<table> </table> Just one more month.</p><p>Four weeks.</p><p>That&#8217;s how much time Hollywood has to come up with films and performances worthy of an Academy Award nomination.</p><p>The studios had better have something up their collective sleeves, because the first 11 months of 2008 were grim. If something doesn&#8217;t happen soon we might as well not hold an Oscar ceremony.</p><p>There were a few bright spots. I&#8217;d love to see the indie triumphs &#8220;The Visitor&#8221; and &#8220;Rachel Getting Married&#8221; find slots on the best picture slate, but Oscar has always been a bit puzzled by small, intimate films. &#8220;What &#8230; no historic spectacles this year?&#8221;</p><p>Of all of 2008&#8217;s mainstream releases to date, only &#8220;The Dark Knight&#8221; seems to have a shot at top honors. And that isn&#8217;t so much because it&#8217;s great as because it&#8217;s a fabulously lucrative comic book movie that didn&#8217;t suck. (I put it in the Flawed-With-Great-Moments category.)</p><p>Expect the late Heath Ledger to get a supporting actor nod for his fearless portrayal of the homicidal Joker.</p><p>Woody Allen has a terrific track record of guiding actresses to Oscar nominations (Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, Mira Sorvino, Samantha Morton, Judy Davis, Mariel Hemingway, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton), so I can see Penelope Cruz getting a nom for his &#8220;Vicky Cristina Barcelona.&#8221;</p><p>I used to think Cruz was a vacuous glamorpuss. But her work for Allen as a mentally unstable artist (and as a college beauty with cancer in this year&#8217;s &#8220;Elegy&#8221;) proved me wrong.</p><p>For that matter, last year&#8217;s Oscar winner Javier Bardem has a strong shot for his work in &#8220;Vicky.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Iron Man&#8221; was a big hit and an OK movie &#8230; but it wouldn&#8217;t have worked without the brilliant Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. Downey found just the right blend of heroism and rough edges as an egocentric industrialist who hears the call of self-sacrifice. But the academy has a split personality when it comes to comic book movies. &#8220;Is this really the sort of enterprise we want to submit as the pinnacle of our art form?&#8221;</p><p>In a just world, veteran character actor Richard Jenkins would get a nomination for his turn as an empty widower who gets a new lease on life through his friendship with a pair of illegal aliens in &#8220;The Visitor.&#8221; We all know how just this world is.</p><p>More likely, but still a long shot, is Anne Hathaway, playing against type as a self-obsessed recovering junkie in &#8220;Rachel Getting Married.&#8221; I&#8217;d love to see co-stars Debra Winger and Bill Irwin honored as well, but I&#8217;m not holding my breath.</p><p>Weirdly enough, so far this year star actresses have had stronger parts than leading men. Let&#8217;s not forget Angelina Jolie in &#8220;Changeling&#8221; and Keira Knightley in &#8220;The Duchess.&#8221;</p><p>This month&#8217;s releases should provide lots of potential nominees but raise yet another problem. When all the Oscar-worthy (i.e. good) movies hit theaters in just four weeks, there&#8217;s no way average filmgoers can see them all. Not unless they take off Christmas week and don&#8217;t do much more than race from one multiplex to another.</p><p>Once again, here&#8217;s my Christmas wish: Spread the good films out over the entire year. Why does it always have to be a case of feast or famine?