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.

This week’s podcast is mainly dedicated to the best films of the year, but first, there is plenty of business to attend to with the BFCA, SAG and Golden Globe announcements. We address how the week has changed up the race.

And next it’s on to the bulk of the show as we reveal our separate top 10 lists of the best films of the year. All in all 21 films are mentioned across various honorable mentions and whatnot, and we share four films on our separate lists (which themselves ended up taking on interesting separate but similar shapes). — IF YOU’D LIKE TO SKIP TO THE TOP 10, it begins around the 12:20 mark.

Have a listen to the new podcast below. IT’S A LONG ONE. 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.

After leading the way with nominations recently, David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” has been crowned Best Picture by the Detroit Film Critics Society. David O. Russell won Best Director and Best Screenplay, Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress and Robert De Niro took Best Supporting Actor. Check out the full list of winners below and as always, keep track of the ups and downs of the season via The Circuit.

Best Picture
“Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Director
David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”

Best Actress
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Supporting Actor
Robert De Niro, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”

Best Screenplay
“Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Ensemble
“Lincoln”

Breakthrough Performance
Zoe Kazan, writer/actress, “Ruby Sparks”

Best Documentary
“Jiro Dreams of Sushi”

Kris maintained in his Globes analysis yesterday that the somewhat surprising omission of Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper from the Best Director lineup wasn’t particularly significant, but it struck me as a slight setback for a film many pundits have pegged as a potentially monolithic frontrunner — particularly given a musical-friendly streak at the Globes that has brought nominations for Alan Parker (“Evita”) and Tim Burton (“Sweeney Todd”). (It may or may not be worth noting that “Dreamgirls” helmer Bill Condon missed this hurdle in 2006, presaging an unexpected Oscar shutout.) Hooper admits to being disappointed, but feels he may have been at a disadvantage given that the category’s all-drama lineup: “At least there’s some logic to it, and I’m certainly in good company with David O. Russell.” [Huffington Post] 

The Guardian team names “The Master” the best film of 2012. Their runner-up? “Ted.” Good to mix it up, I guess. [The Guardian]

My favorite annual feature at IC friend Glenn Dunks’ blog: the 50 best film posters of the year. I’m all about #3 and #31. [Stale Popcorn]

After yesterday’s nominations, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey kept anticipation for the Golden Globes cooking with a new promo spot. [HitFix]

Variety’s director-themed Eye on the Oscars feature insights from 21 major names, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan and Kathryn Bigelow, on the challenges they faced in their latest projects. [Variety]

They may have come up short in the Globe and BFCA nods — no surprise there — but count on GKIDS to show up in the Academy’s animation field. Steve Pond spotlights the little company that can. [The Wrap]

Best Actress frontrunner Jennifer Lawrence on how her “Silver Linings Playbook” role has kept revealing new things to her long after shooting finished. [The Carpetbagger]

John Hazelton takes a thorough look at the films shortlisted for the Best Visual Effects Oscar, and examines how they reflect the current state of the FX industry. [Screen]

Nathaniel Rogers takes SAG to task for an irritatingly perennial problem: their curious rulings about what ensemble players are eligible for a nomination. No Lee Pace for “Lincoln” or Julia Stiles for “Silver Linings Playbook?” Madness. [The Film Experience]

Why many of this year’s Oscar hopefuls — and not just “Flight” — are not suitable for in-flight entertainment. [Ultraculture]

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4913412206001

Last month, “This is 40” director Judd Apatow and legendary filmmaker Mike Nichols (“The Graduate,” “Primary Colors”) sat down for a discussion at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York cheekily titled “Judd Apatow asks Mike Nichols for Advice.”

It was a sober and thoughtful chat about varying philosophies on this and that. Apatow is a huge fan of Nichols and looks up to him as a mentor. He spoke early in the talk about how he and friend Owen Wilson first set out to write a script once upon a time by studying the structure and characters of “The Graduate,” but the conversation soon led to comedy, naturally, and I thought Nichols had some particularly profound things to offer.

“It’s very, very corrupting to the spirit, doing comedy,” he said. “And you have to be almost a saint, like Jack Benny was, like Steve Martin is, to avoid the corrupting of it, because there’s very little work where the actual work and the reward are simultaneous, and comedy is that. You can see it doing terrible things to people because it’s constant instant gratification, and there are people who can resist it. Chris Rock, people of a certain character and high intelligence, know how to avoid it.”

There’s a lot more, including plenty of praise from Nichols about Apatow’s brand and “trademark,” which leads to more enlightening this and that. Universal has provided us with exclusive video of the event, which took place on November 12. Check it out at the top of this post.

“This is 40” opens everywhere December 21.

BEVERLY HILLS — For many on the circuit this season, the fall months have brought the bulk of the PR work, the glad-handing, the face-time. For a guy like Richard Gere, who stars in Nicholas Jarecki’s “Arbitrage” and picked up a Golden Globe nomination this morning for his work in the film, it’s been a much longer road.

The film first bowed at Sundance and was the first one the actor’s accompanied to the festival. It was acquired there by indie distributor Roadside Attractions, a company that has had awards luck in recent years with films like “Winter’s Bone,” “Biutiful,” “Albert Nobbs” and “Margin Call.” And in “Arbitrage,” it has a great narrative to play with: Richard Gere has never received an Oscar nomination. Why not, then, for one of his best performances to date? So getting him out and in touch as much as possible and reminding voters of that fact is imperative.

True to form, then, Gere shuffles into the Polo Lounge dining room at the Beverly Hills Hotel with his eyes buried in an itinerary. While he’s in town (he lives in New York), he’s got a lot of Q&As to do, a lot of interviews, more awareness to build for the film, which released in September and did great business in limited release and broke records on VOD.

Adult dramas are hard to get off the ground, though, so “Arbitrage” is in many ways an unlikely product. Indeed, says Gere, “You can’t say the word ‘drama’ anymore. You have to find some other way to explain a drama without saying ‘drama’ because no one will fund a drama. You have to say ‘comedy’ or ‘a romantic comedy’ or ‘a triple comedy’ or ‘a slapstick comedy.’ Or it’s some kind of a futuristic adventure. I like a lot of those movies, too, but this is the kind of movie that actors like to make, that directors like to make.”

Gere read the script on a plane trip from Los Angeles to New York some time back, and he was excited by its potential. He would be playing a New York hedge fund magnate desperate to sell off his trading empire when an unexpected, and deadly, turn of events leaves him covering up his tracks.

“In any era, this would be a good script,” Gere says. “It was that clear. It’s a quality thing. On top of that it was speaking to our times on many different levels. This character is a creature of our times. It was about an industry, and the language of that industry has become part of our vernacular now, the financial world, of stocks, of trading, of conceptual wealth. There would have been a lot of these movies around in the 70s and 80s, to tell you the truth. They were Sidney Lumet movies. And now they’re independent films looking for homes.”

Such films have “a certain energy to them,” he says. “You get a sense that they’re from people who know how to write characters and dialogue.”

So he was sold, right? Well, there was just one problem: the director involved was a first-time filmmaker.

“I was like, ‘Oh, fuck,'” Gere says openly. “It’s too hard. People think it’s easy to direct a movie but it’s hard. I’ve been through it. But I said let’s meet anyhow. He wrote the script so he’s obviously a smart guy…I threw a lot of stuff at Nic to see how he would react. To test him. Again, it’s not easy making a movie. You’re not just directing a movie, you’re directing people, so you have to be able to handle things emotionally and psychologically as well as, ‘This is where I want the camera.’ The director has to be able to work with other people. I’ve seen those who can’t and it’s a disaster.”

