To recap, for most of the season a troika of damaged contenders have been assumed to have a lock on nominations, with the assumption that one of them would take the top prize, despite the fact that each has big minuses. The top three have been Precious (too heavy-handed) Up In the Air (just not quite fantastic enough) and The Hurt Locker (too obscure, unseen by the public). And of those three, Up In the Air has remained the front runner with Hurt Locker taking a distant third at the back of the pack.

By weekend's end, however, the big three had been transformed into the big four, with Hurt Locker suddenly making a move on the outside.

The first piece of non-game changing news was the announcement of the slightly influential but important sounding American Film Institute's Top Ten list. The list reaffirmed the big three, giving them all slots. The one real possible game-changer was the stunning inclusion of The Hangover on the list, which has been mentioned as a dark horse contender for one of Oscar's ten best pic slots.

Next to weigh in was the LA Film Critics Association. The dwindling band of full time movie reviewers began what might prove to be a late surge for Hurt Locker, giving the little bomb-disposal movie that could the year's top honors.

A couple of other long-shots kept their dreams alive with the perhaps-not-all-that-influential Broadcast Film Critics nominations. The Weinstein Company's two dark horses, Inglorious Basterds and Nine, (the latter of which has met with very mixed, at best, critical response) led the pack with the most nominations as well as each scoring Best Picture nods.

And finally today, the New York Film Critics weighed in, seconding their LA brethren's support of Hurt Locker; naming the film as the best of the year and giving Kathryn Bigelow the best director nod.

However, the biggest news shaking up the race was not in the awards but in a flurry of reviews that emerged this weekend for James Cameron's long awaited Avatar. While widely assumed to be a stink-bomb in the making (by us at least) the film has met with rapturous, over-the-top hosannas, leading a stunned awards guru, David Poland, to write,"Avatar joins the 3 or 4 locks for an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture."

Here then are the current standings in the thrilling race to be Oscar's Best Picture of the Year, with a mere three months and a half months left to go; noting by the way, that the most important milestone on the Oscar trail, the Golden Globe nominations, happens tomorrow morning, potentially throwing the entire race in uproar once again.

THE STANDINGS:

1. UP IN THE AIR ↔
The Rap: Liked by almost everybody, head-over-heels loved by very few; a vulnerable front-runner. But who could knock it off its pedestal?
Favorable Winds: Continues to make best picture lists.
Negative Winds: Makes lists but leads very few. The "relevant" topicality, as pushed by Frank Rich, is a quality that generally fades in Oscar's mind as the season draws on and hype dies down.

2. THE HURT LOCKER ↑
The Rap: Little film with a lot of very very committed fans in the critical world.
Favorable Winds: Swept critics awards this weekend; possible Cameron vs. ex-wife director Bigelow storyline may be irresistible for Oscar.
Negative Winds: Bestowing the top trophy on a film no one has seen (grosses still total under ten million) is a potentially suicidal move for Oscar.

3. PRECIOUS ↓
The Rap: The little drama's power and messageyness still hits Oscar where it hurts, despite heavy-handedness.
Favorable Winds: Still riding its sweep of the Spirits.
Negative Winds: Hard hitting horror show story showing strong signs of looking less interesting as time passses.

4. AVATAR ↑
The Rap: James Cameron's 3D outer space epic exploded into the race with rapturous reviews this week, but remains unseen by Oscar voters.
Favorable Winds: The reviews have been strong enough that Avatar could potentially be that rare film Oscar prays for; the giant blockbuster with enough critical standing that it comes in and sweeps the table — and boosts ratings, like Titanic or Lord of the Rings.
Negative Winds: Question mark whether the 3D effects and 2D plotting will prove just too much for voters to swallow in a Best Picture.

5. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS↑
The Rap: Quirky war epic may be the Tarantino film with broad enough appeal to win him a seat at the table.
Favorable Winds: Led the Broadcast Film Critics nominations; retains a base of hardcore admirers.
Negative Winds: Remains a highly love-it-or-hate-it film, and with ultimately more post-modern fluff than weighty Oscar appeal.

