The 83rd Annual Academy Awards 2011

[stereoman]

Whoops. The missing word was 'hosting'.

Originally Posted by stereoman

The Oscars will have Anne Hathaway & James Franco hosting as they're looking for a 'younger' audience. Oh dear. Seems a win for the Facebook film at the Oscars is inevitable.

Screen Actor Guild Awards nominations have just been announced:

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Robert Duvall (Get Low)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)

Best Actress
Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Hilary Swank (Conviction)

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Mila Kunis (Black Swan)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)

Best Ensemble
Black Swan
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network

First guesses as to who wins these SAG awards: Firth, Portman, Bale, Leo (could easily be any one of them though) and The Social Network.

[stereoman]

Golden Globes were last week. No change in that The Social Network is the one to beat at the Oscars winning virtually every Best Film/Picture prize out there.

BAFTA nominations announced midweek but The King's Speech should win at home.

The PGA (Producers Guild of America) awards have been announced and they've gone for...The King's Speech.

OOOH!! GAME ON!! It's not a cakewalk for the Facebook film!

[stereoman]

Today's Bettingzone Market News:

1240: Coral have slashed the price of The King's Speech winning best picture honours at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars following the surprising success for the firm at the Producers Guild Awards in Hollywood on Saturday.

The British movie beat off the strong favourite, The Social Network, to win the award, but it's the recent Golden Globe winner that remains the odds-on favourite to win the Oscar at 1/3.

The King's Speech is now 2/1 (from 3/1) with Coral to win Best Picture at the Oscars, and the red hot 1/3 favourite (from 4/6) with to pick up Best Film at the BAFTAs.

"The Producers Award is usually a strong pointer towards the Oscars, and after beating The Social Network, the momentum is now definitely with The King's Speech, it's now a straight fight out between the two," said Coral spokesman Gary Burton.

Coral also cut The King's Speech to win Outstanding British Film at the BAFTA's to 4/7 (from 4/5), Best Director, Tom Hooper to 9/2 (from 11/2) and Colin Firth for Best Actor to 1/33 (from 1/20).

=============

'The King's Speech' will almost certainly win 'Best Film' at BAFTA. If it wins 'Best Ensemble' at the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) awards then it'll be in a surprisingly strong position but I strongly suspect that both the DGA (Directors Guild of America) and the WGA (Writers Guild of America) will go for The Social Network.

Nominations are announced on Tuesday afternoon GMT. Some interesting markets floating about particularly from Victor Chandler such as who will be nominated for 'Best Picture' and 'Best Actress' and what will win 'Best Foreign Language Film'.

Best Foreign Language Film:

Biutiful (Mexico) 15/8
Life, Above All (South Africa) 9/4
In A Better World (Denmark) 5/2
Incendies (Canada) 5/1
Even the Rain (Spain) 7/1
Dogtooth (Greece) 8/1
Confessions (Japan) 14/1
Outside the Law (Algeria) 25/1
Simple Simon (Sweden) 25/1

Will try to form an opinion in the next 24 hours.

[stereoman]

Odds from Victor Chandler:

Best Picture - 'To Make the Final Ten' (in bold type) and 'To Not Make the Final Ten'

The Social Network 1/500 33/1
The King's Speech 1/500 33/1
The Fighter 1/100 16/1
Black Swan 1/100 16/1
True Grit 1/25 9/1
Toy Story 3 1/16 6/1
Inception 1/14 13/2
The Kids Are All Right 1/12 6/1
127 Hours 1/4 11/4
The Town 5/4 4/7
Winter's Bone 6/4 1/2

These are the eleven most likely but surprises do happen and there's a few I haven't bothered putting the odds up for.

Top eight in the market mostly safe with '127 Hours', 'The Town' and 'Winter's Bone' most likely duking it out for two spots.

Best Actress - 'To Make the Final Five' (in bold type) and 'To Not Make the Final Five'

Natalie Portman (Black Swan) 1/500 25/1
Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right) 1/500 25/1
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone) 1/12 6/1
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole) 1/3 9/4
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) 5/4 4/7
Lesley Manville (Another Year) 5/2 2/7
Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right) 5/2 2/7
Hilary Swank (Conviction) 7/2 1/6
Tilda Swinton (I Am Love) 4/1 1/7
Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) 8/1 1/20
Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go) 8/1 1/20
Naomi Watts (Fair Game) 9/1 1/25
Sally Hawkins (Made in Dagenham) 10/1 1/33
Anne Hathaway (Love and Other Drugs) 10/1 1/33

The one name not mentioned that may surprise is Hailee Stanfeld for 'True Grit' and she is nominated for 'Best Actress' at the BAFTAs. She is supposedly being campaigned for 'Best Supporting Actress' at the Oscars though.

Portman, Bening are 'locks' to make it. Lawrence and Kidman very VERY likely. Take your pick who takes the last spot.

