Everyone on the front lines has now seen (or will be seeing today) Moneyball. I know some people think I’ve been pushing too hard or too enthusiastically, and I don’t just think they’re nyah-nyah naysayers who say this stuff in order to pop me — I know they are because I know this film is the shit, and that it’s an all-around winner and a keeper. But if you feel the urge to counterpunch, please have at it.

Repeating: “It’s mystical, statistical, spooky, emotional and wonderfully original. And wonderfully “pure” in a sense. The complexity mixed with the spirituality and the political reality of things…just brilliant.

Ditto: “Put another way, it’s about organizing a baseball team in a different nerdy way (saber-metrics and all that) and the political pushback that Pitt and Hill have to deal with from almost everyone, but — this is the exceptional surprise element — it’s also about how the forces and wills of the Gods suddenly step in and make things happen when they feel like it. Angels over the outfield. So call it a nerdy baseball movie mixed with spirituality and politics and adult-level complications…sublime.”

The fact that Lion King 3D edged out Moneyball this weekend, $22.1 million to $20.6 million, simply means that a lot of kids and families didn’t go to see the 3D attraction last weekend, and that families go in groups of three and four or more. It’s not an “aww, shit” for the Moneyball team at all. It’s a very strong start, in fact. It’ll probably wind up doing a multiple of four or five and hit $90 to $100 million. It’s hitting with all age groups except, to some extent, with the under-25s. (Sasha Stone‘s 13 year-old daugter Emma found it boring, and my 23 year-old son Jett said “I know it’s good movie but I like Drive better.”)

Phillip Seymour Hoffman‘s Moneyball performance as Oakland A’s manager Art Howe is a hard-cut diamond type of deal. It’s perfectly measured and shaped and, for me, hilarious. The performance is all about Howe’s loathing and contempt and mistrust of Brad Pitt‘s Billy Beane, and the calmly stubborn way he keeps saying “um, nope,” “I don’t buy that” and “sorry but you’re living on another fucking planet.”

I absolutely worship the way Hoffman plays the above scene with Pitt and Jonah Hill. Pitt sticks his head in and says “Art, got a minute?” Hoffman glares at Pitt, almost sickened by the sight of him, and waits three seconds before gesturing “I guess I can’t get out of this” with his hands and arms and saying “yah…take a seat.” And then when Pitt drops the bomb about a certain first baseman, Hoffman waits six seconds to respond.

He’s so perfect I can’t stand it. The man has to be considered and tributed as a Best Supporting Actor contender.

I don’t have anything that impassioned or profound to say about Hill, but I love his final line in this clip:

Hollywood Reporter awards-season columnist Scott Feinberg has sent me a dated video (recorded two weeks ago) of Elizabeth Olsen talking with him about Martha Marcy May Marlene. He sent me this because on 7.31 I riffed on the lack of interesting voices (and the preponderance of mincing, squeakity-squeak voices) among under-30 actresses, and because Feinberg feels that Olsen’s voice has a snappy, stand-out quality. .

I half agree, although Olsen does utter the word “totally” at one point, and that’s not good. “Totally” is as much of a term to avoid as “absolutely” when striving to convey emphatic agreement.

The truth is that I pretty much write off anyone of any age who says “absolutely” in any context. Anyone who uses that over-used word is conveying a certain shit-shovelling mentality. It means he/she is being less than fully honest or exacting in describing how he/she feels. Spokespersons often use “absolutely” a lot on news shows. The instant that word passes by their lips they are relegated to the degraded status of “bullshitting spokesperson” as opposed to “interesting or impassioned person worth listening to.”

And “totally” is a go-along teenaged or 20something female mallspeak ditzoid term. If you’re young or youngish and want to take yourself down a peg or two in the estimation of your elders, say “totally”. You’ll be instantly labelled as intellectually stunted for years to come.

I’ve just put up some category projections in Oscar Balloon. The contenders are listed in order of likelihood and/or preference. Exceptions and disputations and the pointing out of arguable omissions are welcome. I haven’t gotten around to Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay contenders.

