Last night the winners of the first-ever Boston Online Film Critics Association Awards landed via press release, and I left it for a moment. I’m weighing the pros and cons of posting every single one of these things this year because it begins to be a giant, unvetted clutter of opinion. Who are these folks and why did they decide to form their own group rather than let the Boston Society of Film Critics speak for the area and/or push for membership therein?

I imagine the latter has happened — I don’t know these guys and I’m not passing judgment — and all politics are local. And I don’t say this next thing by way of insult to them (or even as a comparative statement because it’s not), but if a bunch of people with Live Journals in Los Angeles up and decide there needs to be an LA Online group, do we just pass their picks along with the rest? Is the job just providing safe passage or should some curation be in order? I don’t know, but find the Boston online crowd’s winners below, in any case.

Best Picture: “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”

Best Actress: Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”

Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les Misérables”

Best Screenplay: “Lincoln”

Best Foreign Language Film: “Oslo, August 31st”

Best Documentary: “How to Survive a Plague”

Best Animated Film: “ParaNorman”

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, “Skyfall”

Best Editing: “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Original Score: “The Master”

Best Ensemble Cast: “Moonrise Kingdom”

The 10 Best Films of the year
1. “Zero Dark Thirty”
2. “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
3. “Lincoln”
4. “Moonrise Kingdom”
5. “Django Unchained”
6. “Oslo, August 31st”
7. “Holy Motors”
8. “The Master”
9. “Argo”
10. “Cloud Atlas”

And just to note, this crowd has been diligent enough to offer the following by way of introduction and explanation:

“During the following week, BOFCA will publish their membership”s individual ballots at www.bofca.com for readers interested in how final decisions were made.

“Founded in May 2012, BOFCA fosters a community of web-based film critics and provides them with a supportive group of colleagues and a professional platform for their voices to be heard. They collect and link to their reviews every week at a website that also features original content by members, including filmmaker interviews and spotlights on Boston”s vital repertory film scene.

“By widening professional membership to writers working in new media, BOFCA aims to encourage more diverse opinions in the field. The Boston Online Film Critics Association has gathered together critics writing for publications that collectively receive over 15 million impressions/page views per month. BOFCA is present on social media year-round with members” film articles and essays.”

As always, keep track of all the ups and downs of the 2012-2013 film awards season via The Circuit.

Perceived Oscar frontrunner “Searching for Sugar Man” took top honors at the International Documentary Association Awards this evening. The portrait of long-“lost” recording artist Rodriguez also won Best Music. “How to Survive a Plague” director David France won an award for emerging talent while last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary Short, “Saving Face,” won in the shorts category. Check out a full list of winners below.

Best Feature: “Searching for Sugar Man”

Best Short: “Saving Face”

Best Limited Series: “On Death Row”

Best Continuing Series: “American Masters”

Best Cinematography: Peter Gerdehag, “Women With Cows”

Best Editing: Rodney Ascher, “Room 237”

Best Music: Sixto Rodriguez, Malik Bendjelloul, “Searching for Sugar Man”

Best Writing: Keith Patterson, “Ann Richards’ Texas”

Career Achievement Award: Arnold Shapiro

Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award: David France

Pioneer Award: Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund

David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award: “La Camioneta”

ABCNews Videosource Award: “Harvest of Empire”

Humanitas Documentary Award: “Bitter Seeds”

Pare Lorentz Award: “The Island President”

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

Is all the world a stage? Well, in Joe Wright”s “Anna Karenina,” the stage became the medium through which the director retold Leo Tolstoy”s classic story. An unusual choice fraught with risks? To be sure. An extraordinary amount of potential? Equally certain. But production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer were tasked with helping Wright”s vision come to fruition. We recently spoke to the duo about their work on the film.

“We started off relatively conventionally,” Greenwood says. But scouting Russia, they found themselves somewhat at a loss about what to build and where to shoot. “There were legal and/or cultural restrictions with respect to what you”re allowed or expected to do with houses,” she explains. “It”s not like England where they”re used to us coming in…there was also something sterile about the houses.”

Throughout this, however, Greenwood and Spencer felt they knew their director had a “hankering” to do something completely different with this adaptation of “Anna Karenina” – it was only 12 weeks from the start of shooting that he decided to use the framing device of a stage.

