Special to the Film Awards Clearinghouse/Various Oscar Predictions

Normally the Film Awards Clearinghouse seeks to condense the best conventional wisdom of Oscar prognosticators into a single spot and then use that information to attempt to divine what will happen when the Oscar nominations are announced.  But for this special edition of the FAC, I have developed a different metric to see what it may tell us.  I’ve slammed together the results of announcements from the last two weeks from The American Film Institute, the National Board of Review, the Independent Spirit Awards, The Broadcast Film Critics’ Awards, The Golden Globes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association and The New York Film Critics Circle to get a little different slant at where the Oscar race might be.

The next edition of the Film Awards Clearinghouse, which should appear Thursday, will revert to the traditional metric.

BEST PICTURE

Two films are way out front (to no one’s surprise they are): The Artist and The Descendants.  Then there are 4 other films that the above metric suggests will likely be nominated: The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris and War Horse.

I think that there will likely be seven Best Picture nominees and this metric suggests that 5 films are slugging it out for that slot: Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and, perhaps a bit surprisingly, Drive, 50/50 and Bridesmaids…really…

One other note…because virtually no one has yet seen Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I don’t think you can completely rule it out yet.

BEST DIRECTOR

Almost certain: Michel Hazanavicius/Artist, Alexander Payne/Descendants, Martin Scorsese/Hugo.

After those three…it’s a cloud of dust.  Personally, I tend to lean toward Terrence Malick/Tree of Life and Steven Spielberg/War Horse

BEST ACTRESS

Four women rule (it would seem) at this point: Meryl Streep/Iron Lady, Viola Davis/The Help, Michele Williams/Marilyn and (in a stunning turn…she’s gotten really hot this last week or so) Tilda Swinton/We Need to Talk.

Leaving three women fighting for the fifth slot: Glenn Close/Albert Nobbs, Charlize Theron/Young Adult and Elizabeth Olsen/Martha Marcy

BEST ACTOR

The five nominees (under this system) would be: Michael Fassbender/Shame, Jean Dujardin/Artist, Brad Pitt/Moneyball, George Clooney/Descendants and Leonardo DiCaprio/J. Edgar.

Outside shots for Demian Bichir/A Better Life, Michael Shannon/Take Shelter and Ryan Gosling/Drive.  Nowhere to be found: Gary Oldman.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

This configuration of sources suggests the five nominees will be: Janet McTeer/Albert Nobbs, Shailene Woodley/Descendants, Berenice Bejo/Artist, Jessica Chastain/The Help and Octavia Spencer/The Help.

Best shot at sneaking in: Melissa McCarthy/Bridesmaids

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Three men seem pretty likely: Christopher Plummer/Beginners, Albert Brooks/Drive, and Kenneth Brannagh/Marilyn.

Patton Oswalt/Young Adult and Jonah Hill/Moneyball seem to be the best bets for the other two spots, but only marginally more likely than a list of several others including Nick Nolte, Viggo Mortensen and John Hawkes.

SCREENPLAYS

Two adapted screenplays look fairly certain: The Descendants and Moneyball.

Four originals appear to have an edge: The Artist, 50/50, Win Win and Midnight in Paris.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

And the only foreign film that looks solid is (no surprise) A Separation.

VARIOUS OSCAR PREDICTIONS

So after all of the above, here are some links to the folks who are supposed to know what's happening as we come out of this last week into the Holiday period which will see a slowdown in this pre-Oscar stuff.  that will pick up strongly again the first week of the new year with the announcement of nominees for the producers and writers guild awards.

Gurus of Gold: http://moviecitynews.com/2011/12/gurus-o-gold-golden-globes-nominations/

Gold Derby: http://www.goldderby.com/predictions/experts/19/4/#

Scott Feiberg's Forecast from The Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/feinberg-forecast-bfca-sag-hfpa-274964

Anne Thompson and Kris Tapley's Oscar Talk podcast: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/oscar-talk-where-are-we-now-the-artist-descendants-dragon-tattoo-extremely-loud-war-horse

Awards Circuit: http://www.awardscircuit.com/2011/12/17/oscar-circuit-nice-guys-or-gals-finish-last/

Anne Thompson: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/oscar_predicts_chart

See you Thursday