6. AN EDUCATION ↔
The Rap: Charming little film that won't fade away.
Favorable Winds: Keeps making friends and wears perhaps the best of the Oscar dramas; should pick up lots of acting nominations.
Negative Winds: Too small and non-messagey a film to be a serious contender for the big prize.

7. UP! ↓
The Rap: Pixar cartoon is beloved by many, but Oscar remains no friend of the cartoon.
Favorable Winds: Shows up on almost every ten best of the year list.
Negative Winds: Has yet to show the sort of awards muscle with other prizes it would need to stampede over anti-cartoon prejudice and force its way into the top tier.

8. INVICTUS ↓
The Rap: The South African rugby picture is widely appreciated, but has few jumping with glee.
Favorable Winds: Oscar's love for Eastwood remains strong; Morgan Freeman's performance almost guaranteed nomination.
Negative Winds: Weak box-office performance has sapped what momentum the film have; Eastwood has been so celebrated by Oscar already that the bar has become very high for him to earn yet another.

9. NINE ↓
The Rap: Huge Oscar pedigree, but early response is very tepid.
Favorable Winds: Topped nominations in Broadcast Critics awards.
Negative Winds: Palpable lack of excitement about what should have been a shoo-in.

10. A SERIOUS MAN ↔
The Rap: What was thought to be the Coen's most obscure and personal film continues to win over fans.
Favorable Winds: Strong showings on ten best lists.
Negative Winds: Obscurity of topic and structure continue to keep it at arm's length from top tier.

11. THE MESSENGER ↑
The Rap: Almost entirely buried in its theatrical release, continues to impress those who have seen.
Favorable Winds: Should get acting nods for its strong performances by Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson.
Negative Winds: Could be the first film that failed to gross a million nominated for Best Picture in recent history.

Third tier contenders: White Ribbon, Lovely Bones, A Single Man, The Road, The Blind Side, In the Loop, Julie and Julia, The Hangover.

On paper, the film had everything an awards race could want; directed by Oscar winner Rob Marshall, revisiting the musical soil from which propelled Chicago to a million trophies; a cast filled with more Oscar bait than you can count including Judi Dench, Sophia Loren, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson and led by Oscar's golden boy himself Daniel Day Lewis; a story adapted from a cinema classic.

It should have been Nine's year, but the first indications are, it very much wont be.

Of the three reviews out on the streets, two are tepid at best. Although em>Variety's Todd McCarthy is very positive, this does not add up to the beginnings of a groundswell.

McCarthy called Nine a "savvy piece of musical filmmaking. Sophisticated, sexy and stylishly decked out, Rob Marshall's disciplined, tightly focused film impresses and amuses." He goes on to praise the handling of the adaptation of both the Broadway musical from whence it came and the Fellini film 8 1/2 on which the musical was loosely based.

So much for the nice. Over at the Hollywood Reporter, Kurt Honeycutt begins, "Nine marks the number of terrific acting and singing talents poorly used in this flat rendition of the Broadway musical...The disappointments are many here, from a starry cast the film ill uses to flat musical numbers that never fully integrate into the dramatic story. The only easy prediction is that Nine is not going to revive the slumbering musical film genre."

And over at The Hot Blog, David Poland can't slap enough hurt on the film to make it pay for his disappointment. He begins, Have you ever seen a singer with a great voice and no grasp of the lyrics? That's Rob Marshall. Nine is a movie with two memorable songs, performances that are routinely better than what the performers were given to perform, a problematically intense but not charming performance at the center, and most painfully, a lack of basic storytelling." And goes on in rich detail to count all the ways the film fails to live up to its promise, from a lifeless story construction to a charmless performance from Day Lewis.

So all that leaves us with an awards race right where it was last week, with the flawed campaigns of Precious, The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air keeping Oscar locked in their three-way death. Below is our end of the week check on the conventional wisdom of Oscar-land, with only three months and change to go:

↑ Up In the Air: Won the National Board of Review Best Film award which gives Air, dismissed by some as too lightweight, some needed gravitas.
↔ Precious: Strong showing at the Spirits nominations, but doubts persist about how well the heavy-handed story will wear in the long campaign. The National Board omitted the film from its top ten list altogether.
↓ The Hurt Locker: Was bizarrely ineligible for Spirits nominations as it was entered last year. Needing a break out win if its to maintain its place in the top three.
↓ The Lovely Bones: Met very mixed reviews in its London premiere, some saying the story is too Law And Order to make a serious contender.
↔ Invictus: Respectful but not jumping for joy buzz from early screenings. With Oscar having showered so many trophies on director Clint Eastwood already, will be likely reluctance to let him into the front of the race with a merely so so turn.
? Avatar: The last remaining question mark, unviewed by the critics. Despite a preponderance of early evidence to the contrary, some dare to hope for another Titanic to sweep the Oscar table clean.