“The fantastic thing was that when we decided to approach it in this different way, it was a shot in the arm,” Greenwood says. “We were all struggling and then decided to rethink it. Everything was so false and so fake. And as for a premise on how to approach it, it was so creative and dynamic.”

Spencer says that the framing helped everyone in realizing how to build the story on screen. “Having been to Russia a couple of times and having done loads of research, I applied it to doing production in the theatre,” she says. “I come from theatre and that kind of helped.” She particularly marveled at how the actors adapted: “They absolutely believed that they were in the ball or the races or the ice rink. They were absolutely in that environment.”

The duo recognized that the novel approach of their director came with risks. They accepted some people would not like it but wanted to ensure the project still felt cinematic. “You”re conscious about not making it feel like a movie,” Spencer says. “But it was never shot as a stage play except the opening scene. Parts of the theatre were parts of the movie.”

“We all bought into this idea but there were certain points where all of us – and I would include Joe in this – would say, ‘What are we doing? This is crazy,”” Greenwood says. “At various points we had our worries [but] it wasn”t just another typical, substandard version of ‘Anna Karenina,” which is what we may have done otherwise.”

To some extent, they had gained confidence due to their longstanding collaboration with Wright. Greenwood first met him when they worked together at the BBC. “He is so collaborative and exciting to work with,” she says. “When he said, ‘Let”s put it in a theatre,” there were some things he was very specific about. We spent a week together working it out and trying to apply this concept to a script.”

Spencer met Wright while working with Greenwood, which brought the duo to another topic: their 15-year collaboration with each other. “It”s great,” Greenwood says. “Katie is my right hand and to have someone you can be very, very honest and blunt with and share your insecurities with, that”s great. It”s an insecure world that we work in and to have the security of people around you who will say, ‘That”s rubbish,” is invaluable.”

“I think one of the things Sarah does so well is working as a team,” Spencer adds. “There”s not a huge split between the art department and set decoration, and that extends to the D.P. and the costume designer and of course the director.” On the note of the below-the-line crew Wright has worked with so frequently, she adds “because we”ve known each other – Seamus [McGarvey, D.P.], Jacqueline [Durran, costume designer] – if someone is having difficulties with another department, you will help them work together.”

Greenwood echoes this fondness of the relationship with the other departments. “Had we not all worked together and knew each other so well, you might have gone down a route and not said what you really thought,” she admits. “But because we do know each other, we can say what we think and I think it opens a lot more and I think that had we not been such a cohesive group, we may not have been so brave.”

Their career has been on a high note since their collaboration on Wright”s directorial debut, “Pride & Prejudice,” seven years ago. After earning an Oscar nomination for that film, the duo earned a second nomination for Wright”s “Atonement” and a third for Guy Ritchie”s “Sherlock Holmes.”

Spencer says the risks they took in “Anna Karenina” can largely be attributed to their growing confidence and experiences. “Only after learning to paint or to draw very very well can you go out on a risk with something so if I had done ‘Anna” 10 years ago, I shouldn”t have done it,” she says. “Had we not done it 10 months ago, we couldn”t have refined what we did in the way that we did it.”

Greenwood is quite satisfied with their avant-garde approach. “Joe wanted to do something different,” she says. “And for him to formulate that and for us to follow was amazing and all credit to us for being brave. We did something that was much better than what we would have done had we gone a conventional route and made ‘another’ version of ‘Anna Karenina.'”

She adds shortly thereafter, however: “To say you have made ‘Anna Karenina” – that”s scary…I love it.”

Greenwood and Spencer”s amazing run over not even the past decade has in many ways reached an artistic peak in “Anna Karenina.” Their three previous Oscar nominations, though all deserved, were hardly assured, even the morning of the nominations. If they don”t find themselves among the final five in the Best Production Design category in January, it’s safe to say most would be floored. And they may even ascend the stage at the Dolby Theatre to collect their first trophies.

“Anna Karenina” is now playing in a theater near you.

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.

The Governors Awards were held last weekend and both Anne and I were in attendance. We talk about the sights, sounds, speeches and opportunity for Oscar contenders to schmooze the membership.

The New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review kicked the precursor circuit into another gear this week, handing Best Picture and Best Director honors to Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty.” We discuss the winners…and losers.

