I'm cheating a bit on my Oscar color key. You know the one (green = lock, yellow = good bet, etc...) You'll see yellowish green for two films. Slumdog Millionaire and Milk might not be "locks" in the truest sense --after all, the precursor voting bodies haven't begun to weigh in and no top ten lists (thankfully) have landed in November but they feel like Locks To Be. The other three spots look contestable.I have been a firm believer for months now that The Dark Knight would be there and as the holiday contenders emerge, all working similar Big Stars + Big Pedigree + Big Bait Message/Genre + Holiday Ticket movie angle I still have faith that voters will look back to its Movie of the Year status. The big bad Bat movie's Oscar campaign seems quiet right now but that's probably wise given the overhype of the summer and fall. I'm assuming it's a breather. There's still time to reemerge machine guns firing once the precursors and top ten lists begin their march towards Oscar. At the very least the movie stands out: as do Milk with the immediacy of its message and Slumdog just because it's, well, a true one-off.
But Oscar has five spots. 1,2,3 ...4?5?
That leaves two spots wide open and any combo of the six most Oscarable December releases seems plausible: Doubt, Revolutionary Road, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, The Reader and The Wrestler. What say you Oscar watchers?
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