As last night’s surprise BAFTA win for “Skyfall” demonstrated, this year’s Best Original Score Oscar could go just about any way this year — partly because the Academy’s ever-peculiar music branch skipped over some of the year’s most acclaimed work when assembling the nominees, and partly because the field that remains is stacked with admired names, only two of whom have won before. One of those is Dario Marianelli, whose score for “Anna Karenina” could benefit from being the most ornate in the category. In a nicely timed showcase, Marianelli will be celebrated next week at the Dublin Film Festival, where the RTE Concert Orchestra will perform a programme of his work selected by Marianelli himself, including “Karenina,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “V for Vendetta,” “The Brothers Grimm,” the Oscar-winning “Atonement” and my own favorite of his, “Jane Eyre.” Any Irish readers going? [JDIFF] 

David S. Cohen reports from Friday’s new-look Sci-Tech Oscar ceremony, hosted by Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana. [Variety] 

You may recall Kris recently writing that “Adam and Dog” deserves the Best Animated Short Oscar. Now you can watch the film and judge for yourself. [YouTube]

Roger Ebert offers up his annual Oscar predictions in the major categories, and can’t resist getting all “I told you so” about “Argo.” Not that he was the only one. [Chicago Sun-Times]

With ballots out, Nathaniel Rogers and his team make their final pleas to Academy voters. [The Film Experience]

Steve Pond talks to David O. Russell about turning his career around to become “the ultimate actors’ director.” [The Wrap]

Jessica Chastain denies any feud with Jennifer Lawrence, and slams the media for fabricating stories about female rivalry in the industry. Right on. [The Guardian]

Susan King runs through the spotty history of musical numbers at the Oscars. [LA Times]

Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody is co-chairing the Athena Film Festival, which celebrates the achievements of female directors, writers and producers. She talks gender issues, and her mixed feelings about “Magic Mike.” [Vulture] 

One for the sartorialists: an index of no fewer than 478 red carpet looks from Oscars past. [New York Times]

This was probably Roger Deakins’s last opportunity to make some noise with “Skyfall,” my personal pick for the year’s best cinematography. Well, he won the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Award for his work on the film, staving off his winless streak at the Oscars just a bit.

And it’s a slight surprise. Of course, Deakins is big with the guild. This is his third win there (previously cited for “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There”) and he has a Lifetime Achievement honor, too. And the ASC has always been ahead of the digital curve, giving nods to, say, “Collateral” or “Apocalypto” when the Academy’s cinematography branch wasn’t quite ready. Though speaking of “Apocalypto,” Dean Semler received his Lifetime Achievement honor tonight from the Society.

“For me it”s not that much different,” Deakins said of digital filmmaking in my interview with him this season. “I find that shooting digital seems to really work with the way I like to light. The learning curve was not that big, really. I mean obviously the processing side of it is slightly different. But once I start shooting I”m not really aware of the differences. And I felt I could play with things more in some of ‘Skyfall,’ because I could see with the optical viewfinder on set exactly what I was doing. It gave me more confidence to play, I think, than maybe if I was shooting film. It”s such a pressure on doing a big movie like that.”

This slows down any momentum Claudio Miranda had built up from his BAFTA win earlier today. But I would nevertheless still call him the favorite for the Oscar. I’d love to be wrong, and not because I don’t respect his work — I do and defend it against ignorant conflation with the idea that visual effects is changing what the form actually is. But dammit…I want to see Deakins win an Oscar.

And by the way, whether it’s “Skyfall” or “Life of Pi” that takes the Oscar for Best Cinematography, three of the last four winners will have been digital productions. “Inception” is the outlier from the ever film-reverent Christopher Nolan and Wally Pfister.

Rodney Charters also received the ASC’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Robby Müller received the International Award and Curtis Clarke received the President’s Award.

I guess this is as good a time as any to remind/announce (in case you don’t follow me on Twitter) that the sixth annual “Top 10 Shots of the Year” column drops in two parts beginning Tuesday. And four of this year’s ASC nominees were interviewed for the spread…including the big winner.

Full list of winners from the 27th annual ASC Awards:

Feature Film
“Skyfall” (Roger Deakins)

One-Hour Episodic Television Series
(tie) “Hunted” (Balazs Bolygo) and “Game of Thrones” (Kramer Morgenthau)

Television Movie/Miniseries
“Great Expectations” (Florian Hoffmeister)

Half-Hour Episodic Series
“Wilfred” (Bradford Lipton)

Remember to keep track of all the ups and downs of the 2012-2013 film awards season via The Circuit.

In the first year that BAFTA switched to the Academy’s system of letting the entire membership vote across most categories, we had every reason to expect their customary quirks to disappear with branch-specific voting. Gone are days, probably, of “Mulholland Drive” winning for Best Film Editing, or Pedro Almodovar taking Best Director for “All About My Mother,” as BAFTA increasingly settles into its assumed role as one more Oscar-minded precursor.

But wait — not so fast. Where they could merely have checked off every consensus favorite from the season thus far, BAFTA threw in enough individual choices to suggest they’re at least as keen on guiding Oscar voters to viable alternatives as they are in merely guessing their taste. Some of their choices, meanwhile, were merely about celebrating their own industry: witness the Best British Film award for people’s favorite “Skyfall,” which, as I mentioned in my review, is really its own kind of British heritage film. (They could, after all, have gone with “Les Miserables,” which nonetheless ended the night with the most trophies of any film.)

I couldn’t be more delighted that Lynne Ramsay — one of the most exciting filmmakers at work today, and not just within UK borders — has a BAFTA to call her own for her brilliant short “Swimmer,” which in turn was made as part of last year’s triumphant London Olympics campaign. (As I mentioned the other day, it’s a film that puts all this year’s nominees for the Best Live Action Short Oscar to shame.)

That aside, however, as Kris noted in his live-blog of the winners earlier this evening, most of the Brits’ prominent digressions from the script — most notably, Emmanuelle Riva for Best Actress — may be echoed by the Academy in two weeks’ time. (Just two weeks!)

It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. The BAFTAs’ have carefully cultivated their position in the calendar as the last televised film awards ceremony before the Oscars; announcing their choices weeks after the Globes, the SAGs, and the BFCA Critics’ Choice Awards puts them in a position to demonstrate late-breaking momentum shifts in ever-evolving races. That’s not to say that BAFTA talks and Hollywood listens — these changes are slower-building than that, and plenty of voters placing an X next to Riva’s name in the next few days will be doing so without knowing or caring with the British thought. (They certainly won’t care, whatever some people say, that an 85 year-old woman doesn’t put jetting off to a London awards shindig at the very top of her priority list.) has reached the stage in life where jetting off to  But if there’s something in the water, here’s your evidence.

It happened in 2002 with the quiet storm that was “The Pianist,” as it won BAFTAs for Best Film and Director en route to its near-coup of the Oscars. It happened in 2007 with Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton, neither of whom were favored by many awards pundits until BAFTA got behind them. And it could happen this year for Riva, who benefits from the fact that voters are still discovering her film and spreading the word — even at this late stage in the race, even after this major win, she’s the underdog that her fans feel needs to be talked up more. 

Of course, it might not happen. Just as Mickey Rourke’s 2008 BAFTA win fooled many of us into thinking he had enough last-minute steam to pull ahead of season-long frontrunner Sean Penn, only to fall just short, Riva may well find Jennifer Lawrence’s blazing head start in the race insurmountable. “Silver Linings Playbook,” after all, still has plenty of heat — as demonstrated in the single most surprising win of the BAFTA ceremony, as David O. Russell pulled ahead of both Best Film winner “Argo” and precursor category leader “Lincoln” to take Best Adapted Screenplay — an outcome that could easily be repeated at the Oscars, where the slate of nominees is identical.

The BAFTAs have sent us some confusingly but excitingly mixed signals this year, and this unexpected show of “Silver Linings” love is a perfect example. Less enthusiastically received than in the US by UK critics and audiences, the writing appeared to be on the wall for Russell’s film when the BAFTAS gave it only three nominations, passing it over in the Best Film and Director categories. Clearly, plenty of voters felt it deserved better — enough for it to win for its writing, but not Best Actress into the bargain.

