Photo: Dreamworks

"I would say that we still have Daniel Day-Lewis as No. 1," Thelma Adams told Gold Derby's Tom O'Neil in their second joint podcast. Ever the gentleman, O'Neil agreed about the "Lincoln" star's front-runner status, but couldn't quite back Adams's contention that John Hawkes is "pretty much a sure thing for 'The Sessions.'" Too small?

Also tossing their pointed elbows in the crowded competition are Joaquin Phoenix ("The Master"), Denzel Washington ("Flight"), Anthony Hopkins ("Hitchcock"), Hugh Jackman ("Les Misérables"), and Christoph Waltz ("Django Unchained"). And then there's Bradley Cooper, who may ride the "Silver Linings Playbook" popularity contest all the way into the winner's circle.

Meanwhile, the final five depend on the two yet-to-be-screened movies: "Django" and "Les Misérables." "You can pretty safely say that Waltz is going to knock it out of the park," Adams asserted, adding: "The huge open question is Jackman."

Another open question is whether Phoenix has hit the

Mads Mikkelsen (Photo by Joel Ryan)

Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, 46, courts Oscar in the 18th-century romance "A Royal Affair," (opening today) the Danish entry for Best Foreign Film. In that sexy historical drama, Mikkelsen plays the German doctor and philosopher that charms crazy King Christian VII of Denmark (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard) and beds his young English queen (rising star Alicia Vikander).

"Mads? Of course, as a Scandinavian I had seen a lot of his films," Vikander told Yahoo! Movies this week. The Swedish actress, 24, who also has a major role opposite Keira Knightley in "Anna Karenina" continued: "He's one of our greatest actors. When I met Mads for the first time at a screen test in Copenhagen, it took me one second to realize he's one of the most down to earth men. He's funny, witty, brilliant and a real inspiration."

Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures

I was belatedly watching "Cloud Atlas" at my local Cineplex, catching up on movies that I hadn't seen because, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, I no longer had my Manhattan to upstate NY umbilical cord. I hadn't read all the reviews when "Cloud Atlas" premiered in Toronto because, as I recently told Steven Gaydos, executive editor at Variety, "I see the movie and then I decide." But this was a case where the gaseous critical response to "Cloud Atlas" had wafted in my direction, a skepticism and negativity reflected in Rotten Tomatoes' stingy 63 percent fresh. So, I'd postponed seeing an adventure that was completely radical among contemporary American films in the gleeful, optimistic way it played musical chairs with male and female, young and old, and future and past. By creating a movie that starred Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Huge Grant and blurred the boundaries between men and women, the Wachowski siblings (Andy and transgender Lana), and Tom Tykwer, adapting David Mitchell's genre-busting best-seller, took some major risks. And they created an entertaining, ambitious movie that went beyond feminism to an all-embracing humanism that wasn't naive enough to believe that evil didn't walk the earth in wingtips or stilettos or bare feet.

Catherine Keener and costars in "A Late Quartet" (Photo: RKO Pictures)

Lust, competition, mortality: they all come together in "A Late Quartet." It's the magnetic star-driven story of a fictional famed string quartet that implodes when its cellist, Peter (Christopher Walken), discovers he suffers from Parkinson's. After 25 successful years touring the globe, this marriage of musicians, and the marriage of the viola player, Juliette (Catherine Keener) and the second violinist Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) come to a crescendo. Meanwhile the first violinist Daniel (Mark Ivanir) mentors the couple's daughter Alexandra (Imogen Poots) all the way into her bedroom.

Betrayal, harmony, ambition, belated coming of age and dedication become variations on themes that transcend musicians and result in a stirring chamber piece impeccably played for four terrific actors. I talked to Keener ("the 40-year-old Virgin," "Friends with Money") about keeping the beat, the great Christopher Walken (Oscar nomination please!) and playing Philip Seymour Hoffman's wife — again:

Photo: The Weinstein Company/Sony Pictures/Sony Picture Classic/Fox Searchlight

What do we do with a best-actress race without Meryl Streep? After last year's win, she scratched with "Hope Springs." That leaves an open field, from the very young -- pretween Quvenzhane Wallis -- to the ingenues Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain to the grand dames Judi Dench and Emmanuelle Riva. Will Oscar go for sexy and screwed up, sexy and disabled, sexy and doomed -- or just plain tragically disabled? Here's the current crop of best-actress contenders.

Photo: Warner Bros

"Even though there's been a lot of buzz for 'Les Miz,' I'm an 'Argo'-naut at this point in terms of Best Picture," our Thelma Adams told Awards poobah Tom O'Neil in a podcast chat with his site, Gold Derby. "Because 'Silver Linings Playbook' hasn't played yet, we don't really know the roll-out. I would say that those two are the front-runners."

Why so hot on "Argo?" It scored at the box office, has great word of mouth, and proves without a doubt that popular star Ben Affleck is a bankable director. And it doesn't hurt that Hollywood saves the day in this fact-based thriller set during the Iran hostage crisis.

But don't expect Affleck to carry the day against Daniel Day-Lewis as Honest Abe "Lincoln" in the Best Actor category. Day-Lewis holds the frontrunner spot among leading actors, but O'Neil has doubts that the picture will come out on top, or that director Steven Spielberg has a lock. Hey, O'Neil said, we know how the movie ends!

Meanwhile, the pair agreed that when the Academy