And The Early Oscar Buzz Goes To ...

First came last week's Venice Film Festival, and this week the Toronto Film Festival is underway. Slowly but surely, studios are releasing their "prestige" film projects, the ones they hope critics will remember when compiling year-end "ten-best" lists and handing out Film Critics awards.

The Saturday Early Show asked one film industry insider, Russ Leatherman of Moviephone, to help us evaluate the upcoming crop of movies, including the highly-anticipated holiday blockbusters, to see which may be the most Oscar-buzz-worthy.

Specifically, we asked him to look at the Best Actor and Best Actress categories and anticipate who the movie world thinks will be getting Academy Award nods come January.

BEST ACTOR

In this race, Leatherman discussed three actors who are drawing a lot of attention.

George Clooney's work in the upcoming "Michael Clayton" is already making waves, said Leatherman. In it, Clooney plays a powerful attorney who is his firm's devious behind-the-scenes "fixer," assigned to clean up a potentially explosive mess caused by a colleague.

"A lot of us think that Clooney is a big contender this year," he said.
"It's a great cast, and Clooney is just the man of the hour, he had a big year in 2006. This film appears to be the best bet for an Oscar for him this year."

He added, "You can never count him out because he is a great actor and he can go from a role like 'Ocean 13' to a role like 'Syriana' last year. He is a great actor."

Russell Crowe "is an amazing character, he is a wild card, he does incredible work. He is great is '3:10 To Yuma,'" which opened Friday, and is receiving advance positive buzz for his performance as a detective in Ridley Scott's "American Gangster," out in early November.

Crowe "might be nominated. He is back with Ridley Scott, a great director. You've got to remember that in 2000, he won an Oscar for 'Gladiator' (also directed by Scott), and has been nominated twice more," (for "The Insider" and "A Beautiful Mind"). Leatherman feels Crowe could be nominated for either movie.

One of Crowe's "Yuma" co-stars, Christian Bale, is drawing attention for his gritty performance in "Rescue Dawn." "It's the true story of a pilot who was captured during the Vietnam War and had to find his way out of a prison camp. It's hard to find a movie where (Bale) is not fantastic; he is one of the most devoted actors in Hollywood," observed Leatherman, who noted that Bale "has not received one nomination at this point, which is wrong. He should be rewarded for his hard work and amazing talent."

BEST ACTRESS

Cate Blanchett has already played Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1999's "Elizabeth," and received an Oscar nomination for her work. Now the buzz is that her work in ist sequel, "Elizabeth, The Golden Age," may get her a nomination next year.

"She is a big contender because of the first 'Elizabeth' movie - she is brilliant and a fantastic actress," said Leatherman. "She did a beautiful job with this and should at least be nominated."

Though "Waitress" is a small, personal movie, Leatherman thinks Keri Russell's "luminous" performance was a standout. "'Waitress' is a very charming movie and Russell has a lot of buzz." Adding to the attention the film received when it came out early this summer was the tragic murder of Adrienne Shelley, the film's author, director and co-star. "She will probably receive a best director nomination," Leatherman predicted.

In "A Mighty Heart," Angelina Jolie played the wife of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and, said Leatherman, "it was a tough sale. The movie didn't do very well at all, but I thought that she was convincing" in the role. "She knows how to do the job, she was excellent in the movie. There's a lot of buzz about her, but not about the movie though," he said.