Likeliest Best Picture Contenders: 1. Moneyball (d: Bennett Miller). 2. The Descendants (d: Alexander Payne); 3. War Horse (d: Steven Spielberg); 4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (d: Stephen Daldry, screenwriter: Eric Roth); 4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (d: Tomas Alfredson); 5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (d: David Fincher); 6. The Iron Lady (d: Phyllida Lloyd); 7. J. Edgar (d: Clint Eastwood); 8. The Help (d: Tate Taylor); 9. The Artist (d: Michel Hazanavicius); 10. Midnight in Paris (d: Woody Allen).

Likeliest Best Director Contenders: 1. Bennett Miller, Moneyball; 2. Alexander Payne, The Descendants; 3. Steven Spielberg, War Horse; 4. Stephen Daldry, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close; 5. Tomas Alfredson, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; 6. David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 7. Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar.

Likeliest Best Actor Contenders: 1. Brad Pitt, Moneyball.; 2. George Clooney, The Descendants; 3. Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; 4. Woody Harrelson, Rampart; 5. Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar; 6. Joseph Gordon Levitt, 50/50; 7. Jean Dujardin, The Artist. 8. Michael Fassbender, Shame/A Dangerous Method; 9. Michael Shannon, Take Shelter. SPECIAL DISPENSATION: Damian Bichir, A Better Life.

Likeliest Best Actress Contenders: SPECIAL DISPENSATION: Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur…which needs to be seen because Colman absolutely kills in this British-made drama — just ask Guy Lodge. 1. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs; 2. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady; 3. Viola Davis, The Help [even though Davis’s role is definitely not a lead]; 4. Charlize Theron, Young Adult; 5. Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin; 6. Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea; 7. Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn.

Likeliest Best Supporting Actor Contenders: 1. Christopher Plummer, Beginners, Barrymore, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; 2. Andy Serkis, Rise of the Planet of the Apes; 3. Albert Brooks, Drive; 4. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Moneyball, Ides of March; 5. Jonah Hill, Moneyball; 6. Corey Stohl, Midnight in Paris; 7. Tom Hardy, Warrior, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Wettest Counbtry in World; 8. Jim Broadbent, The Iron Lady.

Likeliest Best Supporting Actress Contenders: 1. Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus; 2. Shailene Woodley, The Descendants; 3. Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, The Help; 4. Sandra Bullock, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter, The Help, The Tree of Life.

For the last eight months too many people have been asleep regarding Olivia Colman‘s shattering performance in Paddy Considine‘s Tyrannosaur (Strand, 11.18). Awards-season watchers have to be responsible and stop ignoring the clamor. I haven’t seen a lead female performance this year that comes close to matching Colman’s in terms of sensitivity, raw honesty and searing emotional exposure. It really is the shit.

It would be criminal to overlook Tyrannosaur for Colman’s sake alone. You can’t call yourself a serious entertainment journalist or an award-season columnist and not see it and give her your full consideration. Colman is this year’s Lesley Manville, only more so.

Colman plays Hannah, a 30ish middle-class wife dealing with a battering husband and an alcohol issue to boot, running a second-hand Christian charity shop in Leeds. The story is about her character befriending Joseph (Peter Mullan), a 50ish divorcee with a massive anger and alcohol problem, and their bond slowly developing as Hannah’s issues with her revolting prick of a husband (Eddie Marsan) come to a head. It sounds rough, but it’s finally a movie about tenderness.

There mignt not be much money to support Colman making a bid for awards attention, or none to speak of. She’d have to hire a p.r. firm and tour around, etc.. Strand is a very budget-conscious distributor so there won’t be much help on that end. But Colman really kills in this film, and you can’t just turn your head and pretend she’s not there or that she hasn’t delivered a legendary performance.

(l. to r.) Paddy Considine, Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman.

An awards-season handicapper said this morning that while Brad Pitt as Best Actor and a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination are strong possibilities, he’s not yet counting Moneyball as a Best Picture candidate. To which I replied: “The Aaron Sorkin-authored The Social Network averaged a 96% critical approval on Rotten Tomatoes, and won Best Picture from every critics group in the country except…was it San Diego’s? The partly-Sorkin-authored Moneyball is right now averaging 94% and inspiring waves of pleasure among the best critics, many of whom are calling it ‘the Social Network of baseball flicks’, and you’re not calling it a Best Picture candidate”?

