The Award Season begins and thus flame the guestimates for the big-prize, Oscars'12

With the Academy already flipping some rocks (pre-nominated lists for Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, Best Animated Short, Best Documentary Short have been made public), major independent Award Season festivals and the associations of critics are fueling up their rumble. As for every year, the decisions by these entities work as a blurry preview of what might happen at the Kodak Theater and stir the boiling oil in the pan for the prophets (I will myself try it).

It begun with the Gotham Awards and the New York Film Critics Awards, which foresee much of which has already been established as plausible or probable all over the Internet.

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS AWARDS

Best Picture
"The Artist" (Michel Hazanavicius)

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist")

Best Screenplay
Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian ("Moneyball")

Best Actor
Brad Pitt – ("Moneyball" and "The Tree of Life")

Best Actress
Meryl Streep ("The Iron Lady")

Best Supporting Actor
Albert Brooks ("Drive")

Best Supporting Actress
Jessica Chastain ("The Tree of Life", "The Help", "Take Shelter")

Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki ("The Tree of Life")

Best Nonfiction Film
"Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (Werner Herzog)

Best Foreign Language Film
"A Separation" (Iran)

Best First Feature
"Margin Call" (J. C. Candor)


GOTHAM AWARDS

Best Film
“Beginners" (Mike Mills)
“The Tree of Life” (Terrence Malick)

Breakthrough Director
Dee Rees (“Pariah”)

Breakthrough Actor/Actress
Felicity Jones (“Like Crazy”)

Best Ensemble Performance
"Beginners"

Best Documentary
“Better This World” (Kelly Duane and Katie Galloway)

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
“Scenes of a Crime” (Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock)

Audience Award
“Girlfriend” (Justin Lerner)