Last week we discussed the documentary feature category and this week we have an actual list of 15 finalists to chew on. So we do.

And finally, reader questions. We address queries concerning films we’d like to see have more of a leg up with campaigning and how the Best Supporting Actor field is shaping up in terms of a 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.

With Top 10 season upon us, I’m slowly beginning to whittle down a year’s worth of viewing into some sort of order. And while I have a lot to see before I can actually finalize my list — my screening diary for the next week is a veritable pileup of supposed awards fare, nearly as dense as a festival schedule — I’ll need to see an improbable amount of four-star films between then and now for “Tabu” not to land in its upper reaches.

Since the Berlinale 10 months ago, you’ve heard me badgering on about Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’s semi-silent wonder — part postmodern comedy, part rapturous colonial-era love story — with a range of artistic reference points that ranges from F.W. Murnau to Phil Spector. I’m far from alone in my enthusiasm: it landed at #2 on Sight & Sound’s Best of 2012 critics’ poll last weekend. It hits US screens in a few weeks, but I only recently latched onto this US trailer from Adopt Films (in which, I’m chuffed to say, I’m one of the critics quoted.)

The trailer does a good job of conveying the visual and sonic seductiveness of a hard-to-market film; if you’re even a little intrigued, “Tabu” will reward your interest tenfold. It opens at New York’s Film Forum on Boxing Day — making for an appropriate post-Christmas palate cleanser — before travelling to other states over the next three months.

Incidentally, though they’re relative rookies, Adopt Films boast a pretty impressive slate this year. They purchased particularly wisely at Berlin, snapping up another two of my festival favorites, Christian Petzold’s “Barbara” and Ursula Meier’s “Sister,” as well as the Tavianis’ Golden Bear winner “Caesar Must Die” — all three of which are now in the foreign-language Oscar race. “Tabu,” sadly, isn’t (Portugal opted for “Blood of My Blood” instead, which I’m told is a respectable choice), but it’ll find its reward on many a Top 10 list to come.

Check out the trailer below — are you sold? Perhaps you’ve already seen it? Chime in below.

[vimeo 53365915 w=640 h=360]

Today’s most enjoyable Oscar-related feature comes from Steve Pond, who has rounded up a selection of the more notable and/or quirky campaign maneuvers from the season thus far, from curious merchandise (a “Lincoln” cookbook, haggis crisps for “Brave”) to an Academy rule violation by shortlisted doc “The Invisible War.” My favorite, though, is a typewritten letter to BFCA voters from the campaign-averse Steven Soderbergh on behalf of Matthew McConaughey: “I’m breaking my longstanding embargo regarding pleas for recognition… we found [his performance] to be completely bananas in the best sense of the word. As he says in the film, ‘The moon is just a chip shot away!'” Now one for for Channing Tatum, please. [The Wrap]  

David Hudson rounds up early reviews of “Les Misérables.” Not all critics are hearing the people sing. [Keyframe Daily]

Craig Kennedy interviews “Les Mis” star Eddie Redmayne, who has, for many, emerged as one of the film’s unexpected standouts. [Awards Daily]

Scenes from the waterborne Paris premiere of “Life of Pi.” The French, as with so much in life, just do it with a little more class. [Entertainment Weekly]

An excellent feature on the creation of the alternately jangly  and ecstatic score for “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” This is one Oscar nomination that needs to happen. [Creators Project]  

I’m loving Variety’s awards coverage this year. This feature on top Broadway directors saluting their favorite film counterparts in 2012 (including Mike Nichols on David Chase, and Matthew Warchus on Rian Johnson) is a great idea. [Variety]

Prompted by Greig Fraser’s win for the very contemporary “Zero Dark Thirty” at the NYFCC Awards, Jose Solis wonders why the cinematography Oscar so heavily favors period and fantasy films. [The Film Experience]

Ben Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio talk about how they balanced a range of genre rhythms, from bouncy satire to white-knuckle thriller, in “Argo.” [LA Times] 

“I turned that setting off on my TV.” Andrew O’Hehir discusses the potentially alienating effect of the 48fps frame rate in “The Hobbit,” and how it could affect Peter Jackson’s legacy from here on out. [Salon]

Bret Easton Ellis thinks Kathryn Bigelow is overrated because she’s a beautiful woman. (Best response I read on Twitter: “So why is Bret Easton Ellis overrated, then?”) [The Carpetbagger]

NEW YORK — Warner Bros. spared no expense tonight ringing in the arrival of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” with a New York premiere and an ornate after-party at Guastavino’s on the east side. The space’s “soaring granite arches and catalan vaulted tiled ceiling,” to steal from its own PR, served as a perfect palette for Middle Earth-inspired wares. Wooden tables decked with candelabras and other similar decor offered a comfortable dose of Hobbiton as Jackson, stars Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis and Ian McKellen, “Argo” director Ben Affleck, actors Patrick Stewart, Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler and many more filled the room to capacity.

