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More likely, then, is a two-way split. There is strong precedent for a split where Gravity takes a large number of technical Oscars and either Hustle or 12 Years take the top prizes. Last year, Life of Pi took home four Oscars, more than the Best Picture winner Argo, including for achievement in directing. The year before that, Hugo also took home several technical awards, but the Artist reigned supreme. Under this scenario, Gravity would be the victim of its own success - giving several technical Oscars to Gravity may make a voter more willing to award Best Picture to another movie. This would also make sense if one believes, as I do, that Gravity doesn’t feel “important” enough to win Best Picture. All the gravitas, so to speak, belongs to 12 Years. Of course, in recent history they have not gone for the “important” movie, choosing fluffier, feel-good movies instead. Under that theory, however, the win belongs to the facile American Hustle. Once more, Gravity is left looking in. It is a widely respected movie, but I do not know that it is “loved.” So, as things currently stand, I still am skeptical that Gravity can pull it off. My money is still on 12 Years a Slave.

The Directors Guild will soon announce their winner (and if Cuaron wins for Gravity as he’s expected to, watch out), but I expect the race to remain competitive and exciting throughout the year. The PGA tie guarantees that. At least it makes for compelling Oscar reporting.

A word on the state of the acting races.

Unlike the much more exciting Best Picture race, the acting races seem more settled. Cate Blanchett, Matthew McConaughey, Lupita Nyong’o and Jared Leto collected awards from SAG this weekend, to add to their impressive precursor awards, including Golden Globes for all save Nyong’o. I agree that Blanchett and Leto can start preparing their Oscar speeches - they both lack a serious contender and their performances are unarguably the best in their categories.

But I still sense room for shifts in Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress. McConaughey, for example, has not gone head-to-head with Leonardo DiCaprio in any significant precursor, and it is hard to say which performance is best. I can even see Chiwetel Ejifor (who in my opinion gives a much more two-dimensional performance than the other two) winning, if the “spread the wealth” mentality takes hold. And Nyong’o has to deal with the undeniable force of Jennifer Lawrence’s popularity. Lawrence has all the goodwill and admiration, not to mention the box office power of the Hunger Games series. Again, it’s hard to decide which of the two gave the objectively better performance, but with several weeks between now and when voting begins, even Nyong’o’s gracious acceptance speeches may have faded from memory enough to let someone else sneak through. Stay tuned for more on these two races.

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