Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in The Tourist

The pre-Academy Awards landscape snapped into sharper focus over the last few days. Critics’ groups formed a bulletproof consensus around The Social Network, the Golden Globe nominations were even weirder than usual, and the Academy narrowed it down to 15 VFX films that will vie for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. Read on for the details.

This morning, the Golden Globes came out of the gate with a couple of their perennial noggin-scratchin’ picks. The Best Motion Picture (Drama) line-up is pretty much as you’d expect, barring the perhaps-surprising inclusion of Inception alongside more conventional awards contenders like Black Swan, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, and The Social Network. This year, the real WTF selections are in the Best Motion Picture (Comedy/Musical) category, which features Alice in Wonderland, Burlesque, The Kids Are All Right, Red, and The Tourist. Would you like to be the publicist at Sony who has to figure out what to do with a nod for action-thriller The Tourist as one of the best comedies of the year?

The Social Network

Golden Globes aside, is David Fincher’s Facebook movie really the film of the year? The Toronto Film Critics Association is only the most recent group to select The Social Network as the cream of the crop, following on the heels of both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association — probably the two most influential of the pure critics’ groups. While the film’s bi-coastal triumph definitely bolsters its profile, it’s arguable whether critics awards have much influence within the Academy. My favorite comment on the homogenous critics’ picks came from film writer James Rocchi, who noted this on his Twitter feed: “Everyone bellyaching about how staid, predictable crix org’s nominations/awards are has clearly never ordered pizza for more than 2 people.” In other words, critics awards can end up as a barometer of widespread appreciation, rather than individual passion, as a group of curmudgeonly cinephiles rallies around a film that almost everyone saw and almost nobody hated. Now that you mention it, maybe that’s how the Oscars work, too …

And, finally, we have the list of semifinalists competing for the Academy Award for Achievement in Visual Effects. This will be narrowed down to seven in January, and the annual visual-effects “bake-off” is slated to take place January 20, which will winnow the field to just five nominations. Anything could happen here, based on how persuasive a case the films’ different VFX teams make for the groundbreaking qualities of their work, but Tron: Legacy seems like an early favorite.

  • Alice in Wonderland
  • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  • Clash of the Titans
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
  • Hereafter
  • Inception
  • Iron Man 2
  • The Last Airbender
  • Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
  • Scott Pilgrim vs the World
  • Shutter Island
  • The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
  • Tron: Legacy
  • Unstoppable