But Gere was impressed by Jarecki upon meeting him. He could tell that he was a “movie guy,” by which Gere means someone who really loves movies, cares about how they tick, understands why scenes work or don’t, why this or that moment is edited poorly or elegantly. “He just had a sense of it,” Gere says. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to be right there every time, but I believed in him being a movie guy, and also being a bulldog, in that if, for some reason, something didn’t work, he would find a way to get the money and do it again until it worked. So I think those are two qualities you have to have. Those are kind of mechanical in a way, givens that you have to have. And beyond that, of course, you have to have talent, sensitivity, be able to work with people. And he had all of that. It’s kind of miraculous.”

Gere’s character presented an intriguing tightrope walk for the actor. What’s substantial about the role and the performance is that it endears the audience to him despite all the various bad, at times detrimental decisions he makes. Indeed, the first phone calls he got as friends were seeing the film were from those playfully furious with him for getting them to pull for a scumbag. But that complexity is always key for Gere.

“I don’t like the word ‘sympathetic,'” he says. “I’d rather use the word ’empathetic,’ or ‘identifiable.’ And that’s the choice I made. Not someone who would be labeled a villain. You’re then looking for the hero, who is the counter to the villain. It’s just basic storytelling, which we’re hardwired for, and not that interesting to play, really. When I play someone like in ‘Internal Affairs,’ I could have played that guy as a villain, as a really dark, sociopathic killer. No interest to me. It’s just too obvious, and I don’t think it’s that fun for an audience. He’s too knowable. You get him right away…Any character who is lying, it’s more fun. It’s not the darkness factor, it’s the complexity. It’s the lie, then fixing the lie, then compounding the lie. The character I played in ‘The Hoax’ is like that. Every moment is multi-layered. You don’t really know where he’s coming from because he’s juggling so many balls at the same time.”

Indeed, that’s the problem with someone like Bernie Madoff, Gere says, who is obviously a bit of a touchstone for a character like this in this day and age. “Madoff, in the end, is not a very interesting character because he’s such a sociopath,” Gere says. “He didn’t get it. There was no sense of remorse about it. You didn’t see that there was any moral ambiguity from his side. He’s reptilian. But this character is not. He’s aware. He makes bad choices. He burns bridges…But at any moment I don’t think he’s making decisions that it would be unthinkable that we could make under pressure. I think the audience is always aware that he is aware of what’s happening, as it’s happening, and would like to fix these things if he could.”

Something else stood out to Gere when he was considering the project: the promise of shooting a New York film in New York. Jarecki was able to call in a lot of favors through connections with his family in the city and allow for affordably shooting in places like Central Park and high-rise office buildings overlooking the park, up-scale restaurants, etc. Duplicating it elsewhere would have taken away from the identity that Gere was excited about conveying.

“New York is a character in the movie,” he says. “There are movies like ‘Manhattan,’ where Woody is self-consciously showing you sill frames, basically, of New York. ‘This is the Empire State Building. This is the Statue of Liberty. This is the Woolworth Building.’ Head-on. ‘This is my Manhattan.’ And then bad movies do that because they have two days to shoot in New York, because they’re shooting in Toronto, so when they come and do their location work, they want to make sure that you see that it’s New York. So they start showing too much of New York in an obvious way.

“But New York is never seen that way. You don’t look at New York when you’re in New York. You’re just in New York. You only see it peripherally. You see it in a funny angle. You see it looking up. You see it out of the corner of your eye as you’re moving. You see it out of car windows, cab windows. People don’t look at each other in the face. Everything is in motion. And one of the early choices we made with this character is that he’s always moving. Shark-like.”

As is Gere through the treacherous terrain of Oscar season. He didn’t manage a SAG nomination but the Golden Globe bid puts him on some radars he may not have been on otherwise. It’s a tight race for Best Actor this year, but people are always in the market for alternatives. So you might say, here’s one, an actor at the top of his game with a rich career already behind him but no Academy love yet to show for it.

Makes for a good yarn. Much like the film.

“Arbitrage” is now available on VOD.

We save the music categories to the end to analyze for two reasons. One is that it helps to have heard the music. While it obviously helps to have seen any contender before opining on its chances, I find that listening to the music is one that really cannot be compromised. It is easier to guess what the costumes or cinematography of a movie might be like. It’s also nice to have the list of qualifying scores at the ready.

The second reason is that composers themselves are usually brought on to the films quite late. After the actors, writers, cinematographer, production designer and costume designer have all gone home, the composer is left by him or herself, watching a movie he or she had no part of shooting.

Bernard Herrmann’s brief appearance in “Hitchcock” was, alongside the ending, my favorite scene in the movie. It also showed two very important aspects of film composing. First, it showed how composing is lonely, painstaking work with no one to keep you company save for the occasional appearance by the producer, editor, sound mixer or, most likely, the director. But second, when done well, film music can become iconic. From “Star Wars” to “Lawrence of Arabia” to “Gone with the Wind” to, yes, “Psycho,” many themes are simply unforgettable. They can also create mood and atmosphere.

The music branch is not immune to considering a film”s overall reputation when coming to its nominations. While true duds are occasionally nominated (“The Village,” “The Good German”), such nods are rare. While Best Picture nominees don”t tend to dominate to the extent seen in other crafts categories, they nonetheless usually garner at least two-to-three of the nominations.

Far more important is that the score be noticeable. Subtle music rarely does well in this category. The branch has somewhat of a flare for the exotic as well with scores that full of international life often doing well in this category, especially when that influence is Latin or Asian. In this vein, composers from different countries frequently find themselves in the final quintet, with last year”s four nominees (John Williams was double nominated) all hailing from different lands.

But most important of all, it is seemingly important to be something of an in-the-club type. This is a category with beloved nominees, and is very likely the most insular branch in the Academy. Only once in the last 13 years have three nominees in this category been newcomers. That is compared to four occasions when all the nominees had been nominated before. So there is usually room for only one newcomer, two tops.

Once someone is in, however, frequently they are “in” – names such as Alexandre Desplat and Alberto Iglesias have been semi-regular nominees after scoring for the first time.  Moreover, first-time nominees frequently win this category. Again, looking at the past 13 winners (prior to that the category was divided into Drama and Musical/Comedy), Tan Dun, Howard Shore, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, Ludovic Bource, Gustavo Santaolalla, A.R. Rahman and Atticus Ross & Trent Reznor have won the award on their first nomination.

I”ll start with this category”s most beloved nominee of all-time – John Williams. The 47-time nominee (!) is lately working exclusively for Steven Spielberg. “Lincoln” is their latest collaboration. Williams is known to pull some nominations with no precursor attention, and is almost never snubbed when he has a film in contention (the atrocious “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” aside), so I”d be very surprised if he isn”t nominated this time. It may not be his most noticeable work, but it is an effective part of the arguable Best Picture frontrunner. He is also Globe- and BFCA-nominated and, well, he”s John Williams.

Though he won”t likely ever rival Williams in terms of nominations, Alexandre Desplat nonetheless seems the busiest and most ubiquitous composer working today. I am convinced he must never sleep, as he has composed “Argo,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Rust and Bone” and “Rise of the Guardians” this year. Alas, the beautiful BFCA-nominated “Moonrise Kingdom” ended up being ineligible, likely due to the use of preexisting music. “Rust and Bone” also failed to end up among the finalists. However, I suspect the suspenseful score of surefire Best Picture nominee “Argo” will place Desplat in the final five. The fact that it scored at the BFCA and Globes increases my confidence.

