OSCAR NOMINATIONS REACTIONS - A GOOD DAY FOR 'MAX', 'REVENANT' & 'MARTIAN&#3

OSCAR NOMINATIONS REACTIONS

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'THE REVENANT' LEADS WITH 12, 'MAD MAX' HOT ON IT'S

DIRT TRAIL WITH 10 IN A 'WIDE OPEN' YEAR

NEWS | Kyle Pedley

Another year, another set of snubs and surprises straight from the heart of Hollywood this afternoon as the Oscars revealed their 2015 'Best in Show'. Kyle gives his reactions to this years nominations and his thoughts on which films, actors and talent are looking good for gold next month...

For a year which Oscar plaudits, bloggers and predictors have repeatedly labelled as 'unpredictable' and 'wide open', today's Oscar nominations announcement was actually a relatively par-for-the-course affair. The heavyweight contenders, such as reigning champion Alejandro G. Inarritu's The Revenant and George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road lead the pack with 12 and 10 nominations respectively, even with some predicting the latter would miss out on crucial Best Director and Picture noms (clue: it didn't). And whilst it was a somewhat better result for The Martian than was perhaps anticipated, with lead Matt Damon managing to squeeze into the Best Actor race, it seems director Ridley Scott, who is still yet to win one of Hollywood's biggest and best gold stamps, can do no right by to the Academy, who duly left him out in the cold when it came to the Best Director race.

In his place was one of the few genuine surprises of the lineup, as Room director Lenny Abrahamson grabbed himself a Director nom for his harrowing yet heartfelt fable of maternal love. In fact, the love for Room spread elsewhere, not only with a predicted Best Actress nod for Brie Larson, but also a coveted Best Picture nomination, no mean feat considering critical darling Carol somewhat surprisingly missed out there. It's just a shame young Jacob Tremblay missed out on a Supporting Actor nod for his excellent, authentic turn.

Outside of these relative shocks, it was mostly business as usual, or at least as expected, with the likes of The Martian, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mad Max and The Revenant scooping up the lion's share of technical award noms. And whilst I'm a huge supporter of The Revenant getting every gong going, it was a shame to see it knock the likes of Mr Holmes out of Best Hair and Make-Up.

Elsewhere, there was the expected Hollywood self-satisfying as Sylvester Stallone snuck into the Best Supporting Actor race for Creed and default nominee Jennifer Lawrence joined the Best Actress field for the generally panned Joy (which, thankfully, picked up no other nominations). At least the latter was joined by Charlotte Rampling for her sublime work in 45 Years, grabbing a much-deserved nomination despite being left out of SAG and the Golden Globes.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which is rapidly closing in on Avatar as the most successful film of all time, generally only troubled the technical categories, but it was particularly good to see it secure Best Editing and Best Original Score for maestro John Williams. It isn't Williams best work by any means, but there are some lovely cues and themes in his Force score (Rey's Theme being a personal highlight), besides which he will likely lose out here to legendary composer Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight - so long as Tarantino's embarassing globes speech doesn't dent his chances.

G O I N G F O R G O L D

Looking ahead to next month's Oscar ceremony, and who's looking likely to be stepping up to the podium, things become a little less cut and dry. Previous years have shown that garnering the most nominations doesn't necessarily equal Oscar glory. This year, it's difficult to shake the feeling that A.M.P.A.S have got a particular taste for Spotlight and The Big Short, with both hoovering up Screenplay, Director, Picture noms and a smattering of acting nods. And whilst The Revenant is sitting pretty on its impressive 12 nods, it's important not to disregard the fact that no director has ever managed to pull off back-to-back Best Picture wins, and Inarritu is coming fresh off the back of winning both Director and Picture for Birdman last year - this won't be lost on some Academy members when they come to ticking those boxes.

Of course, all eyes are on Leonardo DiCaprio and whether he will finally be granted what many consider his long overdue win. He certainly looks in the strongest position of his 5 acting nominations so far, but the Academy famously don't like being told who to vote for, so it might be worth considering industry-favourite Bryan Cranston (for Trumbo) or even last year's winner Eddie Redmayne (for The Danish Girl) coming in as surprise victors on the night - though it's difficult to shake the feeling that the Academy might not want to weather the backlash that would come from snubbing Leo yet again.

Utimately, a fairly predictable and unsurprising set of nominations has actually swung the guessing game into now being a less sure thing. There are clear frontrunners, though it seems with the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road in particular that the nominations are going to be its reward in the bigger categories whilst it likely dominates the technical awards early in the evening a la Scorsese's Hugo in 2012. Don't underestime the strong showing for Room - pushing Carol out of the lineup for both Director and Picture could demonstrate an underestimated level of support for the film.

At present, Oscar glory seems The Revenant's to lose, but it has statistical history working against it, with Spotlight and The Big Short looking equally likely and Room nipping at their heels. There's not quite the double duke-out we've had in previous years - last year Birdman vs Boyhood and Gravity taking on 12 Years a Slave in 2014 - but it's also important to remember that films have taken the top honour on just a handful of nominations (see, for instance The Departed, which took Best Picture in 2008 with just 5 nominations).

I'll be doing a full predictions breakdown closer to the ceremony on February 28th, but until then, it's going to be an interesting month as this anticipated set of nominations paves the way for a much less certain road to the Oscars.

The full list of this year's nominations can be found over on Oscars.org or by clicking HERE.

The 88th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday 28th February 2016, hosted by Chris Rock.

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