The awards picture is now a muddle, but in a month it'll be a lot clearer. The reason: film festivals.
The Venice International Film Festival begins on Wednesday, and continues through Sept. 10. The Telluride Film Festival starts on Friday and runs through Sunday.
And the Toronto Film Festival kicks off on Thursday, Sept. 8 and runs through Sept. 18.
These three festivals (plus a slightly smaller player, the Deauville Festival du Cinema Americain) paves the way for the New York Film Festival (Sept. 30-Oct. 16), the Aspen Filmfest (Sept. 21-25), the AFI Fest (Nov. 3-10) and the other festivals that litter the fall movie season.
But we won't have to wait for those other fests to have some answers about this year's contenders. By the time the smoke clears in mid-September, we should have a sense of the following pressing questions:
>> Which of the two George Clooney movies, "The Ides of March" and "The Descendants," stands the best chance of impressing the Academy?
>> Can "Moneyball" can appeal to an audience of more than just baseball fans?
>> Do directors as diverse as David Cronenberg, Steven Soderbergh, Fernando Meirelles and even Madonna (!) have what it takes this year?
More than 250 films will screen in Toronto, 50 in Venice and another 30 to 40 in Telluride. A festival rundown:
Venice
The oldest of the three film festivals is also the most old world, both in its setting and in the fact that its jury clearly isn't exactly representative of Academy voters. Last year's winner, for example, was Sofia Coppola's austere and European-style "Somewhere," which was completely overlooked by the Academy.
Toronto, on the other hand, has an audience award rather than a jury, and last year the top prize went to "The King's Speech."
Also read: Roman Polanski, Steven Soderbergh Tapped for Venice Film Fest
Venice has booked a few films that aren’t making it to Toronto, most notably Roman Polanski's "Carnage," Tomas Alfredson's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and Soderbergh's "Contagion," plus a lot that will screen in Italy and then immediately head for Canada (perhaps with a detour through Telluride along the way): "The Ides of March," "A Dangerous Method," "Coriolanus" and Madonna's take on the Wallis Simpson story, "W.E."
Most of those Venice films are scheduled for the first half of the festival, conveniently giving filmmakers and media a chance to get to Toronto. Darren Aronofsky, whose "Black Swan" premiered in Venice last year, heads the jury.
Telluride
The Colorado festival is the smallest and quirkiest: it doesn't announce its lineup ahead of time and doesn't give media or professional passes. Most everybody pays $780 for three days of moviegoing, and the money's due before they tell you what you'll be seeing.
