Variety proclaims that 2013 offers "more terrific awards possibilities than ever"

The Best Screenplay problem - Grantland

We're a mere 108 days from the 86th annual Academy Awards, and America remains firmly not in the grip of Oscar fever! Can you feel the growing throb of vague, half-aware expectation mixed with polite indifference? It's catching! One reason for this is that, while contenders like 12 Years a Slave, All Is Lost, and Dallas Buyers Club are chugging along, they still, after a combined 67 days in release, have collectively grossed less than Thor: The Dark World took in by about 8:30 p.m. on its first day. However, there's also an increasing disconnect between Oscar talk and real-world moviegoers. In awardsland, pundits have been masticating the chances of Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis and Alexander Payne's Nebraska since May, when the movies played at Cannes. And more recently, buzz about fall festival films like Saving Mr. Banks,Philomena, Out of the Furnace, Labor Day, August: Osage County, and Lone Survivorhas had predictors hastily revising and re-revising their cheat sheets. But back on earth, none of those movies has actually, you know, opened — and that's not even counting David O. Russell's American Hustle and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, which remain off limits even to those of us whose job is to shake them by the ankles and see if any trophies fall out.