I think we could have a specific thread on it.

In recent years, the lack of diversity seems to be the trend. Once NY and LA set the tone, we saw the same set of names showing up almost everywhere, especially in the acting categories. I don't think this year will be much different. Best Director will be the most diverse and fun one to track, followed by Picture, but at least 3 out of the 4 acting ones already have a slam-dunk critic fave:

Actor - Daniel Day Lewis
Actress - Julie Christie
Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem

There could be a little bit variety in actress, certainly more than last year, but I don't expect much more. For supporting actress, I'm betting Cate Blanchett will get most of the awards for I'm Not There.

For BP, I expect There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men to split NY and LA (need to do some more research on the voting body and what they like to vote), but I'm more interested to see where Once will show up, and if Ratatouille could pop up outside sweeping the animated category.

Heh, I was about to make a similar thread, basically asking who you all people think will be THE critics favorite this year from the acting categories?

In the last years, if I had to pick one perfdormance per year, I'd go with:

2006: Helen Mirren (The Queen)
2005: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
2004: Jamie Foxx (Ray) (though Swank is right behind)
2003: Charlize Theron (Monster)
2002: ??? (not sure there was a really clear favorite)
2001: Sissy Spacek (In the Bedroom)
2000: Benicio del Toro (Traffic)
1999: Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) - who won almost everything except for New York and LA! What gives?!

How about a list of dates for the various critics awards?? When is the first one?

2002 was easily Julianne Moore (even more so than Sissy Space the year prior with wins from Washington DC, Vancouver, Toronto. Seattle, Southeastern Film Critics Association, San Diego, Online Film Critics Society, Phoenix, Los Angeles, National Board of Review, London, Kansas, Florida, Chicago, Dallas Forth-Worth, and Broadcast Film Critics Association).

The only category I'm not sure about is best actress. Yes Christie is great, but so is Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose and I also think we could see Ellen Page popping up quite a bit. Actually, I don't know if there'll be a clear consensus this year.

The date for the first three:

Dec 5 - NBR
Dec 9 - LAFCA
Dec 10 - NYFCC (AwardsDaily hasn't listed it, but last year it was Monday)

As always, it is THE weekend of my finals.

I have to write a paper worth 50% of my grade due the 10th and my last final exam (Also worth 50% of my grade) on the 11th. How swell! I know the whole time I'm going to be refreshing the webpage.

NBR almost always goes to an also-ran in the BP race (Mystic River is the closest to a genuine contender in the last 6 years), so I think NCFOM will take that, and one of the two biggies (Probably NY, where Fargo won 11 years ago). The other will probably go to either There Will Be Blood or some non-contender.

NBR will go to No Country for Old Men, I agree.

However, I think Ridley Scott will take director there. I remember they honored Zwick for The Last Samurai and Scorsese won there too when he was still overdue...so Scott is a good bet there.

I still think the "Ridley Scott is overdue"-angle is blown way out of proportion

Surprised as you're a Blade Runner fan supreme. Then we've got Gladiator (which did win Best Picture, no matter what some people here think of the movie), Alien, Thelma and Louise, Black Hawnk Down, now American Gangster...that's an impressive resumé I'd say.

Still, I think the feeling he is overdue is bigger in these forums than in reality. IAs you said I love Blade Runner like no other movie and I dug all of these above. But when I think of overdue directors he is probably not top 5.

Who is then, maybe except for Weir and Lumet?

Lumet's the most. Then Scott second if it was up to me.

Okay, I think you confuse two things.

Being overdue in terms of "been nominated many times and never won" and a´subjective "oh they're reeeaaallly good!"-overdue. Most folks here are talking the former.

Lynch is overdue too, though, I agree. Maybe the same level as Scott, but his work is simply not mainstream enough to ever win.

If you're talking "better"... sure. But overdue-wise, the Coens have 1 director and best picture nomination, Lynch 3 director no best picture, Malick 1 director, Croenenberg has never been nominated, Almodovar 1 director. It's also a foregone conclusion that with the exception of Fargo, none of those films had much chance at winning the award and none were Oscar-friendly. The academy doesn't have pressure on them to award those guys, if any, just yet.

Edit - Lecter beat me to it.

Lynch had a movie with a BP nom, Shack.

No. Overdue is not determined by the number of previous nominations. If someone snuck in in weak years, that doesn't make him overdue. The Coens have in a short span of time created masterpieces like Fargo and Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing which even the academy agrees on. They are hindered by the fact that they're credited as Brothers, but those guys are overdue from an Academy standpoint. And Almodovar has gotten not so many director nominations because his movies were nominated for best foreign language films, so he too is overdue.

And you know that because you know what the Academy thinks exactly, right?

Not worse than you at least...

Yes, and I am going by facts and numbers.

I guess then John Madden is more overdue than David Cronenberg or Baz Luhrmann or Spike Lee

I'd say Weir, Scott and Lynch are all fairly level in terms of dueness. Weir has had the most success with the Academy which makes his lack of an Oscar odd. Scott has the most classics/recognized films to his name (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator), but their genre nature makes them harder to be taken seriously. Lynch meanwhile is far more auteuristic (To coin a term), but his recent work is so far out of the mainstream that he'll probably have to settle for an honorary Oscar in a decade or so.

Overall though there's no real successor to Scorsese's Throne of the Snub, IMO. No one has really been genuinely outright snubbed as badly as he was.

Jon's post sums it up pretty well.

Though Lumet's at Scorsese level. He might not have as many snubs in volume, but 50 years in the business and movies like 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and no award, he's by far leading the pack.

1 Nom might be luck. Two noms, a coincidence. But three noms aren't to be ignored. There are very few directors out there with 3 or more noms and no wins.