There was similar compensation for another Weinstein property, “Django Unchained.” Like “Silver Linings Playbook,” it missed out on a nomination in the top race, but found enough residual support for its auteur to triumph in a highly competitive Original Screenplay category — where in turn, given Riva’s win, “Amour” clearly had enough admirers to be a close contender.

“Django,” however, went one better than “Playbook” by taking an acting prize, as Christoph Waltz bookended his surprise Golden Globe win to give himself a serious shot at becoming one of the more unlikely two-time Oscar winners of recent years. Best Supporting Actor thus becomes, if not the richest of this year’s acting Oscar races, certainly the most open, not least because we haven’t yet had one major precursor where frontrunners Waltz, Tommy Lee Jones and Robert De Niro have all competed at once.

Do we learn anything from SAG winner Jones’s loss other than that BAFTA wasn’t too jazzed about “Lincoln?” Do we even learn that at all? Certainly, it’s a film that, on the surface, lost some face tonight. After leading the field with 10 nominations, Steven Spielberg’s slice of American history won only for its one shoo-in, and a British shoo-in at that: Best Actor juggernaut Daniel Day-Lewis. But the signs were always there, notably in Spielberg’s missing Best Director nomination, that they weren’t entirely on board with it: I’ve spoken to several BAFTA members who admit to finding the film “boring.” The question, and it’s one BAFTA couldn’t answer, is how many Academy voters secretly feel the same way.

Which brings us around to the Best Film and Best Director races, where the BAFTAs broke no new ground by handing both prizes to “Argo,” following the lead of the Globes, the Critics’ Choice Awards, the DGA, PGA, SAG and many a critics’ group. When a commercially successful crowdpleaser also unites that many industry bodies in agreement, there’s really no case to be made against it: the race may be fluid in other areas, but “Argo” is your Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Direc–oh, yeah. Huh.

That pesky, utterly anomalous Ben Affleck omission continues to make Best Director at once one of the most  intriguing and most irrelevant categories at this year’s Oscars, and by further linings Affleck’s cabinet of compensatory trophies, the BAFTAs did little to clarify it. A win for Ang Lee tonight — which, in light of “Life of Pi”‘s vast popularity in the UK, seemed a genuine possibility — would have strengthened his case a potential Oscar winner. As it stands, he faces the challenge of winning the biggest prize of all with nothing heavier than a London Critics’ Award in his back pocket — not that Steven Spielberg has been tearing up the precursor circuit either. In this category, at least, it’s now the Academy who gets to show a little of that off-beam BAFTA quirk I was talking about earlier. 

The BAFTA Awards went down tonight in London and it’s a big moment in the race. As Guy reminded yesterday in his predictions column, the organization has tailored its process closer to the Academy’s, eliminating branch-voted winners in favor of allowing all members to vote throughout the categories. The result could be some powerful Oscar foreshadowing.

Check out the full list of winners below. Along with each winner I’ve offered up my thoughts as a running commentary as the show progressed. In a nutshell, though, the new system yielded very few big surprises, though there were one or two eyebrow raisers in the bunch.

Circle on back later tonight as Guy will put a bow on the festivities with his own postmortem, after he wraps up his daily Berlin Film Festival duties. And, as always, keep track of all the ups and downs of the 2012-2013 film awards season via The Circuit.

Best British Film: “Skyfall”

Comments: Well, but of course. The most successful film ever in the UK was bound to take this prize, despite the presence of something like “Les Misérables.” And with the latest Bond missing out on a Best Film nomination, this was sure to be its consolation. Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper presented the award.

Best Short Film: “Swimmer”; Best Short Animation: “The Making of Longbird”

Comments: These categories share zero nominees with their Oscar counterparts and I’ve seen none of them, so I can’t really offer up much here. Though “Swimmer” comes from the brilliant Lynne Ramsay. Rafe Spall and Helen McRory presented the awards.

Best Costume Design: “Anna Karenina”

Comments: And that’s probably our Oscar winner, too. I’ve been wondering lately, though, whether the more seen and loved “Les Misérables” could steal both this and Best Production Design, though. Nevertheless, here’s an example of a wide body of voters going with Joe Wright’s film and Jacqueline Durran’s gorgeous work. Ben Wishaw and Alice Eve presented the award.

Best Makeup and Hair: “Les Misérables”

Comments: See above. My instinct when the Oscar nominations were announced was that “Les Misérables” was sure to take this. Then I went over to the side of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” Then even to “Hitchcock.” Lately I’ve been leaning back toward “Les Misérables” and this is clear indication that it could pull it off. The film beats out its Oscar competition at the BAFTAs.

Best Animated Film: “Brave”

Comments: Remember, there were only three nominees, and one of them wasn’t “Wreck-It Ralph.” Nevertheless, as Anne and I discussed at length in the podcast Friday, Pixar really is some stiff competition for Disney’s in-house marvel. Don’t be surprised if it wins the Oscar, too.

Best Sound: “Les Misérables”

Comments: I’m very intrigued by the sound mixing category at the Oscars this year (the BAFTAs combine mixing and editing under the banner of “Best Sound”). “Les Misérables” could pull it out as the big musical nominated for Best Picture, just as “Chicago” and “Ray” before it, as well as “Dreamgirls,” which wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. Or “Skyfall” could squeeze in some more love like “The Bourne Ultimatum.” More and more, though, it appears the former is more likely.

Best Film Editing: “Argo”

Comments: That probably seals it for the film’s shot at the Best Film award later tonight. If “Life of Pi” was going to be a big threat I imagine it may have won this, but we’ll see. “Argo” should be considered the favorite for the Oscar in this category, too, and lovely that William Goldenberg will grab an award when he’s also in the mix for another tight piece of work editing some of the most suspenseful sequences of “Zero Dark Thirty.” Jeremy Irvine and Olga Kurylenko presented this and Best Sound.

Best Cinematography: “Life of Pi”

Comments: And I imagine Claudio Miranda will win the ASC Award tonight as well, en route to Oscar in a few weeks. Nothing much more to say about it. Roger Deakins looks likely to wait it out a bit longer. “Zero Dark Thirty” star Mark Strong presented the award.

Best Original Music: “Skyfall”

Comments: Well, even with the homeland pride, that’s a bit of a surprise. Thomas Newman, Oscarless to date, picks up his second BAFTA to date. He also won on his first nomination, for “American Beauty” (which fell to “The Red Violin” at the Oscars). David Morrissey and Paloma Faith presented the award

Best Original Screenplay: “Django Unchained”

Comments: This is a bit of a surprise, given that “Amour” was probably even more favored here than at the Oscars. That shifts up the dynamic just a little bit. Maybe Quentin Tarantino is gunning for Oscar number two? “Lincoln” star Sally Field presented the award.

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”

Comments: Remember, Robert De Niro, who has been anywhere and everywhere hungry for that Oscar lately, wasn’t nominated. Nevertheless, this was going to give some indication about who’s really in the thick of this thing, and Christoph Waltz adds a BAFTA next to his Golden Globe while Tommy Lee Jones gets passed over. The SAG Award for Jones may have just been a blip. Waltz also benefits from basically being a co-lead in his film, much like Philip Seymour Hoffman in “The Master.” Still, De Niro is gunning for it. And BAFTA, having nominated Tarantino for Best Director, obviously loved the movie. The award was presented by “Silver Linings Playbook” star Jennifer Lawrence.

Best Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer: Bart Layton (writer) and Dimitri Doganis (producer), “The Imposter”

Comments: I remain in the minority on this film, which just didn’t resonate for me as it did for others, for a variety of reasons. I won’t bother getting into that, though. Check out Guy’s interview with Layton here. The award was presented by Billy Connelly.

Best Visual Effects: “Life of Pi”

Comments: Moving right along…

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”

Comments: Well, what else can you say? If “Lincoln” has real reach within the Academy, we might see Sally Field — who has won every time she’s been nominated — steal this one. But this is a runaway train and has been ever since the film bowed at New York’s Lincoln Center the day after Thanksgiving. The award was presented by George Clooney.

Best Adapted Screenplay: “Silver Linings Playbook”

Comments: That’s an interesting win, and as I’ve noted elsewhere, a possibility that shouldn’t be underestimated at the Oscars. Four heavyweights are duking it out for that prize and “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is the scrappy underdog. Gonna be a photo finish. Simon Pegg and Jennifer Garner presented the award.

Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award: Tessa Ross

Comments: This previously announced award was presented by Danny Boyle. Ross heads up Film4, the feature division of the Channel 4 network that has given a leg up to many of Bristish cinemas exciting new voices.

Best Film Not in the English Language: “Amour”

Comments: I don’t suppose any other film had a real angle on it, but who knows? It will still be interesting to see if Emmanuelle Riva takes the Best Actress prize after the original screenplay was somewhat surprisingly skipped over. The award was presented by Tim Roth and Gemma Arterton.

Rising Star Award: Juno Temple

Comments: This one, remember, is decided by the public. So, you know… Nevertheless, at least the public had a choice crop to pick from this year, and Juno Temple is frankly a somewhat surprising choice. So, well done, public.

Best Documentary: “Searching for Sugar Man”

Comments: Look, I like “Searching for Sugar Man.” But it’s simply fluff next to the other contenders this year and it’s started to drag that it’s won so much. And opening the vote up to the entire Academy membership only solidifies the idea that a popular film will win. But look at something like “The Invisible War,” which could bring about real change. Look at something like “5 Broken Cameras,” which is a miracle in its mere existence. Anyway, just wanted to mention that. I do like the film. The award was presented by Martin Freeman and Henry Cavill, the Hobbit and the Man of Steel.

Best Production Design: “Les Misérables”

Comments: As noted above, I have a hunch “Les Misérables” can pull this off at the Oscars, too. “Anna Karenina” wasn’t as widely seen or liked, mind you. Still, the split here at the BAFTAs between this and costumes is a bit odd. Safe to pick one film for both, I’d say. This is the fourth award for the film tonight and it was presented by Tom Hiddleston and Saoirse Ronan.

Best Director: Ben Affleck, “Argo”

Comments: I really thought Ang Lee might pull this one off. The writing has been on the wall for “Argo” but I think this goes a long way toward showing that the director snub at the Academy was an anomaly. This is simply a weird year. The award was presented by Ian McKellen.

Best Actress: Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour”

Comments: I’m…pretty damn excited about this. And I do still have a hunch she will turn the same trick at the Oscars. Riva gave, for me, the hands-down best performance in any category this year. I don’t see how one stacks up the competition and doesn’t vote for her. BAFTA did. Will AMPAS?

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”

Comments: Moving right along…

Best Film: “Argo”

Comments: And…there it is. “Life of Pi” did not stake its ground. “Argo” charged right on through the evening, winning four awards, including Best Film. Oscar is next…right?

In yet another surprise (though I guess there should be none by now with this film), “Argo” has picked up an interesting win en route to the Oscars. Journalist Joshua Bearman (article, “The Great Escape”), author Antonio Mendez (book, “The Master of Disguise”) and screenwriter Chris Terrio (“Argo”) have taken the USC Scripter Award over some heated competition.

Most might have surmised that Tony Kushner and Doris Kearns Goodwin had the right combination to win such a prize, which recognizes adapted screenplays and their source material in a given year. Indeed, many of its past winners have erred on the side of prestige even when Oscar didn’t. But more and more, the committee has whipped with the awards season winds like a weathervane, and that certainly appears to be the case this year. Or maybe people just really like this movie.

The question is, though, does Terrio have an angle on the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar? I have argued as much for a number of weeks now. Despite the presence of Best Picture nominees like “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Life of Pi,” “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook” in the category, it seems to me that the industry is collectively a big fan of Ben Affleck’s film and will chalk it up wherever it makes sense. And the tension of the screenplay and film editing would make fair partners with a Best Picture prize.

But that’s my logic. Ask others and they’ll disagree. Tony Kushner is a name commanding respect. “Life of Pi” was taken from an “unfilmable” novel. “Silver Linings Playbook” (which shouldn’t be underestimated in the category, mind you) snaps and crackles with dialogue and uplift. But all of that pales next to the fact that “Argo” has been “chosen,” it seems. It’s possible the big mid-phase lull gave some AMPAS members pause, but that’s hard to quantify.

So, as I said in the podcast yesterday, I expect “Argo” to move right on through a WGA win next week (which carries more weight than Scripter, mind you, and could certainly go another way) and eventually grab the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. We’ll see if that actually happens.

In addition to the annual Scripter prize, the Literary Achievement Award was also presented, to Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana.

Once again, your 25th annual Scripter Award winner:

“Argo”
Joshua Bearman, author of “The Great Escape” (article) Antonio J. Mendez, author of “The Master of Disguise” (book) and Chris Terrio, screenwriter

Remember to keep track of the season via The Circuit.

Tomorrow night’s BAFTA Awards are the last televised stop on the awards calendar before the Oscars, and in a year where several key races remain unsettled, they’ll be watched even more eagerly than usual by awards pundits. (Well, “followed” if not “watched” — I, for one, won’t have access to the live broadcast of the show, annually shown on a quaint tape-delay system that suggests the BBC hasn’t quite got to grips yet with a little thing called the internet. But I digress.)

Like the Academy, the BAFTA voters lavished attention on an apparent frontrunner, only to undermine it by eliminating it from the Best Director race. The difference, of course, is that the British and American groups dealt this backhand to different films. Where the Oscars left Ben Affleck (as a director, at least) out of the party, the Brits decided Steven Spieberg could afford to sit this one out, despite handing “Lincoln” a field-leading 10 nominations. This truly is the season of mixed signals.

Spielberg’s omission is only semi-surprising — “Lincoln” has enjoyed a respectable commercial and critical reception in the UK, but it’s obviously far from the phenomenon it was Stateside. Still, some might put it down to the BAFTAs’ new voting system system this year which, like the Academy, finds the Best Director nominees determined by a comparatively small chapter (ie. branch) of the voting group. BAFTA used to allow all members to vote in all categories at the nomination stage, determining the winners through branch-specific voting — a process that has resulted in some quirky choices over the years.

By flipping the system, the awards are falling even further in line with the Oscars — and we’ll find out tomorrow if the change results in more predictable consensus frontrunners winning than usual. 

In any event, BAFTA embraced “Argo” wholeheartedly, shocking onlookers by adding a Best Actor nod for Ben Affleck (his first and only individual acting mention of the season.) Though “Life of Pi” — a genuine box office story in the UK — seemed to be surging around the time of the nominations, I’ve a feeling BAFTA will follow the lead of the Globes and the Guilds by crowning Affleck’s tidy Hollywood thriller. Whether across-the-pond affection for Affleck runs deep enough to secure him Best Director into the bargain remains to be seen. BAFTA splits the Best Film and Best Director prizes rather more often than the Academy, but that again, was likely a result of the chapter voting — I expect we might see less spreading of the wealth than usual.

Still, if Ang Lee manages to sneak past Ben Affleck tomorrow night to win his third Best Director BAFTA, this very unusual race could get even harder to read. With nine nominations and impressive local box office, “Life of Pi” feels due more than just a technical award or two, and could even be a spoiler in the Best Film race too. Of course, if commercial clout were a consideration for these voters, UK box office record-holder “Skyfall” would have been nominated in the top race — as it stands, I predict it’ll receive the consolation prize of Best British Film. Best Film nominee “Les Mis” would logically be the favorite there, though I sense that film’s momentum has slowed enough for a so-called “upset” to strike here.

Other things to look out for tomorrow: Can Emmanuelle Riva add fuel to her Oscar campaign with a win for Best Actress? Given that US favorite Jennifer Lawrence’s film hasn’t really connected with British audiences and scored a mere pair of Oscar nods, I like Riva’s chances. Will the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score races — which mirrored the Academy’s choices 5/5 — also foretell the Oscar winner? And can “Frankenweenie” get ahead with a win in a Best Animated Feature lineup where, conveniently enough, “Wreck-It Ralph” was watching.

Anyway, all will be revealed soon enough. Until then, here are my best guesses as to what will win in each BAFTA film category — and what should. You can remind yourself of the nominees at The Circuit.

