The signs are already here. "Oscar-worthy performances," says an ad for the feel-good film Pay It Forward. "Electrifying Oscar-winning performances by Gooding and De Niro," says an ad for a new drama, Men of Honour.
Like the first cuckoo of spring, the magic word "Oscar" attached to film publicity heralds the arrival of the annual Academy awards spin season, even though the voting is still four months away.
Just as an American presidential election campaign starts years before the actual vote - and in some cases goes on after it - so the film industry believes that it is never too early to start positioning your film and its stars as worthy of consideration for an Oscar.
This year, with the field still wide open, the studios have just opened their wallets and started bankrolling their favourites and over the next few months millions of dollars will be invested in seeking the elusive nominations.
If a critic for any small radio station or obscure magazine wants to see his or her name in print, now is the time to write "Oscar-worthy" in a review, guaranteeing the author's blessed words an appearance on newspaper ads for the film.
Publicity
Men of Honour, which stars Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr, and Pay It Forward, which stars Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment, are just two of the films already being presented for the attentions of the academy members.
"Suddenly Joan Allen, Gary Oldman, Jeff Bridges and Rod Lurie's screenplay are Oscar contenders," says a review for The Contender, the story of a vice-presidential candidate and a sexual scandal, presumably in the hope that America has not had too much of vice-presidents in elections to last it until awards day on March 25. "Ellen Burstyn's performance is of Oscar calibre," says a review attached to Requiem for a Dream.
"It definitely gets more intense every year," says Patrick Goldstein, who writes the Big Picture column in the LA Times. "There is as much spinning going on in the Oscars as in what has been happening in Florida after the presidential election."
The publicists have already started to try to "plant things in our ears", says Goldstein, and the LA Times and the New York Times are the places where they place their highest hopes.
The promoters of Gladiator will doubtless be pleased to see that a still from their film appears next to an article on the Oscars in the New York Times, despite the fact that the film appeared early in the year and was seen as sound and enjoyable rather than prize-winning stuff.
Another procedure being adopted is the re-release of films that failed to attract a large audience when they first appeared but are felt by studios to be worthy of consideration. The latest to get this treatment is Wonder Boys, starring Michael Douglas and directed by Curtis Hanson: both of whom are previous Oscar winners.
Next month come the first of the critics' awards, with special attention again paid to LA and New York, and the Golden Globe nominations made by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Not to be outdone, the British Bafta awards have been moved forward to January so that they become part of the process rather than a postscript.
Publicists now have the delicate task of promoting their hopefuls without alienating directors, producers and actors who are not to be so favoured. Budgets purely to promote an Oscar bid, which may include persuading the actors to go on the publicity circuit again, run from a minimum of around $500,000 (£350,000) to more than $3m, the cost of a small film.
So what films are really in with a chance in what is effectively the primary season for nominations? Julia Roberts will almost certainly get a best actress nomination for her role in Erin Brockovich, as may Renée Zellweger for Nurse Betty.
Quills, directed by Philip Kaufman and starring Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet and Michael Caine, is highly tipped for various honours provided the subject matter of the Marquis de Sade does not make the 6,000 or so academy member voters too squeamish.
Contenders
The Perfect Storm must be a favourite, for special effects at least, and the Denzel Washington film Remember the Titans has its supporters.
Entertainment Weekly has already flagged its list of ones to watch. They include Almost Famous, which has done well critically, if not at the box office.
MGM have hopes for Michael Winterbottom's mining drama, The Claim. Miramax will be marshalling support for All the Pretty Horses and Bounce. New Line is pushing David Mamet's Hollywood satire, State and Main, with William H Macy and Sarah Jessica Parker.
The Coen Brothers' chain gang comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Kenneth Lonergan's film You Can Count On Me are both being touted as producing nomination-worthy performances.
Among the others to have received a mention are Tom Hanks's yet-to-be-released Cast Away and Steven Soderbergh's film Traffic, which was based on the British television mini-series of the same name.
Finding Forrester has Sean Connery also being tipped as a contender for his role as a reclusive author in Gus Van Sant's coming-of-age story about a black teenager in the south Bronx.
And Britain's other hopes? Universal are trusting that Stephen Daldry, director of Billy Elliot, is this year's Sam Mendes, - the British theatre director who wins the hearts of the Academy members. The film has been heavily marketed here and would hope at least to be in the running. High Fidelity, based on Nick Hornby's book but set in the US rather than in London, has also been mentioned.
One things is clear. If there is any dispute about the rightful winners, at least it will not be the secretary of state for Florida who will decide on how the votes should be recounted.
