Scott Feinberg‘s pre-festival Oscar nominee projection slate is pretty good stuff. I have my disputes, of course. The Social Network is my idea of muscular (again, based on a reading of the script) and, going by Scott Foundas and Peter Travers raves, right up there with Inception, The Kids Are All Right and Toy Story 3. (Even if the latter’s nomination will be meaningless.) But what makes Danny Boyle‘s 127 Hours, a movie about a spiritual arm-carving, a frontrunner? Because of the Boyle brand?

A friend who knows the game insists that Mike Leigh‘s Another Year is not a Best Picture frontrunner — he says it’s going to open, be well reviewed and then “go away.” Feinberg thinks Ed Zwick‘s Love and Other Drugs is a Best Picture frontrunner. But we all know that Zwick’s track record argues against this. (The only clear signal I’m getting is that LAOD‘s Anne Hathaway is a Best Actress nominee.) If The Tree of Life in fact opens and is half as good as it’s rumored to be, it’ll be a frontrunner, not a possibility. In a right world Get Low would be at least a major threat. And how does Feinberg rate Julian Schnabel’s Miral and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Biutiful as mere possibilities?