Oscar lists for Best Actress 2017

Gold Derby in the LA TIMES lists in order of current interest. Their list for the top five is:
Stone
Portman
Negga
Bening
A. Adams

Their second tier is:
Chastain
Huppert
T. Henson
Streep
Cotillard
Weisz
Blunt
S. Fielld

No Viola Davis? Perhaps Negga is the Academy's "black actress" this year; what a shame for Negga and Davis both.

Of course it's highly political. Unfortunately, in recent years it's rather become a "name the winner" reality show in LA around the end of the year in hopes of shutting out all the other artists but the one chosen by WHO? Someone with an agenda. Remember when Julianne Moore (STILL ALICE) was chosen in August as the winner for the upcoming Oscars? Then Cotillard got her nomination for 2D1N and skewed the game. And Moore won for a good performance in a movie so still it hardly moved, while Cotillard was burning up the screen for the Dardennes.

Only Portman in the top tier has an Oscar. After Larson and Vikander won last year the Academy may be trending younger for a change. That would open the list to a wider variety of performances and include more newbies and more foreign artists. They just need to remove that idea of "it's her year" or "she deserves this" rather than "that performance in that wonderful film was so brilliant it just knocked my lights out."

Look, Academy -- trust your actors; let the union members do their nominations and don't try to control the process or crown an early queen.