Best Film
Will win: “Argo”
Should win: “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best British Film
Will and should win: “Skyfall”

Best Director
Will win: Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”
Should win: Kathryn Bigelow, “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Actor
Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
Should win: Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master”

Best Actress
Will and should win: Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour”

Best Supporting Actor
Will and should win: Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master”

Best Supporting Actress
Will win: Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables” 
Should win: Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”

Best Original Screenplay
Will win: “Amour”
Should win: “The Master”

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will win: “Argo”
Should win: “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Foreign Language Film
Will win: “Amour”
Should win: “Rust and Bone”

Best Documentary
Will and should win: “The Imposter”

Best Animated Film
Will and should win: “Frankenweenie”

Best Cinematography
Will and should win: “Skyfall”

Best Production Design
Will and should win: “Anna Karenina”

Best Costume Design
Will and should win: “Anna Karenina”

Best Film Editing
Will win: “Argo”
Should win: “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Makeup and Hair
Will win: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
Should win: “Anna Karenina”

Best Original Score
Will win: “Anna Karenina”
Should win: “Argo”

Best Sound
Will win: “Skyfall”
Should win: “Django Unchained”

Best Visual Effects
Will and should win: “Life of Pi”

Best Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
Will win: Bart Layton and Dimitri Doganis, “The Imposter”

Rising Star Award
Will win: Suraj Sharma
Should win: Elizabeth Olsen

We broke down the Best Animated Short category last week both in the on-going Oscar Guide feature (other editions linked below this post) and on yesterday’s Oscar Talk podcast. The race is a bit nebulous with the recent decision to open the category up to the entire Academy, with fine cases made for Disney’s “Paperman,” self-funded “Adam and Dog” and student film “Head Over Heels,” Annie winners all. The notion of voting blocs has also suggested an edge for “Paperman” and “Maggie Simpson in ‘ The Longest Daycare.'” The one thing most seem to agree on is that the brief, bold “Fresh Guacamole” is the underdog.

The film may not be as interested in storytelling as the others but it’s a vibrant display of imagination and talent, a nice culmination of an artist’s rise when you take in the brief career to date. I didn’t come into the race aware of PES (aka Adam Pesapane), but it was easy enough to brush up. He maintains his own YouTube channel and his Oscar nominated “Fresh Guacamole” went viral when it first hit in early 2012.

I dug back through the work and liked the overall arc. It’s a unique voice very much interested in the handcrafted feel of stop-motion at a time when CG hybridization is improving and evolving the form. Not only that, but PES is developing a “Garbage Pail Kids” feature, which I totally hope happens. His aesthetic matches that material well and, well, I just want to see what the heck a “Garbage Pail Kids” film would be like.

I pulled together a brief string of PES films to give you an idea. Here is his first animated short, “Roof Sex”:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aodpb3vFU0?list=PLE30DFC5B7FA8E6E2&w=640&h=360]

Next up, “KaBoom!” You can see his aesthetic really starting to develop here:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZeguaJzUyk?list=PLE30DFC5B7FA8E6E2&w=640&h=360]

This one’s great, “Game Over”:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovvk7T8QUIU?list=PLE30DFC5B7FA8E6E2&w=640&h=360]

“The Deep” is probably my favorite of the lot:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CWOebTREVU?list=PLE30DFC5B7FA8E6E2&w=640&h=360]

“Western Spaghetti” is a prequel of sorts to “Fresh Guacamole”:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBjLW5_dGAM?list=PLE30DFC5B7FA8E6E2&w=640&h=360]

And finally, Oscar nominee “Fresh Guacamole”:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMO6vjmkyI?list=PLE30DFC5B7FA8E6E2&w=640&h=360]

There are plenty more over at the PES YouTube channel. Check them all out there.

BERLIN – Funny, disquieting and featuring more sexual humiliation and self-flagellation than any project with which James Franco is currently connected, Ulrich Seidl’s newly completed “Paradise” trilogy has recently bombarded the European festival circuit — in a manner unmatched since Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Three Colors” films hit the Venice-Berlin-Cannes route, almost 20 years ago, in the space of just nine months. Less than a year after pitiless sex-tourism study “Paradise: Love” jolted Cannes and religious fundamentalism parable “Paradise: Faith” took a major Venice prize, the youth-focused “Paradise: Hope” has seen out the Austrian auteur’s unsettling vision with a premiere closer to home at the Berlinale.

For most critics, the comparisons between Kieslowski and Seidl’s narratively separable, female-led trilogies are likely to end there, though you might say both have saved, if not the best, at least the warmest for last. Standing for fraternity and bathed in the hot-blooded hues of its title, “Three Colors: Red” celebrated companionship and human reliance after two more isolationist chapters. Set on an austere-looking fat farm for neglected Austrian teenagers, “Hope” doesn’t initially promise to deliver on its title, but the peculiarly tender character study that emerges is the most generous, even the most humane, of the three. (As humane, that is, as any film in which the youthful ensemble chants a recurring a chorus of “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your fat” can be — Seidl’s world remains a compellingly off-kilter one). 

That’s a surprise and a relief after the expertly crafted “Faith” rather smugly succumbed to the low-hanging fruit dangled by its kerr-azily Christian protagonist. With the trilogy complete, the middle film now looks the odd one out, with “Love” and “Hope” plainly bonded not just by the DNA of their mother-daughter lead characters, but by a challenging mutual concern with body and self-image. 

The power of “Love,” so to speak, snuck up on me in the days and weeks following the numbing first impact of its severe take on middle-aged female sexuality; “Hope,” however, is immediately affecting as it introduces Melli (astonishing first-time actress Melanie Lenz, aged just 13 at the time of shooting), a psychologically vulnerable, clinically obese teen only beginning to form a sense of what sexuality might be.

While her mother Teresa (the heavy anti-heroine of “Love”) is promiscuously vacationing in Kenya, Melli is bundled off by aunt Anna Maria (the hawkish anti-heroine of “Faith”) to an extreme weight-loss camp. Where the solidarity of like-minded and like-figured girls builds her self-esteem while dangerously accelerating her sense of obligation to her unformed libido. This unhealthy development manifests itself chiefly as a semi-predatory crush on the institution’s fiftysomething doctor (Joseph Lorenz), a seemingly mild-mannered man who nonetheless indulges and abuses Melli’s fantasies with inconsistent displays of affection.

The latest in a curiously abundant run of recent Austrian films to address the hot-button issue of pedophilia, Seidl’s film remains admirably, ambiguously complicated about the nature and motivations of a relationship built on equal parts play-acting and genuine delusion — much like Melli’s mother’s unhappy gigolo fling thousands of miles away in Africa. (The biggest audience laugh in a film that, subject matter notwithstanding, is rich in drollery came in response to a clueless phone message left my Melli, wishing her a good time in Kenya — full acquaintance with the trilogy will help with such in-jokes and parallels, but this is still the most independently accessible film of the three.)

Seidl’s keenly absurd eye for detail and physical ritual is wide open here — abetted, as in the other two, by the stark, symmetrical compositions of cinematographer Ed Lachman (“Far From Heaven”) — with much incidental humor gleaned from the everyday operation of the fat camp. No mention is ever made of one perfectly lean young male inmate, though one can only imagine his parents are particularly demanding supermodels. As in “Love,” the camera casts a calm, occasionally confrontational eye over bodies not generally seen in mainstream filmmaking as fit for visual consumption, allowing our immediate response as viewers/voyeurs to direct us to our own prejudices.

The film has an unnervingly natural ear for early-teen girl talk, too, as Melli and her new friends (notably the slightly older Verena, played by the marvelous Verena Lehbauer) shoot the shit on matters ranging from over-slobbery kisses to pubic shaving to their parents’ “delayed adolescence” — the latter an observation that, in light of the events of “Paradise: Love,” suggests these kids may be smarter even than they know. They’re certainly smarter than we’d like them to be, which is a large part of what makes “Paradise: Hope” so uncomfortable and exhilarating, an oddly moving finale to a trilogy that seems less ironic in long shot.

If indeed “Argo” beats the odds and the history and the stats and manages to take the Best Picture Oscar in a few weeks, Ben Affleck, in lieu of recognition as a director, will be able to take the stage at the Dolby Theatre and hold an Academy Award aloft as producer. But as we all know, it wouldn’t be his first time clutching the little golden guy. That moment came on March 23, 1998.

With all of the awards attention paid to “Argo” this season, I recently decided I’d pop in the 15th anniversary Blu-ray of “Good Will Hunting.” It has been quite some time, easily 10 years, since I last saw it and after last month’s Santa Barbara Film Festival “Modern Master” tribute to Affleck, I felt compelled to go back and give it another look.