Could he become a double nominee? I haven”t seen “Zero Dark Thirty” yet but it appears that its score is not its most memorable aspect. That said, Bigelow”s “The Hurt Locker” earned a somewhat surprising nod here three years ago and Desplat rode “The Queen””s Best Picture nomination to his first berth in the category. “Rise of the Guardians” seems to have underwhelmed in all aspects, though there is certainly a push to get him recognition for it. Regardless, I”m confident that this Frenchman will become a double nominee one of these years.

Danny Elfman’s work on likely Best Picture nominee “Silver Linings Playbook” did not qualify, but he also has “Frankenweenie” this year. In many ways, this is the more Oscar-friendly score, coming from an animated film and being memorably zany. But Elfman”s nominations to date suggest memorable and zany is not when the music branch goes for him. The film performed also poorly at the box office. Similarly, “Hitchcock” is hardly beloved. Best Actress and Best Makeup are the most it can hope for, and even they seem doubtful.

Like Elfman, Howard Shore has four nominations to date. Three of these yielded wins for “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (two for score, one for song). This year, he returns to Middle Earth with “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” Opportunities for epic music compositions will abound. (I find the complete “Lord of the Rings” symphony amazing.) If the branch is in a nostalgic mood, Shore could return to the fold. It doesn”t seem to be reaching the heights of the trilogy from a decade ago, however.

I feel I have to mention Thomas Newman. The branch loves him, giving him 10 nominations to date (despite only three Globe citations). He has “Skyfall” in the mix this year, as well as “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” The latter has a lot of Indian flavor that could resonate for reasons stated above.

Patrick Doyle hasn”t been nominated since his back-to-back nominations for “Hamlet” and “Sense & Sensibility” in the mid-1990s. With “Brave,” he joins the Pixar group of composers, which has previously led to nominations for Michael Giacchino, Randy Newman and Thomas Newman. As someone with an affinity for Celtic music, I loved this Scottish-influenced score. Though the movie is hardly Pixar”s greatest accomplishment, I still think Doyle could get a nomination akin to John Powell”s for “How to Train Your Dragon.” No precursor attention to date is worrying, however.

Gustavo Santaolalla”s guitar themes for “On the Road” were not plentiful but were effective. That was enough to earn him wins for “Brokeback Mountain” and “Babel.” Alas, those two films were Best Picture nominees with much precursor attention. I”m doubtful he”s headed to the Dolby this time around.

The two-time nominee I”m most confident will join Williams and Desplat in the final five? Dario Marianelli. The Italian won this category for “Atonement” and was also nominated for “Pride & Prejudice.” He reunited with Joe Wright this year on “Anna Karenina.” Heavily Russian-influenced, the score is the sort of sweeping, but not overwhelming effort that has worked for Marianelli before. I loved this score. But will the somewhat mixed reception to the film cause him trouble? I don”t think so, especially as it earned a Globe nod despite being omitted in every other category.

I”ll end by looking at four possibilities among the never-nominated crowd. First there is Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klinek and Tom Twyker for “Cloud Atlas.” There is no disputing that this film”s crafts elements were extremely well-received, even among its many detractors. The score was noticeable and epic – what this branch likes. That having been said, I”m not sure if this is the sort of film that prompts the music branch to cite three musicians who have never been recognized in this category. Even so, the Globe nod shows people are remembering the score, which was very important to the film.

Twyker was not the only director who double-dutied this year as composer. Benh Zeitlin did the same for “Beasts of the Southern Wild” alongside Dan Romer. The undeniably lively and memorable score is among the film”s finest elements, with its own featurette making the rounds. But I still have reservations. Zeitlin and Romer are far from “in.” And where are the precursor citations?

Johnny Greenwood”s superb BFCA-nominated score for “The Master” was subtle and sparse but absolutely haunting. This was the sort of music that truly complemented what we saw on screen and brought the story to life. Greenwood was disqualified for “There Will Be Blood” despite that being, in my opinion, the best score of 2007. This film is divisive but strikes me as The Weinstein Company”s best shot in this category.

The person I”m most confident will become a first-time nominee this year is actually Mychael Danna. “Life of Pi” presents the Canadian”s best chance to finally become an Oscar nominee after all these years. The music was pivotal to the film”s success, complementing the lack of dialogue. That sure helped last year”s winner “The Artist.” Danna has never been nominated despite composing dozens of titles over the past quarter-century. Now with BFCA and Globe nods behind him, I”m guessing that the music branch will see this as the chance to finally reward him.

At the end of the day, I”m very confident we”ll see American Williams in the final quintet and reasonably confident Frenchman Desplat (for “Argo”), Italian Marianelli and Canadian Danna will join them. As for the final nominee? My uncertainty is what”s led me to name so many contenders so late in the game. So what do you think will fill out the category?

That”s the way I see the crafts races this year, as I have considered nine of the 10 categories. Next week, I hand the column off to Kris as we conclude the analyses with Best Original Song.

“Great last week, man,” Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker exclaims when he hops on the phone to discuss the Golden Globe nominations for his company’s films, “Amour” and “Rust and Bone.” “Between Marion Cotillard getting nominations for SAG and Golden Globes and Emmanuelle Riva winning all those prizes from critics groups, and then ‘Amour’ winning Best Picture with LA film critics, ‘Gatekeepers’ and ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ chugging along, we’re feeling pretty good.”

Well, no need to report the facts. There they are. And it’s good to be positive, because while these accolades have been great, the fact is Michael Haneke’s “Amour” has had a bumpy day and a half. Particularly for star Emmanuelle Riva, who, while lauded by critics groups this season, failed to grab a notice from either the Screen Actors Guild or Hollywood Foreign Press Association (though she was remembered, among five other co-nominees, by the Broadcast Film Critics Association on Tuesday). Barker’s not too glum about that, though. In fact, he says it was to be expected.

“The history of SAG and the history of the Golden Globes, you can study it,” he begins. “Actors and actresses who get nominations from foreign language films always have a Hollywood presence. Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Gérard Depardieu, Marion Cotillard, that’s gonna happen. But in Emmanuelle Riva, it’ll never happen.”

He’s referring, of course, to the fact that Riva hasn’t been able to do the normal glad-handing that is (unfortunately) necessary to build momentum in an awards season. Tucked away in Paris and simply limited on the amount of interviews she can do on these shores — the few she has done, like ours earlier this week, are “invaluable,” Barker says — Riva might be the most interesting underdog of the season. Barker equates her in part to Fernanda Montenegro in “Central Station,” who didn’t have a major precursor presence (she did receive a Globe nominations, however), but ended up in the Academy’s lead actress quintet.

“Actors really adore her in that film,” he says of Riva. “I really believe they both have a better-than-good shot to get in there.”

That “both” includes Riva’s co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who has struggled to get traction in part because of similar issues in making face time with voting bodies, but also due to a typically loaded Best Actor category full of great work. “I can’t tell you how many people I’ve run into that so love to see him as an older man and talk about, ‘Oh, he’s the guy from ‘Z’ and ‘The Conformist’ or ‘My Night at Maud’s,”” Barker says. “So I am not counting him out yet. But there are so many good lead actors this year. So many.”

This uphill battle was always something Barker saw coming. As soon as Haneke’s film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the sense was that it was such a clearly unanimous decision that the film might have a shot outside of the ghetto of the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars. So Barker, always the Academy historian, had someone in his New York offices do research on the success of foreign films in major categories.

