(Welcome to the Oscar Guide, your chaperone through the Academy”s 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 24, with the Best Picture finale on Friday, February 22.)

The sound categories this year ended up being quite the race. A publicity angle was even built around the work put into one nominee; it’s been the presumed frontrunner for a while for a reason. You never can tell just which side of the Best Picture slate the branch will fall, though. Sometimes detours are taken into high gloss stuff, sometimes prestige takes over. Sometimes there’s a balance.

This year featured a bit of a curve ball early on when the Cinema Audio Society added films like “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” into the serious discourse, while the Oscar nominations ultimately yielded, for both sound categories in fact, a bit of a surprise showing for the overall Best Picture Oscar frontrunner. But then, I suppose that shouldn’t be such a surprise, in the final analysis. Coattails do exist.

The nominees are…

“Argo” (John T. Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and José Antonio García)
“Les Misérables” (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes)
“Life of Pi” (Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin)
“Lincoln” (Andy Nelson, Gary Rydsrom and Ronald Judkins)
“Skyfall” (Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson)

The “Argo” showing is indeed the surprise, and that it knocked out fellow CIA thriller and CAS nominee “Zero Dark Thirty” is even more intriguing. I would like to have seen some branching out to other films with interesting soundscapes this year. “The Grey,” for instance, or “The Master.” But the branch felt the Best Picture race had enough goodies to choose from.

So “Argo” got an interesting tip of the hat both here and (perhaps even more surprising) in Best Sound Editing. Nothing against the work from John T. Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and José Antonio García, who have been here before with films like “Glory” and “The Matrix” (though this is García’s first nomination). It’s a crisp track that mingles well with Alexandre Desplat’s nominated score. It just feels like overall enthusiasm for the movie might have played a part, small or large. Nevertheless, I think this category features a frontrunner that’s holding a steady course. But in lieu of such a strong contender, I would not put it past the Academy ticking off its favorite film overall in this category, just as it’s done the last couple of years: and that film this year appears to be “Argo.”

The aforementioned “frontrunner,” though, is the film that’s burning hot on a BAFTA Award for Best Sound and, just this weekend, prizes from the Motion Picture Sound Editors and the Cinema Audio Society: the musical adaptation “Les Misérables.” The film is custom built to win a race such as this. Universal shrewdly turned the live singing element into a publicity point and it’s in the Best Picture race. Films like “Chicago,” “Ray” and “Dreamgirls” have easily turned the trick in years past, and that’s before I remind that the only BAFTA/CAS winners to lose this category were “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” and “Walk the Line.” Andy Nelson has picked up 18 nominations so far, and he’s accustomed to being double-nominated (as he is this year). This is Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes’s first trip to the dance, though, and it looks like it’ll be a happy one.

Beware a film like “Life of Pi,” however. Like “Hugo” last year, it’s a film with a strong nominations showing and an audio/visual experience that might even be high on Best Picture ballots. Wins in both sound categories frankly wouldn’t surprise me (after all, it showed up strong with the MPSE). But one might have expected it to show some dominance at the BAFTA Awards, or at least be nominated by the Cinema Audio Society. Alas, that didn’t happen. Doug Hemphill, by the way, was part of the aforementioned Oscar-losing, BAFTA/CAS-winning crews on “Master and Commander” and “Walk the Line.” He has won for “The Last of the Mohicans,” though. This is Rob Bartlett and Drew Kunin’s first nomination.

Andy Nelson is back again with Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” and he shares the nomination with fellow Spielberg veterans Gary Rydsrom and Ronald Judkins. The team has 40 nominations and 11 Oscars between them. Talk about a powerhouse, and yet, all in service of a modest track. But it’s no less creative, bringing in elements like Abraham Lincoln’s real pocket watch (a sound editing addition, really, but nicely utilized) and making a very talky narrative sing. I smile just that it got in, but I don’t imagine, unless “Lincoln” is somehow a sleeping giant, that a win for something like this would be in the cards.

“Skyfall” is perhaps Greg P. Russell’s best shot at that elusive first Oscar to date. He shares the nomination this year with four-time winner Scott Millan and two-time nominee Stuart Wilson. The James Bond extravaganza has a nicely layered track with Thomas Newman’s score, the sound editing team’s effects and the actors’ dialogue all perfectly tuned. If not for the big musical, it may have had a real shot at the gold. But it really does seem like, with BAFTA and CAS going elsewhere, it won’t happen. It absolutely could, but the odds are stacking up against them, particularly with the film facing four Best Picture nominees.

Will Win: “Les Misérables”
Could Win: “Life of Pi”
Should Win: “Les Misérables” (but I really, really, really want to see “Skyfall” win)
Should Have Been Here: “The Grey”

What are your thoughts on the sound mixing race? Would any outcome really surprise you? Let us know in the comments section.

Yesterday, we led with “Lincoln” being taken to task for its factual infidelities; today, it’s the turn of “Argo.” Critical screeds against the Best Picture frontrunner are always a dime a dozen at this point in the season — frankly, a defence of Ben Affleck’s film would make for fresher reading right now — but Andrew O’Hehir’s Salon piece on why “Argo” doesn’t deserve the Oscar is as cogently argued as any: “I”m less concerned with the veracity of individual details than with the fact that ‘Argo’ uses its basis in history and its mode of detailed realism to create something that is entirely mythological. It”s a totalizing fiction whose turning points are narrow escapes and individual derring-do designed to foreground Affleck and his star power.” Personally, I don’t think Affleck’s star power is all that selfishly showcased — but hey, I like the film. [Salon]

Nelson George on why, while many of this year’s Oscar-nominated films highlight racial themes, their black characters’ humanity is “still hit and miss.” [New York Times]

Danny Leigh profiles “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Master” producer Megan Ellison — an Oscar nominee at 27, and one of the most exciting names in the industry. [The Guardian]

Jeff Wells, against the world as usual, takes it upon himself to tell us why Emmanuelle Riva is just okay in “Amour.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

The makers of Oscar-nominated doc “The Invisible War” explain how winning the award could contribute to a change in military policy. [Vanity Fair]

The “Silver Linings Playbook” team was honored at the LA Italia Film, Fashion and Art Festival over the weekend. [Variety]

As J.J. Abrams gears up to revive the “Star Wars” franchise, will John Williams still be on board? He’s up for it. [Vulture]

Matt Zurcher talks to Alexandre Desplat about his work on an impressive array of 2012 releases, including his Oscar-nominated score for “Argo.” [The Film Experience] 

Maggie Lange chats to Tom Van Avermaet, director of “Death of a Shadow” — the best of this year’s Oscar-nominated live action shorts. [Thompson on Hollywood]

Tom Shone tallies up the most repeated shout-outs across the archive of Oscar acceptance speeches — “Harvey Weinstein” and “America” rate equally. [These Violent Delights] 

The epic journey of Ben Affleck’s “Argo” began at the Telluride Film Festival in September. After a couple of years of pandering a bit by accepting Toronto-bound Oscar bait in the form of films like “Black Swan,” “The Descendants” and “127 Hours,” and then bizarrely bemoaning the surge in awards coverage they yielded, the festival’s directors pulled back over the last two years, retreating to their former identity of carefully curating selections from international festivals. But they nevertheless left room for one “Sneak Preview” on the line-up this time around, and that film was “Argo.”

The film blew the roof off at its first screening there for patrons of the festival and attending press. A burst of applause hit at the film’s oft-discussed airport climax and the stage was set for an Oscar thoroughbred to find its way through the season. But there were still six whole months in the season left to go. And no one wants to be a frontrunner too early for too long.

Soon enough, another film would join the conversation, as David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and delighted audiences there. But “Argo” still had plenty to offer as it had its “official” premiere at the fest, duking it out with Russell’s film for the coveted Audience Award.

“Argo” would ultimately yield that prize to Harvey Weinstein’s primped and prepared contender, and it would also weather its first dose of controversy. Canadians weren’t pleased with perceived insinuations that their government’s hand in what was, after all, called “The Canadian Caper” was more superficial than the history had suggested. Affleck and Warner Bros. handled it swiftly and gracefully, adding a card at the end of the film for clarification, and the dust-up stretched no further than the Toronto city limits.

Lucky for “Argo” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” still had the onus of Oscar heavy. Sight-unseen, the film was an on-paper sure thing. Films like “Anna Karenina,” “The Master” and “Cloud Atlas” played at the fest but were quickly regarded as uphill battles for Oscar. The sense was that we hadn’t seen our Best Picture winner yet and, again, there was so much more around the corner.

The next stop of the season was the New York Film Festival. Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” would become an instant player as the opening night film, a visual wonder from a respected filmmaker. But ahead of its “official” AFI Fest bow, “Lincoln” would pop up as a surprise screening at the fest like “Hugo” last year. Finally gracing the season with its presence, it was a long breath of a film, a studied consideration of the 16th President’s struggle to pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. It wasn’t the expected Spielberg. It was contained. Indeed, the reserve even stretched to the work of composer John Williams. But while the sight-unseen frontrunner had finally landed, few were ready to concede it the victory just yet, even if a boatload of nominations were surely expected.

There were still more films to come, and after the Thanksgiving holiday, they would hit the ground running. “Les Misérables” was the first to come out of hiding, premiering to a New York audience full of guild and Academy members. And it couldn’t have played better: applause throughout, crying, rave responses. One would be forgiven for thinking we had a Best Picture frontrunner on our hands, particularly with such a given as the Best Supporting Actress winner appearing clear as day. Further screenings on the west coast would begin to add nuance to the overall reaction as a great many critics, foreshadowing the overall critical reception to the film, took umbrage with the film’s aesthetic. Nevertheless, the Broadway adaptation had more than its fair share of fans in the industry and was poised to be a big Oscar player.

