MOVIES

A first look at Oscar contenders

An Academy Awards expert tells what you should see now.

By Tom O'Neil

Attention, Oscar fans: Don't wait till next year's Academy Awards season to see the leading contenders. Many of those movies are now in theaters, out on DVD or soon to premiere. Here's what you should see early.

Charlize Theron is already a Best Actress front-runner thanks to the rich emotional ore she unearths in "North Country." She plays a fed-up miner who leads a historic class-action lawsuit that defines America's legal policies on sexual harassment. Don't dis her chances just because she won two years ago for "Monster." Oscar champs often repeat (think Hilary Swank).

Likely first-time nominee Reese Witherspoon debuts this weekend in "Walk the Line," a probable Best Picture contender about the rocky romance of June Carter and Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix). Most impressive: Witherspoon and Phoenix actually croon their country duets, upstaging Jamie Foxx, who won Best Actor last year for lip-syncing to Ray Charles.

Usually, early-year releases are forgotten at Oscar time, but voters are eager to hail beloved veteran Joan Allen. Her sassy turn as an abandoned housewife in "The Upside of Anger" can be seen on DVD. Julianne Moore is another classy fave with acting chops who's overdue for a statue. She portrays a crazed momma who sparks racial tension by accusing an African American of kidnapping her son in "Freedomland." Another trouper probably has the Best Actress edge, however, because she's a red-hot "desperate housewife" who's in the sort of gender-bending role that often wins. In "Transamerica," Felicity Huffman plays a transsexual who takes a car trip with a teenage hustler who doesn't realize she's his dad (got that?).

But voters often prefer ingénues, especially when they star in Best Picture nominees like "Memoirs of a Geisha," which features Chinese superstar Ziyi Zhang. It helps that "Geisha" is an epic costume drama based on a popular book.

Oscar also loves inspiring, real-life stories like "Cinderella Man." The Depression-era boxing saga performed poorly at the box office in June (when Russell Crowe threw a phone at a hotel clerk), but the film could emerge as a serious Best Picture and Actor contender when the DVD comes out Dec. 6. Its chief rival will be "Munich" (Dec. 23), starring Eric Bana as an agent hunting for the terrorists who killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. It's Steven Spielberg's most serious work since award-sweeper "Schindler's List."

Spielberg must take on another formidable director, Peter Jackson, whose "King Kong" remake (Dec. 14) looms large after his Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won Best Picture last year. Aiming to bring down that goliath is wily little Woody Allen, who's experiencing a comeback thanks to "Match Point" (Dec. 25), about an ex-tennis pro who cheats on his rich wife. Speaking of comebacks, watch out for "Crash:" The riveting indie about racial prejudice is now on DVD.

Of course, Oscar also loves movies directed by actors, because actors comprise the largest voting block. Tommy Lee Jones directs himself in "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (opens nationwide Feb. 3), portraying a Texas rancher who avenges the murder of a Mexican pal by a U.S. border guard. And now in theaters is George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck" about TV newsman Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and his 1950s clash with Commie-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Clooney stars in a supporting role in another Best Picture contender, "Syriana," about international intrigue in the oil industry.

Two Jake Gyllenhaal movies could be up for the top Oscar. In Jarhead (Nov. 4), he's a potential Best Actor nominee as a disillusioned U.S. Marine fighting in the first Gulf War. In "Brokeback Mountain," he has a supporting role as a gay cowboy in love with Heath Ledger, whose anguished performance puts him out front in the actors' race. But the early lead is held by art-house fave Philip Seymour Hoffman, who gives a creepily accurate portrayal of literary hellcat Truman Capote in "Capote." Other Best Actor possibilities: Colin Farrell as Pocahontas' seducer in "The New World," and Viggo Mortensen as a family man whose past haunts him in "A History of Violence."

Tom O'Neil writes an awards column for "The Envelope" section of LATimes.com and is a senior editor of "In Touch Weekly."