• These late days of print media bring some strange potential owners out of the woods to poke around at the fire sale and see what kind of bargains they can land on unmatched, only-slightly-singed argyle socks. The Wrap reports that the venerable journals, the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard have been sold by their parent company Nielsen to James Finkelstein's News Communications Inc. publisher of Who's Who and The Hill. Also included in the sale, The Wrap reports, Backstage, Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek and Editor & Publisher. [The Wrap]

• After a strong debut, the ratings for ABC's V took a tumble last night with 29 percent drop-off. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Carrie Underwood's hold on the music charts has not let up. "Play On", the former Idol star's third album easily took the top slot on Billboard's Hot 200, selling 318,000 copies in its first week out, knocking the soundtrack to Michael Jackson's This Is It down to #2. [Billboard]

• There was an actual bidding war over content in Hollywood yesterday and in the end, Peter Chernin's New Regency walked away with the prize. Chernin beat out Universal and Warner Brothers to snatch up the rights for My Name is Memory, the first book of a trilogy about a college couple whose souls have been intertwined for hundreds of years. [Variety]

• Simon Cowell has topped primetime TV's top-earners list. According to Forbes, the Idol judge/America's Got Talent creator rakes in $75 million a year, soaring past Donald Trump in the #2 slot at $50 miilion. [Forbes]

• To promote its new film Nine, the Weinstein Company has signed a deal to annoy ABC viewers in unprecedented ways. According to the deal with the network, the film will be written into the plotlines of a variety of ABC shows including its daytime soap operas, will be featured on Dancing With the Stars. [Variety]

• And if you're keeping score, it hasn't been a great week to be Nikki Finke. Not only does she inform blog readers that she is down with the flu, but she gets beaten by Sharon Waxman on the Hollywood Reporter story (assuming it pans out) and her biggest scoop of the year, the news about Oprah's departure from her syndicated show, still has yet to be confirmed by anyone else, with all sources still, a week later, publicly saying that no decision has been made. It may yet turn out that Oprah will end up making the leap, but some are wondering is it possible Nikki jumped the gun claiming the deal was done?

• In the first big pick-up of the Toronto Film Festival, The Weinstein Company came out on top after an "all night negotiating session" over the rights to designer Tom Ford's directorial debut A Single Man. For the newly contractually-joined pair, it was all a beautiful dream. Ford told Variety "Harvey and I have talked about a collaboration for years, in fact, since our first meeting more than 10 years ago." [Variety]

• Weinstein denied rumors, however, that the release of the Rob Marshall musical Nine is being pushed off until next year, a move which would have knocked it out of the Oscar race. The scuttlebutt started when when Weinstein pushed back the release of The Road, landing it on the same date as Nine had been booked to bow. The change would have shaken up an already wide-open Oscar race but Weinstein declared yesterday that we can handle two releases on one day just fine, thank you very much. [Hitfix]

• At Goldman Sachs' Communicopia in New York, Rupert Murdoch thrilled attendees with his plan to save big media by charging for NewsCorp content, starting with the Wall St. Journal Blackberry edition. Jeff Zucker for his part declared NBC's Jay Leno was blazing a trail to the future with his 10 PM show. Asked about a possible Vivendi deal to buy NBC from GE, Zucker was coy saying the company has been "a great partner." [Variety]

• If you worried that we were running low on ideas after Battleship—the A-Team film is moving forward. Jessica Biel and Sharlto Copley are in talks to star. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Red hot quirky comic Zack Galifianakis is in talks to star in the new film by writer-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden. The movie "It's Kind of a Funny Story" will also star Emma Roberts and is described as a "coming of age dramedy.' [Hollywood Reporter]

Here is the brand-new, high-res photo. The cast can be seen much more clearly than in the picture that hit the web last Friday, but something is a little different than how we remember it...