“Les Mis” would have its moment for a time, but then Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” would steal its thunder and really make an impact. Seemingly starving for something this heady after the gooey “Les Misérables,” the critics took to it like red meat. The film landed the weekend after “Les Mis” did and seemed to kill two birds with one stone: It presented itself as a drier, more journalistically minded and therefore “more important” CIA thriller alternative to “Argo” and, via star Jessica Chastain, muscled (for a time) Jennifer Lawrence out of frontrunner spot for Best Actress she had held since “Silver Linings Playbook” hit Toronto over two months prior. It seemed like it could be an awards juggernaut, but would it be too cold and distanced for Academy members to embrace it?

Whether it would or wouldn’t, the first batch of precursor groups were enamored with their shiny new play thing. The New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review crowned it the year’s best as December rolled around, thought the Los Angeles Film Critics Association would stick up for (somewhat futilely) “The Master” and (as perhaps a saving grace) “Amour.” But controversy was awaiting Kathryn Bigelow’s film, and particularly, Mark Boal’s journalistic efforts behind it.

Senators in Washington, in a bold, unprecedented move, not only took the film to task for what they viewed as a pro-torture argument, but instructed the filmmakers to alter content they felt indicated that key information in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden was directly obtained via torture, or, “enhanced interrogation” techniques. Whether “Zero Dark Thirty” could have survived the season en route to a Best Picture win without this controversy is up for debate. But it was very late in gearing up a proper awards campaign and it was wholly unprepared to deal with the nuance lost in the debate. Damage was surely done, but the level to which that damage truly mattered to the opinions of artists is, again, debatable.

As more and more regional critics groups began to speak up, the scales shifted. But they didn’t shift to “Life of Pi” or “Lincoln” or the other films that had shown up in the interim since the Telluride Film Festival. They shifted to the one film seemingly elbowed out of the way by all of the season’s comers. They shifted to “Argo.” And they would stay there, though not without a scare.

As the year drew to a close, it started to become apparent that Affleck’s movie was the most generally agreeable choice. It was a consensus pick. It was something everyone could agree on. And in a voting procedure that features the preferential ballot, that was going to be of the utmost importance. But when the Oscar nominations were revealed on the morning of January 10, all hope, but for a moment, seemed to be lost. “Argo” received seven nominations, but the film’s director was skipped over by that branch for more artful choices like Michael Haneke and Benh Zeitlin.

The Academy’s schedule change had yielded a bit of chaos for the guilds, which voted much earlier than normal and missed this and that (like lead actress Emmanuelle Riva in “Amour” or supporting actor Christoph Waltz in “Django Unchained”). But this perceived “snub” wasn’t really owed to that. Theories were aplenty. Perhaps many directors felt that Affleck was sure to be nominated, so they wanted their vote to be felt elsewhere. Perhaps there was a bit of putting the actor-turned-filmmaker in his place. No one can be sure, but the film took a hit as other contenders like “Les Misérables,” “Life of Pi,” “Lincoln” and even “Silver Linings Playbook” all received more nominations. Indeed, “Lincoln”‘s field-leading 12 made it, for all of a day, the odds-on favorite to win Best Picture. For the first time this season, Spielberg’s handsome effort had a tangible feeling of being “the one.”

That night, things would start to change. At the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, “Argo” would win Best Picture and Best Director. “I’d like to thank the Academy,” Affleck said in cheeky retort to the morning’s shocking turn of events. It was a happy moment for the team, one that felt like it would be a nice consolation. But the idea nevertheless began to formulate: Could “Argo” become only the fourth film in the Academy’s history to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination?

Over that upcoming weekend, “Argo” would keep its newfound second wind blowing. It would win Best Picture – Drama and Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards, while “Les Misérables” would reign victorious in the comedy/musical category (seemingly taking out “Silver Linings Playbook,” though it was by no means finished). More regional critics awards would be added to the tally in January and suddenly, “Argo” was the most critically awarded film of the year, not “Zero Dark Thirty” (though Bigelow’s film was on life support in the season by this time, Chastain’s wins at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards and the Golden Globes notwithstanding).

Now it was time for the industry to speak up, and since “they” had notched “Argo” in fifth place for overall Oscar nominations, and since voting for the Globes and Critics’ Choice awards happened outside the frame of Affleck’s “snub,” surely they would anoint the “true” industry favorite. Well, in so many words, they would do just that.

“Argo” won the Producers Guild prize, surprising to some. As February rolled around, it would win the Directors Guild prize, surprising to many. And for good measure, it would win the Screen Actors Guild ensemble prize, surprising to most. The weekend final ballots were mailed out to the Academy (a full month after the nominations were announced, which could ultimately yield any number of unexpected nuance, we should add), the film went across the pond to pick up BAFTA Awards for Best Film and Best Director.

The juggernaut was in full force so much that by the time it blew into the Writers Guild Awards last night and came away with a win over “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook” for Best Adapted Screenplay, no one ought to have been shocked by the outcome.

The trajectory and tone of the season has been an epic arc for a film that first hit in the mountains of Colorado. Some might be bored or disappointed by its dominance on the circuit as of late, but that complaint could just as easily be placed on the amount of foreplay that has been manufactured in the run-up to the Academy Awards. There are many, many awards shows, and a lot of them poll large voting bodies. A film like “Argo” is going to succeed consistently in that environment. Each time the film has seemed on the outs, it has picked itself back up and shown that, indeed, it can still “surprise.”

So in this final pre-Oscar Off the Carpet column of the season, I submit that “Argo” hasn’t been a foregone conclusion. It hasn’t been a gargantuan awards player from the outset. The writing hasn’t been on the wall since Telluride. It had to beat a lot of odds along the way, and frankly, that’s been fun to watch. Whether it wins the Oscar on Sunday (which obviously seems likely) or loses it (anything apparently can and will happen this season and indeed, “Argo”‘s old Toronto foil, “Silver Linings Playbook,” has made a valiant phase two effort), the film will make history: No film has been this dominant on the guild circuit and lost the prize, while, again, only three other films have won Best Picture without a corresponding Best Director nomination.

If you look at the season in that light, maybe it’s not so boring after all. Even with win after win for the film as of late, maybe this has actually been the most exciting awards season in a long, long time.

I know it has been for me.

(Final predictions will take on a few forms this week. Greg will speak up in a final “Contender Countdown” tomorrow, while Guy and Gerard will have their say via “The Long Shot” and “Tech Support” on Wednesday and Thursday. A big piece featuring final calls from me, Greg and Guy will go up some time Thursday, while my picks will be reiterated on the podcast with Anne Thompson on Friday. So stay tuned throughout the week. We have a lot of coverage for you.)

Check out my updated predictions HERE and, as always, see how Guy Lodge, Greg Ellwood and I collectively think the season will turn out at THE CONTENDERS.

(Welcome to the Oscar Guide, your chaperone through the Academy”s 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 24, with the Best Picture finale on Friday, February 22.)

Best Film Editing is the technical category most closely linked to Best Picture: the slate is routinely dominated by Best Picture contenders, and it’s an oft-repeated stat that no film has won the top prize without an editing nod since “Ordinary People” 32 years ago. That’s no random Oscar voodoo. Editing is a narrative-determining craft — it’s often said the editor functions as another screenwriter — so it stands to reason that the Academy’s favorite films figure most into this category. A bad film can be beautifully shot or scored, but it’s rarely beautifully edited.

Last year, however, the voters threw away the category’s unofficial rulebook by handing the win to David Fincher’s thriller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” — while a film not nominated for Best Picture has taken the prize on occasion, it was the first film since “Bullitt” in 1968 to win this category and no other. This year, however, promises a less surprising result, in a category ruled by Best Picture frontrunners, and featuring just one first-time nominee.

The nominees are…

“Argo” (William Goldenberg)
“Life of Pi” (Tim Squyres)
“Lincoln” (Michael Kahn)
“Silver Linings Playbook” (Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers)
“Zero Dark Thirty” (William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor) 

After last year’s divergent upset, the editors’ branch stuck closely to the Best Picture race this year. Somewhat surprisingly, to me at least, they opted not to hand one of their occasional classy-genre-film passes to ACE and BAFTA nominee “Skyfall,” which I had thought was sufficiently well-regarded and conspicuously edited by industry veteran Stuart Baird to feature here. I personally thought some of the year’s sharpest cutting came in counterintuitive packages, such as “Magic Mike” and “Rust and Bone,” but that’s not how the Academy rolls.  

Some bloggers have spun the narrative that “Argo” could become the first Best Picture winner in 77 years to take no other awards. That always seemed unlikely to me, not least because it seemed a strong contender for this particular prize even before it became the indomitable Best Picture frontrunner. Four-time nominee William Goldenberg’s tight, twitchy editing can claim a lot of credit for the success of Ben Affleck’s well-liked thriller, particularly in a climactic airport sequence that is pretty much a textbook exercise in cutting for tension. While some voters may simply opt for it here in tandem with their Best Picture vote, it’s a showcase for the craft that even laymen can identify. Goldenberg, meanwhile, is the first editor to score two nominations in a single year since the great Walter Murch was listed for both “Ghost” and “The Godfather Part III” in 1990. Murch lost both his bids; with the ACE and BAFTA awards on his mantel, I’m confident Goldenberg will have better luck.

