It's not just hurricane season and the holiday shopping rush that seem to get longer every year. The 78th annual Academy Awards won't be handed out until March 5, but Hollywood is already overrun with Oscar fever - and the prognostication game is in full swing. 

The slew of year-end movie awards and nominations that were announced last week - the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco critics' groups, the Golden Globes and several others - are just the beginning of an endless procession of best-of lists and prizes that studios will use to shore up marketing plans for their winter films.