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

Photo: Reuters/Getty

Call it nepotism or genius in the genes — father and son directors have included Ivan and Jason Reitman, Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, John and Nick Cassavetes, Lawence Kasdan and sons Jake and Jon, Ridley and Jake Scott, David and Brandon Cronenberg, and Melvin and Mario Van Peebles. And then, in the minority, are Sofia Coppola and papa Francis Ford, and John and Angelica Houston. Sean Stone, 27, the son of Oliver "Savages" Stone, has now entered the arena. His directorial debut, a found-footage horror movie "Greystone Park," about filmmakers trolling an abandoned Victorian mental institution, is now out on DVD and VOD. Dad Oliver joined his son to talk to Yahoo! Movies:

Helen Hunt in 'The Sessions' (Photo: Fox Searchlight)

When it comes to getting nominated for a second Oscar, "The Sessions" star Helen Hunt is not counting her chickens before they're hatched. But unlike many of her rivals — Jennifer Lawrence, for example — Hunt actually has chickens to count.

Following a Manhattan screening last week, the "As Good as It Gets" and "Mad About You" actress told me at an exclusive dinner at Circo with co-star John Hawkes, that she has six chicks. When diners raised concerns that she might have budding roosters bound to crow before her morning call, she said they were chick chicks — hens all.More...

Helen Hunt in 'The Sessions' (Photo: Fox Searchlight)

The surprise guest at last week's Manhattan dinner for "The Sessions" at Circo on West 55th Street was Cheryl Cohen Greene, the real-life sexual surrogate played by Helen Hunt in the Oscar-bound indie. The 68-year-old Massachusetts native and Berkeley resident had a glow about her, an open and unaffected sexiness. This joy in life went beyond the obvious happiness she expressed at being portrayed in such a positive light in the movie about the six sessions that transformed Mark O'Brien, a journalist and poet from California who was a polio victim, from virgin to man of the world.

How did Cohen Greene feel about the movie? "I laughed. I cried," she gushed as she sat with her brother, sister-in-law, and supporters. Clearly, the movie experience also validated an unusual profession that, perhaps, had always been giggled about. Oh, you know, she lives in Berkeley.

John Hawkes in 'The Sessions' (Photo: Fox Searchlight)

When I first heard the plot of "The Surrogate," now called "The Sessions," it sounded like a parody of a Sundance movie from "The Onion." A polio survivor in an iron lung (John Hawkes) turns to a sexual surrogate (Helen Hunt) to lose his virginity after consulting his priest (William H. Macy). Really?

The surprise was that Hawkes, best known as the threatening meth-maker in "Winter's Bone" and the ominous cult leader in "Martha Marcy May Marlene," breathed life and humor into the erotic adventures. Based on the real-life experience of California journalist and poet Mark O'Brien, the result was a crowd-pleaser that broke out of Sundance, traveled the festival circuit and launched Oscar buzz for Hawkes even before its theatrical premiere today. And as for those sex scenes with Hunt, Hawkes had one word to describe them: "awkward," but in a good way.

Photo: Music Box PicturesAs we enter the awards season — look there's "Argo" and "Lincoln" and, oops, there goes "The Paperboy" — the tendency is to start predicting winners. But wait! What a dull activity that would be if we didn't first look under rocks for the movies that have been overlooked and that must be seen, and recognize performances in underperforming films that have astonished us so far in 2012, like those of Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, and Mira Sorvino.