Movie Box Review

Due to the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, all studios are estimating low Sunday drops, although some are projecting more aggressively than others.

UNIVERSAL:  CONTRABAND held almost even on Saturday, which is good for an action movie, and is projecting a reasonable (given the holiday) 21% drop on Sunday.  It should get to $28-29M for the full holiday weekend, and then hope to withstand the flurry of new action pictures arriving on Friday.

DISNEY:  BEAUTY & THE BEAST 3D went up 20% on Saturday, not a huge increase for a family movie that should be getting the benefit of the matinee audience.  The studio is estimating only an 8% drop on Sunday, by far the lowest in the Top 10, and we'll see if that holds.  Meanwhile, WAR HORSE is projecting a weekend drop of only 35%, but even if that's accurate, the picture's waning Oscar hopes mean that it will have to look for enormous international overperformance to have a hope of seeing profit.

WARNERS:  JOYFUL NOISE had a very strong 38% increase on Saturday, and the 25% estimated drop for Sunday makes sense.  The likely $14M 4-day total isn't impressive, but with no family competition hitting the market until Big Miracle on February 3, it has a chance to stay in theatres for a while.  The studio's holdover SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS had a good weekend hold, and while the picture still won't match the performance of the first in the series, it'll be in the neighborhood.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE hung in there in 6 theatres, dropping only 11% for the 3-day weekend.

WEINSTEIN COMPANY:  THE IRON LADY had a solid $6700 average in 802 theatres over Fri-Sun, although that was less than Contraband and Beauty averaged in triple as many theatres.  Since Meryl Streep is guaranteed an Oscar nomination (and could win a Golden Globe tonight), the picture should have several solid weeks of playing time.  The studio got what it wanted from the limited expansion of THE ARTIST, able to report a 4% weekend increase by upping the theatre count 20%.  Its other awards season player MY WEEK WITH MARILYN is out of steam with a big (considering the holiday) 45% drop from last weekend.

SONY CLASSICS:  CARNAGE tried an expansion this weekend to 494 theatres, but found no audience interest with a $1500 per-theatre average (over 3 days).  A DANGEROUS METHOD had a smaller expansion to 104 theatres, and fared better, with a $5500 average (virtually even with THE ARTIST).  A SEPARATION is holding well, with only a 14% drop in 6 theatres.

PARAMOUNT:  The ranking may well change once actual numbers are in for Sunday, but as of now, THE DEVIL INSIDE has the 19th biggest 2d weekend drop in movie history (12th if you limit the count to movies in over 1000 theatres)--and it's only holding that well because of the low Sunday drop due to the holiday weekend.  On a happier note, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL continues to hold very well, and now looks like it will be the only holiday release to earn over $200M in the US (and much more overseas), and could challenge the $215M earned by MI2, so far the most successful of the franchise.  THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, though, is losing theatres and heading south--it will do OK overall because of the huge foreign overperformance, but we'll see if the promised sequels are ever produced.  YOUNG ADULT lost more than half its theatres this weekend and is officially a (moderate budget-sized) disaster.

SONY:  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO continues to show surprising resilience at the boxoffice, with the best hold of any holiday release.  The fact that it now looks certain to make over $100M in the US should help David Fincher decide to stay with the franchise.  (And his DGA nomination won't hurt either.)

FOX SEARCHLIGHT:  THE DESCENDANTS performs as it has been for weeks, quietly making its way to almost $50M at the boxoffice with barely a ripple.  SHAME is at a $3500 average in 41 theatres and will need awards help if it's not to fade away.

FOCUS:  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY took a bigger hit in its 2d wide weekend than the studio would have liked, with a 42% drop over 3 days that was one of the heaviest in the Top 15 (and that was despite increasing the theatre count by about 10%).  The cerebral, complicated thriller may be hitting mainstream audience resistence.  PARIAH expanded a bit to 24 theatres and had a mediocre $4000 average over 3 days.

FOX:  ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED and WE BOUGHT A ZOO both jogged in place, neither one an outright flop, but each a disappointment.

INDIES:  The acclaimed 3D PINA (IFC) had a very nice $18K average in 6 theatres.  In 2 NY theatres, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope) reached its art-house audience with a $22K average. Angelina Jolie's  IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict) has already hit a wall, with only a $2200 average as it expanded to 18 theatres.

The Martin Luther King holiday weekend, a relatively small one for Hollywood because many people work on Monday, begins.

