We knew the various critics groups would go for No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, as the National Society of Film Critics did Saturday. This means each film gets a boost during this all important ballot-filling season. What fascinates me is whether the Academy goes the same way as the critics. (Tom O'Neill goes underground with the NSFC voting.)
Remember, each segment of the Academy has different sensibilities. The directors and writers are more likely to go the way the critics do. The actors tend to be more mainstream, more inclined toward sentiment and emotion. (I listened to some actors tear apart No Country, intelligently.) But No Country is in good shape. So is Juno. And Michael Clayton. These are movies that everyone--including the more mainstream Academy groups, like the actors, execs, producers and publicists--can get behind. (Time's Richard Corliss thinks the Academy voters aren't mainstream enough.)
This year there are many, many movies actually vying for slots. Which means there will be votes all over the place, and the Top Five Best Picture slots will be hotly contested. The margin of difference between slots five, six and seven will be very slim.
The Academy's biggest branch, the actors, love George Clooney, Sean Penn, and Denzel Washington. That could push Into the Wild or The Great Debaters into best picture, my fellow Oscar-watcher Pete Hammond insists. But I think that neither movie movie will get enough votes from writers, editors, directors, and craftspeople. Penn has played rough on movie sets with various crews over the years, which could come back to bite him. There is a popularity contest aspect to the Oscar race. (Check out Edward Copeland's Oscar Best/Worst Actor Survey; it's fascinating to see how many great actors won career prizes for movies that that they aren't necessarily remembered by. I had forgotten that Richard Dreyfuss won for The Goodbye Girl.)
I suspect Into the Wild will land a nom for Hal Holbrook, who has factored in many Emmy races over the years, but not the Oscars.
Charlie Wilson's War is playing well with the Academy; it should get noms for supporting actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, maybe writer Aaron Sorkin.
There Will be Blood gets Daniel Day Lewis and directing, at least, if not much more.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly gets writing and maybe, veteran Max Von Sydow. The directors should go for Julian Schnabel but he hasn't endeared himself to anyone as he makes his PA rounds. He's a NY outsider who is not a member of the club. But the movie is much admired.
There are often splits between picture and director. So we may see Diving Bell in picture but not director, American Gangster not in picture but Ridley Scott in director, Atonement in picture but not Joe Wright, Juno in picture but not Jason Reitman, PTA in director but TWBB not in picture, etc. (My votes are tallied every week at MCN's Gurus 'O Gold and the LAT's The Buzzmeter.)
Tamara Jenkins is doing well enough with The Savages to make me wonder if Laura Linney, who has been sadly overlooked so far, might not creep into best actress over Angelina Jolie or Keira Knightley, who aren't necessarily sure things.
The critics groups aren't paying much heed to Atonement, Sweeney Todd or American Gangster, but they played well for many Academy voters. Atonement gets a big boost from its 17 entries on the long list of the BAFTAs, the British Academy Awards. It needs a lift: while it's doing well at the boxoffice, I sense some Academy resistance.
The full National Society voting is on the jump: