Welcome to Oscar Talk.

In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

It’s pretty clear now that Ben Affleck’s “Argo” is on a roll with the guilds after winning the PGA prize and the SAG ensemble award. Will that stretch into the DGA Awards this weekend?

Meanwhile, tributes at the Santa Barbara Film Festival this weekend pitted the film (via a Ben Affleck retrospective) against “Lincoln” (via a Daniel Day-Lewis retrospective).

If indeed the film continues the streak, ballots are still not in Academy members’ hands yet. That happens next week. Will “they” want to push back a bit or just fall in line?

Some categories seem to be in real flux. We discuss Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor.

Have a listen to the new podcast below. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. You to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here. And as always, if you have a question you’d like us to address on a future podcast, send it to OscarTalk@HitFix.com.

“Here I Come” courtesy of Stuart Park.