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It's time to dream of little gold men.

Kim Hollis: Now that a couple of early awards and nominations have come out, what's your current take on the Oscars landscape?

Josh Spiegel: It's still a bit too early to tell, I think. We're only a couple weeks away from the release of The Lovely Bones, Nine, Invictus, and, of course, Avatar. All four of these movies could easily take slots in the Best Picture nominations, and they could all miss the mark. The first three have had early screenings; none of the films seemed to have a consensus opinion, all getting a mixed bag of reviews. Of course, that doesn't mean much, but even with 10 nominees, a movie like Nine or The Lovely Bones might lose out if it's not popular enough among voters. So, my current take is a shrug in online form.

Tim Briody: With 10 nominees, something screwy can still happen when we get to the actual ceremony, but I see Up In the Air as a big time frontrunner right now.

Kim Hollis: Tim, I think this is correct. Up in the Air feels like the movie to beat at the moment. I always felt like Precious was too grim, while the praise for Up in the Air makes it sound like the kind of movie the Academy will want to reward. Things change quickly as various other awards are given, and there's also some importance in seeing how the Clooney film does at the box office first. It can have an impact.





Sean Collier: Precious is still a frontrunner, but the buzz may have peaked too early. I'm hoping for some unexpected contenders due to the 10-nominee thing - A Serious Man, perhaps? - and it looks like we will not be able to avoid an utterly inappropriate Sandra Bullock nomination.

Michael Lynderey: It's odd that, in the span of just one week, Up in the Air basically replaced Precious as the front-runner in lot of categories; the Clooney film went from being considered good to near-universally praised as great, while Precious' momentum at the box office just died - $100 million seems well out of the question now, and it's hard to say if Lionsgate will be giving it a further expansion. Otherwise, things are mostly still the same - Clooney leading the Best Actor pool, Carey Mulligan for Best Actress in that film no one is going to see, Christoph Waltz for Supporting (with Woody Harrelson now a possible spoiler), and Mo'Nique still holding the Supporting Actress slot, for now. The last three weeks are where the potential game-changers lie: Morgan Freeman is revving up buzz for Invictus, Nine is popping up here and there, and The Lovely Bones seems to be getting a surprising shrug-off from a lot of critics. It's also looking increasingly unlikely that Avatar will be up for any major awards.

George Rose: I said this before and I'll stand by it: predictions can't be made until Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones is released. People were screaming Precious at the top of their lungs when it first came out. "Precious is a front runner!" "Precious is going to sweep the Oscars!" Precious this, Precious that, blah blah blah. And guess what? Precious dropped 67% this past weekend. Suddenly its chances of making $100 million aren't looking so good, since it sits at just over $30 million and only made $2.3 million this weekend. What I want to know is where are all those people that used to say Precious is the frontrunner? Those people that want so badly to be the first person to correctly guess who the eventual Best Picture winner is going to be. Do people really consider it cool for someone to scream, "I knew Precious would win Best Picture back in December!" at the Oscar telecast party? I would tell that person to shut up and sit down, because they're blocking my view. My theory is that I don't need to be the first, I just need to be right. I never jumped on that bandwagon and for good reason; it's simply too soon to make a prediction. I'm not saying we need to wait until the day before the Oscar ceremony, but at least until January 1st when all the qualifying titles have been released. Anything is possible this early in the game and with 10 Best Picture nominations, there are going to be lots of "front runners". If my arm is really being twisted for an answer, then I'll stick with The Lovely Bones. At least until I see it, anyway.

Reagen Sulewski: Not just peaking too early, but I think we're starting to see some Precious backlash. Not enough to keep it out of the Group of Ten, but probably enough to limit it to that and a couple of acting noms. I don't see much critical support behind the Coens, and I think about 95% of people don't even know there's been a Coen film this year. I think the slate has been weak enough so far that we might get something like The Hurt Locker sneak back in as a major contender. I expect that the big award is either Invictus' or Nine's to lose, though.

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