The toast, of course, is to Jackson’s accomplishment, the first in a new, sure-to-be-expansive trilogy of films adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s intro to “The Lord of the Rings.” And hopes are rightly high that the film will land just right with fanbases both old and new to send this one soaring at the box office. But while the film’s aesthetic and feel certainly hearkens back to the franchise Jackson launched in the early aughts, there were attempts at mining a new identity, and much of that was inherent in the enterprise.

Take Andy Serki’s performance-capture turn as Gollum. The effects work used to bring the character to life a decade ago has advanced considerably, to the point that it can be captured in real time, for starters. And while the overall CGI effect isn’t too far off from those renderings years ago, that’s also partly the point, as a drastically improved look would have felt inorganic to the whole. But Serkis was also after something fresh in his portrayal, which, to this viewer’s mind, is the best work he’s done on the franchise.

“Before it was about revenge,” he told me amid the crowd of admirers. “But this time the Sméagol aspect of the persona is very much there. He’s had no contact beyond dead trolls and he’s almost desperate for contact with others.” And that makes the betrayal Gollum experiences from Bilbo Baggins late in the film — the theft of his beloved ring, his “precious” — all the more powerful, he said.

The scene was actually the first one Jackson and company shot in the new film. In it, star Martin Freeman was still finding his character in many respects, while Serkis was obviously very much in tune with his. But a decision was made to shoot the complete scene every take, to let it play out in its entirety. And in that, discoveries were made, often times late in a take as Serkis and/or Freeman tapped into something along the course of it. And indeed, the moment is sort of a short film unto itself, as there is such a tangible arc to its unfolding.

“That chapter in the book, ‘Riddles in the Dark,’ it has its own shape,” Serkis told me. “And what’s in the film is very faithful to the book.”

Speaking of Freeman, he told me he was of course bowled over when he got the call from Jackson asking him to take on the role. And for a moment, it seemed scheduling was going to make it an improbability, but Jackson waited because he had found his man. And that gave Freeman all the confidence in the world.

“A lot of people ask me, ‘Were you scared,'” he said. “And the truth is I wasn’t. I would tell people if I was but Peter makes it very comfortable.”

With Freeman taking on the younger embodiment of Bilbo, played by Ian Holm in the original trilogy and the earlier scenes of “An Unexpected Journey,” there was something to mimic in a sense. He picked up certain elements and gestures, noting how the character “isn’t really much of a gentleman,” and things of the like. But all along the way, he has never met the actor. (Though his favorite Holm performance, if you’re wondering, comes in Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits.”)

The experience of an 18-month shoot (off and on) was certainly unique in his experience, though. He likened it a bit to working on a television series. “In both you have to inhabit a character for a very long time,” he said.

And indeed, we’ll be with the character ourselves, as while the latest film may be hitting theaters ina  week’s time, we still have “The Desolation of Smaug” in 2013 and “There and Back Again” in 2014. So hopefully Freeman is game for many more of these events along the way. Jackson’s vision of Tolkein is hardly a sprint. It’s a marathon.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” opens nationwide December 14.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4913355252001

The Palm Springs Film Festival, which takes place next month, has been gradually spilling their list of honorees over the last few weeks, with Naomi Watts, Helen Hunt and Robert Zemeckis all booked in to be celebrated for their achievements this year. Though I was only yesterday discussing the individual value of smaller awards, naming Zemeckis their Director of the Year is about as far as the festival strays from the Oscar conversation with their picks — every year, the timing of Palm Springs makes it a handy stop on the campaign trail for awards hopefuls.

