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Oscar Post's best-guesses for gold. By Iain Blair When it comes down to Oscar-worthy films, 2011 pretty much followed the usual trend — the end of the year was packed with such serious, prestige projects as The Descen- dants, The Artist, The Iron Lady, Shame, War Horse, J. Edgar, Tin- ker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Albert Nobbs, Carnage, The Ides of March, Moneyball, Hugo, My Week with Marilyn and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. By contrast, the first eight months or so offered far less in the way of serious contenders, apart from The Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Beginners and a little film called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. Will Oscar, as usual, turn a blind eye to earlier releases in favor of the year-end log-jam? Impossible to tell, but with all that in mind, we now look into our crystal ball and present our annual top picks list of likely nominees. BEST PICTURE/ BEST DIRECTOR These high-profile awards usually go hand-in-hand (over 22 Post • January 2012 Picks 80 percent of the time in the past four decades) and last year was no exception as evidenced by wins for hot favorite and most-nominated (12) nominee The King's Speech and director Tom Hooper. This year, it looks like some long-time Oscar favorites with proven track records will be amongst the potential nominees, along with some fresh faces. Steven Spielberg has two, very different major year-end releases attracting Oscar buzz: War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin. The former, a period piece, which tells the harrowing story of Joey, a horse sent into the killing fields of World War I, was largely shot on location in England and France, and used extensive previs by The Third Floor. The latter, also a period piece, is based on the best-selling Belgian cartoon books, and is a 3D, CG-animated feature that makes extensive use of the latest performance capture systems and the talents of actors Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis and Jaimie Bell, who plays and voices the title hero. www.postmagazine.com