Oscar Index: Social Network, King's Speech Commence Steel-Cage Death Match

The Leading 5:

1. Natalie Portman, Black Swan

2. Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

3. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone

4. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

5. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Outsiders: Lesley Manville, Another Year; Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right; Sally Hawkins, Made in Dagenham; Tilda Swinton, I Am Love; Naomi Watts, Fair Game

Notes: First off: Congratulations to Moore for sneaking back into the outer limits of contention thanks to Sally Hawkins' utter disappearance. (There's always the Globes, Sally!) Second... Um, yeah. Nothing happened in this race this week. Actually, there may have even been a slight cultural uptick in Portman's standing (more on that a little later today, maybe tomorrow), which may, in turn, be canceled out by a rumored potential Franco/Hathaway/Social Network/whippersnapper backlash among older Oscar voters, but still. This race looks about as close to over as it's ever been.

The Leading 5:

1. Colin Firth, The King's Speech

2. [tie] Jeff Bridges, True Grit

2. [tie] Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

4. James Franco, 127 Hours

5. Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Outsiders: Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter; Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine; Robert Duvall, Get Low; Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version

Notes: While Firth remains in a fairly safe lead at the moment, there's some serious tumult in this category's also-ran echelons. For example, Thelma Adams wasn't just speaking for herself when she noted how in possibly any other year Ryan Gosling would contend for the prize -- not that I agree (like, at all) about his performance, but it's the kind of showy garbage that historically tends to occupy at least one or two of the final five slots. But! With Javier Bardem finally on the warpath for his far more impactful, modulated and devastating work in Biutiful, those final five are looking increasingly locked in. And by "warpath," I mean warpath, with no less than Sean Penn -- the most recent Best Actor incumbent who's not actually squaring off against Bardem -- coming out of Haitian hiding just to declare Bardem's performance the best since Brando's in Last Tango in Paris. Top that, R-Gos.

Elsewhere, let's see if Eisenberg can maintain through awards season. So far so good here at Movieline; if he keeps it together you're possibly looking at a Penn/Rourke-style photo finish on Oscar night. Backlash or not, there's just too much unilateral support for Social Network to think Fincher fans will break ranks for Firth. It's a big branch; stranger things have happened.

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