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If you are so inclined, you could view last year's Oscar race as the perfect paradigm of how the Academy thinks and votes. There was the dark, topical film with massive critical acclaim, the very dark film that had built a ton of buzz, the big blockbuster that regular moviegoers were pulling for, and the feelgood prestige picture. Everybody thought that The Social Network, which had built a mountain of critical support, was the unbeatable behemoth of the Oscar race. Why? Because in previous years the Oscars had taken a turn for the dark. Difficult, brutal films such as Crash, No Country for Old Men, The Departed, and The Hurt Locker had been cleaning up at the Oscars, with even the crowd pleaser Slumdog Millionaire having a much harsher edge than typical Oscar fare.

So when the Guilds started piling their awards on The King's Speech, everybody was kind of confused. Could this lighthearted period crowd-pleaser, a film that seemed to belong to the Oscar races of the late '80s rather than the late two-thousandsies, actually upset what was being called the film that defines a generation? It turned out that upset wasn't the right word for it. The King's Speech had secretly been the frontrunner the whole time, riding a typhoon of support from Academy members, and when it became the first film to win Best Picture, Director, Actor and Screenplay since American Beauty, it became clear that The Social Network never had a chance.

Which leaves us fairly confused when it comes to this year's Oscar race. Which way is the Academy going to turn? Will they pick a crowd-pleaser, an epic, a blockbuster, or a dark and uncompromising drama? Drivers, Writers, Spies and Spy chasers. Wizards, Prime Ministers, Maids and Inventors. Athletes, Factory workers, Soldiers and even Zookeepers (no, not Kevin James) are all in the thick of the Oscar race this year. Some have been seen by audiences, some only by critics, some by nobody but the people making them. Some are good, uplifting, spirited and fun. Some are bad, mean, dark examinations of humanity at its worst. And some are just weird, the kind that when you describe it to somebody their reaction ranges from “that's a serious Oscar contender?” to “how is that a movie?” Some are loud, some are quiet, and one is silent. All of them are jockeying for the gold this year. Let's see what we have...

The Good:

War Horse

When most people think of sweeping epic Oscar films, the first name that comes to mind is Uwe Boll, but a close second is Steven Spielberg. Spielberg has only helmed one Best Picture winner, but he's been nominated for Best Director six times, winning twice. Basically, if he makes a movie better than Indiana Jones 4, it's going to be a Best Picture contender, so it's no surprise that his latest war epic is one of the frontrunners. Based on a Tony award winning play (and its source novel), it features a cast without any really big name stars in it - although it's one of two Oscar contenders to star love of my life Benedict Cumberbatch - which means that the race it is running will really be all about Spielberg. This film is also one of the major unknowns of the year, as it has had very few screenings, but if it is as good as the play, it could very easily win Best Picture and Best Director.

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