I’ve always thought it was an expert piece of work. Affleck and co-writer Matt Damon wrote the script for the film while living on Hill Street in Eagle Rock, just maybe a mile from my place in that northeast Los Angeles neighborhood. It has therefore always been a bit of an inspiration for me as a screenwriter, which maybe goes some way toward explaining my enthusiasm for Affleck’s story this season. And that it yielded a win for Affleck and Damon’s work on the page has always been an Oscar highlight for me (even if I would have gone with Paul Thomas Anderson’s work on “Boogie Nights” that year — indeed, Affleck himself might agree with that).

The script does so many things so well, though. It establishes character effortlessly. It builds secondary relationships, like Sean Maguire and Gerald Lambeau, with an elegant eye toward theme. It takes the right combination of real-life detail and matches it with a refined sense of visual storytelling to make something grounded but uplifting. And, perhaps best of all, it ends really, really well.

It has also, in some ways, always seemed like a lesson captured, young Damon and Affleck finding their way through art and celebrity right in front of us. Affleck told a story at the Santa Barbara tribute about costume designer Beatrix Aruna Pasztor leaning away from the duo’s mall store-bought wardrobes, but they insisted. And in hindsight, he saw that she had a point, and it said something about realizing that the cinema isn’t life. It’s larger than life. So even realism has to be charged with a sort of fantasy of the reality if it’s going to connect deeply and broadly. And “Good Will Hunting” has always been a nice example of that, to me.

“In retrospect, it’s been clear to me that Gus brought a lot of maturity to that movie,” Affleck said at the tribute. “It could have been really adolescent if he hadn’t pulled back on some things.”

That’s very true, too. Perhaps best exemplified in the perspective of Maguire in the film. Robin Williams won an Oscar for his performance of the character, fit with his own Oscar clip in a long, patient shot of Maguire laying down a breed of maturity young Will Hunting hadn’t begun to know. That was just one of a number of examples in the script that revealed a pair of writers wise beyond their years.

I love going back to that clip of them winning the gold, too. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau presented, an odd couple for the odd couple. Lemmon ecstatically read their names and they sat there, frozen. Can you imagine? You put your life into this script, you’ve been chipping away at acting gigs, and you’ve hit the jackpot.

Affleck delivered the bulk of the speech, Damon reminding him of this name and that throughout. It was just a cool moment. It was also the first Oscar telecast I ever watched with a real interest in who won what, so I guess I was in an impressionable position.

Of course, Damon did something very different with that newfound fame than Affleck did. But Affleck came back around and found his stride as a serious filmmaker. Whether the Oscar for producing “Argo” is his or not, it’s been an interesting trajectory to watch. And, as Damon told press at the Berlin Film Festival today when the inevitable question came up, “He”ll be fine either way.”

Check out Affleck and Damon’s full speech from the 70th annual Oscars below.

By the way, if you haven’t read through Boston Magazine’s oral history of “Good Will Hunting,” it’s a real treat and you should give it a look.

(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.)

I can”t say the nominees in the Best Visual Effects category this year are unusual. We have three summer blockbusters, one Christmas blockbuster and one gorgeous 3D Best Picture contender. Two films could perhaps be considered “snubbed,” though.

“Cloud Atlas” being left off became more and more predictable as we got closer and closer to the nominees – this divisive bomb just wasn”t that loved in Hollywood. “The Dark Knight Rises,” however, is a surprising omission. It joins “Insomnia” and “Following” as rare Christopher Nolan films to be shut out of Oscar nominations. As far as the race for the win is concerned, this ranks right up with Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress as being a done deal.

The nominees are…

“The Avengers” (Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams, Daniel Sudick)
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (Joe Letteri, Erik Saindon, David Clayton, R. Christopher White)
“Life of Pi” (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Jan-Erik De Boer, Donald R. Elliot)
“Prometheus” (Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henry, Martin Hill)
“Snow White and the Huntsman” (Cedric Nicolas-Troyon, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould, Michael Dawson)

This is an outstanding group of nominees. In fact, I would have nominated four of them! Even so, I feel “Cloud Atlas” got short shrift with AMPAS by failing to score even here. I am also concerned that leaving out well-reviewed hits such as “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Skyfall” suggests that films that are heavily reliant on practical effects will be continually left behind in the future.

Given its big, big (holy cow big) box office, I remain surprised that Marvel”s “The Avengers” didn”t garner any sound nominations. But the producers and visual effects crew are clearly thrilled that it managed to score here. The effects brought in many an audience member, and the film was consistently praised for having the best creation of the Hulk on screen to date (after two previous tries). It”s been 20 years (going back to “Death Becomes Her”) since a film managed to win this category when it was its only nomination. In a year without this one’s frontrunner, I”d say “The Avengers” would have a shot at matching that.

Peter Jackson’s first installment, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” represents a return to Middle Earth for the WETA team, once again anchored by four-time Oscar winner Joe Letteri. Letteri was robbed of a win last year for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (as was fellow nominee R. Christopher White). WETA has won Oscars for four previous Jackson films (the three “Lord of the Rings” titles plus “King Kong”). But as I pointed out last year, you have to go all the way back to 1970 – when “Tora! Tora! Tora!” beat “Patton” – to find an instance of a non-Best Picture nominee beating a Best Picture nominee in this category. Which brings me to…

Best Picture nominee “Life of Pi” has its critics who have problems with the storytelling, the themes, the framing device, etc. AMPAS, giving it 11 nominations (including one in basically every plausible category) clearly disagreed. But no one – even the fiercest critic – has been able to call it anything other than a visual marvel. Richard Parker alone is an extraordinary accomplishment, but that’s just scratching the surface. Bill Westenhofer – who won this category for “The Golden Compass” – anchored a crew which managed to bring 3D to new heights and keep the audience enthralled when most of the movie took place with a boy on a raft. If “Hugo” can beat “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and the last “Harry Potter” film last year, “Life of Pi” is a sure thing this year.

Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” shows that this branch hasn”t tired of either the “Alien” series (this is the fourth film nominated) or director Scott (his fourth film nominated). I”m pleased that this was remembered for extremely eerie effects work that wasn”t as obviously showy as, say, “The Hobbit” or “The Avengers,” but was absolutely pivotal to the narrative. The nomination will be the reward, however. If, by some miracle, a solo nominee wins this category, the more fun and showy “The Avengers” has the upper hand.

The most surprising nominee in the final five has got to be “Snow White and the Huntsman.” This allows Neil Corbould to keep up his streak of being nominated every six years (“Gladiator,” “Superman Returns”) as he snuck in over brother Chris (“The Dark Knight Rises”). Along with Colleen Atwood”s less surprising Best Costume Design notice, this film is a double Oscar nominee? Who”d have thunk it? But with so many more respected/prestigious/profitable films around, it ain”t winning.

Will Win: “Life of Pi”
Could Win: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
Should Win: “Life of Pi”
Should Have Been Here: “Cloud Atlas”

Are there any brave souls out there prepared to bet against “Life of Pi”? Is anything about this category leaving a sour taste in your mouth? Chime in below!

The Academy has teamed up with Gallery1988 in Los Angeles to present a new Oscar-centric exhibition, “For Your Consideration,” featuring originally designed artwork for each of the nine Best Picture nominees this year.

“Working hand-in-hand with the Academy has been a dream come true for Gallery1988 and its artists,” Gallery1988 co-owner and co-curator Jensen Karp said via press release. “So much inspiration has come from past Oscar telecasts as well as the amazing range of films that have been nominated this year. It was a perfect fit for our style of artwork and treatment, and we can’t wait to show everyone the results of some of our most creative contemporary minds.”

The Academy commissioned a small group of international artists for the prints. They are not available for purchase but the first 100 people to visit Gallery1988 on each day of the exhibition will receive a limited edition poster. The showcase runs February 14 – 17 at the gallery on Melrose Ave.

For information on when each film poster will be distributed, visit nineteeneightyeight.com or follow Gallery1988 on Twitter (@galleries1988) and Facebook (gallery1988). Fans outside the Los Angeles area can find out about poster giveaway opportunities by following the Academy on Twitter (@TheAcademy) and Facebook (TheAcademy).

