High anxiety

A war veteran living a quiet life in the middle of nowhere finds 2 million dollars among dozens of corpses. He runs off with the loot - and becomes prey for a pitiless, soulless killer.

A "fixer" for a pricey New York corporate law firm wants to leave the "dirty laundry" business behind him, but can't because he owes too many people money, then finds his own life in jeopardy.

A grimly determined prospector stakes his claim on the promise of a lucrative oil strike at the start of the 20th century, channeling his ferocious intensity into acquiring more and more petroleum-rich lands - at what turns out to be considerable cost to himself and to the few he allows to get close to him.

The son of a housekeeper for a wealthy British family takes an enormous chance by professing his love for the family's eldest daughter, is wrongfully accused of a sordid act, gets sent to prison - and later, into the most catastrophic combat of World War II.

Yes, darkness stalks the male protagonists of four out of the five Academy Award nominees this year for best picture (we'll get to the fifth one in a minute). Stress, of course, propels all drama, but the anxieties faced by these guys seem to be of an especially fearsome, even grave nature.

If you didn't know any better, you'd suspect the preeminence of these pictures on Oscar's radar to be a sign that Hollywood has a bad case of the blues. (There were other astringently dark movies such as "Eastern Promises," "Zodiac" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" that, some believe, deserved to make the cut for Oscar consideration.) Granted, there's a lot to be depressed and anxious about - and not just in Hollywood - starting with a war that just won't resolve itself easily and an economy that seems to be edging toward free-fall.

What's worse, such problems, however easily identified, seem so large and overpowering that they're beyond our power to overcome or subdue. "Michael Clayton's" title character, played by George Clooney, spends most of the movie resigned to covering his flank and that of his employers, partly out of resignation that this is the only way one can make a life for oneself in this ethically challenged society. When it dawns on him that the people he's protecting don't feel especially protective toward him, he responds with the kind of panic most of us would recognize when our shaky comfort level is upended. Yet he's still our hero because, as the even-bleaker "Syriana" proved, Clooney doesn't play somebody who allows dark and malevolent forces to triumph without a fight.

But what's to root for in a movie where darkness not only overpowers a protagonist but takes possession of him as well? Such is the case with "There Will Be Blood," whose main character, Daniel Plainview ( Daniel Day-Lewis, the best actor front-runner) is left cut off from all emotions save those of greed and vengeance.

Perhaps this is a case, as with such movies as "Greed,""Citizen Kane" and "Wall Street," in which a movie arouses in its audience a collective recognition of the rot and corruption crawling beneath our can-do American ethos. Yet, paradoxically, there's even some perverse entertainment in witnessing Plainview's single-minded drive for wealth and power. Something in all of us likes a good monster movie - even or especially when the monster embodies our worst suspicions about ourselves.

Monstrous characters

And speaking of monsters, what does it say about our national mood that the odds-on favorite to snare Oscar night's biggest prize features a sociopathic killer? Maybe that "No Country for Old Men's" baleful Anton Chigurh ( Javier Bardem, front-runner for best supporting actor) embodies the kind of fearful, oncoming dangers we can't argue with or easily dismiss. Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), the movie's hunter-turned-hunted, keeps learning this lesson throughout, despite his best efforts.

And sometimes what's out to get us gets us whether we deserve it or not, as is the case with Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), one of the lovers in "Atonement," who is cursed for life by the wanton lies of a young girl.

Could we at least have one "feel-good" movie in this grim-faced crowd of best picture nominees? Remember "Juno"? Seemingly out of nowhere, here's this scruffy little independent movie that dares to take what could have easily been a depressing topic - teen pregnancy - and fashions something both up-to-the-minute and timeless in its humane wit and warmth.

A feel-good alternative

"Juno" has earned more than $100 million, thus qualifying it for, of all things, blockbuster status. Its appeal crosses generational and even ideological lines. (Anti-abortion and abortion rights-types can get behind the hyper-articulate title character - a pregnant 16-year-old played by best actress nominee Ellen Page - and her decision to have the baby and find suitable parents for it.) Call it, if you want, the Barack Obama of this year's Oscar race. Unlike Obama, however, "Juno" at this writing doesn't seem to have built up a whole lot of momentum heading into the homestretch. It is, after all, a comedy. And comedies rarely win the best picture Oscar, as partisans of last year's little-indie-that-could, "Little Miss Sunshine," found out.

But before you dismiss its chances for an upset, remember what happened years ago when another scruffy, modestly made movie named "Rocky" beat out such contenders as "Network" and "All the President's Men." In 1976, those two movies likewise reflected a sullen, even angry state of mind. Maybe history will repeat itself. Maybe it won't. All one can say is that it's always possible, especially in Hollywood's overwrought imagination, for a shaft of light to pierce the darkest, scariest mood.

Related topic galleries: George Clooney, Movies, Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, New York, Barack Obama, Family