That’ll certainly be the case for the festival’s latest two selections: “Argo” will receive the Ensemble Performance Award, while Sally Field, currently riding high in the Best Supporting Actress race for “Lincoln,” is to be honored with a Career Achievement Award. Both will be presented at the festival’s awards ceremony on January 5 — days before the Oscar nominations are announced, presumably with good news for Field and “Argo” alike.

Previous winners of the Ensemble Performance award include “The Social Network,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Hairspray” and “Babel.” As such, the honor doesn’t carry much clout in itself, but it’s welcome recognition for “Argo,” a genuinely ensemble-driven machine, and comes at a time when awards buzz for Ben Affleck’s popular thriller, once labelled the Best Picture frontrunner in many quarters, has dipped ever so slightly.

I still think it’s a formidable contender for the top prize; other pundits have moved on to more recent prestige releases, most of which have lived up to expectations. Among them, of course, is NBR and NYFCC champ “Zero Dark Thirty,” which may just be stealing voters’ appetites for classy political thrillers from Affleck’s film. Still, while many expected “Argo” to do better with the National Board of Review — it landed in their Top 10, but received no individual awards — that runner-up finish in the New York critics’ Best Picture vote is not to be dismissed. 

That this straightforward $100 million grosser could find that much support within a comparatively highbrow critics’ group points to its broad appeal, with plentiful Guild citations — including a nomination for SAG’s own ensemble award — sure to come. Meanwhile, it might even benefit “Argo” to step out of the spotlight for a while at the start of the season, as the film once in danger of overhype now builds appealing underdog status against prestige giants like “Les Mis” and “Lincoln.”

The career award for Field, meanwhile, is a further indication of just how warmly the industry is receiving the two-time Oscar winner this year after a long period away from the big screen — and a cannily balanced return in both “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “Lincoln.” The “you like me” jokes are played out by now, but people really do like her, and her narrative as this season’s comeback nominee is firmly in place.

Whether it’ll result in a win as another question, but as her surprise NYFCC win earlier this week proved, the widespread goodwill both for the actress and her film probably makes her Anne Hathaway’s chief challenger right now. I can’t quite imagine Academy voters feeling that both Field and Daniel Day-Lewis need third Oscars this year (coincidentally, Steven Spielberg is also shooting for a third Best Director Oscar), but the potential for consolatory career honors along the track means the actress could get plenty of podium time over the next few months.

It may currently be sitting at #6 in the US box-office chart for 2012, but impressive as that is, “Skyfall” is a phenomenon on a different scale across the pond. In its sixth week of release in the UK, James Bond’s latest outing has surpassed “Avatar” to become the highest-grossing film in British box-office history with a total of nearly $152 million. (Yes, we are a smaller country.) As well as being the best possible golden-anniversary gift for the franchise, it’s also likely to be labelled a major victory for comparatively old-school, adult-oriented commercial cinema that doesn’t even boast 3D premiums to jack up the numbers. The question from an awards standpoint now is whether BAFTA will dare ignore it in the top categories. Daniel Craig got nominated in 2006, so could  007 be in line for its first Best Film nod? [The Independent] 

“The Hunger Games,” “Brave” and “The Dark Knight Rises” are among the 2012 films nominated for Grammy Awards for their original compositions. [HitFix]

Joe Reid does a thorough sizing-up of the Best Actress race, and shares my position that those calling it a weak one really need to wake up. Also, Rachel Weisz is RIGHT BEHIND YOU. [Film.com]

Steven Spielberg has been invited to screen “Lincoln” in the US Senate on December 19. I imagine it’ll go down quite well. [Deadline]

Peter Jackson explains why it really was necessary to split “The Hobbit” into three films, and does so without referring to an accounts book. [The Guardian] 

“Zero Dark Thirty” is the subject of R. Kurt Osenlund’s latest Oscar Prospects column. As you might expect, its prospects are looking pretty good right now. [The House Next Door]

Lisa Schwarzbaum and Owen Gleiberman respectively rate “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Lincoln” as the year’s best. [Entertainment Weekly]

As part of Variety’s spotlight on the editing, effects and sound categories, “The Sessions” director Ben Lewin explains why he specifically sought out a female editor for his film. [Variety]

Still on editing, “Flight” cutter Jeremiah O’Driscoll talks about the process of assembling the film’s much-admired crash sequence. [New York Times]

On to more modestly-budgeted marvels, “Beasts of the Southern Wild’ director Benh Zeitlin explains how he created mythical creatures on a shoestring. [The Envelope]

It’s getting harder to identify an official kick-off point for the precursor run – is it the Gotham Awards? The Independent Spirit nominations? Such-and-such magazine’s Top 10 list? But whether it began days or weeks ago, we are already in the thick of it: by Friday, two of the Big Three critics’ groups will have showed their hand, while the picks of the not-quite-critics’ group that is the National Board of Review are still on the cooling rack. 

