Oscar Index: Is This the Year of Christian Bale, 'Chowderhead Vérité'?

All is mostly calm as the second month of Movieline's Oscar Index commences -- mostly, that is, unless you're at the top of three of the four acting categories and/or trying to get your embattled African-American ensemble drama through stolid barriers of critical mass. Otherwise, it's just hunches, gossip and word-of-mouth business as usual. Let's talk it over.

[Click images for larger versions of each graph.]

The Leading 10:

1. The Social Network

2. 127 Hours

3. The King's Speech

4. Black Swan

5. True Grit

6. The Fighter

7. The Kids Are All Right

8. Inception

9. Toy Story 3

10. Winter's Bone

Outsiders: Blue Valentine; Another Year; For Colored Girls; Love and Other Drugs; Made in Dagenham; How Do You Know

Notes: 127 Hours had seemingly the most momentum of any Best Picture contender this week -- which will tend to happen the week before release, when the spotlight warms and everyone starts attempting to outdo each other's superlatives. Winter's Bone was another ascendant title, with star Jennifer Lawrence submitting to another round of awards press in L.A. and distributor Roadside Attractions apparently smelling goodwill around every corner. The fuss around that film stands in contrast to the generally inert Picture buzz for The Kids Are All Right, another summer opening that can't seem to get out of its own way; Annette Bening/Julianne Moore campaign haggling aside, I'm not sure anyone has talked about this legitimately competing for anything since before Toronto.

Critics took their first opportunities to tee off on Tyler Perry and For Colored Girls, knocking the film on its heels, out of the Index and into a tailspin it'll probably never recover from. Everybody but its principals and Lionsgate seems to want it to fail, but it's not like Perry is really out there stumping for it unless you count dredging up more abuse history with Oprah Winfrey, so... Yeah. At least people are attempting a conversation about Love and Other Drugs, which comfortably delivers white people doing act-y white things in a fundamentally sound way that white people can really sink their teeth into, even if they can't agree on whether it's Academy-friendly or even good, for that matter. This is what Oscar season should be about, right? Thanks anyway, Tyler.

The Leading 5:

1. David Fincher, The Social Network

2. Danny Boyle, 127 Hours

3. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech

4. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

5. Christopher Nolan, Inception

Outsiders: David O. Russell, The Fighter; Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan; Peter Weir, The Way Back; Mike Leigh, Another Year; Edward Zwick, Love and Other Drugs

Notes: Not much to add here; literally no movement occurred in the director race with the slight exception of a few stirrings among once and future also-rans. It breaks my heart to see Aronofsky on the bubble. On the one hand we're still a ways off from Black Swan catching on in December, so it shouldn't be too big a deal. On the other hand, he's directing Wolverine 2 -- which, among the Hype Elite who grease these nominees' paths, is a Being Tyler Perry-level offense. Anyway, that top five looks virtually uncrackable at this point, with only the Coens (for pouring on the pulp) or Hooper (for his relative anonymity) remotely threatened with exile in the months ahead.

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