UNIVERSAL: The studio made the fairly extraordinary decision to sit out the holiday movie season entirely, presumably because they didn't think any of their product could compete.  They did, however, spend a lot of money marketing CONTRABAND, which wouldn't open for a month.  The effort paid off with an extremely solid Friday that could lead to a 4-day weekend approaching $30M.  But all that advertising was pricey, and the picture will have to achieve a substantial total to make it worthwhile.  It should help that the movie is quite entertaining, leading to good word-of-mouth (although there are quite a few action movies arriving as competition in the coming weeks).

DISNEY:  The studio's 3D re-release of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST had a well-chosen release date, a holiday when the holiday family movies (including Disney's own War Horse) are running out of steam but the other studios aren't getting involved.  The result is a $25M+ 4-day weekend that will pay for the minimal cost of the 3D transfer and also feed sales of the new homevideo edition.  

WARNERS:  JOYFUL NOISE was hoping to hit the holiday's family audience too, but so far it's not working out so well.  With a 4-day weekend unlikely to reach $15M, the picture will have to hope for good word-of-mouth (which the faith-based audience sometimes provides) to stay in theatres for a while.  And the studio has stuck doggedly to its strategy on EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, which will finally expand next week, and which is still earning a very good $15K in each of the 6 theatres where it started on Christmas Day.

WEINSTEIN COMPANY:  THE IRON LADY expanded well to 800 theatres, and should have a per-theatre number for Friday-Sunday (plus a little extra for the Monday holiday) comparable to the one Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy had when it did the same expansion a week ago.  The picture will be hoping, of course, for a Meryl Streep victory at the Golden Globes on Sunday.  Meanwhile, the studio is playing a bit of a shell game with THE ARTIST, increasing the theatre count (to 216) just enough so that the weekend total (around $1.1-1.2M) stays steady, even as the per-theatre figure falls by 20%.  MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, which lost almost one-third of its theatres this week, badly needs Michelle Williams to win the Comedy Actress Golden Globe.  (Don't ask how that movie is a "comedy".)

SONY CLASSICS:  CARNAGE expanded to 494 theatres, but will need major Golden Globe help to keep those screens very long.  It's headed for a $1500 per-theatre average.  

HOLDOVERS:  Nobody who saw THE DEVIL INSIDE (Paramount) last weekend could look at themselves in the mirror this week, and the result should be one of the 10-15 largest 2d weekend drops in history (and it would have been worse if Sunday hadn't been part of a holiday weekend).  That was by far the most dramatic drop, with the holiday movies aimed at adults looking at 30-40% declines, and the family movies getting a Sunday advanrage from the holiday for a 10-25% fall.  YOUNG ADULT (Paramount), though, gave up the ghost (unless Charlize Theron pulls out an upset Globe win), losing more than half its theatres. 

LIMITED RELEASES:    PARIAH (Focus) expanded to 24 theatres and should do an OK $5K average.  IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict) expanded to 18 and should do a less OK $3K in each.  WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope) returned from its holiday-week awards-eligibility run to 1 NY theatre, where the buzz on Tilda Swinton's performance and local raves should get it to $50K over the long weekend.  

As schools close and vacations begin, a lot of money is about to flood into Hollywood for about 2 blissful weeks.  But not enough to make up for the rest of a doleful year.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:  GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners):  With a studio estimate that just barely managed to nudge above $40M--and needed an extraordinarily low 28% projected Sunday drop to get there--tomorrow's least surprising development would be an actual weekend number that starts with "39."  That cosmetic change aside, this is yet another big ($125M + $150M in worldwide marketing) budget Hollywood product that will need foreign aid.

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED (20th):  With 3 major family movies opening over the next week (Tintin, We Bought A Zoo and War Horse), Alvin may be chip out of luck.  The picture did manage an additional $14M overseas in a few markets.  (And Tintin is already done overseas, which could help beyond these shores.)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE  GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount):  The one success story of the weekend.  Paramount could hardly have hoped for a better start, and the idea of staging an "event" opening only at Imax and other large-format theatres was inspired (it didn't hurt that Warners gave the opening a Dark Night Rises boost).  Add to that a terrific $68M initial launch in 36 overseas territories.

YOUNG ADULT (Paramount):  On the other hand, the same studio was unable to create any excitement over its holiday movie for grown-ups, and the film is in serious danger of a quick fade.