Best Foreign Language Film - 'To Make the Final Five' (in bold type) and 'To Not Make the Final Five'

Biutiful (Mexico) 1/33 10/1
In A Better World (Denmark) 1/20 8/1
Incendies (Canada) 1/16 7/1
Life, Above All (South Africa) 1/8 9/2
Even the Rain (Spain) 8/11 'evens'
Dogtooth (Greece) 'evens' 8/11
Confessions (Japan) 7/4 2/5
Simple Simon (Sweden) 4/1 1/7
Outside the Law (Algeria) 6/1 1/12

Yeah, top four should be nominated. Spain could get the fifth spot. Sweden is being ridiculed as though they haven't pre-empted 'Tropic Thunder' with it's piss-take 'Simple Jack'.

Final thoughts later on, might focus on winners of other categories as well and hopefully before midnight.

[stereoman]

Some moves about with 'The Town' and Lesley Manville being supported to be nominated.

I will try and chance my arm on a couple of outsiders and a 50/50 shot.

~ Julianne Moore for 'The Kids Are All Right' has drifted out to 7/2 to be nominated for 'Best Actress' and I will put some money on that.

It'll be Bening, Kidman, Lawrence and Portman taking four of those slots.

Michelle Williams hasn't done well and I'll be surprised if she makes it here but surprises do happen occasionally. If BAFTA think Lesley Manville is a supporting actress I can't imagine she'll do well when campaigned for 'lead' at the Oscars but she's being backed into 7/4 to do so and prove me wrong. Hilary Swank is always there or thereabouts but I doubt she'll make it here.

Will take a chance that voters have put Julianne Moore's name down at the same time they thought of Annette Bening.

~ Outside the Law (Algeria) at 6/1 to be nominated for 'Best Foreign Language Film'.

Canada, Denmark, Mexico and South Africa are good to go to be nominated and the problem here is South Africa may have already taken the African vote away from Algeria. Japan being nominated would make it handy that five continents are being honoured. The films from Greece, Japan and Spain though are the three rumoured countries that had to be added on to the final shortlist of nine.

Willing to take a chance on the complete outsider of this nine runner field though.

~ The Town to be nominated for 'Best Picture' at 'evens'.

Think 'Winter's Bone' will miss out and '127 Hours' will make it in. Simple as that. Will be surprised if the final ten isn't from the eleven I bothered to quote odds for.

Elsewhere...not too confident about The Social Network winning 'Best Picture' ahead of The King's Speech but it should win. David Fincher looks likely to get Best Director. Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo look like the winners in the acting categories.

[stereoman]

One out of three.

Algeria get South Africa's vote and Greece unexpectedly get in. History suggested that one of the three 'wildcards' had to be in the final five. The other three are Canada, Denmark and Mexico.

Julianne Moore didn't make it but Michelle Williams did (the other four were Bening, Kidman, Lawrence and Portman) and I got 'The Town' hopelessly wrong when I should have gone for 'Winter's Bone'.

[facejacked]

I'm a bit surprised that Toy Story 3 was nominated for best picture..

I would've thought Inception might be worth a bet, but the Academy Awards seem to ignore the blockbusters that make a lot of at the box office for the best picture award (eg. The Hurt Locker winning over Avatar).

[stereoman]

'Inception' has bombed at various pre-cursor awards with TSN and TKS taking most of them, and Christopher Nolan didn't get a Best Director nomination at the Oscars. It won't pull a 'Driving Miss Daisy' as the film that can win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination.

TS3 being nominated is not a surprise. It's well loved, made a boatload of money and has very few detractors.

The Directors Guild of America award has just been given to...Tom Hooper for 'The King's Speech'.

The Screen Actors Guild awards are tonight. The odds for The King's Speech to win Best Picture has collapsed since the Oscar nominations which is a little bit surprising but there's the feeling is that it is AMPAS' type of film more so than 'The Social Network'.

The odds for TKS will collapse even more now!

Elsewhere, the Razzies are very competitive and I'm not sure which way they want to go. Could be Twilight. Could be Sex & The City 2. Could be M. Night Shyamalan. Could be a mixture.

[stereoman]

It's almost safe to say that the front-end of this year's Oscars is done and dusted as the Screen Actors Guild have gone for Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and The King's Speech.

Annoyed I didn't stick to my guns and got swayed by the critics groups that it was going to go to The Social Network.

[facejacked]

I think there have been a lot of better animated films than Toy Story 3 that didn't end up getting nominated for best picture. Finding Nemo is one - it got nominated for (and won) best animated feature but didn't get nominated for best picture. I just thought Toy Story 3 would fall under the same category..

[stereoman]

I have to say that I didn't put any of my Oscar picks up this time around because frankly I've stepping on rakes as though I was Sideshow Bob.

I've had a horrible night but aftereventing about bets I didn't place is very bad taste.

OT: I am generally killing it over on OLBG's February 'Specials' contest (thanks to Lady Antebellum, Jessica Alba and Vanilla Ice though) and should win it barring some dodgy accounting.

Specials Tipsters | Free Tips from Specials Tipsters