The State of Oscar. 123119. Last Minute Please.

Voting for nominations is now two days away.

Voters may watch another movie or two before they enter the six-day window of voting, but with such a short window, my guess is that even more voters than usual will get their votes in early in the process. It's hard to imagine that even 20% of the vote will be outstanding by the end of next weekend.

The question is, will there be any real surprises in the top categories. And in this case, I would push down past The Top 8 (Picture/Director/Actors/Writers) and into Cinematography, Costume, Production Design, and Editing. This isn't to diminish the other 12 categories, but the nominating process is narrower in those areas and unexpected nominees aren't rare at all.

It's an odd year. Looking at the leading candidates for Best Picture, there are only three with actual Lead Actresses (Marriage Story, Little Women, and Bombshell). In Supporting Actress, there are really only two likely Best Picture that seem sure to get nominations in this category (