Final Oscar Nom Predictions: Don't Be Surprised If 'F1' and 'The Secret Agent' Crash the Best Picture Party

‘Twas the night before Oscar noms
When all through the house
Film Twitter was preparing to bitch, moan, and grouse

About Sinners and Hamnet and Marty Supreme
Plus, Frankenstein, Bugonia, and probably Train Dreams
Leo vs. Timmy, Jessie vs. Rose
And the Oscar goes to… no one yet knows!

Could the Smokestack twins sink their teeth into the gold?
An MBJ victory sure would be bold!
Perhaps Hamnet will pull off the first upset in years
Having plucked your heartstrings and elicited tears

One category after another
It’s a Battle for all
And once all the dust settles
The winners will stand tall

So good luck to the contenders
The big and the small
I can’t wait to see
Who’s nominated alongside Ryan and Paul…

It’s Wednesday night, and Oscar nominations arrive in the morning. The show barely has a pulse these days, but nonetheless, a lot of work went into shaping the playing field this season, and tensions are high around town as that field is narrowed down.

On the opposite end of the quality spectrum, the Razzie nominations are out, and clearly, this is an awards show that has lost its way, with multiple nods for VOD movies like Alarum (starring Oscar nominee Sylvester Stallone) and Gunslingers (featuring Oscar winner Nicolas Cage), which shouldn’t even be on voters’ radars. The Razzies should be about beating up on terrible blockbusters like Snow White and The Electric State, and even worse vanity projects like Hurry Up Tomorrow — not low-budget indies. Shame on their choices this year!

Having said that, I’m glad that the Razzies still exist, as Hollywood needs to be taken down a peg around this time of year, and I disagree with filmmakers like Scott Derrickson (whom I personally like) who think there should be no place for Worst of the Year lists. Praise means nothing without criticism, and the Oscars are properly balanced by the Razzies. Deal with it…

Meanwhile, next year’s Oscar season kicks off tomorrow night with the start of the Sundance Film Festival, which I simply don’t have the bandwidth (or funds) to cover this year — not that the lineup looks all that great. Once again, SXSW seems to have staked out the good stuff first, leaving Sundance with titles like Josephine (featuring Channing Tatum) and Union County (starring Will Poulter), both of which I’m looking forward to, but unwilling to spend $35 to watch online.

As Sundance embarks on its final festival in Utah, I’m going to miss everyone — and the movies, of course — but I’ll be there in spirit. Literally, apparently, as my tweets still haunt past Sundance filmmakers, according to THR’s excellent oral history of the fest.

Finally, in case you spent the day living under a rock, you likely saw that last night’s scoop about Christina Hodson writing DC’s Brave and the Bold movie was confirmed by the trades, much to the DCU subreddit’s chagrin.

In its write-up of the news, THR noted that in addition to writing The Flash and Birds of Prey, Hodson also penned an unmade Batman Beyond script that earned her fans inside the studio.

Reaction was largely mixed online, but if you think I’m putting any stock in what Twitter thinks, think again. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some great folks on Twitter, but it’s also full of the dumbest people on the planet. If only my former bosses over the years felt similarly…

Tonight’s newsletter features my final, last-minute Oscar predictions. Don’t blame me if you make a bad bet on Kalshi or Polymarket! But feel free to yell at me at 11 a.m. PST tomorrow morning, which brings a brand new episode of For Your Consideration, where I’ll examine all of the snubs, surprises, and pronunciation snafus with my Sundance-bound co-hosts Perri Nemiroff and Scott Mantz.

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