Now that the Toronto Film Festival is over, it’s safe to say that Oscar-bait season has begun in earnest. And make no mistake, John Patrick Shanley’s adaptation of his celebrated stage play Doubt has Oscars in its sights, its acclaimed source material populated with an impressive, Academy-friendly cast (Streep! Hoffman! Adams!). But the film doesn’t look remotely like a slog, at least not judging by this trailer. I’ve been a longtime defender of Shanley’s previous directorial effort, 1990’s Joe Versus the Volcano, a highly original film that finally seems to have found its deserved cult. So I’m glad that Miramax has allowed Shanley to direct this film himself, trusting in his knowledge of the material and its possibilities. I especially like the way the story has been kept in the 1960s, when racism was still prevalent in our society and the sweeping reforms of Vatican II were still recent and controversial. Without these two elements, the story just wouldn't work in the same way, and I can imagine a filmmaker less attuned to the material disastrously making these changes. For a while, I wasn’t sure how Doubt would turn out, but this trailer has gotten me pretty excited.