Next week: SAG, Globes, the BFCA Awards, sundry small critics’ groups… you know what, I can’t think about next week for now. I still have a truckload of movies to see, for starters, and my own critics’ group voting deadline is just nine days away. My family may just have to settle for opened screener discs as Christmas gifts this year. If I find time, I’ll wrap them. 

If I’m quite happy not to leap ahead in the red carpet calendar just yet, that’s because this week’s first rumblings from the critics have been rather exciting. Yes, the New York Film Critics’ Circle and the National Board of Review anointed the same film (and its director) as the year’s best, but there was hardly an air of inevitability about either crowning – and neither does it yet feel like a mandatory critical meme of the “Social Network” variety has been set. We may have joked about the length of the New Yorkers’ marathon voting session, but it’s surely encouraging that they had to deliberate for so long over so many categories, with steadfast support bases for a wide range of contenders struggling to comes to an agreement. 

Between the NYFCC and the NBR alone, a handful of fresh, individual choices have expanded and even challenged the awards conversation. You don’t usually count on the NBR for inspiration, but Ann Dowd’s Best Supporting Actress win for abrasive indie “Compliance” is perhaps the furthest they’ve been on a limb since Campbell Scott scooped their Best Actor prize a decade ago. The NYFCC, meanwhile, took a leaf from their West Coast counterparts to confound pundits in the Best Actress category, breaking a Jennifer Lawrence-Jessica Chastain stalemate by opting for Rachel Weisz’s exquisite but little-seen turn in “The Deep Blue Sea,” the March release of which is equivalent to ice-age history in this business. 

Bradley Cooper for Best Actor. “How to Survive a Plague” for Best First Feature. “Looper” for Best Original Screenplay. Certainly, some choices have been more predictable than that – “Lincoln” star Daniel Day-Lewis notched up his fifth win with the New York critics – but it’s been a while since the race felt this limber at the outset. (Last year, on the other hand, when the NYFCC opened proceedings by crowning “The Artist,” most savvy pundits saw the writing on the wall.) Even the Academy got in on the act, taking a lot of flak for a Best Documentary shortlist that omitted some presumed frontrunners – but, in my opinion, not getting nearly enough credit for letting in such unorthodox, exciting choices as “This Is Not A Film” and “The Imposter.” 

Still, not everyone welcomes surprises. Twitter (not to mention our own Greg Ellwood) has been abuzz with indignation that two significant voting groups have had the effrontery to prefer – at least as a collective – other actresses to supposed Oscar-champ-in-waiting Anne Hathaway. Weisz’s leftfield win, which I’d had an inkling about without fully predicting, was greeted with a mixture of cinephile elation and message-board bafflement. “LOL like shes [sic] even going to be nominated,” tweeted one particularly bright spark. 

And therein lies the rub. Will Weisz be nominated for an Oscar? The odds still don’t favor it, though distributors Music Box are working hard, and I certainly like her chances more than I did a week ago. Either way, it should be an incidental concern: the New York critics aren’t in the business of predicting other awards, and to suggest that they’ll have somehow failed if the Academy doesn’t like one of their choices as much as they do is positively hostile to the notion of critical (or indeed any) opinion.

An award from one of the leading critical bodies in the US represents something very different to an industry nomination from the Academy or a Guild, and neither means any less without the other. For “The Master,” yet to find a foothold on the precursor beat, topping the august Sight & Sound poll isn’t an achievement that crumbles to dust if, say, the LA critics aren’t quite as enthusiastic. The film’s still there, and so is its following. It’d be nice to call any award irrelevant garnish, though their benefits can be worth pursuing. 