“I want you to guess how many foreign language films have been nominated for Best Screenplay in the history of the Academy,” he asks. I’m not ready for the question, though of course I’m aware of plenty of instances. I offer a way-off-the-mark guess that I dare not share here. “71,” he replies instantly, with an exclamation point. And he should know. Just last year Sony Classics pulled off an original screenplay nomination for “A Separation” that many didn’t expect.

“Guess Best Director,” he continues. With the new stat in mind, and an understandable one (the writing branch always seems more accepting of foreign films and has 10 nominees between adapted and original to allow for it), I say no more than 20. “26,” is his reply.

And that’s a typical Michael Barker tête-à-tête. He studies and is intrigued by the Academy’s history, particularly when he has an underdog to pitch to their ranks.

“We have a screening program on ‘Rust and Bone’ and ‘Amour,'” he says. “We’ve probably screened them more than any other film that was opening this time of year. [After Cannes] we knew we had to screen them like crazy to guilds and of course the Academy.”

And so he remains ever hopeful that precursor bumps in the road like the SAG and Golden Globe misses for Riva and a lingering sense of doubt that the film can pull off a Best Picture and/or Best Director nomination are just that: bumps in the road.

But there’s always a silver lining. And Barker’s playbook has an endless supply of them. That’s what it takes to climb up a hill in Oscar season. He thinks back to Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” as the last foreign film that really got this kind dogged blitz from the company and panned out (it landed nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay). “And ‘Talk to her,'” he says. “We went after Best Picture there because Spain didn’t submit it in Best Foreign Language Film. It was a similar situation to ‘Rust and Bone,’ so we pursued it like crazy.” That one didn’t pan out for Best Picture, though filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was nominated for Best Director and, in a bit of a surprise, won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

But it’s Barker’s job, naturally, to refine the talking points and get the message out there. With things like the LA critics’ Best Picture win in his pocket, he and “Amour” certainly have a great shot. Nevertheless, he throws out one more talking point.

“In 1973, ‘Cries & Whispers’ was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director,” he says. “It wasn’t a foreign language film entry, but when I was looking at that, I was thinking to myself, ‘Michael Haneke has had one hell of a career. He has hit this moment where he has made this movie that humanizes him to a lot of people, that’s so perfectly crafted.’ There are many of us that think this is his moment, just like ‘Cries & Whispers’ was Ingmar Bergman’s moment. So I look at that and say, ‘If they pulled that off, why shouldn’t Michael Haneke be considered as well?’

“Amour” opens in limited release on December 19.

It may not get as much press as the sexier (and more summery) Cannes and Venice fests, but the Berlin Film Festival has quietly launched a number of major world cinema titles in recent years. Last year, “A Separation” began its golden run with a Berlinale premiere. This year, if you look down the list of 71 foreign-language Oscar hopefuls, you’ll spot more Berlin titles than Cannes ones: “A Royal Affair,” “Barbara,” “Sister,” “War Witch” and “Caesar Must Die” among them. (All that, and the festival introduced us to “Tabu” too.)

Still, while the festival is a must for aficionados of international film, it struggles to secure the A-list auteur fare and Hollywood fodder that would ensure broader media and public interest. Which is why, by their standards, nabbing the world premiere of DreamWorks Animation’s “The Croods,” over a month ahead of its March 2013 release, represents a pretty big get.

The prehistoric adventure, featuring voice work from Emma Stone, Nicolas Cage and Ryan Reynolds, is directed by Kirk De Micco (“Space Chimps”) and, more enticingly, Chris Sanders (who steered DreamWorks’ “How to Train Your Dragon”). It is one of six Competition titles announced by the Berlinale today, though it’s one of those oddly contradictory deals where it won’t compete for awards — basically, it gets the prestige of a festival berth, while Berlin gets the glamor of Emma Stone on the red carpet. Everybody wins.

One American film that will be in contention for the festival’s Golden Bear award is Gus Van Sant’s “Promised Land” — the Matt Damon-starring agricultural drama may be out in the US this month to qualify for the Oscar race, but it’ll have its international premiere in Germany. Berlin usually gets a couple of these awards-season holdovers, though “Promised Land” will likely arrive, fairly or otherwise, with the whiff of damaged goods: I have yet to see it myself, but early reviews have been tepid, and it’s invisible on the precursor circuit thus far.

On the world cinema side of things, Austrian director Ulrich Seidl will unveil the final part of his provocative “Paradise” trilogy — “Paradise: Hope” — in Competition. The first two-thirds of the enterprise, “Paradise: Love” and “Paradise: Faith,” premiered this year at Cannes and Venice respectively, making Seidl the first director since Krzysztof Kieslowski (with his “Three Colors” trilogy) to premiere films consecutively at the three European majors. “Love” received nothing at Cannes, while “Hope” took the Special Jury Prize at Venice — perhaps the concluding chapter (the films are linked more thematically than narratively) can go one better.

Prolific Korean director Hong Sang-soo, who competed at Cannes last year with the Isabelle Huppert starrer “In Another Country,” will also grace Berlin with his latest, “Nobody’s Daughter Haewon” — thus time without a European star in tow. Also in the Competition lineup are “Gloria,” from Chilean director Sebastian Lillo, and Calin Peter Netzer’s “Child’s Pose,” another product of the ongoing Romanian cinema boom.  

The full lineup will be announced in due course. The Berlinale, which I’ll again be covering here at HitFix, runs from 7 to 17 February 2013.

The first thought that jumped to mind after today’s Golden Globe nominations announcement was, “Not too embarrassing.” Often enough awards watchers are looking to the HFPA to do what they do, fill out their list with dubious performances from movie stars and films that will guarantee a glitzy red carpet. And there’s a little of that here, though in most cases, it’s not as simple as that.

Richard Gere, for instance, gives one of his best performances to date in “Arbitrage,” so it’s a great excuse for HFPA to include him, and for quality work, thank God. Nicole Kidman’s nomination for “The Paperboy” might have been dismissed as star-loving madness, too, except the Screen Actors Guild chalked her up for a nomination yesterday (and I have no idea what’s going on there). And the lead actress, drama field could have been an excuse to shove in Halle Berry or something, but the group went with NYFCC-winner Rachel Weisz.

The second thought that jumped to mind was, “Hell yeah.” Why? Because Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” wracked up five nominations, including a Best Supporting Actor bid for star Leonardo DiCaprio. I’ve been watching all these notices come in for co-star Christoph Waltz (also nominated today) as DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson keep getting passed over, and it’s been killing me. DiCaprio is amazing in the film, a live wire. And the movie is Tarantino’s best since “Jackie Brown.” Harvey Weinstein knows how to play the HFPA, mind, but seeing a film this bold pop up throughout the nominations (it got in for Best Picture – Drama and even Best Director) put a smile on my face.

Speaking of Harvey, there is new life for “The Master” stars Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams, both of whom got in today after being passed over by the guild yesterday. They join SAG-nominated Philip Seymour Hoffman for the film’s only three nominations. But this list obviously does little to clear up the acting ranks, given the split between dramas and comedy/musicals. So while Phoenix and Gere get the boost of inclusion, Hugh Jackman and Bradley Cooper are over in the comedy/musical field, so everyone’s still in play and that will be a tight category to the end.

The biggest surprise, one supposes, was the big showing for “Salmon Fishing on the Yemen,” which blew past “This is 40” for nominations in the Best Picture, Best Actor (Ewan McGregor) and Best Actress (Emily Blunt) categories for comedy/musical. I confess — I haven’t even seen it. But I haven’t heard too many good things. Does this move the needle for Oscar? Not likely. Chalk it up in part to the power of CBS Films’ Terry Press over the HFPA. Still, that complete snub for Judd Apatow’s film was unexpected. Leslie Mann deserved to be on the list.

Yesterday “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” reasserted itself with a pair of big nominations, and today, it’s a Best Picture nominee for comedy/musical, and lead actress Judi Dench also got in. Her co-star, Maggie Smith, was nominated for her lead performance in “Quartet,” though not for her SAG-nominated supporting turn in “Marigold.” It’s still in the hunt for Best Picture. I thought it had gone away but it seems to have been alive right below the surface this whole time, so if anything is lurking as a potential shocker for big things with Oscar, I’d say that’s it.

And most curious to me was a single, solitary Best Picture – Comedy/Musical nomination for “Moonrise Kingdom.” It shows up nowhere else, which is odd, but this breathes a lot of life into its Oscar Best Picture hopes as both that film and fellow indie “Beasts of the Southern Wild” (shut out both today, because the HFPA just didn’t like it, and yesterday, due to eligibility issues) jockey for position in the category.

Elsewhere, other actors who doubled up after a SAG nod yesterday include Daniel Day-Lewis (“Lincoln”), John Hawkes (“The Sessions”), Denzel Washington (“Flight”), Jessica Chastain (“Zero Dark Thirty”), Jennifer Lawrence (“Silver Linings Playbook”), Marion Cotillard (“Rust and Bone”), Helen Mirren (“Hitchcock”), Naomi Watts (“The Impossible”), Alan Arkin (“Argo”), Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field (“Lincoln”), Anne Hathaway (“Les Misérables) and Helen Hunt (“The Sessions”).

Only Mirren, Robert De Niro (who missed today for “Silver Linings Playbook” — how could they resist that?), Javier Bardem (“Skyfall”) and Adams miss out on the three-peat if we include the BFCA’s Critics’ Choice nominations from Tuesday. So, consensus is forming, certainly.

Alright, that’s enough. My take is this: “Django Unchained” gets some much-needed help. “Life of Pi” gets legitimized with Best Picture and Best Director nominations at a crucial moment. “Amour” takes a big hit from a group that really should have stuck up for it. And the top five are as clear as ever (“Argo,” “Les Misérables,” “Lincoln,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Zero Dark Thirty”).

What’s your take on this year’s announcement? Who do you expect to win throughout the categories? Have your say in the comments section below!

The 70th annual Golden Globes will be held on Sunday, January 13, 2013.

The Las Vegas Film Critics Society announced their picks yesterday, and clearly liked “Life of Pi” a lot more than most of their peers thus far: Ang Lee’s effects-heavy spectacular took six awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and a Youth In Film citation for Suraj Sharma. They’re the first group to celebrate the film, though they went a little more by-the-book for their acting picks. Further down, I’m liking the “Prometheus” call for Production Design. Check out the full list of winners after the jump, and catch up with the season thus far at The Circuit.  

Best Picture: “Life of Pi”

Best Director: Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”

Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”

Best Screenplay: Rian Johnson, “Looper”

Best Foreign Language Film: “Amour”

Best Documentary: “Bully”

Best Animated Film: “ParaNorman”

Best Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, “Life of Pi”

Best Film Editing: William Goldenberg and Dylan Tichenor, “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Original Score: Mychael Danna, “Life of Pi”

Best Production Design: Arthur Max, “Prometheus”

Best Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran, “Anna Karenina”

Best Visual Effects: “Life of Pi”

Best Original Song: Adele and Paul Epworth, “Skyfall” from “Skyfall”

Breakout Filmmaker Award: Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Youth in Film Award: Suraj Sharma, “Life of Pi”

Lifetime Achievement Award: Alan Arkin

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2012

1. “Life of Pi”
2. “Zero Dark Thirty”
3. “Argo”
4. “Silver Linings Playbook”
5. “Lincoln”
6. “Moonrise Kingdom”
7. “The Impossible”
8. “Les Misérables”
9. “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
10. “The Master”

“Category fraud.” It’s a phrase that means precisely nothing to anybody who doesn’t scrutinize the Oscars with all the methodical dedication of a veteran trainspotter – but within that self-selecting circle, it’s an issue that seems to prompt more heated opinions by the year.

Implying veritably criminal levels of bad faith, it’s a strangely emphatic term for a practice that frequently occurs in the grayest of areas, amid such intangibles as narrative, perspective and character. The Oscar campaigning game has seen many dirty tricks and cynical strategies pass undetected over the years, but woe betide the supporting hopeful whose role is seen as a little too large for his targeted trophy, or the uppity ensemble player with ideas above his station – awards geeks do not easily forget such infractions.

Quite when the term “category fraud” was first coined, I don’t know – but it was surely long after the question first surfaced at the Oscars. Indeed, the issue is as old as the supporting awards themselves, which were inaugurated in 1936 – one year after supporting star Franchot Tone’s hopeless Best Actor nomination alongside his “Mutiny on the Bounty” co-stars Clark Gable and Charles Laughton prompted complaints that non-leads and character players weren’t getting their due at an awards ceremony still in thrall to the star system.

That first year, Stuart Erwin, a top-billed but relatively unheralded star of a featherweight football comedy called “Pigskin Parade” spotted an opportunity, playing down his lead status to score a nod in the first ever Best Supporting Actor race. He didn’t win, but he founded a not-so-proud Oscar tradition – one that could hardly be more alive and well in this year’s awards race, where a range of actors, some more familiar than others, have pundits debating the merits (both ethically and strategically) of their campaign categorizations.

Take this morning’s SAG nominations list as an example. The Best Supporting Actress category features two Oscar-winning stars in roles prominent enough to contend as leads: Helen Hunt, half of what often boils down to an intimate two-hander in “The Sessions,” and Nicole Kidman, the sparky catalyst for all manner of strange goings-on in “The Paperboy.” Among the favored contenders squeezed out by Kidman’s surprise nod is Ann Dowd, the moral conscience and, in some critics’ eyes, the outright protagonist of “Compliance.” The character actress’s profile, however, is low enough for a supporting campaign not to seem too improbable – and the Independent Spirits and National Board of Review voters have been among those willing to play along.

Over in the Best Supporting Actor race, Philip Seymour Hoffman is widely viewed as one of the leading contenders – not least because he arguably should be a leading contender in another sense, as the duet partner of SAG-ignored Best Actor hopeful Joaquin Phoenix in the unromantic male love story that is “The Master.” Phoenix may lead on screen time, but I’m among those who finds it hard to argue that Hoffman, the tonally balancing yin to the younger man’s wild-eyed yang, is supporting his co-star so much as leading him on – or perhaps vice versa.

It’s an indistinct line, though not so blurry that Hoffman’s nomination is under threat – which is more than can be said for Christoph Waltz, deservedly earning critical plaudits for playfully bromancing Jamie Foxx in “Django Unchained.” A buddy film for most of its substantial running time, “Django” seems positively led by Waltz for lengthy early stretches until Foxx’s title character grows into his own revenge narrative. The actors and characters alike are engaged in a partnership, but The Weinstein Company has opted to run Waltz in supporting – a ploy that would be tidier if the film didn’t boast juicy, more self-evidently subordinate roles for Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson, creating a pileup of contrastingly scaled supporting actors uniformly vulnerable to vote-splitting.

You can question the strategic wisdom behind some of these already questionable calls – why Helen Hunt’s team, for example, decided to trade what looked a likely Best Actress nod for a supporting bid she almost certainly can’t win remains a head-scratcher to me – while also understanding why an already disadvantaged candidate like Dowd would choose the path of less resistance.

