JAN 28 — The Oscar 2012 season has officially begun as the nominees were announced on Tuesday this week. While the frontrunners as announced were kind of expected — “The Artist” and “Hugo” have been scoring big at all the Guild awards and generally fared well in all the Critics’ Circle end-of-year lists — there were quite a few surprises and snubs as well in a lot of the categories.

Reaction to news must be fast, preferably lightning fast, so here is mine to the nominations in most of the major categories and early predictions based on what I’ve seen so far. But do take note that the momentum for each film can radically change from nomination time to just a few days before the awards night, and this is where seasoned hands in the Oscar campaign can make a difference.

Just take a look at last year where “The Social Network” seemed to be the clear favourite to sweep all and sundry only to see a wave of goodwill surge “The King’s Speech” ahead come Oscar night itself.

When it comes to the Oscars, you can never say never, especially when there’s Harvey Weinstein involved in campaigning for a film. Let’s go through the categories one by one, shall we?

Best Picture — As expected since the end of last year, Michael Hazanavicius’ tribute to silent films, “The Artist”, gets a nod here alongside another tribute to cinema from the silent era, particularly to French silent film pioneer Georges Melies, which is Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”.

Unfortunately I haven’t seen both of these frontrunners (I’m guessing pirated DVDs of these two will arrive any day now thanks to their nominations. Go, go, go pirates!), but I have seen the other seven nominees except for the surprise nominee “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”.

Of that six, my instinct (based on Oscar voting patterns of yesteryear) and my personal taste collide for the second year running, as “The Descendants” is for me the mainstream film to beat this year, which may change once I finally get to see “The Artist” and “Hugo”.

As monumental as “The Tree Of Life” is, it’s very unlikely that the conservative Oscar voters will go for it, “Moneyball” is too “slight” (it’s “only” a baseball picture, though the screenplay is truly something else), “War Horse” is gorgeously shot and crafted but severely lacks in the dramatic department and “The Help” is basically this year’s “The Blind Side”. An outside chance may lie with Woody Allen’s “Midnight In Paris”, the biggest hit of his long career so far, and it’s been a while since he last won anything.

Best Director — This is kind of a tricky category to predict as the Academy sometimes tends to treat this category either as a consolation prize to a film that probably should’ve won Best Picture by merit but somehow lost to a crowd pleaser, or simply to a frontrunner (like “The Pianist”) who ultimately lost to a more popular or conservative choice (which was “Chicago”).

The nominees this year will not offend anyone, as three are living legends, for “Midnight In Paris”, “Hugo” and “The Tree Of Life”, one is a newcomer with a huge crowd pleaser (“The Artist”) and the other one is a middlebrow Oscar favourite who actually does make deceptively simple but great films (“The Descendants”).

A shocking omission though is Nicolas Winding Refn, who directed the most effortlessly cool film of 2011, “Drive”, and who deservedly won Best Director at Cannes 2011 for his outstanding work here.

Best Actor — The smart money would be on George Clooney for his vulnerable and touching work in “The Descendants” (who doesn’t love him, right?) or Jean Dujardin in “The Artist” (he plays a silent film star in a silent film, and the Academy loves gimmicky roles like this). The surprise in this category is Demian Bichir, for his very solid work in the little-seen “A Better Life”, a sort of variation on “The Bicycle Thieves” but transplanted to America with Mexican immigrants. Fellow nominees are Brad Pitt for “Moneyball” and Gary Oldman for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”, who might just steal a march on his rivals because it’s simply time to award him something. People are making noise though since Michael Shannon didn’t get a nod for “Take Shelter”, and the same goes for the year’s hot new star Michael Fassbender in “Shame”.

Best Actress — I can’t say much about this category as I’ve only seen Viola Davis, who is dependably good in “The Help”, and I’ve yet to see Glenn Close playing a man in “Albert Nobbs” (like I said, the Academy loves gimmicky roles like this), perennial Oscar favourite Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”, one of the best young actresses of our generation, Michelle Williams, in “My Week With Marilyn” and Rooney Mara trying to fill the kickass boots of Noomi Rapace in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”.

Best Supporting Actor — The pattern shows that you either play a psycho or cool villain, or be a veteran character actor to win the award in this category, or at the very least a nomination. That pattern continues this year with three nominees fitting the latter category snugly, as Christopher Plummer (beautifully honest in the only so-so “Beginners”), Nick Nolte (heartbreaking in “Warrior”) and Max Von Sydow (“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”) are not exactly spring chickens. The nomination for Jonah Hill in “Moneyball” is already a win, and I haven’t seen Kenneth Branagh in “My Week With Marilyn”. At the moment, it seems like Plummer is a lock for the win, as he’s been winning plaudits and awards left, right and centre.

Best Supporting Actress — “The Help” dominates this category with two nominations for the hottest new actress of the year, Jessica Chastain (who was in so many films last year, including critics’ darlings “The Tree Of Life” and “Take Shelter”), and Octavia Spencer (doing ever so well in a role that’s quite a caricature). Melissa McCarthy gets a surprise nod for the comedy “Bridesmaids” (I honestly fail to see what the fuss is about with her performance, but maybe it’s a nomination to honour the film’s wonderful ensemble performances as a whole), while Berenice Bejo, who basically plays the lead female role, also gets a nod for “The Artist”, and Janet McTeer, who’s got Oscar experience before, gets nominated as well for “Albert Nobbs”. Who’ll win? The popular choice now might be McCarthy, or one of the two nominees for “The Help”.

What about the other big categories like screenplay, cinematography, editing and foreign films? Well, stay tuned next week!

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.