• Tom O’Neil serves some crow up to a few colleagues while failing to understand that his prize pony needed a few films to underwhelm in order to be in the position it’s in. [Gold Derby]

• David Poland crunches the “Avatar” numbers yet again.  The film is still…almost…breaking records. [The Hot Blog]

• Neill Blomkamp don’t need no stinkin’ big-budget blockbusters. [Hero Complex]

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“It might as well rain until September,” wrote Carole King in her jaunty 1960s ditty of that title, an ode to summertime breakup blues that may as well have been composed for the autumnally-activated awards season. Swap September for December, and you have an apt description of the approach many studios and Oscar-watchers alike take to the race — a short-memory mentality that I argued against in a column almost three months ago.

Back then, I appealed to specialty and independent studios to release smaller titles earlier in the year, before the holiday-season crush of studio prestige titles – citing “The Hurt Locker,” amongst others, as a title that would likely benefit from the head start.

With the year up and the full field revealed, I take the robust awards-season performance of the former film, as well as the surprising durability of “Inglourious Basterds,” as evidence that more offbeat contenders often benefit from a longer lead – not least when even hefty studio ponies are currently struggling to keep their heads above water, despite the visibility afforded by December release dates.

Which leads us to the quartet of studio titles long labeled the “Big Four” by awards-watchers – the “Big” speaking not of the most enthusiastic anticipation so much as the longest delay. Months ahead of their respective press premieres (the earliest of which came in late November), “The Lovely Bones,” “Nine,” “Invictus” and “Avatar” crafted an aura of importance around themselves by sheer virtue of being the last seen, hogging four slots on many predicted Best Picture lineups on theory and expectation alone.

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This is from the holiday episode, which aired 12/23.  Early in the interview they touch on the Oscar hosting gig and later, of course, there’s “It’s Complicated” talk.  And a great story mid-way through about when Baldwin met Burt Lancaster in an elevator.  Hilarious stuff.  Here’s part one, part two after the jump.

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A few weeks back we told you about a new site called SoundWorks Collection, which has been doing a great job of featuring the sound mixing and sound editing on a number of the year’s contenders.  Using brief video pieces to illustrate an element of the industry that is still somewhat mysterious to many, I think they’re grounding it for general audiences quite well.

Most recently, the site featured the sound of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” which was mixed by Gary Summers and Greg P. Russell and features an all-star sound crew that is sure to be recognized again.  Take a look:

We’ll be featuring Russell once again here in a couple of weeks via our Tech Support interview series.  As you know, he is the second-most nominated individual to never receive an Oscar (12 nods and counting).

I’d also suggest that the resurgence of women as box office makers or breakers is not to be under-estimated. Yes, women went to the movies before “Sex and the City: The Movie” last year (18 months ago), but it seems that since then there have been more women-oriented hits that can be solely claimed as being hits BECAUSE of women (and not “women taking their boyfriends” or whatever). “Julie & Julia”, “The Proposal” and, obviously, “Twilight: New Moon” and so on. Plus, so many people were saying “will Avatar get women audiences?” and I think the answer is most definitely YES.

–Reader/commenter Glenn, in our “moments of the year” discussion yesterday.

I think I have a few Entertainment Weekly Oscar special issues dating back to, oh, 1995 or so.  I used to relish in the odds, the Oscar articles cooked up by the magazine’s staff, and, obviously, Dave Karger’s work throughout.  Yeah, I’m a bit jaded on the circuit now, but once upon a time, I was excited to see who’d get the Oscar cover.

Ah, who am I fooling?  I still get very curious.  For the eventual post-nominations cover, that is.  For a couple of years, it seemed that designation was a harbinger.  Then “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was featured in 2000 and things didn’t go that film’s way for Oscar.

This year, I thought it would be one of two films on the early race issue, the two films I think are duking it out for Best Picture.  And sure enough, one of them got it: “Up in the Air.” We’ll see who gets the post-nod cover.

EW’s Pop Watch blog has more of the early scoop.  The issue hits stands Friday and will include Karger’s predictions.  Click here for a slightly bigger version.

• Weinstein scales back the “Nine” expansion in the wake of low box office, bad reviews. [Reuters]

• “Avatar” effects guru Joe Letteri sure is making the rounds.  Next stop: Steve Pond. [The Odds]

• On Oscar’s consistent rule changes. [Variety]

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As I like to do when Kris boldly throws out a set of winner predictions, I thought I’d follow up with an indication of which way our readers are leaning — as well as an update of my own previous guesses.

The conclusion: well, what a difference seven weeks makes. Of course, it’s inevitable that things would go topsy-turvy in this of all months, when multiple question marks have been answered — some becoming unexpectedly insistent exclamation marks in the process.

Still, I’m surprised by how dramatically my own picks have shifted, largely due to my overestimation of “Precious”‘s pop-culture sway, and my misplaced hunch that “Avatar” would disappoint. (Well, it disappointed me, but that’s hardly the deal-breaker I’d like it to be.) Today, I’m not even predicting a nomination for the man I (rather rashly) backed to win Best Director last month … such is the fickle nature of the game.

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As the year (and decade) slowly winds down, I thought it would be a pretty good time to revive our long-slumbering Lists feature here at In Contention. And what better way to do so and salute the year at hand than to lay out the most significant movie-related moments of 2009?

The American Film Institute kind of tried its hand at this yesterday. I was already considering a list along these lines, but the AFI thing definitely got my the ole’ gears turning once again. Suffice it to say, I think they missed a few spots.

It was an intriguing year. For me, as mentioned many times, it was the best year of filmmaking the decade has seen. But it was also a pivotal year for the film industry, as everything from standardized digital projection to 3D technology, experimental distribution schemes to economic effects on the business seemed to be on the table as points of consideration along the way.