Though we all go there on occasion, it’s a mistake to get too righteous about a game where no one is seeing quite the same goalposts. (Okay, sometimes we do: the 2003 case of young Keisha Castle-Hughes, campaigned in supporting by her overly cautious studio, is an example of category fraud so egregiously dishonest the Academy took it upon themselves to correct it.)

Subjective definitions of what constitutes a lead performance are many and varied, variously taking in such considerations as ownership of the narrative, degree of character change and/or influence, point of view and relationship to that of the audience, or, for the more literal-minded, simple, stopwatch-monitored screen time. A few seem to be of the opinion that a film can only have one lead; others argue whether democratic ensemble pieces are all-lead or all-supporting propositions.

Amid all this, some might ask if it even matters, as long as good performances are finding recognition in some dimension – I confess I cheered Nicole Kidman’s nomination this morning, even if I believe it came in the wrong category. My greedy favoritism notwithstanding, however, I must insist that it does matter. The more room voters make for lead or borderline-lead stars across all acting categories, the fewer opportunities they leave for genuine fringe players to find career-enhancing recognition – and the less they encourage us to spot the subtler details of a successful film’s construction.

Nicole Kidman’s aces in “The Paperboy,” sure – but so is Macy Gray, in a less central but no less integral part that nonetheless suffers in a side-by-side competition. Is Helen Hunt so superior to the wonderfully wry Moon Bloodgood in “The Sessions” that the latter doesn’t even rate a mention in the film’s FYC ads – or are the actresses’ roles too disparate in scale to merit a fair comparison? If Philip Seymour Hoffman is a supporting actor in “The Master,” then what is Jesse Plemons, so economically piercing as his plainly wary but superficially obedient son? (Should Best Sub-Supporting Actor become a new Oscar category?) Mileage will vary as much on the question of what roles are award-worthy as what roles are leading, but let’s take care not to let the two questions overlap.

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

One of the unlikely mainstays of the season, since its world premiere as the opening night presentation of the Cannes Film Festival in May, has been Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom.” The filmmaker’s (lucky) seventh feature has generated plenty of awards season love and critical approval, picking up Independent Spirit Award nominations, a Gotham Awards trophy and critics awards recognition, and it appears likely to bring him his second Oscar nomination to date as screenwriter.

On a brief call before being whisked away on a location scout, Anderson speaks of these kinds of things as a crap shoot. “You spend all this time working on the thing and you do your best and you have absolutely no idea how it’s going to go over,” he says. “I’ve had the experience of thinking, ‘This one might really land with an audience,’ and then suddenly ‘x’ number of days after it comes out we realize, ‘Well, this is not going to happen this time.’ I’ve had movies where it did really well in the limited release and you go from 75 screens to 300 and by Saturday morning you know, ‘Well, that’s the end of it for this one. This is about where this one’s going to top out.’ It’s so much more fun to have a kind of good following for it. But it shouldn’t really be the end-all. You better be doing it because you love the movie yourself or you’re signing on for an extremely risky life.”

And in the case of “Moonrise Kingdom,” he was very much in love with the movie. It reads as perhaps his most personal work to date, an observation he doesn’t dispute, and he traces it back to one of his own experiences with young love.

“The thing that most strongly made me want to do this one,” he says, “was remembering being a fifth grader sitting at a desk in my school and not really being able to focus on reality because of this girl two rows over and three desks up, and what a spell that put on me — being blindsided by that experience. It’s just something that always stuck with me — and not having anything come of it at all — so I just wanted to make a story that was my fantasy of that age.”

So he set about, in some sense, duplicating the journey he would have taken had the proper sparks flew all those years ago. He cooked up something of a surrogate in Kahki Scout Sam (Jared Gillman), a misfit who meets the love of his young life in Suzy (Kara Hayward). Where Anderson’s bout of romance went nowhere, Sam’s takes flight, led by his own undying, endearing confidence and unique swagger. But like so much of this or any filmmaking experience, there were surprises in store for Anderson in the casting process.

“Neither one of them is particularly anything like what I might have pictured,” he says. “I guess I knew that I wanted them to feel like kids from real life, not from a movie. I wanted them to feel a bit like kids you might see in a documentary, even though our movie is more of a story book or something. I knew that this needed to be a girl who you believed was a non-stop reader and that she could have some kind of dark cloud over her, and I needed a boy who I felt like could be brave and kind of an adventurer and at the same time not accepted, really, by the guys around him.”

In the case of Hayward, Anderson first saw her audition on a “postage stamp-sized Quicktime” file after seeing thousands of other girls reading the same scene. “She just sounded like she was making it up herself,” he says. “It was definitely the first and only time where I saw somebody who did not seem to be reciting the same scene I had grown to hate. It was instead someone who appeared to be having a conversation with an off-screen person that was totally spontaneous and I thought immediately, ‘This has got to be the girl.'”

In the case of Gillman, the spark for Anderson really came after the audition, during an interview with the casting director that he watched. “I thought he was funny, and he looked so funny, and he had a good spirit [in the audition],” he says, “but in this conversation, he really made me laugh and was a real nut. So I was entertained by him.”

Nevertheless, as with all things, and the running theme here — Anderson had no Cassandra-like foresight on what the finished product would be. He knew the film he wanted to make and set out to accomplish that, but he was prepared for it to be a different shade, as his work across seven features has taught him.

“With any of these movies, I never look and say, ‘I didn’t make the movie I wanted to make,'” he says. “But I always have the feeling of, ‘This is nothing like what I had pictured.’ The mixture of everything always ends up being a surprise. It’s usually a discovery in the first dailies when you look and say, ‘Oh, so that’s what this recipe is like. We’ll see how this all goes along.'”

Well, on this one: so far so good.

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

Sorry for the late roundup today — I was waylaid by SAG’s dawn chorus. That’s obviously the news on everyone’s minds right now, but I’m going to rewind to an Oscar announcement I failed to mention yesterday: the official list of 104 films eligible for the Best Original Score award. Not a particularly newsworthy list and one I was initially going to skip — except that, when searching for conspicuous omissions, one name came up… twice. Alexandre Desplat, one of the hardest workers in the game, may be a regular nominee these days, but he only went three-for-five with his 2012 slate — and for my money, the two Desplat scores that missed the cut showcase his best work this year. “Moonrise Kingdom”‘s interpolations of existing classical work doubtless cost it a place (furthering the case for a Best Adapted Score category), but I’m less sure why his moodily throbbing work on “Rust and Bone” isn’t on the list. His Oscar hopes now rest with “Argo,” “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Rise of the Guardians.” [AMPAS]   

Ravi Shankar, the vastly influential sitar master who received an Oscar nomination for his work on “Gandhi,” has passed away at the age of 92. [LA Times]

Dave Karger launches his awards coverage at a new outlet with a simple list of predictions, though it seems there’s some interesting content to come. [Fandango]

Elisabeth Rappe rounds up the 10 breakout stars of 2012, from Martin Freeman to Samantha Barks. [Film.com]

Emine Saner talks to Suraj Sharma about a screen debut rather more arduous than his high-school experience of playing a tree. [The Guardian] 

Matt Brennan on the actors who deserve credit for excelling in multiple roles this year — a club lead, in his opinion, by Matthew McConaughey and Rachel Weisz. [Thompson on Hollywood]

Variety leads a feature spotlighting the art direction, costume design and makeup categories with a study of “Anna Karenina”‘s complex staging. [Variety]

Steve Pond looks at nine Oscar records that could be broken this season, with Emmanuelle Riva and Hal Holbrook both standing a chance of taking certain “oldest ever” titles. [The Wrap] 

Another great A.O. Scott piece that I missed this week: why the various critics lamenting the supposed death of film culture are wrong. Hear, hear. [New York Times]

The awards-obsessive corners of the web were all abuzz this morning with murmurs of a supposed “leak” of the 19th annual SAG nominees. Intrepid net hounds had apparently gone into the guild’s website and done some choice searching to turn out what ended up being, indeed, the full list of nominees. So what were they and what do they mean? Let’s take a look.

