Looking back on three Skyfall Oscar forecasts

“Well, you can’t win them all.”

This week’s announcement of Oscar nominations got us to looking back at some predictions, at least as they related to Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond film. Here are three that caught our eye:

KEVIN FALLON, ATLANTIC.COM, NOV. 13: “I’d argue, then, that Skyfall should be an obvious Best Picture contender at this year’s Academy Awards. But with the Academy, nothing is ever obvious, or simple.”

First half of passage: The academy evidently didn’t think it was that obvious. Second half: yes.

In fairness, the same article also had this passage:

Skyfall could change Bond’s Oscar luck in other categories, too. A snub for Roger Deakin’s gorgeous cinematography would be sinful, and Thomas Newman’s soaring score should earn the composer his 11th career bid. The Academy’s Best Original Song category over the past few years has been a befuddling disaster (last year, only two entries made the cut), but it’s still worth hoping the organization gets its act together to nominate Adele’s sexy “Skyfall” theme, which couldn’t complement the film more perfectly.

Deakins, Newman and Adele and song writer collaborator Paul Epworth (the Best Song Oscar is given to the songwriters, not the performer) all got nominations. Skyfall captured five nominations in total, the most for any 007 film.

GREGG KILDAY, THE HOLLWYOOD REPORTER, NOV. 20: The author, while liking Skyfall a lot, indicated the voting system of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences wouldn’t help the Bond film’s chances of a Best Picture nomination.

But standing in Skyfall’s way is the Academy’s complicated preferential voting system. While Academy members are asked to list five choices for best picture, their first choice carries the most weight. As the balloting plays out, second and third choices also can influence the outcome. Realistically, though, Skyfall isn’t likely to get a lot of first-place votes — studio movies ranging from Lincoln and Les Miserables to indies such as The Master and Beasts of the Southern Wild will vie for those top slots. But what if everyone in the Academy lists Skyfall as their fifth-favorite movie? Even so, those fifth-place choices might not come into play.

Sasha Stone, editor in chief of Awards Daily, quoted in a JAN. 3 MTV.COM STORY about why Skyfall had a decent chance to get a Best Picture nomination:

Stone thinks it’s because both 007 and the Academy have shifted toward each other, Bond becoming more serious and the Academy becoming less so.

“First and foremost, [‘Skyfall’] isn’t really a Bond movie. It’s a fairly traditional superhero movie, as we like to see them now: brooding hero, somewhat depressing plot. Mostly, Bond has been stripped of his kitsch,” Stone said.

“The money is kind of off the charts, which makes it seem like a winner. Finally, our standards have been systematically lowered over the past few decades. You can’t stop what’s coming, and what’s coming in movie business is one successfully branded franchise after another. How long can Oscar stem the tide? At least in this one, no one is wearing a Batsuit, and there isn’t any performance capture.”