How the Broadcast Critics Help Academy Voters The wonky schedule for this year's Oscar race means the nominations will be unveiled the same day as the Critics' Choice awards are bestowed. If you're snubbed by the Academy in the morning, will you turn up to potentially be snubbed again at a televised award show that night? Seat fillers all over Los Angeles are hoping the answer is no. In any case, the Broadcast Film Critics Association showered "Lincoln" and "Les Misérables" with affection. As Scott Feinberg at The Hollywood Reporter notes, this relatively populist critical group actually has some relationship to what the Academy voters may choose on Jan. 10. Look for a best picture list with many of the same titles, like "Argo," "Silver Linings Playbook," "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Life of Pi" and "Zero Dark Thirty." "Moonrise Kingdom," "Django Unchained" and "The Master" are still wildcards, but they could score as well. In other categories, the broadcast critics go with 6 slots to the Academy's 5, making them not have to do the hard math of eliminating one person, especially from the tight best director list. "There's 6 guys for 5 spots," is a refrain the Bagger has heard often about that category, although of course in this case, one of the guys is a woman, Kathryn Bigelow. A couple of notable inclusions by the broadcasters: Judi Dench and Javier Bardem from "Skyfall" in the supporting category, a rare showing for a Bond film; Stephen Chbosky's "Perks of Being a Wallflower" in best adapted screenplay, and the continued rise of Matthew McConaughey ("Magic Mike") and Ann Dowd ("Compliance"), also in the supporting category. The critics may not have actual overlap with the Academy constituency, but its choices helps distill the best-of list to the must-watch list. As an Academy member told the Bagger at a lunch recently, "We get 60 or 70 screeners sent to us" during the season. Any buzz that helps them sort out what to see, he said, is appreciated.