Hollywood set for Oscar nominations

Hollywood is counting down the hours before the unveiling early Jan. 15 of nominees for this year's Oscars, the climax of Tinseltown's awards season.
      
Coming-of-age drama "Boyhood" and dark comedy "Birdman" are expected to be among the frontrunners for coveted Best Picture honors.        

"The Imitation Game," "Selma," "The Theory of Everything" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" should also be in the hunt for Oscars gold.
      
The nominated films, actors and filmmakers will be revealed at a pre-dawn ceremony in Beverly Hills, firing the starting gun on the home stretch of the annual awards race.
      
On the best actor front, likely nominees include Michael Keaton ("Birdman") and two British hopefuls -- Benedict Cumberbatch ("The Imitation Game") and Golden Globe winner Eddie Redmayne ("The Theory of Everything").
      
For best actress, Globe winner Julianne Moore ("Still Alice"), Reese Witherspoon ("Wild") and Britain's Rosamund Pike ("Gone Girl") are among expected contenders, according to awards website Gold Derby.
      
The Oscar nominees -- chosen by the 6,000-plus members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- will be revealed shortly after 5:30 am (1330 GMT) Thursday.
      
The 87th Oscars will be held on February 22 at the Dolby Theatre in downtown Hollywood. Voting starts on February 6 and closes on February 17.
      
This year's crop of hotly-tipped movies is heavy on true stories: four of the five films nominated for the best drama award at last weekend's Golden Globes -- many of which could figure on the Oscars best picture shortlist -- were based on real-life events.
      
Among the historical figures given big-screen treatment are astrophysicist...