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Oscar buzz: Holiday movies keep their eye on the gold

And the Oscar goes to ...

Too early? Not thinking about Academy Awards nominees yet? Maybe you should be; the movie industry certainly is. The holidays are prime Oscar-bait season, when studios trot out their best and brightest in hopes of hauling home hardware come February.

It’s also the time when previously announced high-profile projects — “The Road,” say — mysteriously disappear from the release schedule, bumped ahead to sometime next year. Never, ever a good sign.

This is not to say that there isn’t plenty of lightweight fare to choose from as well. Takes a lot of movies to fill a multiplex, after all, and often the best films aren’t the most popular. Bet you don’t remember having to wait in line to see “No Country for Old Men.”

With all that in mind, here are 10 movies worth getting excited about, either because they stand a good chance of scoring lots of nominations, or ... just because. Nothing wrong with fun.

• “Quantum of Solace” (Nov. 14): Daniel Craig is back as the moody, less-quip-happy James Bond, and this time he’s nursing something almost unthinkable for 007 — a broken heart. If you thought he was one bad dude before. ... No sophomore slump here for the new-look, old-school Bond.

• “Twilight” (Nov. 21): Girl (Kristen Stewart) moves to a new town, falls in love with a vampire (Robert Pattinson). Big deal, huh? Um, if you’re one of the millions who obsess over Stephanie Meyer’s series of novels, it’s a very big deal, indeed. Lots of pressure whenever there’s a cult favorite involved.

• “Australia” (Nov. 26): The old-time epic makes a comeback. Baz Luhrmann directs and co-wrote the sweeping story of pre-World War II Australia. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman star as a wealthy English woman who inherits a ranch and the ranch hand who works on it, respectively. Oscar buzz all over the place.

• “Milk” (Dec. 5): Sean Penn is supposedly great as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the United States. Of course, Penn is pretty much always great, but anticipation for the film has been high for a long time. The supporting cast — Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco — is getting good notices as well.

• “Doubt” (Dec. 12): How do you increase your movie’s chances of winning an Academy Award? You cast Meryl Streep in it. It’s like Oscar insurance. Streep stars as a nun who confronts a priest suspected of abusing a student in John Patrick Shanley’s adaptation of his play. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the priest. You can practically hear the acceptance speeches being written now.

• “Seven Pounds” (Dec. 19): Will Smith gets serious, again, in Gabriele Muccino’s film about a guilt-ridden man who changes the lives of seven people. Smith and Muccino also worked together on “The Pursuit of Happyness,” with good results (Smith got a best-actor nomination), so expectations are high.

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Dec. 25): Brad Pitt plays a man born old who ages backwards, getting younger. It’s a re-teaming of Pitt and director David Fincher, who last worked together on “Fight Club.” Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald; a literary lineage always impresses Oscar voters, and Pitt’s star power tends to dazzle.

• “The Spirit” (Dec. 25): Frank Miller directs an adaptation of Will Eisner’s famed comic series; fanboys everywhere swoon. Scarlett Johansson is on hand for swooning help as well. Gabriel Macht stars as a cop who dies and comes back to life. File under: fun. With any luck at all.

• “Valkyrie” (Dec. 26): Laugh all you want. Yes, this film, based on a true story, in which Tom Cruise plays a Nazi officer who is part of a plot to assassinate Hitler, has been bumped once already. But now it’s back, the supporting cast is good and — this gets overlooked in tabloid stories — Cruise really can act, if given the right material. We’re open-minded and willing to give it a shot.

• “Revolutionary Road” (Dec. 26): Sam Mendes, who won an Oscar for directing “American Beauty,” goes back to the suburbs, this time in 1950s Connecticut. Stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet re-team for the first time since that little movie about the boat that hit the iceberg. They play an unhappy couple — always good Oscar fodder.