This morning a journalist friend actually said that it’s not a safe assumption that The Descendants‘ George Clooney and Moneyball‘s Brad Pitt will be Best Actor-nominated “unless a couple of stronger performances in smaller movies like Shame‘s Michael Fassbender or The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin get bumped.” And what about Michael Shannon in Take Shelter, he added, or Joseph Gordon Levitt in 50/50?

The guy’s first statement is not correct. It is a safe assumption that Clooney and Pitt will be nominated. It can be safely assumed, in fact, that one or the other will win.

Academy members support and vote for actors whom they want to fuck, or at least bring home for dinner and invite to hang out and watch a football game with or whatever. So stop dweebing out here — Pitt and Clooney are the two lead contenders right now, period.

In Shame, Fassbender plays an icy, seriously damaged sex addict as if he, Fassbender the actor, is an icy, seriously damaged sex addict. This is a riveting inhabiting of a spiritually-dead zombie…terrific. Not since Donald Sutherland‘s performance in Felllini Casanova have we seen such a stirring portrayal of a sex jackhammer who can’t feel intimacy. Plus there’s that horse-sized wang that Fassbender shows off. And Fassbender’s Carl Jung is an equally (or close to equally) buttoned-up, highly repressed fellow in A Dangerous Method.

And Dujardin lays on the movie-king charm and the 1920s silent-film pizazz & career-collapse gloom in The Artist — he has a great smile and eyes that are full of life and sparkle.

But neither Fassbender nor Dujardin’s performance comes even close to what Pitt delivers in Moneyball — the doggedness, the anger, the brusque charm, the baseball backstory, the tenacity, the daughter love, etc. Plus he’s delivering the old movie-star charisma that we love so well. And Clooney delivers a touching, fully lived-in dad also — weary, grief-numbed, father-daughter love — who experiences a growth arc.

In short, 2011 is pretty much locked-in in this cateogry as the year of the hunk dads.

To borrow Pitt’s line from Moneyball, there’s Pitt and Clooney, and then there’s Woody Harrelson in Rampart and then possibly Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar (but don’t count on it), and then two or three levels below there’s Dujardin, and then there’s 50 feet of crap, and then there’s Fassbender, the icy Frankenstein sex-addict.

So don’t even talk about Fassbender being within throwing distance of Pitt and Clooney’s realm. Forget it…forget it right now.

Take Shelter‘s Michael Shannon does an excellent job of getting inside that guy’s skin, but I personally don’t relate to guys who feel they have to hide it all away and “be strong” and not share anything with their wives. (You know who’s REALLY good in this film? Jessica Chastain.) And so I didn’t feel that close to Shannon’s character — I didn’t feel I understood him or could relate to him (like I could understand & relate to Ben Stiller‘s Greenberg, for instance) or that he was playing on my home team.

And you know that most people do not look at Shannon as a guy they want to fuck or invite over for dinner or a ball game. (I personally like Shannon, whom I’ve met and sat down with, and would some day love to hang with him at a Yankees or Giants game.) He always seems to connect when he plays someone mentally or emotionally unbalanced, the Revolutionary Road guy being the last instance. But the RR guy was cool — a truth-teller, an illusion-shatterer. His Take Shelter guy is a hider, a scared-and-fucked-up guy and not that smart about using job equipment on the weekend for a personal backyard job, and emotionally irresponsible.

Right now it’s Pitt, Clooney, Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor, DEFINITELY Woody Harrelson in Rampart, possibly DiCaprio in J. Edgar if the film turns out well, and Joseph Gordon Levitt in 50/50 — easily the most winning performance he’s given since 500 Days of Summer.

WHOM DOES THE AVERAGE ACADEMY MEMBER WANT TO BE ON INTIMATE TERMS WITH, OR HAVE OVER FOR DINNER OR GET DRUNK WITH, THE MOST? Pitt and Clooney, tied for first. Then Harrelson, and then DiCaprio, and then Gordon Levitt, and then Oldman and Dujardin (who speaks English, just to be clear).