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Knightly / Redgrave as the top two likely noms for Atonement? McAvoy and Ronan will have much stronger support than those two, and both are more likely than any of the four you list from Golden Age to secure a nomination (I've seen both films). I still think Keira will also get a nomination for leading, but McAvoy and then Ronan are the standout performances--and they'd stand out in any year. There's an outside shot that Garai will also get in for supporting, but her performance is more internal with fewer wow moments.

If I had to pick five right now I'd go for:

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Atonement
3. American Gangster
4. Sweeney Todd
5. The Kite Runner

I could see Burton and Forster getting snubbed by the directors branch in favor of Coppola and Paul Thomas Anderson, or perhaps even Todd Haynes

I hear that Paul Thomas Anderson guy is pretty talented. Hopefully he delivers the goods.

I still think this year is Cate's year. The again, I thought 1998 was her year too. And we all know how that turned out in the spring of '99. :-X

I don't really see anything coming out that even looks like traditional best picture bait aside from Elizabeth 2, which is weird. Weak year.

Maybe this will be one of those odd years where something that's actually the best movie will win?

Nah...

Anyway all I really know is that the only movies that sound good enough to win and that I actually want to see are E2, American Gangster, and There Will Be Blood.

What? This again? Wake me when IRON-MAN opens.

I gotta say, I'm a little surprised by the negativity here. This looks to be a great year for film, after the last few shitty Oscar seasons. Atonement's been getting great reviews, there's the new Ang Lee that won Venice, the new Coen Brothers that is supposed to be nice and heavy, PTA is trying to make a film that is more than just him masturbating at the screen, Cate Blanchet as Elizabeth is back, John Cusack might have finally delivered the strong non-neurotic wiseass performance we've all been waiting for, there's a new Aaron Sorkin/Tom Hanks comedy to hope is good, there's a prestige gangster movie, an actually well-known musical and two westerns (both pretentious and non-pretentious flavored for your enjoyment), and maybe best of all, we don't have to worry about the Academy feeling guilty and giving the award to a weak Scorsese picture at long last, as they got that out of the way last year.

As a film-goer, I am psyched that there's no front-runner, because maybe that way we can focus on all the film gods are giving us, rather than on the stupid media-created horserace.

I saw Atonement this morning. And while I was impressed (sequences of muscular, bravura filmmaking) I sense that the audience felt quite short changed by the ending (Don't fret: NO SPOILERS AHEAD).

The first act is excellent but then, as the second act develops, the film struggles with the structural demands of the novel. I am not for one second comparing one with the other, but one of the reasons why the story works AS A NOVEL, is because literature arrived a state that allows are more fluid and malleable to such fracturing. Cinema, perhaps because of its comparative youth have yet to get there. By and large, audiences hope for strong connectivity and central through lines.

The novel is more interested in the theme and most audiences still want to be carried along by plot.

I can see Atonement getting about six nominations, and perhaps winning two (Dario Marianelli for Score and Christopher Hampton for Adapted Screenplay). However, I think the critics may have shot their bolts too early on this one. To compare it to The English Patient does not help. It is far darker than that film.

I agree; it's looking like a very good year for movies in general and especially Oscar movies. But we are still in the hopeful phase. Poland always writes as if the Oscar season continually bores him. Anyway, once the Mean Five begin to emerge that's usually when boredom sets it. But right now? Dreaming is free, baby.

Now now... lots of straight men care about the Oscars. And lots of straight men care about musicals.

But a straight guy who really cares if MUSICALS win the OSCARS... well...

(I keed! I keed!)

Two quick comments - La Misma Luna is playing Toronto, and you can't talk about the soft support for Crash at Toronto in this context. When Crash played Toronto it didn't have a distributor. It was picked up and released the following year.

Not having INTO THE WILD on this list is a major mistake. If this were a weaker year, I'd go ahead a call it a lock nominee, and maybe a front-runner. But there's a lot of baseball left to play, so I'm not ready to go that far. Still, though ... not even in the Top 20?

Atonement is my tip at the moment. Pope, only six? I can see it getting Pic, Dir, Actress, Actor, Sp Actress (possibly even two) and Ad Screening alone, let alone techs like cinematography, art direction, costume and score. Especially if nothing else particularly Oscar-Epic comes around.

No INTO THE WILD? It's early but I'd say it's off to a pretty damn good start.

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