American editor Tim Squyres has cut all but one of Ang Lee’s 12 features to date (the prominent exception is “Brokeback Mountain”), and previously scored an Oscar nomination for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” “Life of Pi,” however, presented Squyres with a new series of challenges: smoothly merging the film’s physical and digital landscapes, while maintaining control of its tricky multi-planed narrative structure. It’s work that’s often highly impressive on a sequence-by-sequence basis, particularly in a spectacularly visceral shipwreck scene, but the film still feels structurally uneven to me, and Squyres should take some criticism for the flat rhythm and awkward integration of the film’s much-criticized framing story. Still, “Pi” is poised to take a number of below-the-line trophies, and though Squyres hasn’t won any precursors, it could sweep this one along with them.  

One of only four people to win three Oscars in this category, Steven Spielberg’s loyal collaborator Michael Kahn brushed past Thelma Schoonmaker to claim the title of most-nominated editor in Oscar history with his eighth nod for “Lincoln.” (All but one of those eight have been for Spielberg films.) It feels odd, then, to describe him as an outsider, but it nonetheless would be a major surprise to see him claim a fourth win for this stately, almost deliberately starched biopic, which offers none of the opportunities for propulsive, action-oriented cutting that won Kahn Oscars for “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Saving Private Ryan.” Of course, Kahn also won for less flashy work on “Schindler’s List,” but that was with heavy Best Picture momentum behind him — and with “Lincoln” increasingly losing ground in the top race, it’s hard to see why voters would single it out here.  

Comedies are rarely nominated in this category — which is odd, when you consider how much a successful comedy comes down to timing and, consequently, editing. But “Silver Linings Playbook” overcame the odds to place here, and while some will simply attribute that to its savvy campaign and cross-category momentum, it’s a genuinely deserving nominee. David O. Russell’s films tend to be distinguished by their bristly, slightly frayed energy, and veteran Jay Cassidy (previously nominated for “Into the Wild”) and relative newcomer Crispin Struthers (the category’s lone first-time nominee) have hit on a knockabout comic rhythm for the film that’s most aggressive in its garrulous opening stretches, cleverly levelling things out as the characters gradually find their feet. They recently won the ACE award in the comedy/musical category, and while the film will probably strike most voters as too scrappy for technical prizes, it’d be a credible winner. 

Now we return to William Goldenberg, who bookends his “Argo” nomination with arguably even more challenging work on “Zero Dark Thirty,” Kathryn Bigelow’s very different Middle East-set tension exercise. This time, he’s not on his own, sharing the nomination with Dylan Tichenor (himself previously nominated for “There Will Be Blood”). Goldenberg and Tichenor would be the critics’ choice for this award, having already prizes from the LA, Boston and Chicago groups, as well as the BFCA. It’s not hard to see why, as their work patiently organizes the procedural ins and outs of the CIA’s hunt for Bin Laden, skilfully conveying the exasperating sense of years ticking away, before exploding into life with a riveting climactic raid as immersive and panic-inducing as any single cinematic sequence from 2012. Combat films often fare well in this category, and as a feat of editing, this is both showy and substantial enough to potentially wrestle votes away from the more simply constructed Best Picture favorite. Either way, things look good for Goldenberg.  

Will win: “Argo” (William Goldenberg)
Could win: “Zero Dark Thirty” (William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor)
Should win: “Zero Dark Thirty” (William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor)
Should have been here: “Magic Mike” (Mary Ann Bernard, aka Steven Soderbergh)

Is the Best Picture frontrunner unstoppable in this category? Will William Goldenberg wind up beating himself, or could he lose twice? Tell us in the comments section!

“The Impossible” remains, to my mind, one of this season’s biggest lost contenders. With a more focused campaign and an earlier release date, this visceral true-life survival story set against the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami could, I think, have gone over in a big way with Academy voters, reaping a lot more than a lone Best Actress nod for Naomi Watts. Anyway, spilt milk.

As it stands, the Spanish production’s biggest night of the season was always set to be its home country’s Goya Awards. Even there, however, the local box-office smash wound up ceding top honors to “Blancanieves,” Pablo Berger’s artful silent take on the Snow White story (yep, another one). The film, which I was charmed by at last year’s London Film Festival, was Spain’s submission for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but didn’t make the Academy’s shortlist.   

Overall, “Blancanieves” took 10 Goyas, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Maribel Verdu’s vampish Wicked Queen (beating Naomi Watts) and, oddly for a fairytale adaptation, Best Original Screenplay. In an interesting Oscar connection, it also took Best Costume Design for Paco Delgado, the Spanish designer nominated by the Academy for his work on “Les Miserables.” “The Impossible,” meanwhile, was compensated with Best Director for Juan Antonio Bayona, and a quartet of technical awards.

Full list of winners below:

Best Picture: “Blancanieves” 

Best Director: Juan Antonio Bayona, “The Impossible”

Best Actor: Jose Sacristan, “The Dead Man and Being Happy”

Best Actress: Maribel Verdu, “Blancanieves”

Best Supporting Actor: Julian Villagran, “Grupo 7”

Best Supporting Actress: Candela Pena, “Una Pistola en Cado Mano”

Best Original Screenplay: “Blancanieves”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Adventures of Tadeo Jones”

Best Animated Feature: “The Adventures of Tadeo Jones”

Best Documentary: “Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony”

Best European Film (Non-Spanish): “The Intouchables”

Best Ibero-American Film: “Juan de los Muertos”

Best Cinematography: “Blancanieves”

Best Production Design: “The Impossible”

Best Costume Design: “Blancanieves”

Best Film Editing: “The Impossible”

Best Makeup and Hair: “Blancanieves”

Best Original Score: “Blancanieves”

Best Original Song: “No Te Puedo Encontrar” from “Blancanieves”

Best Sound: “The Impossible”

Best Special Effects: “The Impossible”

Best Artistic Direction: “Blancanieves”

Best New Actor: Joaquin Nunez, “Grupo 7”

Best New Actress: Macarena Garcia, “Blancanieves”

Best New Director: Enrico Gato, “The Adventures of Tadeo Jones”

Best Animated Short: “El Vendedor de Humo”

Best Live Action Short: “Aquel No Era Yo”

Best Documentary Short: “A Story for the Modlins”

Honorary Goya: Concha Velasco

In these final days of voting, the last thing you want is headlines like “The Oscar for Best Fabrication,” yet the already ailing “Lincoln” got saddled with that in a Maureen Dowd op-ed that was the weekend’s most talked-about Oscar piece. Seems this story of a Connecticut congressman taking issue with some artistic license taken by Tony Kushner, essentially switching the 13th Amendment vote of the state’s House members, won’t go away. Kushner, who had the error pointed out to him at an early stage by one of the film’s historical advisors, continues to defend his position, saying, “History doesn”t always organize itself according to the rules of drama.” Congressman Joe Courtney continues to push for the error to be amended in the film before it is integrated into school syllabi across the country. What do you think? [New York Times]

Daniel Miller on the story that’s been surprisingly underplayed this season: the extraordinary global box office of “Life of Pi,” which dwarfs that of all its Oscar rivals. [LA Times]

Alice Rawsthorn wishes, as I’ve always done, for a Best Title Sequence Oscar — and thinks “Argo” would be the worthy winner. [New York Times] 

In the wake of “Argo”‘s WGA win, Jon Weisman wonders what film, if any, is best positioned to upset. [The Vote]

Oscar-nominated songwriter J. Ralph explains why Scarlett Johansson was the first person he thought of to sing his “Chasing Ice” theme, “Before My Time.” [Gold Derby] 

“Argo” isn’t up for the Best Costume Design Oscar, though it arguably should be — and it’ll contender for the Guild award tomorrow. Chris Laverty goes in-depth with designer Jacqueline West. [Clothes on Film]

Vanessa Thorpe proiles the British film school graduates taking on Disney in the animated short race with their film “Head Over Heels.” (You can watch the film, too.) [The Guardian]

Scott Feinberg sits down with Tim Burton to talk about “Frankenweenie” and his storied relationship with Disney. Could this underdog come to life on Oscar night? [The Race]

Nathaniel Rakich looks over the categories ripest for an upset on Oscar night. [Baseballot] 

Peter Knegt reports on the excellent box office perormance of Chilean Oscar nominee “No.” It won’t get the Oscar on Sunday, but distributor Sony Classics wins either way. [IndieWire]

With the costumers set to declare on Tuesday, the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ 60th annual Golden Reel Awards, announced this evening, were the penultimate industry kudos in advance of next weekend’s Oscar showdown. And it was “Life of Pi” that came out the big winner, taking two awards on the night. But 007 had some plans of his own.

“Skyfall” ended up taking the sound effects and foley prize from the group, keeping “Pi” from a sweep and really keeping the Best Sound Editing category in a state of disarray. Unless the Academy wants to tick off “Argo” in those boxes, that is. Remember, it’s usually about their favorite film in lieu of actually grasping quality sound work (or, indeed, knowing the difference between the two categories).

So call it a toss-up at the moment. “Life of Pi” or “Skyfall.” It’s anyone’s guess, honestly, and again, just because the sound editors had their say doesn’t mean the whole Academy will follow suit. It’s wide open, but there’s just a little light shed on it now.

On the animated side of things, after Pixar’s “Brave” picked up wins from the Visual Effects Society, Ace Cinema Editors and Cinema Audio Society, “Wreck-It Ralph” finally got back on track with a win here. It’s an interesting split between the sound mixers and the sound editors, and perhaps a fair one.

Finally, “Rust and Bone” triumphed in foreign features, while “Searching for Sugar Man” finally fell short of an award: In the documentary category, it was global water crisis examination “Last Call at the Oasis” that came away with the recognition.

Best Animated Short Film nominee “Head Over Heels” also won an award, in the student competition.

John Roesch received the group’s Career Achievement Award while the director of the night’s big winner, Ang Lee, took the annual Filmmaker Award.

