The question about the Argo turnaround and the Lincoln deflation is whether or not this will hold, or whether something else will happen to shift the dynamic again.

“A few weeks ago, it started to look one of the candidates had become the clear frontrunner,” The Daily Beast‘s Ramin Setoodeh writes in a 1.22 piece. “Even if Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln puts audiences to sleep like a C-SPAN marathon, [it] landed seven Golden Globe nominations and 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film. The movie with the most nominations usually wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

“But if there’s one thing the Academy loves, it’s a comeback story — and a funny thing happened on the red carpet. The early precursor awards that were supposed to go to Lincoln went to Argo instead. Ben Affleck‘s film about how the CIA (and Hollywood!) heroically saved six diplomats during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis swept top honors at the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Awards in January.

“Over at Gold Derby, which tracks various Oscar races, 13 pundits still predict Lincoln will win Best Picture compared with 10 for Argo. If anything, though, with a month until the February 24th Oscars ceremony, the momentum seems to be moving in Argo‘s direction, a movie that paints the showbiz industry as an international superpower.”