Tom Hanks on "The Colbert Report"

Credit: Comedy Central

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Tom Hanks has been out and about plenty this week promoting today's release of "Cloud Atlas." I caught him on Letterman earlier this week, wonderful as ever, the perfect salesman. And yesterday, he showed up at "The Colbert Report" to engage in a little Halloween sketch built around that salesmanship.

Hanks takes on six roles in the film and really is great in all of them. If the ambition of the project were to stretch anywhere in the major categories, I would say he would be someone to watch. It's not going to be the easiest movie for Academy members, but when Hanks is on screen, he's bound to provide a little added comfort.

"Argo" also gets a shout-out in the sketch, though I won't ruin the joke for you here. Which reminds, as Anne and I discussed in the podcast this morning, that Ben Affleck's film is -- and, in my opinion, has been -- firmly in the frontrunner position. It's only gaining traction as it holds spectacularly at the box office and it doesn't really feel like it's peaking too early because it's not like it's alone in the conversation. "Lincoln" and "Silver Linings Playbook" are right there, the latter grabbing most of its buzz in Toronto where "Argo" also "officially" premiered.

Anyway, check out the Colbert Report segment below (with a hat tip to Awards Daily). It's a good one.

Kristopher Tapley
Editor-at-Large

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Kristopher Tapley has covered the film awards landscape for over a decade. He founded In Contention in 2005. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Times of London and Variety. He begs you not to take any of this too seriously.