Other news from the show worth conveying is that sound editors Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn have set up a scholarship fund in the name of fellow mixer Mike Hopkins, who passed away tragically in a New Zealand rafting accident in December.

Check out the full list of MPSE winners below. We will address this and the sound mixing category in the Oscar Guide on Tuesday. And again, keep up with the season via The Circuit.

FILM

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in an Animation Feature Film
“Wreck-it Ralph”

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue, ADR and Music in a Feature Documentary
“Last Call at the Oasis”

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Foreign Language Film
“Rust and Bone”

Best Sound Editing: Music in a Feature Film
“Life of Pi”

Best Sound Editing: Music in a Musical Feature Film
“Les Misérables”

Best Sound Editing: Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film
“Life of Pi”

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film
“Skyfall”

TELEVISION

Best Sound Editing: Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR Animation in Television
“Adventure Time” – “Card Wars”

Best Sound Editing: Long Form Documentary
“Crossfire Hurricane”

Best Sound Editing: Long Form Music in Television
“Hemingway & Gellhorn”

Best Sound Editing: Short Form Music in Television
“Fringe” – “A Short Story About Love”

Best Sound Editing: Long Form Dialogue and ADR in Television
“Game of Thrones” – Season 2 – “Valar Morghulis”

Best Sound Editing: Long Form Sound Effects and Foley in Television
(TIE) “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden” and “Game of Thrones” – Season 2 – “Valar Morghulis”

Best Sound Editing: Long Form Musical in Television
“Let it Shine”

Best Sound Editing: Short Form Musical in Television
“Smash” – “Hell on Earth”

Best Sound Editing: Short Form Dialogue and ADR in Television
“The Newsroom” – “Amen”

Best Sound Editing: Short Form Sound Effects and Foley in Television
“American Horror Story” – “Welcome to Briarcliff”

OTHER NOMINEES

Best Sound Editing: Computer Episodic Entertainment
“Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn”

Best Sound Editing: Computer Interactive Entertainment
“Resident Evil 6”

Best Sound Editing: Direct to Video – Animation
“Justice League: Doom”

Best Sound Editing: Direct to Video – Live Action
“Fire with Fire”

Verna Fields Award in Sound Editing for Student Filmmakers
“Head Over Heels”

Filmmaker Award
Ang Lee

Career Achievement Award
John Roesch

Hey, you know that film “Argo?” It won another award. That’s right, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has handed the film the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay over heavyweights such as “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” and surely no one is shocked by this turn of events, right? I know everyone has been holding out expectation that respect for Tony Kushner might carry him and his brilliant work on through to a win there and at the Oscars, but that’s just not been the tone of the season.

“I feel like if I left my window open this bird thing would fly out the window and go live with David (O. Russell) and David (Magee) and Stephen (Chbosky) and Tony (Kushner),” Terrio said of his winged trophy. “And that would be fine. I’m so honored to be in the category with you guys…Ben Affleck, WGA member, this is yours. You’re a kind and brilliant and a very, very good man.”

In the original screenplay category, after dealing with controversy since dominating the early critics circuit, the embattled “Zero Dark Thirty” took the prize. Writer Mark Boal is also nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, but it’s worth keeping in mind the two films that are leading the pack there — “Amour” and “Django Unchained” were not eligible for WGA Awards and therefore were not nominated.

“This is really lovely,” Boal said, “but thanks to Twitter I found out I was winning it five minutes ago…As Tom Stoppard said, it’s a unique thing to be honored by your peers, and I do love this guild. And I’m very grateful that they let me in, actually. Writing is a lonely process and the guild brings us together in many ways.”

Indeed, as Boal notes, the WGA didn’t exactly get it together this year as the WGA East ceremony sped ahead of the WGA West ceremony again and the winners made their way out early (hence the early post here). They really might want to figure that out for next year.

Finally, another dominating presence on the precursor circuit this year, much like “Argo,” is the documentary “Searching for Sugar Man.” And you guessed it, the film won in the documentary category for WGA.

Check out the full list of winners below, and as always, keep track of all the ups and downs of the film awards season via The Circuit.

FILM

Outstanding Achievement in Writing – Adapted Screenplay
“Argo”
Screenplay by Chris Terrio
Based on a selection from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez and the Wired Magazine article “The Great Escape” by Joshuah Bearman

Outstanding Achievement in Writing – Original Screenplay
“Zero Dark Thirty”
Written by Mark Boal

Outstanding Achievement in Writing – Documentary Screenplay
“Searching for Sugar Man”
Written by Malik Bendjelloul

TELEVISION

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Drama Series
“Breaking Bad”
Written by Sam Catlin, Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, George Mastras, Thomas Schnauz, Moira Walley-Beckett

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Comedy Series
“Louie”
Written by Pamela Adlon, Vernon Chatman, Louis C.K.

Outstanding Achievement in Writing New Series
“Girls”
Written by Judd Apatow, Lesley Arfin, Lena Dunham, Sarah Heyward, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Jenni Konner, Deborah Schoeneman, Dan Sterling

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Long Form – Original
“Hatfields & McCoys” – “Nights Two and Three”
Teleplay by Ted Mann and Ronald Parker; Story by Bill Kerby and Ted Mann

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Long Form – Adapted
“Game Change”
Written by Danny Strong
Based on the book by Mark Halperin and John Hellemann

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Episodic Drama
“Mad Men” – “The Other Woman”
Written by Semi Chellas and Matthew Weiner

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Episodic Comedy
“Modern Family” – “Virgin Territory”
Written by Elaine Ko

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Animation
“The Simpsons” – “Ned ‘N Edna’s Blend Agenda”
Written by Jeff Westbrook

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Daytime Drama
“The Young and the Restless”
Written by Amanda Beall, Jeff Beldner, Susan Dansby, Janice Ferri Esser, Jay Gibson, Scott Hamner, Marla Kanelos, Natalie Minardi Slater, Beth Milstein, Michael Montgomery, Anne Schoettle, Linda Schreiber, Sarah K. Smith, Christopher J. Whitesell, Teresa Zimmerman

Outstanding Achievement in Writing News – Regularly Scheduled, Bulletin or Breaking Report
“Tragedy In Colorado: The Movie Theatre Massacre”
Written by Lisa Ferri, Joel Siegel

Outstanding Achievement in Writing News – Analysis, Feature or Commentary
“Moyers & Company” – “The Ghost of Joe McCarthy”
Written by Bill Moyers, Michael Winship

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Documentary – Current Events
“Frontline” – “Money, Power and Wall Street: Episode One”
Written by Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Documentary – Other Than Current Events
“Nova” – “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap”
Telescript by Randall MacLowry
Story by Joseph McMaster and Randaall MacLowry

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Children’s Television – Episodic & Specials
“Sesame Street” – “The Good Sport”
Written by Christine Ferraro

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Children’s Television – Long Form or Special
“Girl vs. Monster”
Story by Annie DeYoung
Teleplay by Annie DeYoung and Ron McGee

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series
“Portlandia”
Writers: Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein, Karey Dornetto, Jonathan Krisel, Bill Oakley

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Comedy/Variety – Music, Awards, Tributes – Specials
“66th Annual Tony Awards”
Written by Dave Boone
Special Material by Paul Greenberg
Opening and Closing Songs by David Javerbaum, Adam Schlesinger

RADIO

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Regularly Scheduled or Breaking Report
“World News This Year 2011”
Written by Darren Reynolds

Outstanding Achievement in Writing News – Analysis, Feature or Commentary
“Dishin Digital”
Written by Robert Hawley

PROMOTIONAL WRITING AND GRAPHIC ANIMATION

On-Air Promotion (Radio or Television)
“Partners”
Written by Dan A. Greenberger

Television Graphic Animation
“Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood” – “The Oscars”
Animation by Bob Pook

NEW MEDIA

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Derivative New Media
“The Walking Dead: Cold Storage” – “Parting Shots”
Written by John Esposito

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Original New Media
“Jack in a Box” – “The Future, Episode 7/Series Finale”
Written by Michael Cyril Creighton

VIDEO GAME

Outstanding Achievement in Writing Video Games
“Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation”
Scriptwriting by Richard Farrese, Jill Murray

HONORARY AWARDS

Paul Selvin Award
Tony Kushner

Valentine Davies Humanitarian Award
Phil Rosenthal

Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television
Joshua Brand, John Falsey

Lifetime Achievement Award
Tom Stoppard

Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has worked with Joe Wright since a 25-year old Wright made the 1998 short film “The End.” Since then the British filmmaker has become one of his generation”s most notable directors and McGarvey has been along for the ride every step of the way.

In 2007, McGarvey earned an Oscar nomination for lensing “Atonement,” which led to higher profile features such as last year”s “The Avengers.” It was only near the end of shooting “The Avengers” that Wright asked McGarvey to join him on “Anna Karenina.” And is McGarvey ever glad he did, with the journey culminating in his second Oscar nomination.

Wright”s talent was always apparent, McGarvey says, “a precocious talent.” But he”s also amazed at how he has developed that gift. “Obviously maturity and wisdom comes with life,” he says.

Wright pushed his talent, as well as that of his crew, to the edge in “Anna Karenina” with its unique theatrical framing device and visual style. McGarvey nonetheless did not doubt his director. When McGarvey came aboard the film, Wright had radically changed its visual conceptualization, moving from a relatively standard approach to shooting to the very stylized and theatrical take on Tolstoy”s epic we ended up seeing on screen. While many members of the crew were alarmed with this approach, McGarvey was confident it would work.

“There was a worry that it could have been made too ornate or camp,” he says, “but I think it worked very well. With Joe, his imagination is so vaulting, but I”ve always trusted it. I had a blind faith it would work.”

