OSCAR HOPEFULS LOOK TO AVOID THE HEX OF THE HYPE (ENV)

By Nancy Vialatte

As awards season starts to roll, Pete Hammond tells us there's a little game being played around Hollywood called "managing expectations." One consultant working on an early front-runner, says Hammond, pleaded, "If you mention the movie just don't say we're leading anything."

Smart academy consultants -- battered by this year-round Internet and mainstream media interest in the hunt for awards -- are starting to act like CIA operatives, doing everything they can to prevent their prime contenders from peaking and burning out before they even open.

Sad examples in recent years of highly touted movies failing to live up to endless hype have taught the pros a valuable lesson. If pure advance buzz determined the awards, then the folks behind "The Majestic," "Angela's Ashes," "The Crucible" and "The Good German," to name a few, would have been pushing their Globes aside to make room for their Oscars, muses Hammond.

Million Dollar Baby," Clint Eastwood's winner in 2005, was known as the stealth entry, not even announced for the Warner Bros. release schedule until Sept. 30, 2004; "Crash," 2006's winner, opened in May 2005 and was content to just get itself seen and let everything else fall by the wayside -- including the seemingly inevitable victor, "Brokeback Mountain," which began its front-runner status at early fall festivals and had nowhere to go but down by the time final academy ballots were due. Exactly one year ago this week, Warner Bros. publicity execs were proclaiming that their new Martin Scorsese film, "The Departed," was just a commercial movie, "not really an Oscar film."

Towing that line, Scorsese kept a low-profile and walked away with his first Best Director statue; not to mention the �commercial� movie�s prize as Best Pic. Indeed, notes Hammond, Academy members like to discover movies on their own. No one wants "The Shipping News" stuffed down their throat and told this is the movie you will vote for.

But the window for getting movies seen is shrinking � especially for November and December releases, so the studios and distributors are walking a thin line.

Festival exposure, which helps set films apart from the pack, on the other hand, can be a double-edged sword.

The Toronto and Telluride reception for "Juno" was euphoric, but can media infatuation for Jason Reitman's crowd-pleasing but small comic gem over-inflate awards voters' expectations by the time it finally begins a limited run Dec. 14?

The brilliantly funny and whimsical "Lars and the Real Girl" also was big at the Toronto fest exposure. But executives at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, which financed the film, are wisely taking it slow, preferring to let "Lars" begin its run Oct. 12.

Hotly anticipated Oscar prospects without previous festival exposure, like "The Kite Runner" and "Lions for Lambs," seem to be carefully picking and choosing how, when and to whom they will be screened with their release dates looming just a month away.

Universal's powerful "American Gangster," on the other hand, is opening Nov. 2 and seems to have a different tact by screening every single week, putting it out there for all to see whenever they want.

Meanwhile, intriguing strategies are being employed for both the Coen brothers� "No Country for Old Men" and Paul Thomas Anderson�s �There Will Be Blood,� says Hammond. �Old Men� debuted in Cannes to great reviews but has thus far had very few screenings for the LA and NY press � though it did run in Toronto. Keeping the distance between its Cannes bow and a limited November 9 release is aimed at avoiding overkill and maintaining momentum as an Academy contender.

"There Will Be Blood," which begins its limited runs on December 26, made a splash as the unannounced closer at the Fantastic Fest in Austin last week.

The Texas response, where a lot of the impressive film was shot, was incredible -- perhaps excessively enthusiastic, as often happens at these things because of the festival-goers and Internet bloggers who knew they were the "chosen ones."

One person connected to "Blood" told Hammond they were thrown for a loop but that the early praise is helping them shape the campaign.

Texas stringers from both Variety and the Hollywood Reporter raved online (causing consternation among real critics at both trades who have yet to see it) and now Vantage has to uh � manage expectations before beginning press screenings (probably in November, according to a studio source) for the movie.