Witness Linda Cardellini’s self-financed Best Actress campaign for the shoestring drama “Return.” She’s not expecting an Oscar nod, though any exposure the film and her work get via her efforts — including last week’s surprise Spirit nomination, already a major win in this context — attracts a few extra viewers or future investors. To view precursors – the very word, convenient as it is, is problematic – as mere enablers of Oscar recognition doesn’t only undermine the achievement of those worthy honorees who don’t necessarily complete all the stepping stones, but it positively encourages the single-file uniformity of voting, across multiple organizations, that we all start railing against when the season starts getting samey. 

“But do you really think he’s the best?” replied one disgusted reader when I mentioned how pleased I was to see the NBR plump for Bradley Cooper’s jagged, endearing star turn in “Silver Linings Playbook” ahead of more hotly fancied competition. I had to say no: there are other performances I hold in even higher regard (though not, incidentally, that of current Best Actor kingpin Daniel Day-Lewis). But awards season needn’t become such a game of favorites that you can’t take pleasure in seeing other good work rewarded, particularly with more trophies to go round than ever before. 

Someone like Cooper may or may not get the Oscar nod, so it’s nice to know both that he won’t leave the season empty-handed, and that not every voting group – whether it’s the National Board of Review, the Academy or even a European festival jury – has the same idea of what constitutes a winner. And if that’s the case, it hardly makes sense to regard their prizes as means to a single end. I’m reminded of a quote I once heard from a BAFTA winner who had missed out on the Oscar: did she feel shortchanged? “Not at all,” she said. “The Oscar might have been useful, but personally, I don’t think it would look as nice on my dresser.”  

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. 

“Zero Dark Thirty” was crowned the best film of 2012 by the New York-based National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. Kathryn Bigelow took the Best Director prize for her work on the film, while Jessica Chastain won Best Actress. Bradley Cooper was named Best Actor for his performance in “Silver Linings Playbook” while David O. Russell’s film also picked up Best Adapted Screenplay.

The award is the second in a row at the start of the precursor circuit for Bigelow’s account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden following the New York Film Critics Circle’s crowning of the achievement on Monday. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association will speak up on Friday and may well join the club, which will lead many to chalk it up as the prohibitive frontrunner for Best Picture at the Oscars, if they aren’t already. But films like “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Social Network” know it’s not smart to count your chickens before they hatch.

In the supporting categories, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ann Dowd were singled out for their work in “Django Unchained” and “Compliance,” respectively. “Django” just screened for voting bodies within the week, while Dowd certainly has champions and gets a nice feather as she hopes to figure into a rather weak supporting actress field.

Speaking of figuring into a weak field, Rian Johnson’s “Looper” nailed the group’s Best Original Screenplay prize and even showed up in the top 10 list. Count that as a nice little endorsement for a film hoping to get there despite genre bias.

Other films included on the group’s top 10 included Oscar frontrunners like “Argo,” “Les Misérables,” “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” as well as indie hopefuls like “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” “Django Unchained” also popped up on the list. Gus Van Sant’s “Promised Land,” also a top 10 selection, landed one of the group’s Freedom of Expression awards (the other going to the documentary “The Central Park Five.”

Films shut out entirely include Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and Robert Zemeckis’s “Flight.”

Full list of winners below.

Best Film: “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Actor: Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Actress: Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”

Best Supporting Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, “Django Unchained”

Best Supporting Actress: Ann Dowd, “Compliance”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Original Screenplay: “Looper”

Best Animated Feature: “Wreck-It Ralph”

Breakthrough Actor: Tom Holland, “The Impossible”

Breakthrough Actress: Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Best Directorial Debut: Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Best Foreign Language Film: “Amour”

Best Documentary: “Searching for Sugar Man”

Best Ensemble: “Les Misérables”

Spotlight Award: John Goodman (“Argo,” “Flight,” “ParaNorman,” “Trouble with the Curve”)

NBR Freedom of Expression: “The Central Park Five”

NBR Freedom of Expression: “Promised Land”

William K. Everson Film History Award: 50 Years of Bond Films

Top Films (in alphabetical order)
“Argo”
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“Django Unchained”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln”
“Looper”
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
“Promised Land”
“Silver Linings Playbook”

Top 5 Foreign Language Films (in alphabetical order)
“Barbara”
“The Intouchables”
“The Kid with a Bike”
“No”
“War Witch”

Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order)
“Ai Weiwie: Never Sorry”
“Detropia”
“The Gatekeepers”
“The Invisible War”
“Only the Young”

Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order)
“Arbitrage”
“Bernie”
“Compliance”
“End of Watch”
“Hello I Must Be Going”
“Little Birds”
“Moonrise Kingdom”
“On the Road”
“Quartet”
“Sleepwalk with Me”

The National Board of Review Gala will be held on January 8, 2013.