CARNAGE (Sony Classics):  A $17K average in 5 NY/LA theatres just doesn't cut it in this, the most crowded season of the year for prestige titles.

EXPANSIONS:  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Focus) had a small but very successful push into 16 theatres, with a robust $28K average.  A DANGEROUS METHOD (Sony Classics) broadened its run to 17 theatres with a far less impressive $9K average result.  SHAME (Fox Searchlight) faltered to a $6K average in 51 theatres.  The most important expansion of the season will happen on Friday, though, when Weinstein finally moves THE ARTIST to 170 movie-houses (and also brings MY WEEK WITH MARILYN to around 400).

HOLDOVERS:  NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warners) held fairly well with a 43% drop from last week, but the opening was so low that it doesn't matter much.  The bottom dropped out of THE SITTER (20th) with an unsurprising 55% plummet.  BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (Summit) is pacing below New Moon, and will be the lowest grossing chapter of the saga since the original Twilight.  The family trio of HUGO (Paramount), ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (Sony) and THE MUPPETS (Disney) are tightly bunched in the $3.4-3.6M weekend area, and about to be assailed by new competition--even though Hugo is getting generous awards attention, that hasn't pulled the film above the crowd, although its likely Oscar nominations should keep it in the market deeper into 2012 than the others.  J. EDGAR (Warners) lost half its theatres and is essentially done with a $35M total.  MARGIN CALL (Roadside) passed the $5M mark, putting it ahead of most of the fall's higher-profile indie competition.

The last 2 weeks of the year will almost certainly bring better news for Hollywood, for reasons of tonnage alone:  there are 6 wide openings to come next week, compared to only 3 in the final weeks of 2010.  But for now, the stocking-stuffer of choice is coal.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:  GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners):  The point here isn't a potential 20% domestic shortfall on one movie that may well be made up overseas, where the market is booming for big-budget action.  The scary thing, not just for Warners but for all the studios, is that with increasingly rare exceptions, the US audience seems to be less interested than it used to be in the giant product that's been the cornerstone of the industry for more than 3 decades.  Other than Harry Potter (a special case, as the 8th and final chapter in a continuing saga), virtually every franchise entry this year has underperformed its predecessors domestically.  Will those ticket-buyers come back?  We'll find out in 2012, when huge additions to the Marvel, Batman, Spider-Man, Twilight, Lord of the Rings and other franchises are rolled out.

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED (20th):  Ironically, all the family movies that crashed into each other over Thanksgiving weekend so as to avoid this presumed juggernaut could have spaced themselves out a little.  The moment seems to have passed for the squeaky threesome (6 if you count the Chipettes)--although, again, Mitch Metcalf's anticipated $140M US gross, combined with homevideo (people still buy DVDs for kids) and overseas boxoffice, will keep this franchise profitable.

MISSION:  IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount):  Some good news, albeit loaded with asterisks.  A $24K weekend theatre average in 423 theatres is a terrific number... but by confining itself to Imax and other large-format screens, the studio boosted the ticket price considerably.  And don't forget those Dark Knight Rises extended trailers in the 70mm houses.  Nonetheless, an excellent start for an industry that needs one.

YOUNG ADULT (Paramount):  Last time around, Paramount unveiled Jason Reitman's Up In the Air in the fall at Toronto and other festivals, and felt like the movie had peaked too soon and left potential awards on the table when it finally opened in December.  So this time, they kept Reitman's Young Adult under wraps until awards season.  Unfortunately, the move seems to have backfired:  apart from some (well-deserved) attention to Charlize Theron, the movie is getting limited acclaim, and with a likely $3200 average in about 1000 theatres, it may be doomed by New Year's.

CARNAGE (Sony Classics):  Despite impeccable credentials (Polanski, the Foster/Winslet/Walz/Reilly combo, Tony Award-winning source material) and some strong reviews where it's supposed to count, the film is headed for a deeply unexciting $17.5K average at 5 NY/LA theatres.

HOLDOVERS:  NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warners) should slide less than 50%, but that's not nearly enough to save it.  THE SITTER (20th), as expected for its genre, will have a deeper slump and head for the exits.  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight) continues to do no better than OK; despite a great deal of awards love this week, its per-theatre average will be around $3500.  HUGO (Paramount) and ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (Sony) are both holding well, but at very low numbers, around $1200-1400 per theatre, and THE MUPPETS (Disney) took a bigger fall to hit the same neighborhood.  The Weinstein Company continues to play a very slow hand with MY WEEK WITH MARILYN and THE ARTIST, neither of which expanded this week, and had modest per-theatre dips.  (Both will go wider on Dec. 23.)   Fox Searchlight did expand SHAME from 21 to 51 theatres, and as a result, the per-theatre average will drop sharply to around $6K.  

