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Awards || ||

Otis the Oscar Cat Predicts the Best Picture Winner

Otis the Oscar Cat Predicts the 2012 Academy Awards

Meet Otis the Oscar Cat, Movieline's resident feline awards prognosticator. Like the majority of Academy members, he's white, male, and owns a black tie; his tastes tend toward the traditional, although he'll bite at the occasional tasty treat. To get an inside line on Sunday's Best Picture winner, we consulted Otis for his Oscar picks -- will the Academy Award go to The Artist, starring that rascally pup Uggie? Or perhaps War Horse, by a nose?
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: And the Winners Are...*

Oscar Index: And the Winners Are...*

*: As determined by Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics after crunching 23 weeks of data from the awards cognoscenti and beyond. Thank you for reading; our work here is done.
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Awards || ||

Bookies and Oscar Pundits Put Odds On The Artist, Obviously

Bookies and Oscar Pundits Put Odds On The Artist, Obviously

The Academy Awards are not a contest, the humble nominees might demur, taking the high road through the gory scrum that is awards season. But do you really think, say, Glenn Close wouldn’t cut a bitch for an Oscar? Alas, the odds are against her, literally; online books have her at as much as 100:1 odds to win her first statuette for Albert Nobbs. Take a peek at how the internet’s enterprising bookies have handicapped the 84th Academy Award nominees and adjust your bets accordingly.
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: Ladies First

Oscar Index: Ladies First

You know that when two of the most respected pundits in all of Oscardom argue (within days of each other!) for curtailing both the epic Academy Awards season race and the ceremony in which it culminates, patience for all this crap is wearing thin. With that in mind — and also considering that the "race" for most of these categories ended weeks or months ago — who's up for an Oscar Index lightning round? (The entire staff at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics raises its hands.) OK, then — to the Index!
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: It's the Charm, Stupid

Oscar Index: It's the Charm, Stupid

"Let's have a moment of silence for the suffering Oscar bloggers as they enter the most trying and mortifying weeks of their labors." Such was Glenn Kenny's tweeted lament earlier this week -- one eerily anticipating today's latest, sanity-thrashing edition of Oscar Index. And that's just its effect on readers! You really don't want to see the catatonic pall saturating Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. On the other hand, we're gonna make a fortune recycling this mounting pile of wine bottles. To the Index!
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: Help is on the Way

Oscar Index: Help is on the Way

It's a little difficult for the specialists at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics to come into work these days, what with the pall of predictability settling in over the awards landscape and the painstaking studies into backlash physics yielding less and less of practical substance. What's a frustrated kudologist to do? Besides drink for the next four weeks straight, I mean. Let's look for ideas and encouragement for all in this week's Oscar Index.
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: The Beginning of the End

Oscar Index: The Beginning of the End

There's good news and bad news to begin this post-nomination, next-to-next-to-next-to-next-to-last installment of Oscar Index. The good news? It's kind of almost over! The bad news? Oy. Please don't make me repeat it.
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The Oscars || ||

And Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is... Ron Paul?

Or some other lukewarm cling-monkey: "If I were feeling less generous and more cynical on this holiest of all Oscar-calendar mornings, I might say that to decipher this year’s Academy Awards contest, we need only look for inspiration to the GOP presidential race. The Artist is Mitt Romney — desperate to please, doesn’t stand for anything in particular, not especially popular with the general public, will eventually keep most of its money offshore, and, though dinged up and trash-talked, will probably cross the finish line first by default. The Descendants is Newt Gingrich (emotionally unsteady, hard on wives, doing better than expected, but probably can’t go all the way). Hugo is Rick Santorum (a little slow, doesn’t really like anything that changed in the culture in the last 80 years). And The Tree of Life is Jon Huntsman (believes in evolution, probably a little too classy for this field)." [Grantland]

Weekend Receipts || ||

Weekend Receipts: Underworld: Awakening Comes Out Guns Blazing-ish

Weekend Receipts: Underworld: Awakening Comes Out Guns Blazing-ish

Everything old was new again this weekend at the box office, with a third sequel and a WWII film cruising to the lead opposite pockets of crummy weather and a pair of NFL playoff games that were about as good as they could possibly be. What hit? What kind of didn't? Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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The Movieline Nine || ||

The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Nearly a month after its Oscar-qualifying run found it alienating critics in New York and Los Angeles (and almost two months since indelibly, ignominiously entering the zeitgeist as The Daldry), this week finally finds Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close reaching theaters nationwide. And while roughly half of reviewers to date have lauded director Stephen Daldry's adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel, the other half has issues -- big issues -- with everything from lead actor Thomas Horn to Daldry's handling of the book's central tragedy of 9/11. It's no Jack and Jill, but that's no reason not to throw on a raincoat and go frolic in the bile. Wish you were here, David Denby!
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: Left Out in the Gold

Oscar Index: Left Out in the Gold

Smack in the middle of a two-week frame yielding two awards shows and a pair of nomination announcements that will culminate in this year's Oscar nods, the researchers at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics have gained minimal insight into where the Academy may take the 2011-12 awards race in next Tuesday's final nominations. Or maybe they're all just sleeping. It's been that kind of year. Let's check their work in this week's Oscar Index.
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Oscar Index: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

What a week at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, where the pundits' hustle harmonized with the guilds' bustle to create a heavy-duty wake-up call for some otherwise dormant awards-season underdogs. They also telegraphed danger for a few juggernauts once thought unassailable. What does it all mean as we head into the Critics Choice and Golden Globe Awards weekend? To the Index!
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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: Draggin' Tattoo? Don't Bet on It

Oscar Index: Draggin' Tattoo? Don't Bet on It

The first Oscar Index entry of 2012 finds Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics a little hungover from the holidays and lot bored from the protracted inertia of awards season. Not even this week's Producers Guild Award nominations could do much to shake up a contest that appears to be both wide open and solidifying into place at the same time. Let's investigate...
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Awards || ||

Producers Guild Nominations: Bridesmaids, Ides, Dragon Tattoo Make Cut; Tree of Life Snubbed

Producers Guild Nominations: Bridesmaids, Ides, Dragon Tattoo Make Cut; Tree of Life Snubbed

The Producers Guild of America just announced its 2012 award nominees, with a few surprises (The Ides of March? Again?) and noteworthy snubs (sorry, Tree of Life-ers) in the main event. Meanwhile, the animated category dared to recognize the roundly loathed Cars 2, and the documentary voters gave at least on conspicuous Oscar snubbee a break (I'm looking at you, Senna).

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The Oscars || ||

Oscar Index: Giddyup, War Horse!

Oscar Index: Giddyup, War Horse!

Well, this should go pretty fast: The holiday week has offered a dearth of new narratives to trace and pulses to take, with only one film demonstrating any significant mobility in the studies coming out Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. Let's get to it!

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