

My current bet to win: I don’t see how anything aside from Spotlight wins here even though the Coen brothers wrote “Bridge of Spies.”