The 88th Academy Award nominations will be announced tomorrow morning, January 14, 2016, hot off of the weekend's 73rd Golden Globe awards. I've been following the full awards season over on my Awards Tracker page. Using that data as the tea leaves and a truckload of hunches, I'm going to attempt to closely predict the Oscar nominations for the "Big 8" categories for the third year in a row.
Read MoreThe prevailing feeling has been that the hallmark extra level of magic and poignancy that used to be Pixar's calling cards have been lost while they milked dollars from lackluster sequels and prequels like "Cars 2" and "Monsters University." We have missed the visual originality from "Monsters Inc." and "Cars." We have missed the sense of wonder from "Wall-E" and "Ratatouille." Most of all, we have sorely missed the strong familial dynamics of the "Up," the "Toy Story" series, and "Finding Nemo." "Inside Out" is exactly the redemptive return to form that Pixar desperately needed. The film rivals each of those prior greats in each of those areas. This is exactly what you loved and were missing while being something truly great that can stand on its own merits.
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