The immediate surprise of note is Nicole Kidman’s nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category for “The Paperboy.” The actress’s PR wing engaged with a slew of interviews with the press late in the game, but then screeners came late, so that she managed to rally enough support to push out an apparent favorite like Amy Adams in “The Master” is hugely surprising, particularly for a film this divisive.

And indeed, “The Master” itself was only embraced in one instance, for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s supporting performance. Joaquin Phoenix was snubbed outright just days after the Los Angeles Film Critics Association appeared to blow wind into his sails. Despite that, I don’t know that the snub will translate to the Academy’s actors branch. People will blame it on his recent bad-mouthing of awards season, but he said nothing that many say in private. If he continues to be left out by his peers, it will simply be because the industry has not responded to the film. And that notion is not entirely a shock: it was my instinct after first seeing it. Nevertheless, both he and the unceremoniously snubbed Emmanuelle Riva (“Amour”) still have an angle on the Oscar race, I think.

Speaking of Riva, the lead actress category kept Helen Mirren’s hopes alive as the actress landed a spot for her performance in “Hitchcock.” Ditto Naomi Watts in “The Impossible.” Remember that “Beasts of the Southern Wild” was not eligible for these awards so young Quvenzhané Wallis was never going to pop up. Marion Cotillard (putting in a lot of work while, for instance, Riva can’t be here for the face time) made the cut for “Rust and Bone,” while frontrunners Jessica Chastain (“Zero Dark Thirty”) and Jennifer Lawrence (“Silver Linings Playbook”) filled out the category.

Another happy surprise was Javier Bardem finding a spot for his villainous turn in “Skyfall” a day after the BFCA chalked him up for same. For a race that has been looking for some shape, it seems to have it now. “Django Unchained” was snubbed completely, but there’s still a chance Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson or Christoph Waltz turn the trick, depending on whether the campaign shows any real interest in getting them there.

Bardem’s “Skyfall” co-star Judi Dench did not get cited for the film, but she gets to be a SAG nominee nevertheless as part of the ensemble of “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” bringing the film back around and making it clear that it resonates with actors in the industry (Maggie Smith also picked up a nomination for her supporting performance). Does this mean it’s in the Best Picture hunt? Yes, but it has always been lurking as a possibility because it’s a film Academy members haven’t stopped talking about since its Spring release. Now Searchlight really has something to build upon if they want to put it through the campaign ringer.

Filling out the ensemble category was the expected: “Argo” (also picking up a mention for Alan Arkin’s performance), “Les Misérables” (an unexpected nominee for stunt ensemble), “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook.” Those four along with “Zero Dark Thirty” are clearly the frontrunning Best Picture possibilities, with “Life of Pi” (which was completely snubbed by SAG, but that was to be expected) on the outside of the quintet looking in.

The thing about the SAG nominations announcement is that, while they often offer up surprises to the season, those surprises and whatever snubs they produce cannot be overlooked. They indicate rhythms in the industry, an overall current. It’s times like these that you can’t just chalk up, say, a snub for Shailene Woodley as an anomaly. Nevertheless, the abbreviated phase one timeline ought to be taken into account, too. There will be less than a week between this announcement and the mailing of Oscar ballots, rather than two. Will the immediate aftershock of these yield anything reactionary from the Academy?

Well, one can only hope. One can only hope that Emmanuelle Riva’s fellow actors understand why what she’s done in “Amour” is sublime, or that, if there IS bristling at his comments, that Joaquin Phoenix’s work matters, not his attitude. These won’t match up 100% with Oscar so we’ll have to see how it pans out. If I were to guess, I’d say Kidman, Mirren, Watts and Bardem are the most vulnerable, for a variety of reasons. But Bardem is beginning to feel solid, and Watts could be firming up, too (“The Impossible” has been dogged on the guild screening circuit).

The 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be held on Sunday, January 27, 2013.

A couple of you have asked for a space in which you can toss around your predictions for tomorrow’s Screen Actors’ Guild Award nominations, and we are nothing if not obliging. I’ve listed my own best guesses after the jump to get the ball rolling.

I’m not going to waste too much time analyzing the possibilities. I expect “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook” to come out on top numbers-wise, while this will be an interesting place to see where seemingly on-the-bubble contenders like Bradley Cooper or Matthew McConaughey currently stand in the race.

Though they often lean slightly more conservative (and American) in their choices than the Academy, SAG is capable of surprising us: last year’s Best Actor nod for Demian Bichir caught pretty much everyone off guard, and was duly repeated on Oscar nomination morning.

If you’re looking to call this year’s Bichir-style wild card, you’d be best off doing it in the Best Actress category: with “Beasts of the Southern Wild” ineligible, and French contenders Emmanuelle Riva and Marion Cotillard by no means slam-dunks with this crowd, there’s a lot of room for maneuver here. I’m throwing caution to the wind and guessing that Linda Cardellini’s self-funded campaign for her superb work in the microbudget indie “Return,” which involved sending screeners to all SAG voters, will pay off here, as it did in the Indie Spirit nominations. 

Who are you expecting — or hoping — to show up in tomorrow’s announcement? Have at it. 

Best Ensemble
“Argo”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln”
“Silver Linings Playbook”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
John Hawkes, “The Sessions”
Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master”
Denzel Washington, “Flight”

Best Actress
Linda Cardellini, “Return”
Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Helen Mirren, “Hitchcock”
Naomi Watts, “The Impossible”

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, “Argo”
Robert De Niro, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master”
Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”
Matthew McConaughey, “Magic Mike”

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, “The Master”
Ann Dowd, “Compliance”
Sally Field, “Lincoln”
Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”
Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”

Best Stunt Ensemble
“The Avengers”
“The Dark Knight Rises”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”

Take that, Anne Thompson! (We kid because we love.) Many of you have noticed the growing presence of word-of-mouth favorite “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” on the precursor beat, and the tender teen drama scored a nifty coup from the San Diego Film Critics’ Society today, taking Best Supporting Actress for Emma Watson, as well as the Best Ensemble award.

The “Perks” love is one of several ways in which the San Diego group, who announced their nominations yesterday, distinguished themselves from the herd. Their big winner, “Argo,” took four awards including Best Picture and Director: you wouldn’t have guessed it a few weeks ago when it was still the consensus Oscar frontrunner, but it’s the film’s first win in either category thus far.

They also gave Best Actress to Michelle Williams for her lovely work in “Take This Waltz,” recognized the screenplay and score of “The Master,” and preferred “The Kid With a Bike” to “Amour” in the foreign-language category. After scoring a few runner-up citations, Christoph Waltz notches up his first Supporting Actor win for his co-lead role in “Django Unchained”; this internal competition with Leonardo DiCaprio is getting interesting.

Anyway, refreshing picks all round, and a nice bonus to see Greig Fraser recognized for his diverse 2012 achievements. Check out the full list of nominees below and keep track of the growing list of precursor awards at The Circuit. 