Also featured in the exhibition will be 12 illustrations of memorable Oscar moments by Oliver Barrett, a light installation by Julie B (Prety in Plastic) and other Oscar-inspired work by Olly Moss, Nan Lawson and DabsMyla.

Check out the Best Picture prints in our gallery below. The artist responsible for each is indicated, as well as the nominations each of the Best Picture nominees received. I’d have to say my favorites are definitely “Argo” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” but they are all pretty awesome.

Which one is your favorite?

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.

“Argo” picked up another win last weekend as Ben Affleck walked away with the DGA prize. The film keeps on keeping on but how much of its success is really tied to sympathy over an Oscar snub? Who’s overstating what?

The annual Nominees Luncheon was held Monday and Anne was there judging the applause-o-meter, whether hot (Ang Lee) or lukewarm (Jennifer Lawrence).

The Annie Awards were also held last weekend and “Wreck-It Ralph” was the big winner. Is that forecast for the Oscars or is Pixar’s “Brave” lurking as a real possibility to spoil?

Speaking of animation, we dive into the shorts this week with an analysis of the Best Animated Short category.

The Visual Effects Society Awards were also held, where “Life of Pi” was predictably the big winner. We consider that to be the easiest category to predict on Oscar night.

And finally, reader questions are back! We address the aforementioned “sympathy” play on Affleck’s snub and the notion that it doesn’t have the “gravitas” to be a Best Picture winner.

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.)

The first year of “Best Makeup and Hairstyling” doesn”t suggest much has changed in this category with the hairstylists now being more prominently recognized. We continue to have a biopic where a famous actor was transformed into a famous historical figure, a historical epic with aging and battle wounds, and a fantasy epic which created many a monster.

As this category was whittled down to seven bake-off finalists and three nominees, there were surprise omissions at both the first (“Cloud Atlas”) and second (“Lincoln”) stages. But for those of us who have watched this category for years, we have come to realize nothing can really be considered a surprise with this lot. And this year, the category is WIDE OPEN. That is refreshing.

The nominees are…

“Hitchcock” (Howard Berger, Peter Montagna, Martin Samuel)
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (Peter King, Rick Findlater, Tami Lane)
“Les Misérables” (Lisa Westcott, Julie Dartnell)

I cannot fault this branch for not being too original this time around. I also understand the rationales behind each nomination. But as far as turning famous actors into famous historical figures was concerned, I still preferred the work in “Lincoln.” When it came to inflicting gruesome wounds, I felt “The Impossible” was eerily realistic. And I was wowed by the glamour and character-building historical work in “Anna Karenina.”

Howard Berger (Oscar winner for “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and industry vet Peter Montagna worked hard to turn Anthony Hopkins into the famed filmmaker in “Hitchcock.” Martin Samuel (who has two nominations for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series) designed hairdos that convincingly recreated many Hollywood icons. Transformative biopics frequently win this category (i.e., “The Iron Lady,” “La Vie en Rose,” “Frida,” “Topsy-Turvy,” “Elizabeth”). However, this film doesn”t contain the aging apparent in many of those titles. And though not unheard of for a film to win here on its only nomination (“Mrs. Doubtfire,” “The Nutty Professor”), it is unusual. I wouldn”t rule it out, but I”d rank this title third of the three in terms of likelihood of winning.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” brings us back to Middle Earth. Peter King, a winner here for “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” anchors this crew, and is joined by fellow nominees Rick Findlater and Tami Lane (the latter an  Oscar winner with Berger, interestingly enough, for “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”). Fantastical creations of other races is perhaps this category”s favorite accomplishment (“The Wolfman,” “Star Trek,” “Pan”s Labyrinth,” “Narnia,” “Lemony Snicket,” two “Lord of the Rings” films, “The Grinch”). Both “Lord of the Rings” movies nominated in this category won, in fact. So one would think the prequel is sitting pretty. My head says it will win. But doesn”t it seem a bit “been there, done that?”

Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables” combines convincing period makeup with battle wounds and aging. Each of those three feats is done with relative subtlety, but all three are appreciated in this category. Lisa Westcott was nominated in back-to-back years in the late 1990s for “Mrs. Brown” and “Shakespeare in Love,” and this film is in many ways in keeping with those titles Apart from Samuel, she is the only returning nominee in this category this year who hasn”t won. When nominated, a Best Picture nominee usually wins – “Men in Black” beating “Titanic” is the last exception. This doesn”t fit the mold of a winner to the extent that “The Hobbit” does, but even so, my gut says it will triumph.

Will Win: “Les Misérables”
Could Win: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
Should Win: “Les Misérables”
Should Have Been Here: “Lincoln”

How do you handicap this race? Do you share my discontentment with the nominees? Leave a comment!

Various outlets do features along these lines every year, but for some reason, getting Academy members to share their ballots anonymous never loses its thrill for me — they may just be single voices out of 6000-plus members, but they often make it that much easier to understand where certain Oscar voting trends are coming from. The LA Times has printed the picks of three members — a producer, director and actor, two of them former nominees themselves — with commentary. The actor is clearly indicative of where the Academy’s “Silver Linings Playbook” love has been coming from, voting for it in every possible category, while the producer and director spread their affections around a little more, with “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Argo,” “Lincoln” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild” all getting some respect. No unanimous choices, either. [LA Times]

A Connecticut Democratic representative has found a historical inaccuracy in “Lincoln” that he believes does a disservice to his state. Tony Kushner responds. [The Carpetbagger] 

In news that further underlines “Silver Linings Playbook”‘s bid to be seen as more than a romantic comedy, David O. Russell and Bradley Cooper are meeting with Joe Biden to discuss the state of mental health care in the US. [The Race]

Michael Cieply on the complex, and sometimes ugly, process of deciding who makes the Oscars’ In Memoriam montage. [New York Times]

Variety finds this year’s Oscar-nominated screenplays divided evenly along lines of studio and indie, big and small, writer and writer-director. [Variety] 

Oscar-nominated short film “Buzkashi Boys” has successfully raised funds to send its two young Afghan stars to the awards. More importantly, they’re putting money toward their education too. [Rally]

Xan Brooks sizes up a BAFTA race that is more open than usual. He calls “Lincoln” the film to beat, but I can’t say I agree. [The Guardian]

Oscar nominee David Magee on the challenges of making “Life of Pi”‘s ending work — it took “dozens and dozens” of drafts, apparently. [Vulture]

aSandie Angulo Chen rounds up 10 Oscar winners whom, he claims, you’re “guaranteed” to think won for different films than the ones they did win for. I sense she’s not speaking for seasoned awards geeks. [Film.com] 

The Academy’s Behind the Ballot series takes a look at the Production Design category. (Non-US readers, I’m afraid, won’t be able to access this.) [AMPAS]

BERLIN – The waiting, as noted philosopher Thomas Earl Petty once said, is the hardest part. Just as some of Terrence Malick’s languorously produced films premiered as near-mirages, to the point that the mere fact of their existence had to be absorbed before the critical conversation could begin in earnest, it’s difficult to consider Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster” without its extensively delayed arrival having some effect on one’s gut response.

In the moment, heated anticipation can turn a merely good film into a masterpiece, a mere misfire into a disaster. “The Grandmaster,” a predictably picturesque but surprisingly unconfident foray into would-be lusty commercial movie-making for the singular arthouse stylist of “Chungking Express” and “In the Mood for Love,” goes to neither of these extremes, but its missteps are doubly dismaying for the knowledge that Wong deliberated over them so long.

The director has never been one to let go of a film easily, famously fussing over 2004’s swoonsome head-trip “2046” until long after its Cannes premiere, but the finished product has never before felt blighted by uncertainty. (That goes even when the entire venture — specifically his last feature, 2007’s twee English-language debut “My Blueberry Nights” — seems misconceived. There’s something to be said for being purposefully wayward.)

“The Grandmaster,” a departure for the director as much in its epic sensibility as in its martial arts genre trappings, is different: for every creative decision here that feels exquisitely, exhaustively considered, there’s another that feels entirely careless or, worse still, compromised. The last of its many, many codas, nestled amid the closing credits, finds the director’s favorite leading man Tony Leung, here playing famed fighting guru Ip Man, winking at the camera and asking the audience with a scarcely straight face, “What’s your style?”