It was the first year of the Obama administration, something that found its way into the arts discussion as well. Whether it was the consideration of “Slumdog Millionaire” (which ultimately won the Best Picture Oscar this year) as the “first film of the Obama era” or the desire to include films like “Precious” (a stretch) and “Invictus” (not such a stretch) in that conversation, the political environment, as ever, was in the cinema air.

It was a year of many things, so obviously, a list like this could be filled with any number of instances. But these 10 stuck out to me as the most significant ticks on the clock of 2009. Agree, disagree, whatever the case, don’t look too hard for a “Twilight” mention (though I suppose one may have been warranted).

My picks…

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As is usually the case when British outlets offer Oscar analysis, there are few fresh insights to be found in Jeremy Kay’s assessment of the current race in today’s Guardian.

Well, there is his unusual offhand assertion that “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Star Trek” are locked-in Best Picture nominees, with “Julie & Julia” and “The Blind Side” jostling for slot #10. (Well, it can’t eventually be the same 10 titles everyone else is predicting, can it? Can it?)

He does, however, offer the kind of forthright, subjective opinions on the contenders that some Oscar prognosticators shy away from, as when he witheringly dismisses Gabourey Sidibe in favor of Abbie Cornish.

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I Tweeted about this yesterday, but in case you missed it, Steve Pond has painstakingly revealed the craziness of Oscar’s math once more, but this time, with added detail and some new bits that will either clear things up for you or make them much, much more confusing.

I know which of those camps I’m in.

Anyway, here’s a taste, just to get you started.  But go to The Odds to get the full fuzzy picture:

The math is simple: You take the number of nominations up for grabs, add one, and use the resulting number to divide the number of votes. Then you add one, or any fraction of one.

For instance, if you have 5,500 Best Picture ballots and you’re looking for 10 nominees, you divide 5,500 by 11, giving you a magic number of 500. Now, it’s theoretically possible that 11 different films could each receive 500 votes – but if you add one (or any fraction, if that magic number isn’t a whole number), you’ll get the number that will automatically put you in the top 10, and thus guarantee you a nomination.

Random, I know.  But allow my inner 6-year-old to have a moment here.

I guess there was a report somewhere over the holiday about how Warner Bros. had scrapped plans to film a live action “Thundercats” movie.  As a child of the 1980s, and speaking as a guy who may have had more He-Man action figures than Thundercats, but still liked the adventures of Third Earth a bit more than those of Eternia, I have to say, I’d love to see it happen.  I’ve just never had my hopes up.

But remember when the “Avatar” trailer first hit and everyone was saying the Na’vi looked like blue Thundercats?  It was obviously used as a pejorative at the time, but it didn’t click for me that, hey, you know what — we could do this now.

Let’s be real.  No one is going to spend “Avatar” money on a Thundercats film, and “Avatar” money is what you need to make it work.  But if the effects were as refined as they were on James Cameron’s epic, then I have to say, I’d be pretty stoked.

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• John Campea talks to “Avatar” star Stephen Lang. [AMC Entertainment]

• Scott Feinberg spotlights 50 performances that “shoulda been contendas” in the 2009 Oscar race. [And the Winner Is…]

• Nikki sez Warner Bros. has broken the studio’s own domestic box office record by crossing $2 billion across the States.  Wowsers. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

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Curtis essentially took the climactic moment from every romantic comedy and distilled it into one delectable stew and somehow came up with a product that works. In a way, by focusing solely on the crowd-pleasing moments it almost becomes experimental. Not every story hits but enough does to ensure that I felt warm and gooey from literally the first frame to the last.

From our own Chad Hartigan’s on-going list of the 100 best films of the decade, re: “Love Actually.” I thought it would be a nice festive mention, to say nothing of the fact that I agree with every word.

Incidentally (and belated), my list of the top 10 perennial must-watch Christmas movies, originally posted last year.

They should add an “L” between the “F” and the “I.”  American Film List Institute.  Anyway, this just arrived via press release.  The criteria is apparently “accomplishments of considerable merit; influences with either a positive or negative impression; trends, either new or re-emerging; anniversaries or memorials of special note; and/or movements in new technologies, education, preservation, government or other areas that impact the art film, television and digital media.”

It leads off with the obvious choice.  More after the jump:

AVATAR – JAMES CAMERON’S MILEPOST IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE ART FORM

James Cameron’s pioneering effort to unleash the human imagination was fully realized in 2009 with the release of AVATAR, a film that firmly established itself as a landmark in the way stories are told.

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(Thanks to ThinkHero for the embed.)

Oscar ballots are being mailed to AMPAS members today.  So now is the time to pay attention to the buzz, as most ballots are returned within the first couple of weeks (which says everything you need to know about how much time and care is put into the process by voters).

However, it’s somewhat amazing to me that not much has shifted in the scheme of things since the last proper Off the Carpet column.  Of course, there is “Avatar” (which I’ll get to in a second), but otherwise there are just a bunch of non-issues rearing their heads (like “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” being in the conversation, for instance, or the perpetuated Mo’Nique/bad press angle).  Chalk it up to boredom.

The only significant note is “Nine”‘s box office whiff, which accompanied an entirely dismissive response from critics and has left many wondering whether it will be able to push through into the 10.  Passion is still necessary, despite the wider net, and it’s becoming more evident than ever that getting voters to check the film off as a #1-3 choice is going to be a chore.

The most appreciated aspects, of course, are the below-the-line achievements (which I still think could be enough to get it across) and Marion Cotillard’s “why-the-heck-have-they-been-campaigning-for-lead?” performance.  Rightly so.  Maybe The Weinstein Company can switch gears like Fox Searchlight did with Maggie Gyllenhaal and find one more nod in the major categories.

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