Can Gravity Grab the Oscar Gold?

The Academy Awards were announced early on January 16, and the movies that won the most nominations were Gravity and American Hustle. There’s already been backlashes against both movies, with some considering them over-rated, but the Motion Picture Academy sure didn’t think so, giving ten nominations to each.

The Academy usually doesn’t award genre movies except in the technical categories, so the question is, could Gravity be too sci-fi to win? Or can it transcend the genre far enough to win big? Already Sandra Bullock has generated major Oscar buzz for her performance, and in the technical categories it should absolutely clean up.

A lot of times the Oscars doesn’t award the biggest hits of the year either, and as Forbes points out, Gravity is the biggest blockbuster among the movies that were nominated. Hoping to build further Oscar buzz, Gravity is also heading back to theaters, and indeed, it’s a movie you should see on a big screen. (We’re wondering how it will do in home viewing, considering watching it on a small screen will diminish its impact.) 

As Bullock told the L.A. Times, “When something is received like Gravity – which was completely unexpected, because the studio will tell you, they thought it was going to be one of these write-off situations – you don’t expect any more. It’s already an embarrassment of riches.”