OSCAR WATCH: ANOTHER TRY FOR ALTMAN

Short Cuts, the opening-night selection at the New York Film Festival, is guaranteed to be a critics' darling-and since last year's The Player was rudely done out of a Best Picture nomination, the Academy may take care not to snub Robert Altman twice. The film's 22 actors might have a hard time getting noticed-they're all in supporting roles-but keep an eye out for perennial Academy favorite Jack Lemmon, who has the advantage of a built-for-Oscar monologue. Early reports also give high marks to Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez as plane-crash survivors in director Peter Weir's Fearless, Robert De Niro directing himself as a bus driver in A Bronx Tale, and Debra Winger as a slow- witted woman spurned by her community in A Dangerous Woman, looking unglamorous in a way that Oscar loves.