He may be referring to the dizzying array of martial arts schools and disciplines covered in this valentine to the physical art form, but he could as easily be Wong himself, shrugging to any audience members confused by his own straying aesthetic. Either way, it’s an arch, even camp, flourish that suggests he may not be taking the enterprise entirely seriously — or at least wasn’t at one particular juncture in the editing process. Elsewhere in this protracted tale of love and war on the kung-fu power ladder, proceedings could hardly be more po-faced — this uneasy tonal range another symptom of a film perhaps left stewing too long.

The story could be suitably grand, though it takes some finding beneath the director’s customary curling serpents of cigarette smoke and refracted, mirrored surfaces. The life of Ip Man, most renowned for training Bruce Lee himself, has already inspired a slew of B-level action tributes, a legacy Wong seeks to dignify not exactly by making a straightforwardly ennobling biopic, but a melodramatic saga in which his qualities — and failings — as a man take narrative precedence over his untouchable reputation as a fighter. The film’s lofty title, meanwhile, may not even belong to him, but to the woman who sneakily emerges as our protagonist: formidable martial arts heiress Er Gong, played by Zhang Ziyi at her most brittlely beautiful.

The film spans nearly 20 years, with non-linear chronology – well, it would hardly be Wong without at least one flashback — inelegantly dictated by invasive voiceover and over-applied title cards. It begins in the mid-1930s, with Ip a promising but unmotivated fighter, taking on a duel with revered, soon-to-be-retired master Gong Baosen. Ip wins the duel in generationally symbolic fashion, only to be challenged again the aforementioned Er, daughter of the defeated master. Once they meet, Er’s resolve to maintain family honor is compromised by a more amorous personal motivation. No sooner does the film promise a star-crossed, frequently gravity-cheating romance, however, than it abruptly pulls focus from Ip altogether, as Er’s battle against a legion of family foes takes center stage.

Wong’s storytelling, traditionally a fluidly visual art, progresses in often baldly prosaic fits and starts: most jarringly, our narrator announces rather unceremoniously that WWII separated Ip and Er for ten years, though there’s little on screen to denote the passing of a decade. Much interconnecting activity besides is explained away in curious present-tense intertitles, where an actual scene might have done the job. The politics at play aren’t particularly complicated, but the lack of articulated motivation makes them confusing all the same: Er’s adversaries, notably another potential grandmaster who goes by the moniker The Razor, are particularly ill-defined.

The film’s final, and most emphatically Wong-flavored, act makes it clear that the director himself views this unexplained morass of subplots as so many negligible red herrings. As the long-dormant Ip Man returns to the frame, dressed in a soberly chic suit seemingly pilfered from Mr. Chow’s wardrobe in “In the Mood for Love,” to stalk the streets of post-war Hong Kong with the now-disenfranchised Gong Er, they swap tangled metaphors and tortured, unconsummated gazes. It finally becomes clear what film “The Grandmaster” is, or at least should have been – the odd dazzlingly airborne combat sequence notwithstanding, it’s very much a wistful Wong Kar-wai mood piece after all.

That’s a comforting note to end on, but it’s a late epiphany in a film where the director spends far too much time play-acting as Zhang Yimou or, far more oddly, play-acting as himself. There appears to be a level of self-parody even to the film’s bountiful beauty, as the clever-clever focus manipulations and doubled visages of Philippe Le Sourd’s autumnally-toned cinematography look to beat former collaborator Christopher Doyle at his own game. (The syrupy, saturated orchestral score by Shigeru Umebayashi, to be fair, is a new stylistic gambit, though not a welcome one.)

Wong”s beloved use of slow motion, meanwhile, is taken to delirious excess in the film’s action sequences, freezing the principals in gorgeous stasis even when in pulsating motion. It’s a signature trick at odds with the fidgety editing, which only finds its rhythm when its two stalling lovers let their slow-burning yearnings subsume them — and the muddled film around them. Sometimes, just sometimes, the waiting is the easy part.

It was a series of circumstances that led to Roman Coppola’s working relationship with director Wes Anderson. Filmmaker Kit Carson first introduced the two after being involved with Anderson’s short film (and soon-to-be feature) “Bottle Rocket.” Coppola really liked the film but doesn’t recall whether there was necessarily any spark of a future collaboration in there. It was just the beginnings of an aesthetic appreciation.

Chance brought them together again and again over the years. Coppola’s cousin, Jason Schwartzman, would appear in Anderson’s “Rushmore.” His sister, Sofia, would direct “Marie Antoinette” at a time when Anderson was living in Paris (and indeed, Anderson would later move into the apartment actress Kirsten Dunst rented while working on the film). Coppola then came on board Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” to do some second unit stuff, and soon, the two were discussing what would become “The Darjeeling Limited,” and their first official writing collaboration.

Now they’re feeling the love for “Moonrise Kingdom,” one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year and an Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay. In a category that is a bit more fluid than in recent years, anything could happen, and the two could even add an Academy Award to their list of tandem accomplishments. But while we’ve heard Anderson’s side of things, how personal the film was and what of himself he put into it, what about Coppola?

“Working with Wes, there’s a lot of discussion and recalling stories and recalling memories,” Coppola says of their process by telephone. “We were portraying a story of two young lovers and I would recall certain things of growing up in fourth grade. Like there was a girl I had a crush on and she left a note that said, ‘Call me.’ That was a quasi-romantic moment that’s portrayed, disguised, in the movie.”

But, like Anderson has also noted, it was less about reality. Coppola says people are always curious about what really happened and what was autobiographical, but the truth is, the story is one of fantasizing for what Anderson and Coppola WISH had happened to them in their early brushes with love and romance. The little memories and details serve that fantasy throughout and add a more deeply felt, less artificial flavor to the work.

The project didn’t start as a collaboration, however. “Wes had this idea and had been thinking about it for some time,” Coppola says. “I’d ask how it’s going and he’d have a page or a few pages, but a few months would go by and he wouldn’t have much more. So I would ask as a friend, curious about how things were going. That was the first stage.”

Soon enough, the piece began to develop under both of their wings. Anderson and Coppola would sit around and ask questions to progress the narrative, improvising with the characters they were creating, gradually forming a story. “We had a number of weeks working together and discussing and bantering,” Coppola says. “But Wes always types it out himself because he wants it in a particular format, memorializing what he’s going to be making as a film.”

The process is very organic, Coppola says. Perhaps surprisingly, talk of structure or theme never arises. “It’s very practical,” he says. “There’s no discussion of concepts or abstracts. It’s very matter of fact. ‘What did they say?’ ‘What did they do?’ Which is very interesting. We didn’t do any treatment or beat sheet. There’s just an intuitive sense.”

He brings up “The Darjeeling Limited” as an example. In the film, three brothers meet in India a year after their father’s funeral and set out to reconnect with their mother. In that film, there was a sense of inevitability. Something big was going to happen, but he and Anderson didn’t bog down in the “what does it mean” of it all. “It wonderfully kind of flows step by step, using intuition, using your inner radar,” he says. “That’s why I think Wes and I get along nicely. We’re both hearing that moment of, ‘Oh yeah. This is right.'”

Ultimately, though, when Coppola’s work on the script for “Moonrise Kingdom” was done, he had very little involvement on the film after that. It’s odd to him, he says, because he’s so used to being part of a project all the way through production, but he wasn’t on set often at all beyond a quick visit. So when he sat down to watch the finished product, it was nice to get swept up along for the ride.

“Sometimes that doesn’t happen when there’s such an intense period of working on the script,” he says. “I was really enchanted and charmed.”

“Moonrise Kingdom” is now available on DVD/Blu-ray.

For professional pundits and armchair awards geeks alike, the short film categories can be the most fun to handicap — since there’s little basis on which to size up the race beyond the films themselves, and even then, it can hard to guess what Academy voters will see in them. For every year that the winner seems patently obvious, there’s another in which the voters surprise with something out of left field. And getting a look at the nominees before the ceremony is no longer the rare advantage it once was: Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International released this year’s live-action and animated short nominees on February 1.

Though last year’s winner in the category, Irish writer-director Terry George, was an established name in feature film circles, this category is traditionally the domain of up-and-comers, with a number of past champions progressing to bigger things: Andrea Arnold (“Fish Tank”), Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges”), David Frankel (“The Devil Wears Prada”) and current DGA president Taylor Hackford all made significant breakthroughs with a win here. Whether any of this year’s finalists will progress to their ranks is, like everything about this category, anyone’s guess. 