McGarvey notes that the different styles of filming – on the stage, in a cramped apartment and in the fields – were chosen carefully, and the resulting different looks were deliberate. “What we wanted to express in the theatrical realm was a kind of ossified fading Czarist Russia,” he says. “What we wanted to express in the landscapes was a more positive hopeful future, in line with the book and Tolstoy”s socialist cradle – a kind of hopeful view of an agrarian future.”

This clearly affected the photographic choices, as McGarvey tried to employ natural light or bring in sunlight to result in smoother camera movements in the landscapes. This conveyed a kind of idyllic sensibility. In the theatrical realm, and certainly in Karenin”s apartment, he sought contrast and a brittle feeling.

In order to work on the movie, McGarvey did need to use many theatrical lighting techniques, something he had never before done on a film. He uses the particular example of when Vronsky dances with Anna Karenina in the auditorium and the camera ends up swirling as he lifts her up in the air, a shot recently spotlighted (so to speak) in Kris Tapley’s annual “Top 10 Shots of the Year” column.

“Lighting has changed throughout the scene and when the camera moves back, Anna and Vronsky are left with single spotlight – alone in their love,” McGarvey explains. “Gradually people start peppering back into the auditorium. It”s a way of expressing inner emotion and making camera move from objective to subjective and back.”

One of the reasons McGarvey loves working with Wright is that the director gives his crew specific guidance on what he wants, but gives them great range to realize that. “He”s very adept technically but he trusts us to do our job,” McGarvey says. “He knows lenses and knows about light but he isn”t prescriptive or didactic.”

This “democracy of ideas” extended to the heads of other departments, and he describes not only Wright but also production designer Sarah Greenwood, who has become a very good friend after also working on “Pride & Prejudice” and “Atonement,” as “co-cinematographers” of a sort. “We sit down and table ideas in a very democratic way,” McGarvey says. “Most of the time ideas originate with Joe but we all chew over these ideas. It”s hugely enjoyable and I think that the visuals are stronger because of that collaborative approach.”

Growing up in a small town in Northern Ireland, McGarvey first became interested in still photography when very young. He used to shoot photos around his town. He certainly admits that technology has changed since then but he insists it has not really affected the core of what he does. “I don”t let the technique direct me,” he says. “I like to get inspiration through other avenues and not worry about lenses and film and the like.”

As for the Oscar race? “It”s really exhilarating,” he says. “At the nominees luncheon I got to meet my heroes. I exchanged name tags with Janusz Kaminski and everyone was telling me how brilliant I was!”

This self-deprecating humor aside, it”s clear that McGarvey truly is awestruck by the honor – but not only that. “Apart from being such an honor, it”s fun,” he says. “There”s an excitement that everybody feels and weirdly the camaraderie brings us together. Yesterday Ben Affleck came up to me and I nearly fainted. It”s very, very exciting. I”m glad that I”m actually working or else I”d get too worked up about it!”

“Anna Karenina” hits DVD/Blu-ray this Tuesday, February 19.

Tom Hooper’s musical adaptation “Les Misérables” picked up its first industry award win of the season (save the SAG prize to Anne Hathaway) tonight. It won the prize for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for live action motion pictures at the 49th annual Cinema Audio Society Awards. Production mixer Simon Hayes, re-recording mixers Andy Nelson and Mark Peterson, scoring mixer Jonathan Allen, ADR mixer Robert Edwards and foley mixer Pete Smith all shared in the prize, though it’s just Hayes, Nelson and Paterson who are included in the film’s Oscar nomination for Best Sound Mixing.

Which, speaking of the golden guy, this Best Picture-nominated musical would appear to have the prize all but sewn up now. After winning Best Sound at last weekend’s BAFTA Awards and now this, the writing is just on the wall. I had a really good feeling about “Skyfall” at the Oscars, and it could still surprise in both sound categories there, honestly, but the fact is the Academy at large springs for a musical when there’s one available: “Chicago,” “Ray,” “Dreamgirls,” etc. And a Best Picture-nominated musical is all the more tempting.

The only other CAS-nominated film up for Oscar is “Lincoln.” If that film were at all truly dominant, that’s the kind of thing that would be swept along. But one film in the Oscar race that wasn’t nominated by CAS is “Argo,” and there’s logic to it taking the prize here and/or in Best Sound Editing. “Life of Pi,” meanwhile, is the sort of intense below-the-line player that grabs prizes like this on its way to losing Best Picture.

But the only two films to pick up the BAFTA Award for Best Sound and the CAS Award and lose the Oscar were “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” (which lost to a sweeping “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”) and “Walk the Line” (which was a “musical” of a sort but nevertheless lost to the blockbuster “King Kong” — funny both were Peter Jackson films). So the smart money is on “Les Misérables.”

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. The Best Sound Mixing Oscar Guide will address all of this on Tuesday.

Elsewhere at the CAS Awards, the animated films were split off into their own category for the first time ever. And the big winner there? Pixar’s “Brave.” I’ve already noted in the ACE Eddie Awards post my thoughts on that.

The CAS Career Achievement Award was presented to production sound mixer Chris Newman (“The English Patient,” “Amadeus,” “The Exorcist”). Jonathan Demme, meanwhile, was feted with the CAS Filmmaker Award.

We’ll see what the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ Golden Reel Awards have to add to this conversation tomorrow night. Once again, the full list of winners from tonight’s 49th annual Cinema Audio Society Awards below. Remember to keep track of all the ups and downs of the season via The Circuit.

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures – Live Action
“Les Misérables”
Production Mixer – Simon Hayes
Re-recording Mixer – Andy Nelson
Re-recording Mixer – Mark Paterson
Scoring Mixer – Jonathan Allen
ADR Mixer – Robert Edwards
Foley Mixer – Pete Smith

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures – Animation
“Brave”
Original Dialogue Mixer – Bobby Johanson
Re-recording Mixer – Tom Johnson
Re-recording Mixer – Gary Rydstrom, CAS
Scoring Mixer – Andrew Dudman
Foley Mixer – Frank Rinella

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Movie or Mini-Series
“Hatfields & McCoys” – “Part 1”
Production Mixer – Dragos Stanomir
Re-recording Mixer – Christian Cooke
Re-recording Mixer – Brad Zoern
Scoring Mixer – Jeffrey A. Vaughn, CAS
ADR Mixer – Eric Apps
Foley Mixer – Peter Persaud

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series – 1 Hour
“Homeland” – “Beirut is Back”
Production Mixer – Larry Long
Re-recording Mixer – Nello Torri, CAS
Re-recording Mixer – Alan M. Decker, CAS
ADR Mixer – Paul Drenning
Foley Mixer – Shawn Kennelly

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series – 1/2 Hour
“Modern Family” – “Disneyland”
Production Mixer – Stephen A. Tibbo, CAS
Re-recording Mixer – Dean Okrand
Re-recording Mixer – Brian R. Harman, CAS

Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Non-Fiction, Variety or Music Series or Specials
“The 2012 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony”
Re-recording Mixer – Brian Riordan, CAS
Re-recording Mixer – Jamie Ledner

Technical Achievement Award – Production
Sound Devices – 664 Field Production Mixer with Recorder

Technical Achievement Award – Post-Production
Dolby – Atmos

Filmmaker Award
Jonathan Demme

Lifetime Achievement Award
Chris Newman, CAS

It’s been reiterated for months now that “Argo” and “Silver Linings Playbook” are the two films that are well-liked across the board in the Academy and the industry at large. Well, tonight, both films have triumphed at the America Cinema Editors’s ACE Eddie Awards in the dramatic and comedic categories.

Neither is really a shock. “Argo” is the frontrunner to win the Oscar for editing and Best Picture, while “Silver Linings Playbook” surprised many by landing an Oscar nomination for editing. It beat out “Les Misérables” here, which wasn’t nominated for an Oscar and was probably the only competition otherwise.

These two films could in fact be representative at the end of the day with Best Picture and Best Director wins. Indeed, David O. Russell has an angle on that prize and though I’m currently betting on Ang Lee, I have a sneaking suspicion Russell is waiting to pounce. We shall see.

In the animated category, it’s worth pointing out another upset for “Brave” over perceived Best Animation Feature Film heavy “Wreck-It Ralph.” Someone was going on and on in the comments section recently about how absurd it is to think Pixar’s latest could win out over Disney’s darling effort. I hope by now that person is realizing it’s not so absurd a notion at all, what with a BAFTA win to go along with the Golden Globe and now this. Anne and I went over all the reasons this upset could happen in a recent podcast, but it boils down, I think, to branding and to the fact that “Wreck-It Ralph” may not be too inviting on the outside, despite how thoroughly wonderful it is underneath all the pop-cultural video game stuff.

On the documentary front, “Searching for Sugar Man” keeps dominating the circuit, picking up the win here in addition to the PGA, DGA, IDA, etc. It seems a bit unstoppable, no?

Finally, veteran editors Richard Marks and Larry Silk received Lifetime Achievement Awards, while “Lincoln” director Steven Spielberg received the organization’s filmmaker of the year prize.

Check out the full list of ACE Eddie winners below, and as always, keep track of all the ups and downs of the 2012-2013 film awards season via The Circuit.

Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic
“Argo”
William Goldenberg, A.C.E.

Best Edited Feature Film – Comedy/Musical
“Silver Linings Playbook”
Jay Cassidy, A.C.E. and Crispin Struthers

Best Edited Feature Film – Animated
“Brave”
Nicholas C. Smith, A.C.E. & Robert Grahamjones, A.C.E

Best Edited Documentary – Feature
“Searching for Sugar Man”
Malik Bendjelloul

Best Edited Documentary – Television
“American Masters: Phil Ochs – There But For Fortune”
Pamela Scott Arnold

Best Edited Half-Hour Series for Television
“Nurse Jackie” – “Handle Your Scandal”
Gary Levy

Best Edited One-Hour Series for Commercial Television
“Breaking Bad” – “Gliding Over All”
Skip MacDonald, A.C.E.

