•  Place your bets! [Hollywood Stock Exchange]

•  Sasha Stone previews the DGA race, warns against getting caught up in last minute predictions chaos, and mixes in some other considerations for good measure. [Awards Daily]

•  The DGA Awards, by the way, will be hosted by Carl Reiner. [Variety]

•  We've also got a massive preview of the awards, with looks at peripheral nominees (assistant directors, anyone?), the newbie nature of the group and some huzzahs for DGA attorney Jay Roth. [Variety]

•  An old post, but Jeffrey Wells considers nominations for art direction, cinematography, costume design and score to be "soft" tips of the hat for "Atonement." [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Tom O'Neil says to bank on Julie Christie at Sunday's SAG Awards.  Lionsgate flooded the screener market again. [Gold Derby]

•  David Carr makes some final observations on the nominations, taking note of the newbies and diversity in the line-up and pointing out that "Into the Wild" deserved "better treatment." [The Carpetbagger]

•  New York Magazine draws humorous parallls between the year's Best Picture nominees and the current political climate. [Vulture]

•  In analyzing this year's nominees, Kyle Smith makes us wonder why he's even in this business. [New York Post]

•  In case you haven't heard, things are looking up for the Oscar telecast. [Variety]

•  Scott Bowles follows it up and digs up some industry chit-chat on alternatives. [USA Today]

•  Finally, A.O. Scott writes up the legacy of Heath Ledger for The Paper of Record. [New York Times]