(12-26-2012 05:18 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  According to all reports, Murray has been nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor...

He's been nominated for best actor in a comedy or musical at the Golden Globes.

It annoys me how liberal the Golden Globes are with that category. Pretty much every movie that isn't a 100% drama goes in that category. That's the category The Artist won last year(The Descendants won best drama), and it won best picture at the Oscars, that's the category Shakespeare in Love won in 1999 and it won best picture at the Oscars. I wouldn't categorize either of those movies as comedies, but the Golden Globes do.

I haven't seen Hyde Park on Hudson yet, but I imagine it will be along the same lines as The Artist and Shakespeare in Love. Only considered a comedy because it's not explicitly a drama.

Bill Murray is the kind of guy that I think the academy would like to reward at some point. They recognize that he was a truly brilliant comic actor who made a graceful transition into more dramatic roles, while still hanging onto that comic genius. I think he'll win one eventually and this is the kind of role they'd definitely embrace him in, so I think he's likely to get a nomination, he just also has the misfortune of being up for it in a year that Daniel Day Lewis played Abraham Lincoln and Hugh Jackman, a man I suspect the academy also really loves(see his great performance as host a few years back and his strong Broadway resume) playing an iconic Broadway role in Valjean, in a movie directed by Tom Hooper who won best picture just two years ago for King's Speech.

Best actor in a leading role will be interesting this year, in my opinion(admittedly having not seen Les Mis or Hyde Park on Hudson) appears to be DDL's to lose. But as I may have pointed out in a previous thread, there are those who suggest the academy would be reluctant to give a third best actor in a leading role to a Brit, when no American has previously done so. So perhaps they give it Bill Murray or Hugh Jackman both of whom the academy admire, playing roles that could be career defining roles.

I guess it all depends on how much you subscribe to the "politics of the Oscars", I think there's something to it, but I'll personally be surprised if best actor in a leading role goes to someone other than DDL, because I believe politics aside, when a truly remarkable actor, gives a truly remarkable performance, I don't see the academy denying that actor his/her statue, because of where they're from or what they may have done early in their career(see: Jim Carrey 6 Golden Globe nominations with two wins and zero Oscar nomination, admittedly several of those GG nominations weren't Oscar worthy, but to think that he didn't get an Oscar nom for any of The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is just crazy) so I believe DDL will win, but I fully expect Bill Murray to garner a nomination.

Also based on the last few years of nine or ten movies being nominated for best picture, it could definitely sneak into a best picture nom, but it has no chance of winning. I'll be shocked if it's anything other than Argo, Lincoln or Zero Dark Thirty.