Are the Oscar chances for "Australia" kind of dead in the water? There's always the up and down factor of this week, but something tells us it is. Having sat with the film and digested a bit more, we still feel the same way about it. We appreciated the grand spectacle of it all and we generally liked it (we never graded our "review," but we'd prolly now settle on a B), but we're not sure outside of cinematography if the theatrical nature of the film is going to connect with Academy voters which could mean a huge bust financially for Baz Luhrmann and 20th Century Fox (the film cost in the ballpark of $130 million and without multiple Oscar noms, that's going to be incredibly hard to recoup).

As we always say, you never really know until all the movies of the year are out. Hope still remains for 'Benjamin Button,' "Frost/Nixon," "Gran Torino," "Doubt" and "Revolutionary Road" but this year feels like it might end up being underwhelming - at least where the mainstream Oscar-bait is concerened. Right now in our mind, the frontrunner is still "Milk" and "Slumdog Millionaire" is looking like it might make a strong case for a dark horse Best Picture nomination, which we would love. But with "Australia"s release this week, we now definitely have to change our Oscar thoughts of 10/28. Hopefully next week. "The Reader" has really fallen off the radar too.