Rabbit Season! Duck Season! Awards Season!

Yes, the entertainment industry's annual cavalcade of congratulation kicks off tonight with the People's Choice Awards and carries on through the Oscars at the end of next month. If you can't find some sort of awards show on TV between now and then, your set's broken.

Oscar nominations won't be revealed until the 23rd, but let me tell you who I think deserves to be nominated for best actor: Hugo Weaving of V For Vendetta. Not only did he manage to make a sympathetic character of a terrorist vigilante killer, but he did it while wearing a mask for the entire film. His ability to convey a full range of subtle emotion without the benefit of facial expressions was amazing. That's not easy to do, after all. You'll remember that Willem Dafoe wasn't quite able to pull it off as Spider-Man's Green Goblin.

Of course, if the Golden Globe nominations are any indication of the Oscar picks, then chances don't look good.

The Globes have also failed to recognize, as most likely the Academy will as well, director Kevin Smith's raunchy return to top form in the funniest movie I saw last year, Clerks II. Jason "Jay" Mewes and Smith (Silent Bob) deserve some love from the awards folks as well in the supporting actor category. Seriously though, Clerks II may not exactly be an Oscar contender, but it was Smith's best effort since Chasing Amy.