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.

Today Anne is still up in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival while I’m back home in Los Angeles. We’re joined today by Guy Lodge to discuss a little bit of business that dropped this morning, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, in case you’re a listener of this podcast and somehow didn’t know that. “Hugo” led the field with 11 nods and “The Artist” wasn’t far behind with 10. So it’s clearly a two-horse race for the win.

We discuss the various snubs, including Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Shailene Woodley and Albert Brooks, as well as the surprising inclusions, like “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

We run through the categories and offer up our first predictions for winners this year.

And finally, a note on Sundance and a goodbye to indie titan Bingham Ray.

Have a listen to the new podcast below with the lovely Jennifer Lawrence leading the way. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. And as always, remember to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

“Man or Muppet” courtesy of Bret McKenzie and Walt Disney Records.