Hollywood set for Oscars picks with no big surprises

All eyes will be on Hollywood on Tuesday as the list of nominees for this year’s Oscars is unveiled with critical darlings La La Land, Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea set to fare well.

But beyond the suspense surrounding the batch of nominees, the announcement is also expected to address the long-running #OscarsSoWhite controversy that cast a shadow over last year’s awards ceremony because of its lack of diversity.

The nominated films, actors and filmmakers will be unveiled at a pre-dawn announcement which for the first time will be streamed online.

Industry watchers are predicting that Damien Chazelle’s whimsical, romantic musical La La Land — buoyed by a record seven Golden Globe awards earlier this month — will also triumph at the Feb 26 Oscars bash with possible golden statuettes for best movie, best actor and for several other categories.

But the movie starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is facing stiff competition from Moonlight — the coming-of-age tale of a black man in Miami — and Manchester by the Sea, about a depressive loner played by Casey Affleck.

Leading contenders

In the lead actor category, Affleck, Gosling and Denzel Washington, who plays an African-American father trying to raise his family in the screen adaptation of the Broadway hit Fences, are leading the pack.

Other contenders are Andrew Garfield, who plays an army medic in the Mel Gibson-directed Hacksaw Ridge and Viggo Mortensen, who plays a father trying to raise his six kids in Captain Fantastic.

The field is also crowded in the best actress race, where Stone is expected to vie for an Oscar opposite Natalie Portman, who plays a grieving JFK widow in Jackie; Isabelle Huppert, for her performance in the raperevenge thriller Elle; Amy Adams, who plays a linguist able to communicate with aliens in Arrival; and Meryl Streep, who stars in the comedy biopic Florence Foster Jenkins.

As for diversity, the word on everyone’s mind ahead of this year’s Oscars, Chris Beachum, managing director of awards prediction website Gold Derby, said he expects the upcoming nominations to reflect efforts by the 6,000 plus members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be more inclusive.

Diversity issue

Last year the Academy came under scathing criticism for its overwhelming bias toward white nominees — and vowed afterward to double by the year 2020 the number of women and people from minority backgrounds among its voting members.

“With films like Fences, Hidden Figures, Lion, Moonlight all set for major nominations, it seems like diversity will thankfully win the day for this year’s Oscar nominations,” said Beachum.