True Faith or Generic Gullibility?

Every year about this time I start feeling like the sole voice of sanity. I know that's silly, boorish, and simplistic but here's why: Around about right now (first two weeks ofNovember) most people who talk about the Oscar race start trumpeting the studio lines even though they haven't seen the final batch of films and couldn't know the outcome.

Current exciteable memes that have no basis in fact:
That last minute voiceover addition to Memoirs of a Geisha has saved it -it's the epic nominee! The Producers really works. It's a giddy joy. It's the comedy nominee. Cinderella Man will resurge triumphantly in all categories! It's the early bird nominee. Munichis the absolute frontrunner -no worries, it's as great as we believed. Surprise attack -King Kong is a total epic triumph! It's the blockbuster nominee.

[ahem] That's 5 pictures right there enjoying immense hype o' the moment. This list would make the Best Picture lineup almost entirely Universal and almost entirely December. (Guess which studio is already working hardest to ramp up for awards season? You only get one guess.) Neither of those outcomes are statistically close to being "likely." Possible? Sure. Likely? No.

I'm not accusing any particular person that passes along these memes of being studio shills -many of my fellow movie writers are close to my heart. But it seems to me that every year the hype on the sight-unseen stuff reaches fever pitch in early November and nobody wants to do anything other than turn up its volume. Don't people know that before a film is screened, the studios control the buzz? Beforea film has screened there is no opinion of it that is anything other than speculative or, more commonly, simple sheep-like humming to PR tunes. No one not involved in the filmmaking could possibly know whether or not the studio memes are true. And many in the film industry would never tell anything other than great news--that's just basic professionalism and ethics. If you've seen the film, fine. If you haven't acknowledge (please) that this is all hype. Some hype will become real enthusiasm. Some will reveal itself to be pure fabrication.

Jarhead is having perception trouble now that it's open and won't do as well as expected Oscar-wise. This is very normal. In what year, ever has this not happened to some of the December hopefuls? And, yet, to hear the internet roar, you'd think every release in December was going to be an unqualified triumph. (Caveat: I know I probably err in the opposite direction, placing too much hope on earlier releases. I think I do that mostly out of principle, wishing Hollywood believed in releasing strong films all year long)

I hope you hear me on this one point. Not everything we hear in November about the movies that haven't yet been shown will turn out to be true once they have.