Next week, as noted, the holiday avalanche arrives.  On Wednesday, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sony) and THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (Paramount) open for their very different audiences, along with the wide expansion of MI4.  Those are followed on Friday by WE BOUGHT A ZOO (20th).  Then Christmas Day brings WAR HORSE (DreamWorks/Disney) and Summit's counterprogramming THE DARKEST HOUR.  Plenty for families, with a couple of dark dramas for the adults.  Will it work?  Stay tuned.

NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warner Bros):  So much for that franchise.  New Year's was expected to have a softer start than Valentine's Day, which opened on a holiday weekend that included the titular day itself.  But there's "soft" and then there's a 65% decline from Valentine's opening day.  New Year's will have a longer playing time than Valentine's did, probably hanging in a large number of theatres for 4 weeks.  The trouble is that by the time holiday moviegoing seriously begins, New Year's will already be out of gas, unless it gets a word-of-mouth Christmas miracle.  The picture should still turn a profit for Warners, but don't hold your breath for "Arbor Day."

THE SITTER (20th) :  And the answer to whether Jonah Hill can open a movie on his own is... no.  The picture was low-budget, so Fox won't get hurt by it, but the attempt to make some quick money by counterprogramming the season's franchises and family fare didn't work.  The good news for Hill is that his next pictures are the high-concept 21 Jump Street, and Neighborhood Watch, which puts him back into an ensemble where Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn will be doing the heavy lifting.

THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight):  Increasing theatre count by 50% didn't yield much payoff:  the likely $5K average for the weekend is lower than what Juno ($10.5K), Black Swan ($8700) and The King's Speech ($6500) did in parallel spots of their releases.  Descendants, and Searchlight, will be hoping for some big critical help next week, as the Los Angeles Film Critics, Golden Globes and American Film Institute all announce their choices.

HUGO (Paramount):  Very similarly, while a big 800-theatre increase will keep the weekend total fairly stable, the per-theatre number is crashing to a very mediocre $2300.  Things will only get tougher as major holiday competition starts to flood in, so the critics will again need to help out.

OTHER HOLDOVERS:  New Year's Eve hit BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (Summit) right in its target audience, and after running day-to-day ahead of New Moon all week, on Friday BD1 went back down to virtually even.  It now seems clear that the picture won't reach New Moon's $296M total.  Meanwhile, audiences finally discovered ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (Sony)... 3 weeks late.  It's heading for an excellent 15% drop, but the numbers are already so low that the final total will be more of a moral victory than a financial one.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER SPY (Focus):  Off to a great start, with a likely $80K average in 4 NY/LA theatres, one of the year's highest.  Of course, the question is how broad the appeal of the film's labyrinthine plot and low-key storytelling style can get.  

YOUNG ADULT (Paramount):  A somewhat less impressive likely $40K average at 8 theatres, particularly because the presence of Charlize Theron and the curdled comedy genre were supposed to make this one an easier sell.  The question isn't whether Theron will be nominated for Actress awards where as long as there are multiple nominees, but whether, in this year of Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams and Viola Davis, she can actually win anything.

SHAME (Fox Searchlight):  Almost doubled its theatre count to 21, and will still fall for the weekend, with a good but not great $13K average.  This film is the poster child for needing some award and nominations help.

THE ARTIST (Weinstein):  A very, very slow expansion boat for this speciality item.  It added 11 theatres for a total of 17, and should have a fairly solid $17K average.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Weinstein):  Held at 244 theatres, and still not setting marquees on fire with a likely $3K average.  

The trick about CARNAGE, which is based on the Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, is that despite its pedigree, and the big names usually associated with it, it's more of a game than a revelation.  The story of a civilized pair of upper-middle-class urbanite couples who inevitably devolve, as the title implies, to a state of unruly barbarism, there's really no more to the story and theme than that; the pleasures of the work come from the clockwork precision with which the foursome's gears break down.

Roman Polanski's film version (he co-wrote the screenplay with Reza as well as directing), which showed this week at the AFI Film Festival before beginning its theatrical run on December 16, makes few substantive changes to the original work, apart from the not-inconsiderable insertion of a new beginning and ending. (Oddly, the movie also changes the names of the female characters and the children.)  However, even though it delivers a fair share of entertainment and may well find a mainstream audience, Carnage never quite masters the tone needed to maximize the play's nasty fun. 