LabiaGate! Clearly, the Weinsteins regretted unleashing Fergie's nether regions onto an innocent populace and have now draped the offending area in a chic black veil. Still, what about those of us who dreamed of one day sitting in a darkened theater to watch Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis share the screen with Fergie's pudendum? Without the lure of the "London Bridge" singer's cameltoe, Nine just became a Seven.

Eight, tops.

And that's not even counting the four Oscar winners on display: Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard and Dame Judi Dench. And look at Kate Hudson! Even the PA's get to be all dressed up on this movie! Dec. 11, 2009, can't come soon enough!

• Notes from the 2008 American Film Market: Part One [FilmJerk via TFE]

10. Tom Cruise, Top Gun

9. Renee Zellwegger, Chicago

8. Keira Knightley, Edge Of Love

7. Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge

6. Rupert Everett, My Best Friend's Wedding

5. Diane Keaton, Radio Days

4. Scarlett Johansson, Lost In Translation

3. Gwyneth Paltrow, Infamous

2. Zooey Deschanel, Elf

1. Heath Ledger, 10 Things I Hate About You

• Kate Hudson Joins Cast of Movie Musical Nine [People]

The best part, though? According to reports (excerpted after the jump) the Weinsteins are actually paying Showtime to air their product:

[I]n an unusual twist, the indie distributor apparently will make an advance "bonus" payment of as much as $100 million to the pay cable channel.

As in other pay TV deals, Showtime would parcel out payments to the Weinsteins according to the performance of the various films at the domestic boxoffice — minus the prepayment, which is essentially a discount on the amount Showtime will owe the supplier.

Declining to discuss the financial terms of the deal, the Weinstein Co. co-chief Harvey Weinstein called the suggestion of a prepayment clause "rumor and innuendo" but added that in his opinion, the deal is "a game-changer" for his company.

The only game we see changing is Showtime's, which blew off Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM (the Weinsteins' original cable partner) demands three months ago and which, before yesterday, didn't have a theatrical output deal in place. That it achieved not only that, but got the distributor to pay for it, thus underwriting a good chunk of the original programming it needs to keep its carriers happy? That's awesome.

Granted, it's TWC — the $100 million is widely perceived as insurance against the day when Matt Blank's hotline to Harvey bounces back with an automated disconnection message. And regardless of whether or not Harvey pulls out the big '08-'09 he's planning — Gawker's analysis seems to suggest otherwise — Showtime will need more than Tarantino Oscar bait to fill its slate (its Viacom divorce partner CBS Films is good for roughly 30-40 projects in that time). But as marriages of convenience go, we've seen worse. Anyway, it's hard to resist the idea of the new Showtime as something of a mail-order bride. Best of luck to all!

• Weinstein Co. inks deal with Showtime [THR]

But Quentin Tarntino's Inglorious Bastards, which as recently as two weeks ago was to receive the last blank check in Harvey's account, is apparently also in the market for a backer. And not just a co-producer — the Weinstein s and Lawrence Bender have that part under control — but an actual studio with actual money, writes Nikki Finke:

[O]ne of the ways that The Weinstein Co attracted investors was by hyping its creative connection to the Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill 1 & 2 writer/director who has long made a lot of money for a lot of people. But now only Harv, and not his investors, could potentially profit from the connection? Unreal. ... I hear it's gone out to Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount ... and Sony.

Right. Listen, guys — "Paramount Pictures Presents a film by Quentin Tarantino" is the worst-sounding eight-word phrase to hit Hollywood since "You like me! You really, really like me!" Even if trash day is currently the most newsworthy thing happening at TWC HQ, there must be a solution out there. Can't Harvey sell off a few of his Tonys or something? Or even his Oscar; as long as he sticks to co-producing, Scott Rudin can always buy him another one down the line. Hit Craigslist or something, seriously. Think outside the box!

• Weinstein Co. does double duty [Variety]

• Quentin Tarantino Unveils Inglorious Bastards [DHD]