The Great Gatsby is one of those movies I never got around to seeing in theaters, but plan to watch on On Demand as soon as possible. I started to think about the film’s star, Leonardo DiCaprio. For those of you who don’t know, DiCaprio was snubbed for his performance in Django Unchained last year, as well as J. Edgar the year before that. I was starting to think that maybe the Academy didn’t want him to be the new Peter O’ Toole, constantly being nominated but not winning.

And that’s when it hit me. The Academy had the perfect opportunity to give DiCaprio his Oscar last year.

Think about it. There was no clear frontrunner last year because all of the nominees were previous winners. Had DiCaprio been nominated, the academy would probably prefer giving the award to an overdue DiCaprio and not Christolph Waltz playing basically the same role that already won him the Oscar. And they would still be giving the award to the same film, so it doesn’t make that much of a difference. Except that giving DiCaprio his first Oscar is probably more important than giving Waltz his second.

It would have worked, wouldn’t it? So, why didn’t the Academy go for it? My guess is that they just don’t like DiCaprio. But where will they stand with him once The Wolf Of Wall Street comes out? Either they realize they made a mistake and will give him the Oscar, or they won’t even nominate him, because they simply don’t like him.

Perhaps the Academy sees DiCaprio as just a pretty face. If he fails to be nominated again this year, my advice would be to undergo a physical transformation: Charlize Theron was a pretty face until she gained all that weight for Monster, Anne Hathaway was just a pretty face until she lost all that weight for Les Misérables.

Of course, Scorsese movies are usually well-liked by the Academy, so DiCaprio is in pretty good hands with The Wolf Of Wall Street. I think I’ll still predict him for the win, but time will tell.