Oscar nominations: Actor-driven movies stand out

Everyone's buzzing over the Oscar accolades for "The King's Speech" (12 nominations) and "The Social Network" (8 nominations) – unless they're discussing who got snubbed: no Best Director nod for “Inception’s” Christopher Nolan (major snub), no Best Actress nod for “The Kids Are All Right’s” Julianne Moore (minor snub).

But beyond the initial reactions, the big question on everyone's mind: Who's going to win?

So here are the Academy Awards trends that top American film critics and industry watchers see in the tea leaves:

• Stories about human struggle, the overcoming of adversity (”The Fighter,” ”The King’s Speech,” ”The Kids Are All Right,” “127 Hours”) are resonating with audiences, critics and academy members. "How the human spirit perseveres and deals with hurdles and getting knocked down – rather than cliché stories about fame and fortune – is the trend this year,” says Hezekiah Lewis, assistant professor of film studies at Villanova University.

• More true-life stories (“The King’s Speech,” ”127 Hours,” ”The Social Network,” ”The Fighter”) seem to both sell and meet critical acclaim.
  "I’m not sure what it’s indicative of, but audiences, critics and academy members alike can’t seem to get enough of the true and true-ish, and so these films are getting the lion’s share of the accolades,” says Robert Elder, film columnist and author of “The Film That Changed My Life.”

• More actor-driven pictures are nominated (“The King’s Speech,” “127 Hours,” “Black Swan,” ”True Grit,” ”The Social Network”, and fewer director-driven, "Avatar"-sized, grand-scale entertainments (“Inception”), says Harry Medved, spokesman for the movie ticketing site, Fandango.

  “The trend is toward comfortable, audience pleasing films,” adds Wheeler Winston Dixon, editor of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. " 'The King’s Speech' is a small-budget, surprise, out-of-nowhere contender, especially given the film’s R rating. I think audiences and the Academy want safety, solidity, and the reassurance of the past and that’s what the nominees offer – except for 'The Social Network,' which depicts the future as a bleak, forbidding place indeed.”

  “Even though audiences seem to be very willing to pay more for 3-D entertainment, the box office at this time of year – as many of the Oscar caliber films are being more distributed – shows us that audiences are also excited about well-crafted, well-acted original stories that don’t necessarily have to feature hyper-active action,” adds Sean Phillips, Yahoo! Movies executive producer.

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