Oscar Pix And Predix: Actresses
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- With the glitzy, glamorous Academy Awards ceremony just a few days away, let's take a ladies-first look at the races for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.
In the Best Supporting Actress category, Naomie Harris in Moonlight is the new-to-the-dance nominee, while Octavia Spencer gets her second nomination for Hidden Figures and Michelle Williams her third nod for her small, crucial role in Manchester by the Sea.
All are highly unlikely victors.
As is veteran Nicole Kidman for Lion, come to think of it, despite her three nominations and one Oscar (The Hours).
But the seemingly unstoppable winner here would seem to be Viola Davis as the long-suffering wife in Fences, in what could easily be argued is a lead role and should send her home with the Oscar.
And she'd get my vote if I had one.
In the Best Actress category, French actress Isabelle Huppert for Elle and Ruth Negga for Loving are the just-happy-to-be-included newcomers, while Meryl Streep, nearly always a contender, has an outside chance with her record-setting nineteenth nomination, to say nothing of three wins (Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie's Choice, The Iron Lady), for her deluded opera singer in Florence Foster Jenkins.
The portrait of First Lady Jackie Kennedy by Oscar winner Natalie Portman (Black Swan) certainly gives her a shot for Jackie.
But the statuette is likely to go to Emma Stone, nominated once before, for her aspiring screen actress in La La Land.
And she'd get my theoretical vote as well.