The action of Carnage is almost completely confined to the apartment of Penelope and Michael (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly), whose 11-year old son Ethan has been hit in the face with a stick by Zachary, the son of Nancy and Alan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz), resulting in the loss of 2 teeth.  The parents have gotten together to try and work out a plan of action for their children, with some recognition of wrongdoing and an apology. It all begins cordially enough, the four of them impressed by their own graciousness, but as Michael and especially Penelope press the savagery of the beating, Nancy and Alan start to defend their son, and gradually the bickering between the four moves from their sons' actions to the ways they're all getting on each others' nerves.  Alan, a lawyer defending a pharmaceutical firm accused of selling unsafe products, won't get off his cell phone; Penelope has a tendency to stridency; Michael is extravagantly uninterested; and Nancy is increasingly sick to her stomach, which won't end well.  Things continue to escalate, until race, politics, and gender are part of the verbal warfare, and good manners are but a dim memory.  The general idea, of course, explicitly stated by one of the characters, is that the God of Carnage rules over us all, and underneath our sheen of sophistication, we're all a bad afternoon away from becoming animals.

A film like this, with few actors and minimal settings, is so focused that every creative decision is subject to an acid test; the gold standard is probably Mike Nichols' adaptation of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a play to which God of Carnage certainly owes a great debt.  That cast of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis were permanently etched into the history of their roles (Taylor and Dennis spent much of the rest of their careers playing variations of those parts), and the film made the reputations of Nichols and cinematographer Haskell Wexler.

Polanski's decisions in Carnage are less successful, beginning with the cast.  It's not that any of the actors are less than superbly talented, but especially for anyone who's seen the US cast of the NY/LA production, they're not ideal for their roles, especially since Polanski plays the action naturalistically, instead of for stylized comedy. John C. Reilly, not unexpectedly, is by far the most skilled at catching every laugh in his part, but he doesn't have the aura of threat James Gandolfini had on stage (when Gandolfini said that his wife had dressed him up as a liberal for the occasion, it made perfect sense).  Waltz, on the other hand, may have been better suited for the role of Michael--his aggression as Alan seems second-nature, not surprising as it was when Jeff Daniels played the part.  Foster simply isn't as funny as Marcia Gay Harden was on stage, and Winslet, who probably fares the best of the four, doesn't have the demure quality that made Hope Davis' explosive illness so hilarious in the play.  

There are other flaws.  Polanski's decision to show the boys at the beginning and end leads to a far too pat conclusion.  The editing choices, often breaking up the action for overly emphatic close-ups, hurt the rhythm of the performances.  Although Dean Tavoularis' well-financed Brooklyn apartment design is impeccable, Pawel Edelman's digital photography is unimpressive. 

Carnage is, despite these shortcomings, an entertaining, fluidly staged piece of work--and certainly brisk, at 80 minutes including full credits.  It's always fun to watch classy actors fight tooth and nail, and whether or not they're perfectly cast, these four are fine company.  The play was never a masterpiece to begin with, so it's not as though the potential for a classic was wasted here.  Much like its characters, though, this Carnage doesn't manage to live up to its best possible self.  

Los Angelenos will have a chance to get advance looks at some of this year's Oscar candidates at the AFI Film Festival, which begins in just about 2 weeks.  Today the Festival announced the Gala and Special Screenings, which typically make up the bulk of the high-profile titles, and they include quite a few films featured at this fall's film festivals.

The festival begins with the world premiere of Clint Eastwood's J. EDGAR, and other Galas include THE ARTIST, Polanski's CARNAGE, MY WEEK WITH MARILYN and SHAME, as well as Luc Besson's THE LADY, which premiered at Toronto.  Special Screenings include, among others, Ralph Fiennes' film of CORIOLANUS, The Duplass Brothers' JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME, the Dardenne Brothers' THE KID WITH A BIKE, Lars Von Trier's MELANCHOLIA, and Wim Wenders' documentary PINA, as well as RAMPART, BUTTER, I MELT WITH YOU and WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.  (The festival hasn't yet announced its closing-night presentaiton.)

Veterans of the AFI Festival's "free ticket" policy know that actually getting one of those tickets can be a chore--and sometimes the theatres are overbooked, meaning that even having a ticket is no guarantee of admission.  The Festival does, however, include a great many films worth the effort.