Best Edited One-Hour Series for Non-Commercial Television
“The Newsroom” – “We Just Decided To (Pilot)”
Anne McCabe, A.C.E.

Best Edited Miniseries or Motion Picture for Television
“Hemingway & Gellhorn”
Walter Murch, A.C.E.

Best Edited Non-Scripted Series
“Frozen Planet” – “To the Ends of the Earth”
Andy Netley & Sharon Gillooly

Golden Eddie (Filmmaker of the Year Award)
Steven Spielberg

Lifetime Achievement Award
Richard Marks, A.C.E.
Larry Silk, A.C.E.

Student Competition
Michael Smith – AFI

I saw fewer Competition films than usual at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, having drawn much of my viewing schedule around other sections of the vast programme — after all, with almost 200 feature films jostling for your attention, you simply have to accept that you’re going to end up missing a lot of worthwhile stuff. And so it is that I must make the admission that no Berlinale journalist ever wants to make: I haven’t seen the winner of the Golden Bear.

I had a feeling that missing Romanian director Calin Peter Netzer’s film “Child’s Pose,” about a wealthy, fiercely driven mother playing the system to wrangle her adult son out of a murder charge, was going to haunt me one way or another — one of the few Competition films to generate across-the-board critical approval, it seemed at the very least a strong Best Actress contender for Romanian veteran Luminita Gheorghiu. I’d missed the screening to catch up with another Competition buzz title, “Gloria” — which, as it turned out, won Best Actress instead — and never found a suitable gap in my diary for the Romanian film. Festival scheduling is like Jenga that way. 

So it goes. As it stands, “Child’s Pose,” while hardly a sensation equivalent to “A Separation” two years ago, appears to be a popular Golden Bear winner, further underlining the rude health of the Romanian film industry these days — it’s the first of the country’s films to take top honors at one of the European majors since “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2007, but there have been plenty of festival hits in between. Romania even earned a place on the Academy’s foreign-language shortlist for the first time in December — might “Child’s Pose” be their submission this year?

Meanwhile, a former foreign Oscar champ was the second-biggest winner tonight: Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic won all manner of prizes for “No Man’s Land” in 2001, but has struggled to regain that level of approval with his subsequent films.

I didn’t think his latest, the rather forbiddingly titled “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker,” was particularly special, but Wong Kar-wai’s jury evidently disagreed, handing it the Grand Jury Prize, as well as Best Actor for non-professional lead Nazif Mujic. Mujic quite literally plays himself in the film, a narrative-documentary hybrid about a disenfranchised Romany family facing a mounting medical crisis. It’s well-intentioned and well-crafted, but I thought rather unilluminating, skating close to poverty-porn territory, but I’m not surprised the jury was so moved; I’ll write about it in more detail in tomorrow’s festival wrap. 

Another film I’ll review at greater length soon was, for me, the night’s most surprising winner — and a pleasant surprise at that. Sundance holdovers tend merely to make up the numbers at Berlin, but David Gordon Green’s sweetly melancholy buddy movie “Prince Avalanche” charmed the jury enough to win Best Director for the American auteur — an award that effectively welcomes the indie prince back from the mainstream wilderness of “The Sitter” and “Your Highness.” After missing it at Sundance last month, I was mostly won over by this low-key return. It’ll be interesting to see if the film’s awards trail begins or ends here.

I’ve already written at length about Sebastien Lelio’s “Gloria,” which took a richly deserved Best Actress prize for Paulina Garcia. The film has been picked up for US distribution by Roadside Attractions, so this will certainly not be the last you hear of it. I also got a chance to interview Lelio on my last day at the fest; keep an eye out for that.

Below, all the Competition jury awards, with a selection of other key prizes. The full list of Berlinale awards from its multiple sections runs into next week, but you can check it out at the festival website here.

COMPETITION JURY AWARDS

Golden Bear: “Child’s Pose,” Calin Peter Netzer

Grand Jury Prize: “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker,” Danis Tanovic

Alfred Bauer Prize for Innovation: “Vic + Flo Saw a Bear,” Denis Cote

Silver Bear (Best Director): David Gordon Green, “Prince Avalanche”

Best Actress: Paulina Garcia, “Gloria”

Best Actor: Nazif Mujic, “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker”

Outstanding Artistic Contribution: Azaiz Zhambakiyev (cinematographer), “Harmony Lessons”

Best Screenplay: “Closed Curtain,” Jafar Panahi

Special Mention for Golden Bear: “Layla Fourie,” Pia Marais; “Promised Land,” Gus Van Sant

OTHER AWARDS

FIPRESCI Award (Competition): “Child’s Pose,” Calin Peter Netzer

FIPRESCI Award (Panorama): “Inch’Allah,” Anais Barbeau-Lavette

FIPRESCI Award (Forum): “Helio Oiticica,” Cesar Oiticica Filho

Ecumenical Jury Prize (Competition): “Gloria,” Sebastian Lelio

Ecumenical Jury Prize (Special Mention): “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker,” Danis Tanovic

Ecumenical Jury Prize (Documentary): “The Act of Killing,” Joshua Oppenheimer

Teddy Award (Feature Film): “In the Name Of,” Malgoska Szumowska 

Teddy Award (Documentary): “Bambi,” Sebastien Lifshitz

Teddy Award (Jury Award): “Concussion,” Stacie Passon

Best Debut Feature: “The Rocket,” Kim Mordaunt

Special Mention for Best Debut Feature: “The Battle of Tabato,” Joao Viana 

Golden Bear for Short Film: “The Runaway,” Jean-Bernard Marlin

Silver Bear for Short Film: “Die Ruhe bleibt,” Stefan Kriekhaus

Film music composer Thomas Newman landed his 11th Oscar nomination to date last month, for his original contributions to “Skyfall.” It’s the latest in a long line of Academy mentions both in the song and score categories for two decades for him, but despite the strong showing, he has yet to wrangle one of the trophies for himself.

Last weekend he won his second BAFTA Award to date (on just three nominations from the group throughout his career). And, along with “Skyfall” colleague Roger Deakins, he is putting a little bit of pressure on the presumed frontrunners in his category.

A handful of those Oscar nominations along the way have come for Sam Mendes films, including the director’s latest. Mendes likes to showcase Newman’s work in his films, being very detailed with his sound mixers about how he wants it to shine, and that was a particular note on “Skyfall.” This was, after all, the new chapter of a franchise that has music woven into the fabric of its very identity.

“I think I’m the ninth composer in 50 years,” Newman says of his place in that legacy. “It’s one thing to kind of come up and show people a sense of original style and another thing to try to make the ‘Bond music machine’ kind of happen in just the right way. But in the end you want to make an exciting movie. So I think Sam was going to make sure that I did that. He wanted to make really sure that the music took it on that way, that there were no moments of sag, that there were moments of excitement all the way down.”

Newman had a working repertoire from four previous films in place with Mendes. But he was moving into just his second collaboration with director John Madden, for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” And he frequently takes on gigs with new talent, so when asked about the delicate nature of taking over the intimate head space of a director’s vision for its musical identity, he still has plenty of perspective.

“I think in the end, a director wants to recognize his movie,” he says. “It’s a tough process, because of the shock of the new. Any new idea you play for a director, it’s going to hit him or her in the face a little at first. It’s a measure of strength to see how they kind of come away from that but in the end if I have some swell idea for a scene in a movie that has nothing to do with the director’s vision, that can not work because it’s just not his movie anymore.

“What’s nice is to be able to surprise a director with an idea he or she never would have thought of but is moving and improves the scene. But it’s a game of taste, and taste is undefendable, and often times really good ideas can be tossed out for really no good reason, just taste. ‘I don’t like it, sorry.’ It’s one of those things.”

The practice of using temp music to help guide that vision is also dicey at times, Newman says. “I guess you kind of hope when you hear temp music that it’s average, that it’s kind of doing what it needs to be doing to help the movie tell its story. Typically what you try to do is see what the music is doing dramatically and not necessarily instrumentally or compositionally and see if you can find your own way to that dramatic place.”

Ultimately, though, he thinks it’s best to come as fresh to the visual material as possible. “Often times reading a script can mislead you,” he says. “Or really, conversation with directors — pre-production conversations with directors — can mislead you, because they’re in the middle of forming a sense of style and content. Sometimes the best thing is to see a movie and, boom, there it is. There’s no expectations; it hits you for the first time and you have a real honest idea of what it is.”

But “Skyfall” was, of course, a different beast altogether. It’s a film with a built-in musical pulse, and the challenge for Newman was finding it and making it click fresh for a new generation. But not without releasing the past, of course, and indeed, therein lie the overall theme of the film. And maybe, just maybe, it can be the first film of that lineage to win a pair of music Oscars on the occasion of 007’s 50th anniversary.

Wouldn’t that be something?

(Welcome to the Oscar Guide, your chaperone through the Academy”s 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 24, with the Best Picture finale on Friday, February 22.)

Best Original Screenplay is perhaps my favorite of all Oscar categories, and I know I’m not alone in that. So often it has been a sanctuary for adventurous, important and, yes, original films that are just a little too fresh to triumph in the top categories: it’s thanks to this award, after all, that the likes of “Pulp Fiction,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Chinatown,” “Talk to Her,” “The Red Balloon” and, of course, “Citizen Kane” all get to call themselves Oscar winners.

