Oscar Index: The Pitt and the Pendulum

The Leading 5:

1. Octavia Spencer, The Help

2. Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus

3. Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

4. Bérénice Bejo, The Artist

5. Jessica Chastain, The Help

Outsiders: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids; Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter; Keira Knightley, A Dangerous Method; Judi Dench, J. Edgar; Mia Wasikowska, Albert Nobbs; Emily Watson, War Horse; Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs; Sandra Bullock, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Now we're talking! After a week that looked about as well-stocked as a pumpkin patch on Nov. 1, experts are lobbing in everyone from Dench to Watson to Bejo to run with Spencer and Redgrave. Huzzah! It's still probably the latter pair's race to lose, but watch for Bejo in particular to creep in closer to The Artist's release. Also, check out what producer Lynda Obst -- an influential Hollywood woman who always evinced smart, solid awards-season taste in her annual exchanges with New York film critic David Edelstein -- had to say this week about the "Bridesmaids bump." If the ladies in the Academy's actors' branch relate, it could mean very good things for McCarthy:

It came at a moment when any movies for women, women's comedies -- forget dramas, there are no dramas for anybody -- but women's comedies, women's thrillers were going to get put by the wayside forever. Women's projects were dying everywhere. That's why the opening of Bridesmaids was so critical for every woman in features, why its success was attended with such profound interest by every woman writer, producer and director in town. [...]

There are suddenly projects for women! I'm pitching one right now that is a female-based comedy and people are really responsive to it. And then my directing debut, which was dead in the water at New Line, went from having no momentum to having momentum, the weekend right after Bridesmaids opened. Bridesmaids meant that the idea of being able to make a movie about women was resuscitated.

Get to work, Universal! In this field, you could still have a phenomenon on your hands come February.

The Leading 5:

1. Christopher Plummer, Beginners

2. Albert Brooks, Drive

3. Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn

4. Nick Nolte, Warrior

5. Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Outsiders: Jim Broadbent, The Iron Lady; John C. Reilly, Carnage; Philip Seymour Hoffman, Moneyball; Armie Hammer, J. Edgar; Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method

Meanwhile, Hill got the Moneyball bump in this category. Like it matters.

[Thanks to Jillian Murray for the French translation -- Ed.]

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