What's the state of this year's wide-open Oscar race? Let's examine further.

At this point in December - after the first wave of film critics' groups have named their winners and the voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. and the Screen Actors Guild have announced their nominations - those of us who follow such things have usually been granted a measure of clarity about the state of the Academy Awards race.

Or perhaps I should say the condition of the Academy Awards race, insofar as every year, Oscar season increasingly seems to afflict the industry like an interminable, if not terminal, illness. To pursue the medical metaphor a bit further: We are all amateur doctors, and at some point the motion picture academy begins to resemble a