Oscar Index: Inception, 'Steak Eaters' on the Move

Well, here we go: Nomination ballots are in Academy voters' mailboxes as of this week, meaning that the "[m]ost over-covered, over-considered Oscar season ever" just became that much more over-covered and over-considered. How can we ever hope to break it down? To the Index!

[Click the graphs for larger images]

The Leading 10:

1. The Social Network

2. The King's Speech

3. The Fighter

4. Inception

5. Black Swan

6. True Grit

7. The Kids Are All Right

8. 127 Hours

9. Winter's Bone

10. Toy Story 3

Outsiders: Blue Valentine; The Town; Rabbit Hole; Shutter Island

Notes: The holiday week featured some serious Oscarology in the Best Picture category, with aftershocks from a number of awards precursors rippling the competition between the general punditocracy favorite The Social Network and The King's Speech, The Fighter and Inception. One notable King's Speech defection -- based principally on the torrent of critics awards for TSN -- gave way to Dave Karger's emphatic reminder that "Oscar voters are not critics [...]"

The only group to announce so far with a voting body that overlaps with the Academy is the Screen Actors Guild, and I find it interesting that Network earned only two nominations compared to four for Speech or The Fighter. I keep hearing from many Academy members who absolutely adore The King's Speech. Can The Social Network win Best Picture on Feb. 27? Of course it can. Particularly if voters decide they want an American film to win. But until it picks up significant guild support, I'm not ready to swap my rankings.

Sasha Stone isn't having any of it, so at least from an observational standpoint around the culture, maybe we can call the top three a push? But the most scintillating evidence of Oscar-race ascendancy comes from Camp Inception, where theatrical "For Your Consideration" ads rule the day and for whom Chris Beachum at Gold Derby undertook some of the week's most determined flag-waving:

The film will receive major guild support, including the DGA, WGA and PGA. Nolan could win the DGA Award, and the PGA loves to honor box office successes. Inception contends in 10 Critics Choice categories as well as for four more with the Golden Globes. The staggering box office success ($292 million in the U.S.) of Inception boosts its Best Picture chances. While Academy voters of late have favored independent, small budget films (The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, etc.), that works in favor of Inception. In 2003, "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" swept the Academy Awards, winning a record-tying 11 including Best Picture. It could be time for the voters to reward another big moneymaker. The only other blockbuster this year likely to be in the Best Picture race is Toy Story 3, which, as an animated film, has little chance to win.

That guild influence is crucial here, because we're facing a diverse enough crop of nominees in the top categories that voters (actors, directors, and craftspeople/technicians in particular) wouldn't necessarily feel apprehensive about electing Inception the year's Best Picture. Look at it this way: If you're wanting to spread the wealth between the top five to date, you could do a lot worse than TSN in Director and Screenplay, Black Swan in Actress, King's Speech in Actor, The Fighter in the Supporting categories, and Inception -- Gladiator style, apologies to Chris Nolan -- in Picture. This is absolutely a scenario to watch for as those aforementioned guilds continue announcing nominations next week.

And listen, those bottom two or three picks? Totally vulnerable. Both Winter's Bone and Blue Valentine have enough dedicated support among the actors branch to sneak into contention, but I wonder how opening today will affect the latter: Fresh in the mind, or late to the game? Hustle, Harvey! And then there are the labor unions putting the screws to Disney and Toy Story 3. And then there's The Town, which I'm just not feeling in this crop, but we'll see. Again, watch the guilds.

The Leading 5:

1. David Fincher, The Social Network

2. Christopher Nolan, Inception

3. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech

4. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

5. David O. Russell, The Fighter

Outsiders: Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit; Danny Boyle, 127 Hours; Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right; Mike Leigh, Another Year

Notes: As noted above, an uptick in Inception's profile means more for the film than for Nolan himself -- but there is an uptick. A little more intriguing, however, is the pundit push-pull concerning Fincher, whom Nicole Sperling speculated might be jeopardizing his frontrunner status by paring back his campaign accessibility. Steve Pond disagreed ("[Fincher] hasn't been completely absent: last week, for instance, he did three Q&As in two days on the Sony lot, and he's scheduled for other events including the Palm Springs Film Festival."), and anyway, let's keep this in perspective: Dude is in the middle of making arguably next fall's most anticipated blockbuster. Sorry if he can't pull off that extra interview or photo shoot or whatever between all those trans-Atlantic travels.

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