Oscar season slow to start to start at academy

Considering the frenetic pace at which awards bloggers (including yours truly) are already handicapping this year's Oscar race and lining up to see  whatever true contender the studios will throw our way (i.e. "Milk," "Frost/Nixon," "Doubt," "Changeling," "Slumdog Millionaire" etc.), it's pretty clear most members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences aren't on the same wavelength.

We're already into the second weekend of November, and instead of the hottest, most anticipated contenders, the academy's own "official" weekend screenings include such hotly unanticipated titles as "Repo: The Genetic Opera," from the director of "Saw" parts 2, 3 and 4 and starring Paris Hilton; "The Other End of the Line", a throwaway MGM comedy with Jesse Metcalfe, the hunky gardener from "Desperate Housewives;"  "Nothing Like the Holidays," a Debra Messing Christmas trifle;  "Ballast," a bleak, glacially paced tone poem about life along the Mississippi Delta that is being self-distributed; and "Eden," an obscure Irish marital drama that is making a quick art house stop on its way to Netflix.

An academy member called me this week to ask if I had HEARD of any of these movies because the member didn't want to waste any  time and didn't have a clue what any of them are. This lineup makes last week's academy showing of "High School Musical 3" seem like best picture material by comparison.

"We've really fallen on hard times," the member told us. "Who are these companies, Liberation Entertainment? Magnet? These are ACADEMY movies? I don't know where these films are coming from."

True, the academy did show "Changeling" a couple of weeks ago to a big turnout (about 700) and strong response, and it has the powerful "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," "Milk" and "Australia" coming soon. But the voter we talked to was wondering why, instead of showing a rash of clunkers, the academy won't try to spread out the absolute glut of year-end contenders that members will be feeling pressure to see in a concentrated period of time before ballots are mailed just after Christmas day -- especially since many  take  vacations during this period too. Why shouldn't academy voters get the opportunity to see the biggies first  in the comfort of their state-of-the-art theater?

It's a good question since it's hardly likely Paris Hilton movies are going to score in the nominations. And the field of contenders opening before the end of the year is actually starting to mushroom again after "The Soloist" and "The Road" fell out. Now the Beyonce musical "Cadillac Records" into last-minute contention with a Dec.  5 qualifying run and the Jeff Goldblum Holocaust drama, "Adam Resurrected" has decided not to wait for a distributor to pick it up and is getting a qualifying run as well from it's producer, Bleiberg Entertainment.

Meanwhile, much to the consternation and rightful indignation of The Times' Patrick Goldstein, bloggers are falling all over each other trying to predict best picture nominations for movies they mostly have yet to see and that certainly the majority of the academy membership has not seen. Patrick's absolutely right. We ought to let these films find their way and have a little breathing room before being forced to handicap their chances.

At this point the frontrunners among members I have talked to are, in order: "Wall-E," "Dark Knight" and "Changeling." They haven't seen much else, but "Slumdog" is slowly starting to be mentioned as well. Unanimous opinion among the bloggers, though, is "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"  is winning in a rout, even though none of us have seen the Dec. 25 release -- yet. And almost no one in the academy or the press  has seen Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino," "The Reader," "Revolutionary Road," "Seven Pounds"  or Fox's "Australia,"  which the studio is purposely taking its own sweet time to campaign. Rightly they figure people should see the Baz Luhrmann epic (which likely will be delivered wet to theaters on Nov. 26) before the studio starts touting it for awards. In fact, most people at Fox would probably love to see the heavily under wraps film themselves before shouting its best picture potential to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile foreign-language film entries continue to screen at a swift pace, but from what we've been told only Germany, Japan  and Russia have made any significant impact, with Italy's Cannes Grand Prix  winner, "Gomorra," getting predictions that it will be one of the final five, despite mixed response from some who frowned on its generous amount of violence. And the Portuguese film "Our Beloved Month of August” was apparently so poorly received that some members were trying to leave before they could "officially" exit and still receive credit for seeing it.

The fact that the race is so fluid and the academy season still in a virginal state -- at least as far as real voters are concerned -- should give hope to all those awards consultants who read our moronic predictions (because it's their job, they have to) and get their panties in a twitter when their film isn't mentioned.

Hey, it's only NOVEMBER. Paris Hilton movies are still the bill of fare at the Goldwyn. The "bests" are yet to come.

--Pete Hammond

Photo: Ethen Miller / Getty Images