While for the last three years, the category has housed the eventual Best PIcture winner, Best Original Screenplay is back on outsider duty this year. While the adapted category will be breathlessly scrutinized for Best Picture signals, none of the frontrunners here are likely to triumph in the top race. It’s still an equally competitive category — and, despite many pundits’ odd assertions that it was a “thin” field, was far more contested than its counterpart at the nominations stage, where at least two slots remained consistently in flux between an array of mainstream and independent outliers.

The nominees are…

“Amour” (Michael Haneke)
“Django Unchained” (Quentin Tarantino)
“Flight” (John Gatins)
“Moonrise Kingdom” (Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola)
“Zero Dark Thirty” (Mark Boal) 

Running the gamut from slick studio drama to handmade indie quirk to an intimate, international auteur piece, this is the kind of thoughtfully diverse field we can usually count on the writers’ branch to assemble, though I’m sure everyone has a film or two they’d like to swap out for another. For fans of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master,” the WGA-nominated film’s omission came as a brisk slap in the face, especially considering PTA’s three previous nods from this branch. Others, meanwhile, had hoped the WGA’s other divergent pick, Rian Johnson’s “Looper,” would represent for genre cinema here. Meanwhile, my own favorite original screenplay of the year, from a former Oscar nominee in this category, never gained any ground in the season.  

The last time a foreign-language script won in this category, when Pedro Almodovar and “Talk to Her” mercifully saw off Nia Vardalos a full decade ago, it was at least partly compensation for his ineligibility in the Best Foreign Language Film race. You have to go all the way back to “A Man and a Woman” in 1966 to find a film that took both prizes, yet I like Michael Haneke”s chances of repeating that trick for “Amour.” The only writing award he”s taken all season has been from the London critics, but the script”s combination of gravitas, writerly precision and emotional pull should impress many voters, particularly those who find the Best Picture-nominated alternatives too remote or too undisciplined. With Emmanuelle Riva also gaining in Best Actress, the film is on an upward trajectory in the final stages of voting.

On paper, the leader in this race appears to be “Django Unchained,” for which Quentin Tarantino has scooped wins at the BAFTAs, the BFCA Critics” Choice Awards and the Golden Globes – though, like Haneke, he”s ineligible for the WGA. It”s easy to see why he keeps winning, given the strength of the film”s authorial voice, most obviously in its reams of singularly flavorful dialogue – it couldn”t have been written by anyone else, and it was that recognition factor among voters that won Woody Allen a third award in this category last year. Whether or not voters feel Tarantino, who was likely the runner-up in this category three years ago, is “due” a second win 18 years after “Pulp Fiction,” the script itself – despite its divisively haphazard structure and controversial historical revisionism – will win plenty of votes on its own merits.

He may have received a WGA nomination, but it was still a surprise to see John Gatins – whose previous credits include “Real Steel” and “Coach Carter” – pop up here for “Flight.” When in doubt, this branch has recently had a tendency to fill out the category with independent fare, but Gatins has received much credit (and much press) over the season for reviving the kind of high-concept but character-based storytelling that hasn”t recently been fashionable in studio cinema; “Flight” has been widely pegged as a throwback, and the writers” branch was clearly in the right kind of nostalgic mood. I personally found the script, problematic in many areas, with a number of characterizations abruptly curtailed, but it”s nonetheless full of commendably testy moral angles for a Hollywood drama. Still, Gatins is surely in fifth place here.

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola (joining his family”s long line of Oscar nominees) pretty much nailed down this nomination when their wistful, whimsical, woozy teen romance “Moonrise Kingdom” charmed the pants off most critics on the first night of the Cannes Film Festival. While there seemed a possibility, later in the season, that the film could even crack the bigger races, this is ultimately where it remained – though I”d venture that the screenplay itself isn”t as literate or as formally complex as, say, “The Royal Tenenbaums,” which earned Anderson his only previous nomination in this category. Just as “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” managed to triumph without a Best Picture nomination, there”s a slim chance that the widespread affection for the film could concentrate itself into a win here, but it really needed the heat to cool on its more-nominated rivals for that to happen.

When “Zero Dark Thirty” came strongly out the gate at the beginning of precursor season, it looked like Mark Boal could gallop to a second Oscar just three years after triumphing for “The Hurt Locker” (and again beating Tarantino in the process). It”d certainly be easy to vote for the script based on the density of its research, and the “Zodiac”-style exhaustiveness of its procedural structure. But Boal”s momentum, like that of ultimately un-nominated director Kathryn Bigelow, took a severe hit when the controversy over the film”s depiction of torture clouded its other achievements for a few crucial weeks in the first stage of voting. It seems the film has ultimately come out on the other side, and with substantial box office to boot, but I”m not sure Boal can recover the distance – though he may well win the WGA prize.

Will win: “Amour” (Michael Haneke)
Could win: “Django Unchained” (Quentin Tarantino)
Should win: “Amour” (Michael Haneke)
Should have been here: “Damsels in Distress” (Whit Stillman)

Do you think Tarantino or Boal can win a second statuette? Will Michael Haneke trip them up, or does a non-Best Picture nominee stand a chance? Tell us in the comments section!

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.

Guess what won some more awards? Would you believe “Argo?” The film took top honors at the BAFTA Awards last weekend. We discuss the show’s winners and potential Oscar impact, especially as it regards hopefuls like Quentin Tarantino and Emmanuelle Riva.

Another award “Argo” picked up was the USC Scripter prize. Is a WGA Award next? We preview the weekend’s upcoming screenplay competition and forecast the screenplay Oscar races as well.

Last week we covered animated features and shorts. This week we dive in on documentaries. We mull over the feature and short subject competitions, two strong categories.

Speaking of shorts, the last category we need to cover finally gets its day: Best Live Action Short. Will emotion win out over production value?

And finally, reader questions. We address queries about our initial dismissal of Christoph Waltz’s Oscar chances and how the Academy reacts to digital production design.

Have a listen to the new podcast below. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. You to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here. And as always, if you have a question you’d like us to address on a future podcast, send it to OscarTalk@HitFix.com.

“Here I Come” courtesy of Stuart Park.

(Welcome to the Oscar Guide, your chaperone through the Academy”s 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 24, with the Best Picture finale on Friday, February 22.)

After three straight years of original screenplay-based films ruling the roost, the Best Picture race this year resumes its relationship with the Best Adapted Screenplay category, as the three arguable frontrunners for the top prize are locked in closer combat here. As it stands, the presentation of this award will be a key moment, potentially telling us a lot about how the rest of the evening is going to go. If “Argo” wins, you can probably ease into your seat; if it”s something else, we might still have a race.

The Academy wasn”t given a surfeit of options in this category, especially with such prestige adaptations as “Anna Karenina” and “On the Road” proving to be either fast faders or non-starters. The field they ended up with, then, was an obvious one, comprising five of the six adaptations in the Best Picture race. (The sixth, the sung-through “Les Miserables,” was never going to feature for its writing.) It”s a shame that the widely beloved WGA nominee “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” couldn”t make the cut, but with one higher-profile, Guild-ineligible indie favorite lying in wait as a replacement, these were always the likeliest five.

The nominees are…

“Argo” (Chris Terrio)
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” (Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin)
“Life of Pi” (David Magee)
“Lincoln” (Tony Kushner)
“Silver Linings Playbook” (David O. Russell)

It’s not the most adventurous group the often-innovative writers’ branch has ever fielded in this category — the films are all American, for starters, and only “Beasts” really comes from the fringes — but it represents a fair spread of styles and approaches. Two are based on novels, with the other three coming a magazine article, a stage play and a non-fiction bestseller, respectively. It’s unusual, too, that two of the nominees incorporate elements of magical realism. While some are mourning the popular “Perks,” it’s hard to claim anyone was egregiously slighted here: as wild as it would be to have such clever adaptations as “21 Jump Street” or “The Loneliest Planet” here, that’d be asking the Academy to be something they’re not.   

Last year, “The Artist” broke a six-year streak in which the Best Picture winner also took home a screenplay prize – and some might argue that, given the film”s almost complete lack of dialogue, it was a special case. The simple fact remains that if “Argo” takes Best Picture, as almost everyone at this point assumes it will, the odds favor first-time nominee Chris Terrio also taking the gold. It”s a tidy piece of writing, after all, with plenty of zesty dialogue and at least one catchphrase that has, if only temporarily, entered the pop-culture lexicon. That”ll be enough for the “Argo” contingent, who also haven”t been given a wealth of major categories in which to recognize their favorite film of the year. Terrio didn”t win many precursors early in the season, but his upset victory at the Scripters was telling; I say he takes the WGA award this weekend, and then the Oscar.

It”s a testament to the work of director Benh Zeitlin and co-writer Lucy Alibar that many are surprised to learn that the rovingly cinematic “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is based on a stage play, Alibar”s own “Juicy and Delicious.” There”s much to be said for a script that allows ample breathing space for the director”s visual storytelling, but there”s some richly literate, even poetic, writing to be found in this heady blend of bayou magical realism and 21st-century survival story, with its occasional stream-of-consciousness verbiage channelling the likes of Toni Morrison. Still, the buzz around Zeitlin has centered mainly on his flamboyant direction, for which he”s already a long shot; ineligible at the WGA awards this weekend, this energetic underdog is likely still bringing up the rear.