The nominees are…

“Asad” (Brian Buckley and Mino Jarjoura)
“Buzkashi Boys” (Sam French and Ariel Nasr)
“Curfew” (Shawn Christensen)
“Death of a Shadow” (Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele)
“Henry” (Yan England)

For the second year in a row, I must confess to feeling a little unenthusiastic about the lineup in this category — taken as a collective, you might find five film of at least equal quality in the shorts sidebar of any decent film festival. I admit I’m not very knowledgeable about qualification or selection procedures in this category, but I do know there’s room for improvement — to name just one example from the past year, Lynne Ramsay’s exquisite, BAFTA-nominated “Swimmer” dwarfs even the most accomplished of these nominated titles.  

Two of the nominees in the category boast a similarly noble human-interest angle, featuring Western filmmakers collaborating with developing communities, and both offer a glimpse of third-world poverty through the eyes of an adolescent male protagonist. The first, and slightly more engaging, of these is “Asad,” a semi-comic study of life in a war-ravaged Somali fishing village, focusing on a young boy torn between a life of piracy and an honest fisherman”s living. It”s slight but diverting, with the narrative taking an initially bleak left turn before ending on a note of whimsy. The most novel asset of award-winning American commercials director Bryan Buckley”s film is its cast made up entirely of real-life Somali refugees; that has surely helped the film charm its way across the festival circuit, taking prizes at the Tribeca, Los Angeles and Rhode Island fests.

The second of the aforementioned pair is “Buzkashi Boys,” which boasts even stronger socially conscious credits: filmed in Afghanistan with a mostly local crew, American director Sam French”s coming-of-age drama is a product of non-profit inititiative The Afghan Film Project, which aims to nurture the country”s film industry both by telling local stories and training citizens in film production methods. It”s an impeccable cause, but the film wears its worthiness rather heavily: comfortably the longest of the nominees at 29 minutes, its story of two working-class boys whose fixation with the dangerous local sport of Bushkazi leads to tragedy is affecting, but there”s a National Geographic-style distance to its portrait of the underprivileged that didn”t ring entirely true to me. Still, I can imagine some voters deeming it the most dramatically substantial of the five.

If voters are in the mood for something a little closer to home, they”ll favour the category”s one English-language nominee, American actor-filmmaker Shawn Christensen”s somewhat self-consciously quirky dramedy “Curfew.” Working in a roughly similar vein of arch humor to that which landed “God of Love” and “The New Tenants” recent wins in this category, Christensen”s slickly produced New York-set story of a suicidal wastrel given a new lease on life when called upon to babysit his precocious niece will charm many viewers, while aggravating others with its narrative fake-outs and oddball flourishes – an impromptu new-wave dance number in a bowling alley is a key example. Still, with over a dozen awards so far on the festival circuit – including wins at Nashville, Brussels and the 24fps Short fests – the latter group is evidently in the minority.

Far the most conceptually ambitious film in the bunch, “Death of a Shadow,” Belgian director Tom Van Avermaet”s intriguing blend of WWI tragedy and steampunk-styled sci-fi, doesn”t quite have control over its complex narrative hook – which, to its credit, could easily propel a feature-length effort. Any voters who were won over by “Rust and Bone” during the season will be pleasantly surprised to discover that film”s strapping leading man, Matthias Schoenaerts, headlining proceedings here as a slain soldier granted a second chance at life by a mysterious collector of shadows – occupying a kind of purgatory, he is tasked with capturing 10,000 other people”s shadows, while pining for the woman he left behind. It”s a fanciful premise that might befuddle some viewers, while others will be moved by its integration of traditional war-film elements with the fantasy. Looks chic, too.

Any Academy members who wanted to love “Amour” but found it a little too severe for their tastes might find some comfort in the fifth nominee, Quebecois actor-turned-director Yan England’s moist-eyed “Henry.” Covering some strikingly similar thematic ground to Michael Haneke’s Best Picture nominee — an 84-year-old concert pianist is plunged into emotional turmoil, and recedes into his own memories, when faced with the loss of his wife — England’s film nonetheless takes a far more sentimental, melodramatic tack. Though the film initially poses as a kind of mystery, it won’t take viewers long to work out that its foggy perspective is intended to emulate the disorienting nature of dementia. In all aspects from production to performance, this well-meaning but overwrought piece isn’t flattered by the parallels to “Amour,” but they nonetheless form a kind of voting draw — and many older Academy members may be moved on its own merits.

Will win: “Curfew”
Could win: “Death of a Shadow”
Should win: “Death of a Shadow”
Should have been here: “Swimmer”

What are your thoughts on the Best Foreign Language Film category? Offer up your predictions in the comments section below. 

Sometimes I feel like it would be helpful for the International Film Music Critics Association to release its list of nominees prior to the Oscar nominations. There is no real “precursor” to help understand what the music branch might be thinking. Then again, as evidenced by this year’s slate, maybe they wouldn’t be that helpful at all. A critics group’s choices are bound to differ from a group of composers’ choices, and so it has this year.

Four films led the way with three nods each: “Cloud Atlas,” “The Impossible,” “Life of Pi” and “Lincoln.” Only the last two, of course, managed Oscar nominations. But Alexandre Desplat also had a great showing, nominated for film composer of the year and receiving individual notices for work on “Moonrise Kingdom,” “Rise of the Guardians” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” He was Oscar-nominated for “Argo” and also cranked out music for “Rust and Bone.” I imagine he’ll be right back in the thick of it next year with “The Monuments Men.”

Check out the full list of nominees below. Winners will be announced on February 21. And as always, you know, The Circuit.

Film Score of the Year
“Cloud Atlas” (Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil)
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (Howard Shore)
“The Impossible” (Fernando Velázquez)
“Life of Pi” (Mychael Danna)
“Lincoln” (John Williams)

Film Composer of the Year
Mychael Danna
Alexandre Desplat
Danny Elfman
Fernando Velázquez
John Williams

Breakout Composer of the Year
Nathan Johnson
Zeltia Montes
Nic Raine
Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin
Joseph Trapanese

Best Original Score for a Drama Film
“Anna Karenina” (Dario Marianelli)
“The Impossible” (Fernando Velázquez)
“Life of Pi” (Mychael Danna)
“Lincoln” (John Williams)
“There Be Dragons – Secretos de Pasión” (Robert Follk)

Best Original Score for a Comedy Film
“Moonrise Kingdom” (Alexandre Desplat)
“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” (Dario Marianelli)
“The Sessions” (Marco Beltrami)
“Silver Linings Playbook” (Danny Elfman)
“Ted” (Walter Murphy)

Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
“The Amazing Spider-Man” (James Horner)
“Dans la Maison” (Philippe Rombi)
“The Dark Knight Rises” (Hans Zimmer)
“Skyfall” (Thomas Newman)
“Zero Dark Thirty” (Alexandre Desplat)

Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film
“Cloud Atlas” (Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil)
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (Howard Shore)
“John Carter” (Michael Giacchino)
“Prometheus” (Marc Streitenfeld, Harry Gregson-Williams)
“Sinister” (Christopher Young)

Best Original Score for an Animated Film
“Brave” (Patrick Doyle)
“Frankenweenie” (Danny Elfman)
“ParaNorman” (Jon Brion)
“Rise of the Guardians” (Alexandre Desplat)
“Secret of the Wings” (Joel McNeely)

Best Original Score for a Documentary Feature
“Kingdom of Plants” (Joel Douek, Freddy Sheinfeld and Elik Alvarez)
“Los Mundos Sutiles” (Pascal Gaigne)
“Metsän Tarina” (Panu Aaltio)
“Samsara” (Lisa Gerrard and Michael Stearns)
“Shakespeare & Us” (Miguel d’Oliveira)

Film Music Composition of the Year
“The Cloud Atlas Sextet for Orchestra” from “Cloud Atlas” (Thom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil)
“The Impossible Main Title” from “The Impossible” (Fernando Velázquez)
“John Carter of Mars” from “John Carter” (Michael Giacchino)
“Pi’s Lullaby” from “Life of Pi” (Mychael Danna)
“The Peterson House and Finale” from “Lincoln” (John Williams)