Don Cheadle is "magnificent" in "Talk to Me," giving "an Oscar nominee kind of performance" as a sassy radio deejay, says Pete Hammond, film critic of Maxim and Oscar writer for HollywoodWiretap.com. "This is a Don Cheadle we've never seen before. He's as flamboyant as he can be."

I gave Pete a jingle on the phone so he could give us his mid-year Oscar report. Check out our podcast chat (CLICK HERE) to hear his take on imminent releases like "Talk to Me," "Hairspray," "In the Valley of Elah" and "Goya's Ghosts."

"Ghosts" has been haunting the derby for a long time. Oscarologists expected it to be a major player last year, considering its pedigree. After all, its helmer Milos Forman won best director twice ("Amadeus," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); its producer Saul Zaentz three times (those two flicks plus "The English Patient"). Past best actor nominee Javier Bardem portrays a ruthless interrogator in the Spanish Inquisition.

"But I don't think it's a movie that's going to go to the Oscars in anything but a technical category," Pete says. "This is a prestige film that you would expect to open at the height of Oscar season in December with a bigger studio behind it than the Samuel Goldwyn Company, but reviews have been bad and it had trouble finding a distributor." It already opened in many other countries worldwide, but is coming to the U.S. late, on July 20, in limited release.

"'Hairspray' delivers," Pete says. "It's a lot of fun. I see a mid-July sleeper hit here."

And what about pix already released?