To everyone’s surprise it has become increasingly evident that Lincoln will most likely fail to take the Best Picture Oscar. It is respected and liked, but not really loved. And it looks more and more like Argo might take that award. [Note: Apologies for idiotic, now-deleted info posted a few minutes ago.]

It’s not that the BFCA/Critics Choice or the HFPA Golden Globe awards are Academy influencers, per se. It’s the fact they both chose Argo for Best Film and Affleck for Best Director, and that means that Argo pollen is in the air, and they both sneezed in unison. It’s the pollen, it’s the pollen….the pollen is the thing. If the Producers Guild becomes the third organization to go “ah-choo” over Argo, the game is over.

I’m more of an Argo admirer than a lover or worshipper as Zero Dark Thirty is clearly a much tougher and more riveting film, and generally a higher, greater achievement, but if it has to be Argo then so be it. I’d rather see Silver Linings Playbook take the prize for emotional reasons, but I’m nonetheless willing to fall on the Argo sword if that helps, even a little tiny bit, to fulfill my most ardent wishes in this race, which I don’t need to elaborate upon.

I suspect that Bill Clinton‘s Lincoln endorsement during last night’s Golden Globes telecast pretty much decided that Lincoln‘s and Spielberg’s fate, but you tell me.

All kinds of things to attend to as I leave tomorrow afternoon for Park City and the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. It’s hard. A growing sense of bats swirling around my life, wings flapping….flap-flap-flap-flap-FLAP-FLAP-FLAP! Struggling as we speak. Thinking, examining, researching as fast I can. Several phone conversations this morning, and none of them leading anywhere.