Best Picture: “Argo”

Best Director: Ben Affleck, “Argo”

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”

Best Actress: Michelle Williams, “Take This Waltz”

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Django Unchained”

Best Supporting Actress: Emma Watson, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Best Original Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, “The Master”

Best Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, “Argo”

Best Foreign Language Film: “The Kid With a Bike”

Best Animated Film: “ParaNorman”

Best Documentary: “The Invisible War”

Best Ensemble: “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Best Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, “Life of Pi”

Best Film Editing: William Goldenberg, “Argo”

Best Original Score: Jonny Greenwood, “The Master”

Best Production Design: Hugh Bateup and Uli Hanisch, “Cloud Atlas”

Body of Work Award: Greig Fraser, cinematographer, “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Killing Them Softly” and “Snow White and the Huntsman”

I must confess I don’t really get the NAACP Image Awards. On the one hand, the idea of an awards show dedicated specifically to honoring non-white achievements in popular culture seems uncomfortably self-marginalizing in this day and age. On the other, the unhappy truth is that non-white artists and stories are still marginalized in Hollywood, so there’s something to be said for a ceremony that celebrates the finest talent the community has to offer.

Why, then, does the NAACP routinely do such a poor job of recognizing that very talent for themselves? This year’s list of Image nominees is led by three crossover features with substantial African-American leads (all, incidentally, from white filmmakers): “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Django Unchained” and “Flight” nabbed four nominations each. Where, however, is “Middle of Nowhere?”

The shoestring character drama from African-American writer-director Ava DuVernay has emerged as one of the year’s most critically championed true indies since winning DuVernay the Directing Award at Sundance this year, and recently racked up four Independent Spirit nominations, but is scarcely in evidence here. While actors Emayatzy Corinealdi and David Oyelowo (though not the scorching Lorraine Toussaint) picked up nominations for their performances, the film is missing from the Best Picture lineup because… “Red Tails” was so universally well-liked? Tyler Perry needs a boost? I’m at a loss here, particularly when the film is even more unaccountably missing from the Best Independent Film lineup.

How does this help the NAACP’s cause? It’s best not to think too hard about it, and enjoy the curiosity value of what will surely remain the only awards body to lump “Life of Pi” newcomer Suraj Sharma and Tyler Perry (again) together for Best Actor. Check out the full list of nominations below, and catch up with the season’s awards announcements so far at The Circuit. 

Best Picture
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“Django Unchained”
“Flight”
“Red Tails”
“Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds”

Best Actor
Jamie Foxx, “Django Unchained”
Morgan Freeman, “The Magic of Belle Isle”
Tyler Perry, “Alex Cross”
Suraj Sharma, “Life of Pi”
Denzel Washington, “Flight” 

Best Actress
Halle Berry, “Cloud Atlas”
Emayatzy Corinealdi, “Middle of Nowhere” 
Viola Davis, “Won’t Back Down”
Loretta Devine, “In The Hive”
Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” 

Best Supporting Actor
Don Cheadle, “Flight”
Dwight Henry, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Samuel L. Jackson, “Django Unchained”
Lenny Kravitz, “The Hunger Games”
David Oyelowo, “Middle of Nowhere” 

Best Supporting Actress 
Taraji P. Henson, “Think Like a Man”
Phylicia Rashad, “Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds” 
Gloria Reuben, “Lincoln”
Amandla Stenberg, “The Hunger Games”
Kerry Washington, “Django Unchained” 

Best Independent Motion Picture
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“Chico & Rita”
“Red Tails”
“Unconditional”
“Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day”

Best International Motion Picture
“Chico & Rita”
“For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada”
“The Intouchables”
“The Raid: Redemption” 
“Special Forces”

Best Documentary (TV or Film)
“Black Wings”
“Brooklyn Castle”
“First Position”
“Marley”
“On the Shoulders of Giants – The Story of the Greatest Team You’ve Never Heard Of” 

Best Writing (TV or Film)
Elizabeth Hunter, “Abducted: The Carlina White Story”
John Gatins, “Flight”
John Ridley, Aaron McGruder, “Red Tails”
Keith Merryman, David A. Newman, “Think Like a Man”
Ol Parker, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

Another hour, another list of critics’ award nominations.The Phoenix Film Critics Society is the latest group to toss their picks into the hat, and they’ve largely favored the Oscar-season favorites — “Les Misérables” comfortably leads the way with 12 nominations. The Phoenix folk vote in more categories than most such groups, which is all well and good, though I’m not sure how well-equipped most critics are to judge the year’s best stunt work. Novelties in the list include a Best Picture nod for “The Avengers” and, in a less populist vein, a mention for Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a Best Actress category that, oddly, only finds room for four names. Check out the full list after the jump, and at The Circuit.   

Best Picture
“Argo”
“The Avengers”
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“Les Misérables”
“Life of Pi”
“Lincoln”
“Moonrise Kingdom”
“Silver Linings Playbook”
“Skyfall”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Director
Ben Affleck, “Argo”
Tom Hooper, “Les Misérables” 
Ang Lee, “Life of Pi”
Steven Spielberg, “Lincoln”
Kathryn Bigelow, “Zero Dark Thirty” 

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
John Hawkes, “The Sessions”
Anthony Hopkins, “Hitchcock”
Hugh Jackman, “Les Misérables”
Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master”

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “Smashed”

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem, “Skyfall” 
Robert De Niro, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master” 
Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”
Ezra Miller, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Best Supporting Actress
Judi Dench, “Skyfall”
Sally Field, “Lincoln”
Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”
Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”
Emma Watson, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Best Original Screenplay
“Arbitrage”
“The Master”
“Moonrise Kingdom”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“Argo”
“Les Misérables”
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
“Silver Linings Playbook” 

Best Ensemble
“Argo” 
“Les Misérables” 
“Moonrise Kingdom” 
“Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Foreign Language Film 
“Amour” 
“A Royal Affair” 
“Headhunters” 
“The Intouchables” 
“Jiro Dreams of Sushi”

Best Documentary
“Bully”
“Jiro Dreams of Sushi”
“Queen of Versailles”
“Searching for Sugar Man”

Best Cinematography
“Les Misérables”
“Life of Pi”
“Lincoln”
“Skyfall”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Film Editing
“Argo”
“The Dark Knight Rises”
“Life of Pi”
“Skyfall”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Production Design
“Anna Karenina”
“Cloud Atlas”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
“Les Misérables”
“Moonrise Kingdom”

Best Costume Design
“Anna Karenina” 
“A Royal Affair”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln” 

Best Original Score
“Hitchcock” 
“Life of Pi” 
“Lincoln” 
“Skyfall”

Best Original Song
“Suddenly,” “Les Misérables” 
“Skyfall,” “Skyfall” 
“When Can I See You Again,” “Wreck-It Ralph”

Best Stunts
“The Avengers”
“The Bourne Legacy”
“The Dark Knight Rises”
“Looper”
“Skyfall”

Best Breakthrough Performance On Camera
Mark Duplass, “Safety Not Guaranteed”
Dwight Henry, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Suraj Sharma, “Life of Pi”
Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Best Breakthrough Performance Behind the Camera
Stephen Chbosky, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
Seth MacFarlane, “Ted”
Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Craig Zobel, “Compliance”

Best Young Actress
Isabelle Allen, “Les Misérables”
Maude Apatow, “This is 40”
Kara Hayward, “Moonrise Kingdom”
Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Best Young Actor
C.J. Adams, “The Odd Life of Timothy Green”
Jared Gilman, “Moonrise Kingdom”
Tom Holland, “The Impossible”
Daniel Huttlestone, “Les Misérables”  

“Big Miracle” 
“Chimpanzee” 
“Life of Pi” 
“The Odd Life of Timothy Green” 

Overlooked Film of the Year
“Cabin in the Woods” 
“Jeff, Who Lives at Home” 
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
“Safety Not Guaranteed” 
“Sound of My Voice”