Check out SHOWBUZZDAILY'S STATUETTE STAKES roll of Awards contenders:

     PART I

Today, we return to SHOWBUZZDAILY's coverage of the Oscar race (see Part 1 here, with an introduction to those contenders best called the Field--these may not be the favorites, but even as longer shots they're still in the race.

YOUNG ADULT (Paramount - Dec. 9)

Good Bet:  From Jason Reitman, whose Up In the Air probably should have won the last time around.  Although it hasn't officially been screened, people have been seeing it, and there's enormous buzz around the script and Charlize Theron's performance in the lead.

Bad Bet:  No one defines "backlash" these days better than screenwriter Diablo Cody post-Juno.  Reitman annoyed some of the industry with the treatment of the other credited screenwriter on Air.  The film could easily be relegated to the Best Actress category alone.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sony - Dec. 21)

Good Bet:  Sony will be citing The Silence of the Lambs endlessly on this one--a violent bestseller that won it all.  The trailer looks sensational.  After Social Network, David Fincher is owed.

Bad Bet:  Silence was 20 years ago, and the Academy doesn't normally go for hard-R violence.  Spielberg had to wait almost 20 years for his Oscar, and Scorsese's wait was roughly 30; who told Fincher he was on the express bus?

THE TREE OF LIFE (Fox Searchlight - Released May 27)

SHOWBUZZDAILY odds to be nominated:  5/1
Bookie odds to win:  14/1

Good Bet:  Terence Malick is as revered as any contemporary filmmaker, and quite a few people consider this a masterpiece.

Bad Bet:  A lot of other people it's bloated and overrated.  Malick doesn't do Oscar campaigns, and Brad Pitt will be pushing for Moneyball.  Searchlight will be spending the bulk of its efforts on The Descendants and Shame, which will be in the midst of their theatrical runs, rather than a film already on homevideo.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY (Focus - Dec. 9)

Good Bet:  A serious, smart thriller with a superb cast, based on one of the most acclaimed spy novels ever written.  Lots of critical acclaim when it screened in Venice.

Bad Bet:  Everyone (well, everyone in the Academy) remembers Alec Guinness in the BBC miniseries, and that's a tough comparison.  Will Oscar voters be able to follow the story?

THE IRON LADY (Weinstein - Dec. 16)

Good Bet:  Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.  And enough time has gone by since her last win that she's owed, damn it.

Bad Bet:  From the director of Mamma Mia!  And why didn't Harvey Weinstein show it at any of the fall film festivals?  Harvey Watch says that he's favoring The Artist and My Week With Marilyn.

MONEYBALL (Sony - Released Sept. 23)

Good Bet:  95% approval on Rotten Tomatoes, $54M in the bank (and still counting) and all for a movie no one thought could even be made.  Brad Pitt in a career-best performance. 

Bad Bet: Comparisons to The Social Network are unfair, but... it's not The Social Network.  It'll be out of the zeitgeist by the time all the shiny new holiday season movies arrive.  Is Pitt's performance showy enough to garner awards?

CARNAGE (Sony Classics - Dec. 16)

Good Bet:  Tony Award winning play, all-star cast, Oscar-winning director.

Bad Bet:  Polanski isn't winning a second Oscar, at least not for an 81-minute filmed play.  Film festival reviews have been mixed so far.

HUGO (Paramount - Nov. 23)

Good Bet:  Scorsese.  In 3D, no less!  And so classy that the New York Film Festival showed it as a surprise work-in-progress for the first time ever.  (Shhh... pay no attention to the family movie ad campaign, it's really about film preservation.)

Bad Bet:  Scorsese or not, it's a kids movie, and opening against heavy competition over Thanksgiving (The Muppets and Arthur Christmas on the family side; The Artist, A Dangerous Method and My Week With Marilyn on the serious end).  It may get squeezed out.

A DANGEROUS METHOD (Sony Classics - Nov. 23)

Good Bet:  A supremely classy historical story (Freud and Jung), very fine actors in Michael Fassbinder, Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley, and David Cronenberg is the kind of director who no one ever realizes was owed an Oscar until he has one.  Sony Pictures Classics knows how to sell a picture like this better than anyone,

Bad Bet:  Film festival verdict was that it's intelligent and well-acted all right, but also dry and talky.

TOMORROW:  The Also Eligible.