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It just might be Amy Adams year, but then again being an Oscar favorite this early makes for a very hard road ahead, especially when your film doesn't hit theaters until Christmas Day. Such is just the case for Tim Burton's Big Eyes, which Adams leads, playing painter Margaret Keane in the story focuses on her success in the 1950s, and the subsequent legal difficulties she had with her husband (Christoph Waltz), who claimed credit for her works in the 1960s after much of her artwork was originally sold under his name... Thus begins our first look at the Best Actress race for the 2015 Oscars. Yes, Adams sits atop my field of 28 early contenders, a list that is certainly too long at this point and is certain to change as category fraud will likely play a role and fresh faces will soon emerge, perhaps as soon as within the...

Helen Mirren is so hardworking that it is tempting to take her for granted. But she is always looking for something different

Have you seen the wild look in Helen Mirren's eyes? It's as if she knows the world has gone mad, so she can do anything. The pained realism and long-suffering compromises that dogged Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect are put aside. She has been Queen Elizabeth, both I and II, and if anyone cared to propose an Elizabeth of Transylvania from the Dark Ages then Mirren could do it. Or if you prefer a bloodthirsty and lascivious pope, she is your actor. At 65, she is still one of the sexiest women on screen. It's not what she does, but what she knows.

Mirren has never been anything less than accomplished and bold, but Stephen Frears' The Queen was a confirming potion for her, a laying on of hands.