Likely Oscar contenders arrive in theaters during the holiday season

Listen - are those sleigh bells we're hearing? Could be. Either that, or it's somebody's cell phone telling us the Holiday Movie Season has begun.

It's certainly a big, bulging bag of would-be blockbusters and/or works of art - 39 will open between Wednesday and New Year's Day. There's no question that the whole gluttonous cornucopia is quite keeping with the seasonal sentiment of excess.

Where Santa and the movie season part company, of course, is that the former is expected to bring Pokemon cards, Earth's last Beanie Babies and bottles of 20-year-old scotch; the latter, for all its probable bounty, will inevitably include the cinematic equivalent of rehydrated fruitcakes and velvet paintings of Donald Trump.

And, unlike Santa, the movies take things back: This year's 11th-hour premieres include more than the usual number of films opening only for week-long, Oscar-qualifying runs before reappearing during the depths of winter.

Courtesy of Castle Rock Films Director Frank Darabont returns with the Tom Hanks prison drama "The Green Mile."

But the overriding fact is, it's trophy season, the time when the studios release the hounds, aka the films most likely to do well in the months-long sweepstakes for critics' prizes and the positioning of their Academy Awards campaigns. Given what a crapshoot the year-in-awards is turning out to be, the tension should be thick enough to cut with the edge of a press release:

With the exception of "American Beauty'' (most categories), "Being John Malkovich (screenplay) and "Boys Don't Cry'' (direction and actress Hillary Swank), there seem to be very few films that have anything close to what you'd call popular momentum. When you factor in Oscar's constitutional abhorrence for the fresh and the weird, "American Beauty'' seems to be running unopposed.

That may change in the next few months, but from this early vantage point, nothing on the movie menu has the look of a "Saving Private Ryan'' or a "Shakespeare in Love'' about it . Oscar will find something to like, of course, but every indication is that this is going to be a year of standout performances, rather than standout movies.

Among the most talked-about best-actor candidates is Jim Carrey for "Man on the Moon,'' Milos Forman's bio-pic about the late, radical comedian Andy Kaufman. Even people who don't necessarily like the movie say Carrey will likely be going head-to-head with "American Beauty's'' Kevin Spacey. Physical transformation is always a plus in the awards race, and even those of us who've seen only the stills have to admit that Carrey has achieved something.

Similarly, the pumped-up Denzel Washington, who in "The Hurricane'' gives a moving portrayal of one-time middleweight contender Rubin Carter, the '70s cause celebre convicted - many thought unjustly - of a 1966 Paterson, N.J., triple murder. Carter later became the subject of a Bob Dylan song and celebrity-powered protests. Washington's handicap is the structure of the film, which prevents a sustained performance from taking shape - a problem not shared by Sean Penn, whose acting in Woody Allen's "Sweet and Lowdown'' will confirm all those suspicions that he's one of our most talented and underrated actors.

With his back-to-back Oscar wins, Tom Hanks becomes a contender every time he walks on screen (well, maybe not for "You've Got Mail''). His appearance in "The Green Mile'' Frank Darabont's adaptation of the Stephen King death row novel, is fueling the usual speculation. Any awards handicapping also has to include the wild card of British actor Jim Broadbent, whose turn as lyricist William Gilbert in Mike Leigh's Gilbert&Sullivan movie "Topsy Turvy'' is a marvelous mix of harrumphing and pathos.

Among the women? The field, as usual, is a lot less jammed, because roles for women are a lot less plentiful. However, Janet McTeer - the Tony-winning actress in "A Doll's House'' - would seem to be among the clear favorites for her role in "Tumbleweeds,'' the mother-daughter dramedy that will probably benefit from opening so closely behind the similarly themed "Anywhere but Here.''

Sigourney Weaver, who hasn't had the chance to do an Oscar-level part in some time, may give McTeer headaches with "A Map of the World,'' in which she plays a schoolteacher falsely accused and imprisoned for child abuse. Likewise, Jodie Foster, who like Hanks and Meryl Streep, is a more or less perennial nominee, and in "Anna and the King'' follows in the footsteps of Irene Dunne and Deborah Kerr by invading Siam. You can add to this totally speculative mix Winona Ryder for "Girl, Interrupted,'' Jessica Lange for Julie Taymor's "Titus'' and someone may even remember Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in "Limbo.''

Other possibilities are Emily Watson in "Angela's Ashes,'' possibly Kate Winslet, an outside shot for Jane Campion's "Holy Smoke,'' again, the likely scenario being that performances will be cited apart from their films. This year has seen a crop of movies whose overall quality seems to be better than in recent years, while the number of films that really inspire passion and partisanship have dwindled (will anyone even remember "Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace'' at year's end?). It's precisely the kind of year to prompt critics' awards - always viewed as a barometer and/or instigator of Oscar sentiment - to be all over the map.

Courtesy of Universal Pictures Jim Carrey stars in "Man On the Moon."

11-30-99