All This Political Stuff is Making It Hard for Me to Focus on the Oscars

But the nominations will be announced tomorrow morning, so I feel I need to try.

Here’s the race for Best Picture: La La Land. Well, and there’s Moonlight, which everyone should see — it’s a lovely film about a young boy coming of age and trying to find love under painful circumstances. Moonlight is more than a worthy choice for Best Picture, but the temper of the times might lead Academy voters to go with La La Land, since it’s lighthearted and feel-good but still has enough boldness of vision to justify all the attention.

In any case, both of these films will get nominated for Best Picture, along with Manchester by the Sea, Arrival, Hidden Figures, Fences, Lion, and — if there is fairness in the world, or anyway in Hollywood — Hell or High Water.

I’d like to see Deadpool get nominated, too, just for fun. I’m not holding my breath on that one, though; the Academy is pretty darn stuffy.

Among the actresses, there’s Emma Stone for La La Land, Any Adams for Arrival, and Natalie Portman for Jackie. Portman looked like a lock for the win in the early going, but she’s faded a little in the face of the La La Land juggernaut. She also lost the Golden Globe to Isabelle Huppert, a French actress who had a big year. Huppert will probably be on the list tomorrow, along with Meryl Streep, who got good reviews for her performance in Florence Foster Jenkins, but even better ones for her crackling political speech at the Golden Globes.

For Best Actor, we have Ryan Gosling for — yes — La La Land, Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea, Denzel Washington for Fences, Viggo Mortensen for Captain Fantastic, and Andrew Garfield for Hacksaw Ridge. Probably. This is an unusual year for Best Actor; the category is often overstuffed with possible nominees, but it’s hard to even come up with a dark horse in this race. Maybe Joel Edgerton for Loving, maybe Jake Gyllenhall for Nocturnal Animals. Maybe not.

In the Supporting Actress category, the final battle will be between Michelle Williamson for Manchester by the Sea, and Viola Davis for Fences. Davis should arguably be in the Best Actress category for her performance, but here we are. Besides these two, nominees will include Naomie Harris for Moonlight and Octavia Spencer for Hidden Figures. Nicole Kidman was supposed to be nominated for Lion, but I heard on Facebook that she had been blacklisted because she said people should support “whoever the president is.” However, just in case Facebook is wrong on this one, it‘s a safe bet that we hear her name tomorrow.

Moonlight will finally get some actor love in the Supporting category, with Mahershala Ali a lock for a nomination and a favorite to win. He got pushed out at the Golden Globes when Aaron Taylor Johnson claimed the trophy for Nocturnal Animals, but that's not likely to happen again. The Hollywood Foreign Press people are quirky, not so much the Academy. Johnson might get a nomination, though. We can also expect Dev Patel for Lion, Jeff Bridges for Hell or High Water, and Lucas Hedges for Manchester by the Sea. Possible dark horses are Kevin Costner for Hidden Figures and Hugh Grant for Florence Foster Jenkins. Don't hold your breath.

The nominations for the 2017 Oscars will be streamed online tomorrow morning, starting, for some reason, at 8:18 am Eastern. That’s 5:18 am on the West Coast, people, so if I’m going to watch them live I have to get my coffee going very early. This is discouraging. The online thing is a change from previous years — the Academy used to make a grand show of it, announcing the nominees to a live audience from the stage of an elegant auditorium; all those bleary eyed insiders would cheer and gasp agreeably as the names were read. I’m going to miss that.

But maybe tomorrow I’ll stay under the covers in frigid (45 degrees) Los Angeles, pull out my Bluetooth headset and watch the whole thing on my iPad.

I’l still need coffee, though. And I’ll still be pulling for Deadpool.