It's finally here, the week that fans of Hollywood movie awards have been waiting for all year.
On Thursday, the Oscar nominees will be announced, followed on Sunday by a star-packed Golden Globes Awards that will mark the start of Hollywood's annual celebration of itself.
Coming off a record-breaking year in which the US box office came in at 10.8 billion dollars, Hollywood is in a feel good mood that has been further boosted by the electoral victory of Barack Obama.
And its all abuzz with talk about what could turn out to be a memorable Oscar year. After years in which the top prize went to films such as the silent movie The Artist, and British period drama
The King's Speech, the Oscar field this year is packed with popular mainstream hits that represent the best of commercial cinema.
Glenn Whipp, a movie awards specialist who writes for the Los Angeles Times' awards section The Envelope, believes that five films are well placed to earn the plaudits of Oscar voters. They are Argo, Les Misérables, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty.
All five are among the ten films vying for the Golden Globe best picture, and all but Silver Linings are big hits at the cineplex.
They will be joined at the Golden Globes awards by Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Moonrise Kingdom, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
The Globes, which are less formal and more fun than the Oscars, awards two best picture trophies, one for best drama and the other for best musical or comedy.
The awards site Gold Derby poll of 13 experts found eight of them favouring Lincoln for the win.
Les Miserables was seen as almost certain to scoop the best comedy or musical, according to Gold Derby. Of the 13 experts it polled, nine predicted a win for Les Miz.
Regardless of who actually wins the top prizes at this year's awards season, it seems clear that something is changing in the Hollywood atmosphere.
After years if not decades when the vast majority of nominated films were artistic endeavours largely shunned by mainstream audiences, this year's crop of contenders seem to have been unusually
successful at the box office.
"For the first time in many, many years - not only will a majority of the public have heard of most of the films likely to be nominated, they may have actually seen them, too," predicted Kevin Fallon of Theweek.com.
Last year, for instance The Help was the only nominee for the Best Picture Oscar to earn over 85 million. This year it's conceivable that seven or eight nominees could pass that threshold.
That's a blessing for an Academy that has for years been unsuccessfully trying to make the telecast a little more inviting to the coveted young audiences who don't care two tweets about the
latest art-house masterpieces.
The Academy has already tipped its hat in favour of one of the year's biggest hits - the latest James Bond movie Skyfall, which has racked up 290 million dollars at the US box office alone. The film has already earned a best film nod from the Producers Guild of America, a group which represents a highly influential section of Oscar voters. The Academy also announced an Oscar tribute to the 50-year-old James Bond film franchise.
Such populist tactics seem a much better awards show method than relying on quirky hosts such as Ricky Gervais, ageing legends such as Billy Crystal or strange couples such as James Franco and Anne
Hathaway to carry the showcase events.
This year’s Oscars will be hosted instead by Seth MacFarlane, a popular and multi-talented TV creator whose work has achieved cult status among young adult audiences.
The Golden Globes will be fronted by two of the funniest women in television - Amy Poehler and Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live fame.