Oscar Eye: Argo Prepares To Emerge As A Frontrunner, While Lincoln Surprises New York

BEST DIRECTOR

Another week with no changes, since I don't yet feel strong enough about Lincoln to bump Spielberg up-- after all, he wasn't nominated alongside War Horse last year. I still thick there's a spot waiting for Tom Hooper if Les Mis performs, so it still seems worth waiting and seeing here.

MORTAL LOCK

NONE

 

LIKELY CONTENDER

Ben Affleck, Argo
Michael Haneke, Amour
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

 

STILL IN THE RUNNING

Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
Gus van Sant, Promised Land
Robert Zemeckis, Flight
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

 

OUTSIDE CHANCE

Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom
Jacques Audiard, Rust and Bone
Juan Antonio Bayona, The Impossible
Sacha Gervasi, Hitchcock
Peter Jackson, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Sam Mendes, Skyfall
Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, Cloud Atlas
Joe Wright, Anna Karenina