Leonard Maltin on Oscar Prospects: 'They'll Spread the Love'
ET |
Nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards are in, and ET's resident film guru Leonard Maltin weighs in on the potential victors and the snubs. Who does he think will sweep the awards? Read on for the answer…
"No great shocks, no great surprises: I think Hollywood again has shown that they like movies made outside of Hollywood quite a lot," says Leonard of the new batch of nominations.
"The Academy loves 'The King's Speech' -- loves, loves, loves 'The King's Speech,'" he says of the season's front-runner. "Colin Firth is as close to a shoe-in that I can think of as Best Actor, and I think Geoffrey Rush for Best Supporting Actor. In the same vein, Helena Bonham Carter I would think would be the leading contender for Best Supporting Actress."
Leonard observes, "I think Best Actress is the race to watch this year, because there's no obvious leading contender. … Here you have a wide-open field with five terrific women all giving extremely different performances in different kinds of movies, so that's going to be the one that's going to be tough to call."
Of those not nominated this year, Leonard says, "I was hoping for some recognition for Ben Affleck's terrific film 'The Town.' Jeremy Renner got nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but otherwise a shutout. No love for Clint Eastwood and 'Hereafter' – some people thought there might be. Visual Effects is all they got. Matt Damon was a contender, but didn't make the cut, no Leonardo DiCaprio..."
As for his overall predictions for this year's telecast, Leonard says, "I think 'The King's Speech' is going to sweep as many categories as it can, but they'll spread the love a little bit for some of the other good movies that they like."
The 83rd Academy Awards will be handed out February 27 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, broadcast live on ABC.