2012 brought us a couple of literary adaptations of novels widely tagged with that pointless adjective “unfilmable” – practically everything”s filmable, after all, whether it”s filmed well or not – but where “Cloud Atlas” largely struggled to surmount that scepticism, Ang Lee”s tricky balance of alternative realities in “Life of Pi” was widely given a pass. Personally, I think whatever success the film achieves comes despite, rather than because of, the slightly clunky script by former nominee David Magee (“Finding Neverland”): I know I”m not the only one for whom the flat contemporary framing device, in particular, is a sticking point. While general goodwill for the film, as well as respect for Magee”s ambition in taking on this beast – so to speak – pulled him through with the WGA and the Academy, I think many voters will likely view the film primarily as a director”s piece.

Earlier in the season, a lot of pundits thought Tony Kushner had this one licked for “Lincoln.” After all, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright taking on a bestselling volume by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian about America”s favorite president… well, it boasts a certain cache. Many early precursors agreed, as Kushner swept up prizes from the New York Critics” Circle, the National Society of Film Critics, the BFCA Critics” Choice Awards – but his winning streak has slowed recently, as the Globes, Scripters and BAFTA all went elsewhere. The WGA award this weekend is crucial: Kushner”s script is a feat of great verbal density and academic exactitude – virtues that have led detractors to label it dry or talky – and his fellow scribes are likeliest to appreciate it. If he doesn”t win there, the former nominee (for another Spielberg film, “Munich”) is in trouble.

Indeed, I”m beginning to think the likelier threat to the Best Picture favorite here might be David O. Russell”s adaptation of the Matthew Quick novel “Silver Linings Playbook.” Russell may be on his second directing nod, but has never before been nominated as a writer. (He was deservedly WGA-nominated in 1999 for “Three Kings.”) Last Sunday, he pulled off the upset of the night at the BAFTAs in this category, his most significant win since taking the National Board of Review prize at the start of the season – especially surprising given that the Brits hadn”t nominated the boisterous dramedy for Best Film or Director. The Academy, on the other hand, already made their admiration for the film clear in the nominations phase, while the highly verbal blend of pathos and offbeat humor in Russell”s script can be a winning formula – Alexander Payne has two of these, after all.

Will win: “Argo” (Chris Terrio)
Could win: “Silver Linings Playbook” (David O. Russell)
Should win: “Silver Linings Playbook” (David O. Russell)
Should have been here: “21 Jump Street” (Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill)

Do you think “Argo” is all go in the Best Adapted Screenplay category? Can Kushner regain his early momentum, or will Russell repeat his BAFTA coup? Tell us in the comments section!

We begin today’s roundup with a happy confluence of Oscar contenders. It’s hardly surprising that a writer as intelligent and politically conscientious as Tony Kushner would be swift to stand up for a fellow artist’s freedom of expression — but it’s still heartening, amid the heat of the Oscar contest, to see the nominated “Lincoln” scribe making a small but significant gesture of support for rival Best Picture contender “Zero Dark Thirty.” Kushner is one of 28 signatories, alongside the heavyweight likes of Alan Dershowitz, on a letter sent to all US Senators, protesting the statements made against the film by Senators John McCain, Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin. “History demonstrates, in particular the 1950s McCarthy period, that government officials should not employ their official status and power to attempt to censor, alter or pressure artists to change their expressions, believes, presentations of facts or political viewpoints,” the letter says. [The Carpetbagger]

Dave McNary reports from Wednesday’s Film Independent Director’s Close-Up event for Ben Affleck. Nice to see him getting some attention at last. [Variety] 

The late Nora Ephron, a four-time WGA nominee, will receive a posthumous tribute at the Guild’s awards ceremony this weekend. [Hollywood Reporter]

Ryan Gilbey thinks “Django Unchained” and “This is 40” are examples of why Hollywood sometimes needs to say no — even to their A-list talent. [The Guardian]

David Poland talks to Oscar-nominated “Paperman” director John Kahrs. [Hot Blog]

David Fincher returns to his music video roots for Justin Timberlake’s “Suit and Tie.” [Slate]

Jack Egan believes this year’s cinematography nominees prove we’re in a golden age for the craft. I may agree about the golden age, but I don’t think this Oscar crop really reflects it. {Below the Line]

The Variety team offer some points for voters to consider in 16 Oscar categories. [The Vote] 

Finally, nominees for the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards are out: the young folk are high on “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers,” but “The Turin Horse” was pointedly snubbed. [USA Today] 

BERLIN – I toyed with not giving one of our customary letter grades to “Dark Blood,” a new film from 80-year-old Dutch veteran George Sluizer that isn’t new at all. (It’s 19 years old, as it happens, which isn’t too far off the age River Phoenix, the incandescent young actor so abruptly taken from the living in 1993, was when he filmed it.) It’s only three-quarters of a movie, after all.

Phoenix, it seems unduly difficult to imagine, would be 42 were he with us today; the film, meanwhile, would be languishing on obscure DVD (or even VHS) shelves, a rarely discussed representative of a lurid strain of steamy, quasi-mystical genre cinema that had a Hollywood moment in the early-to-mid 1990s. Instead, it got its first major unveiling today at the Berlin Film Festival, nearly four months after its official, less grandiose, world premiere at the Netherlands Film Fest. Were he with us today, its star would likely took a little worse for her. The film, on the other hand, might look a little better — it’d be finished, at the very least.

For those of you unfamiliar with the development of “Dark Blood,” a surprisingly straightforward psychological thriller embellished with erotic overtones and over-exoticized Native American mythology, it represents one of the more remarkable rescue missions in the history of a defeat-prone industry. Intended to be an English-language debut for Sluizer, who had made an international splash five years before with the ingenious Dutch horror film “The Vanishing,” production was indefinitely halted, with around 80% of the script already shot, following Phoenix’s death.

The footage was very nearly laid to waste by its insurance company in 1999 as a rash answer to storage expenses. Having gained possession of the film itself — though not the negative, which still puts a cloud over the possibility of the film travelling beyond the festival circuit — Sluizer eventually decided he wasn’t willing to let it go, and that Phoenix’s final screen work deserved an audience. Despite a number of the narrative’s most crucial scenes left unfilmed, the director doggedly set about fashioning as coherent an edit as he could, bridging over the missing sequences with his own descriptive voiceover. In the film’s onscreen intro, Sluizer liken the result to a three-legged chair, given the bare minimum it needs to stand upright.

But three-legged chairs still have a tendency to wobble, and once my initial delight subsided that Sluizer’s gambit has worked — the shaping is clean and comprehensible, the performances have rhythm and even occasional crackle — the cruel question of how urgently the material needed to saved in the first place was left hanging in the somewhat sultry air. It seems to me almost unfair to put a grade on a work never given the option to be, quite literally, all it can be.

But I wonder if the accidental secondary narrative imposed by Sluizer’s warm-gravel narration, lending the sense of chasing a film through history, is more compelling and enigmatic than any onscreen goings-on in the Painted Desert — kinkily curious and beautifully shot, in humid gingerbread tones by the great Ed Lachman, as they are. (That this is one of two Lachman-lensed films in the Berlinale lineup — the second being Ulrich Seidl’s “Paradise: Hope” — is a unique career testament.)

The story, even accounting for the incomplete construction, is a spare one. Judy Davis and Jonathan Pryce play sniping Hollywood couple Buffy and Harry — he a well-paid and well-regarded character actor, she a former Playboy model — driving through Arizona en route to a dirty weekend when their car, as movie cars are wont to do in such settings, breaks down, leaving them stranded amid the abandoned cuestas. An initial offer of assistance by a mute mechanic and his sponge-haired, doom-prophesying mother (a splendidly batty cameo for Karen Black) results only in a partial fix, but Buffy and Harry take their chances — only to strand themselves once more.

Enter Boy (Phoenix), a part-Hopi recluse who has effectively retired to desert in the wake of his wife’s death from poisoning. He takes the pair into his curious abode — part wattle-and-daub hut, part man-made thornbush, it’s a marvelous creation by production designers Jan Roelfs (“Gattaca”) and Ben van Os (“Girl With a Pearl Earring”), two Dutch giants who would later secure Oscar nominations — and sets about an alarmingly slow repair of their car. As his sexual interest in Buffy comes to the fore, it is made quite clear that refusing his hospitality is no longer an option.

Phoenix’s performance, of course, is the chief draw here, which is not to say the chief virtue. This was an interestingly opaque choice of role for the 23-year-old heartthrob in this stage in his career, and he appears to have been angling for a more aggressive screen persona here. We’re reminded of his fluidly expressive body language, but he’s just as often mannered in his madness; had things gone differently, we might well have some to look on this performance as an early experiment in the kind of hyper-technique that has since netted his younger brother Joaquin three Oscar nominations.

He’s also the chief victim of the film’s incompleteness, as many of his most volatile-sounding moments — including a cathartic sex scene — are stuck on the page, never having come to fruition. It’s Judy Davis and her standard slash of red-meat lipstick who seem to have the best grasp of tone in this moonshine marriage of straight-faced tension, mystic high camp and poetic nostalgia for a West no more or less lost in 1993 than it is now. (That she’s the standout seems less worthy of note considering the sheer range and number of projects she’s since brightened on similar strengths.)

Working from a script by Jim Barton, Sluizer was clearly taken with Sam Shepard’s evocation of America for the foreign eyes of Wim Wenders; imagine the Pulitzer Prize-winner latching onto the more recently vogueish middle-class-terrorization genre, and that conveys something of the mix of sincerity and exploitation at play here.  For the director, even if I sense this wasn’t hurtling toward massive critical acclaim, this certainly would have been a more interesting and auspicious US arrival than his own catastrophic “Vanishing” remake. For River Phoenix, strikingly beautiful and magnetic even through his odd technical lapses, this turns out to be interesting, auspicious and involuntarily tardy farewell. Both men deserved more.

“Dark Blood” has its American premiere at the Miami International Film Festival on March 6.