The outrage among film flacks began Friday, when the Academy announced a change in the way it will reveal the Oscar nominees on Jan. 24. The awards group said it was scrapping its traditional pre-dawn live announcement in favor of a taped video that will stream online (still at the same ungodly hour) and air on ABC's "Good Morning America."

You'd think publicists, who used to gather at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theatre for the wee-hours ceremony, would be thrilled about not having to drive across Los Angeles while they're half asleep in order to learn whether the movies they mounted awards campaigns for got nominated. But no.

One disappointed publicist, Dorothea Sargent, wrote a column for the Hollywood Reporter, noting that, for her and her peers, the real honor really is in just getting nominated. (After all, an Oscar nomination is worth more at the box office than a win, since it comes six weeks earlier in a movie's theatrical run, so scoring nominations is what awards publicists get paid to do.)

It also earned a nod last week from the American Society of Cinematographers for Greig Fraser's camerawork, and, in the week's biggest upset, it earned director Garth Davis, a relatively unknown and unseasoned Australian filmmaker, one of five coveted slots in the Directors Guild Award nominations. (The others went to Damien Chazelle for "La La Land," Barry Jenkins for "Moonlight," Kenneth Lonergan for "Manchester by the Sea," and Denis Villeneuve for "Arrival.")

The DGA nods are one of the most reliable predictors of Oscar success, not just in the directing category, but also in Best Picture. So the fact that Davis made it instead of, say, Martin Scorsese ("Silence"), Denzel Washington ("Fences"), David Mackenzie ("Hell or High Water"), or Mel Gibson ("Hacksaw Ridge") means we now have to take "Lion" seriously as a contender for Oscar's top prize -- more seriously, even, than "Fences" or "Hacksaw Ridge."

It's anyone's guess, really, how much this week's guild nominations influenced Oscar voters, who had to file their nomination ballots last Friday. Besides "Lion," the ASC nominated the cinematographers behind "Arrival," "La La Land," "Moonlight," and "Silence," but since the ASC winner has gone on to take the Oscar only about a third of the time, the award isn't a good predictor of how the Academy will vote.

The Costume Designers Guild nominated 15 movies this week (in three categories: period, contemporary, and fantasy), but since Oscar voters almost always prefer period costumes, "Florence Foster Jenkins" and "Jackie" may be the only CDG nominees that matter.

And then there's last week's Golden Globes. For the first time in recent memory, the Globes were handed out early enough to have an impact, but how much were they going to change the momentum in a race where Globe favorites "La La Land," "Manchester by the Sea," and "Moonlight" were already the frontrunners?

Guess we'll find out when the Academy streams its nominations next Tuesday. And like everyone else, we'll find out at home.