2011 Oscar nominations: the aftermath

That to follow and scrutinize the film award season is a pointless exercise has always been clear to me.  It is also an unrewarding one. The proliferation of Oscar precursors and the Academy's faint-hearted choices have rendered the Oscar prognostication game easy and predictable.

Looking at this year's Oscar nominations, which have been announced earlier today, one might argue that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary has really happened, at least in the main categories.

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2011 OSCAR PREDICTIONS (II): Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively stand out in Ben Affleck's The Town

To have a solid directing career is not what one would expect from someone who, at the age of 25, wins an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Not, at least, if the Oscar is awarded for a tear-jerking, phoney story like the one Ben Affleck and best pal Matt Damon wrote for Good Will Hunting, one of the most painfully self-complacent films Hollywood gave us in the 90s.

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