And They're (Almost) Off: The Preliminary 2011-12 Oscar Index

[Clockwise from top right]

· Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

· Rachel Weisz, The Whistleblower

· Charlize Theron, Young Adult

· Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

· Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

· Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene

· Viola Davis, The Help

· Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

· Felicity Jones, Like Crazy

Olsen and Jones got head starts out of Sundance 2011, but Davis appeared to overtake them in a single stride earlier this month. The only question for The Help actress and her patrons at DreamWorks: Does Davis go for lead, or does she go for supporting?

"I think she'll make the shortlist in whichever category they campaign her in, but they'd be smart to go lead actress." Rogers writes. "If they choose supporting they're only giving the haters ammunition that they were right and The Help is all about the white girl who saves the poor black (supporting) folk in their own story."

Pundit Scott Feinberg disagrees, taking a more strategic point of view at his Web site:

I would encourage Davis to push for a Best Supporting Actress nod rather than a Best Lead Actress nod. Why? Because, fairly or unfairly, the film's publicity and advertising, as well as the structure of the film itself (which is largely told through the words/eyes of [Emma] Stone's character, minus the opening and closing narration), have reinforced the notion that Stone is the lead, and that everyone else is therefore supporting her. Moreover, the supporting categories tend to be much less difficult to crack into than the lead categories, especially when you are campaigning for a part that is substantial enough that it arguably could have been a lead -- see Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit (2010). Having both Stone and Davis compete for Lead would probably result in neither getting nominated (I doubt that Stone would make the cut even without having to compete with her co-star), but having Stone go Lead and Davis go Supporting would give both of them an exponentially better chance of making it to the big show (particularly Davis), so I'd take the safer bet."

The dilemma is probably closer to the one faced last year by The Kids Are All Right, which insisted on campaigning Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as co-leads, only to see Moore fall off the Best Actress pace early and never have a chance to catch up in Supporting Actress. I also can't see Emma Stone making a dent in either Lead or Supporting (especially not with co-star Octavia Spencer's imposing presence in the latter category), so why not just let Davis carry the mantle?

All of this obviously overlooks one particularly formidable competitor. "I suppose Meryl Streep for Iron Lady could be considered a lock," writes Awards Daily's Stone, declining to cite any other certainties this early in the season. Indeed, Streep has pretty much everything going for her role as Margaret Thatcher -- the look, the accent, the Weinstein juju, the 30-year gap since her last win (not quite Susan Lucci-level, but with 12 nominations since Sophie's Choice, it's not unreasonable to surmise it's once again Streep's "time")... Barring a total flub by director Phyllida Lloyd and some kind of defensive backlash from some shadowy, Thatcher-sensitive Academy resistance (yeah right), Streep is pretty much good to go.

The rest -- who knows? I'm still adamantly pro-Weisz, at least for a nomination, though she could come out of nowhere with either of her Toronto premieres 360 or (more likely) The Deep Blue Sea as well. Williams is an Academy darling, and the heavily adorned Dragon Tattoo star Mara may wrangle the year's shapeshifter slot that served someone like Theron -- also a serious 2011-12 contender -- so well in Monster.

[Clockwise from top right]

· George Clooney, The Ides of March

· Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method

· Dominic Cooper, The Devil's Double

· Jean Dujardin, The Artist

· Tom Hardy, Warrior

· Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

· George Clooney, The Descendants

· Brad Pitt, Moneyball

· Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

· Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March

· Tom Hanks, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

· Ryan Gosling, Drive

· Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar

Good God. On the one hand, it's nice to have a year where it doesn't look like you'll have that one performance running away from the pack a la Colin Firth. On the other, what a freaking mess: Two actors (Clooney and Gosling) possibly competing against themselves -- or against each other in the same movie. (To say nothing of Fassbender, whose grim sex-addiction drama Shame has the potential to go head-to-head opposite Method.) There's the veteran Oldman, whom we've already confirmed is having a moment that his fan club -- a number of whom are Academy voters -- would love to see extended into February. There's the dynamic, mercurial movie star Pitt, whose last decade or so of creative risks are arguably due for a payoff. And how about the whole elite class of indies led by Shannon, whose incredible work in Take Shelter manages to fuse heartbreaking tenderness with visceral psychological terror.

But most of us are waiting for one performance before calibrating the Best Actor barometer. "Leonardo DiCaprio seems to have it all with J. Edgar," Rogers writes. "Biographical role, tons of golden career momentum, straight actor playing (alleged) gay, Clint Eastwood guiding him." Hear, hear. Only time (and some assiduous campaigning) will tell.

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