HOLLYWOOD -- Today is Oct. 18, which means -- not to get you all stressed out or anything -- that there are a measly 107 days left until the Academy Award nominations are announced!
In other words, it's never too early to start the Oscar prognosticating.
Of course, there is that minor detail that a great majority of those awards season contenders haven't been seen yet, but barring the possibility of several crushing disappointments, we're starting to get a pretty good idea of how things are looking to shape up.
Making the process a bit easier this year is the Academy's decision to expand the best-picture race from five to 10 worthy nominees.
Given the buzz emanating from their film festival debuts, it's a safe bet there's going to be a berth reserved for Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, A Single Man (this year's Brokeback Mountain) and Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (this year's inspirational crowd-rouser).
Should voters' memories go back before the start of awards season, Kathryn Bigelow's powerful Iraq war movie, The Hurt Locker, could also lock up a spot.
So might Disney/Pixar's Up, which, even more than last year's Wall- E, was in an animated class all by itself and worthy of consideration for the top prize.
Now comes the tricky part -- the stuff that nobody's seen but sure looks golden.
Even though Clint Eastwood Gran Torino was snubbed last year, you can be sure his home studio, Warner Bros., will do everything in its power to see it doesn't happen again.
Considering this year's effort, Invictus, follows the post-apartheid life of Nelson Mandela, the social significance factor carries a built-in Oscar boost.
Also expected to be a serious contender is The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson's return to human-sized drama, after dabbling with little hobbits and gigantic apes.
Based on the bestselling Alice Sebold tearjerker of the same name, the film, even sight unseen, has the literary pedigree and the top-drawer ensemble (Susan Sarandon, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci) to earn the slot previously occupied by nominees such as The Reader and Atonement.
Provided director Rob Marshall doesn't seriously muck things up, Nine, based on the Broadway musical of the same name, should also go where Chicago and Moulin Rouge! (but not Dreamgirls) went before it.
While it's already expected to sweep the tech categories, if the highly-touted Avatar also contains sufficient amounts of human drama, then James Cameron, in his first feature-length excursion since Titanic, could find himself taking another shot at being king of the world.
Okay, that takes care of nine best-picture nominees, so what about that final slot?
Well, Oscar's always had a weakness for a decent biopic, and Amelia, Mira Nair's portrait of trailblazing female flyer Amelia Earhart (played by awards bait Hilary Swank), would seem to fit the bill.
So could An Education, the coming-of-age period drama currently playing in limited release but to widespread acclaim.
And let's not forget J.J. Abrams' smart Star Trek reboot.
Then again, with those 3 1/2 months to go until nominations day, there's that longstanding Oscar truism to consider: Things change.