Remember to keep track of all the ups and downs of the season via The Circuit.

Last year, the Academy crossed the pond  to celebrate the career of Vanessa Redgrave with an intimate tribute evening in London; this year, it’s two-time Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar’s turn, with the British capital again hosting on December 13. Not to be confused with an honorary award, it’s a more casual and cosy form of back-patting — and this one is set to include appearances from such colleagues and admirers as Stephen Frears, Alberto Iglesias and Jean-Paul Gaultier, as well as a Q&A with Almodóvar himself. The AMPAS press release cites “the breadth of his artistic explorations, his passionate engagement with the human heart, and a worldview often articulated by powerful female leads.” The news underlines that Almodóvar is plainly the Academy’s Euro auteur of choice, having already accomplished the all-too-rare feat of winning both a general-field Oscar (Original Screenplay for “Talk to Her”) and the foreign-language award (for “All About My Mother”). [AMPAS]

Rob Epstein, head of the Academy’s documentary branch, is happy with the new voting system that led to Monday’s Oscar shortlist. (Unlike many of my colleagues, I think he should be: it’s a strong list.) [Variety]

Here’s a list I love: the best ever lone Oscar nominations for films that received no other nods — from “Mulholland Drive” for Best Director to “Hoop Dreams” for Best Film Editing. [The Film Experience] 

Rebecca Keegan gathers a group of top animation director, including Rich Moore (“Wreck-It Ralph”) and Mark Andrews (“Brave”) to discuss where the medium is right now, and where it’s going. [LA Times]

Time Magazine names “Cloud Atlas” the worst film of 2012. (Coincidentally, my London Critics’ Circle colleagues and I held a similar vote yesterday, settling on the crushingly inept Britcom “The Knot.” It’s worse, trust me.) [Time]

Eddie Murphy and Katherine Heigl are Hollywood’s least valuable actors. That may or may not be true, but Forbes has the numbers to back it up. [Vulture]

Tim Appelo talks to the director of Brazil’s foreign-language Oscar submission “The Clown” — which I’m hearing could be a sneaky one to watch in the race. [The Race]

“Cosmopolis” lands on another Top 10 list, though given that it’s a list of Canada’s best films of the year as voted for by industry professionals, that’s less surprising. Also featured: Oscar hopeful “War Witch.” [The Playlist]

With Angelina Jolie threatening retirement in a few years, Stuart Heritage urges her to go out with a bang — or at least a good movie. [The Guardian]

She’s won three Oscars, but how much do we really know about Peter Jackson’s partner in crime, Fran Walsh? Brooks Barnes nabs a rare interview. [New York Times]

Rightly or wrongly, the term ‘Holocaust film’ is often greeted with cynicism in Oscar-watching circles, where the Academy’s perennial recognition of cinema centered on that period of history as something of a running joke. 

It’s not entirely a fair one, of course. 70-odd years on, the atrocities of Nazi Germany remain so vast, so politically and socially pervasive, that one can hardly blame filmmakers for continually seeking new angles within it – it’s a story that will never be completely told.

The Academy’s appreciation of the subject’s enduring artistic relevance covers such films as “Schindler’s List,” “The Pianist” and “The Reader,” but it’s in the Best Foreign Language Film category where it reveals itself most consistently. The number of Holocaust-themed films nominated in the category over the years, up to and including last year’s “In Darkness,” has led some more jaded pundits to dismiss any such submission as awards bait of sorts. However, if Cate Shortland’s superb new film “Lore” – Australia’s Oscar submission, though wholly German-set and spoken – follows in their footsteps, it won’t be because it comfily ticks any boxes. 

Portraying the dying days of the Third Reich via the semi-biographical story of Lore, the eldest child of a high-ranking Nazi family, left to fend for herself and her younger siblings when her parents surrender to Allied forces, it”s a film that bravely inverts the perspective of many a Holocaust drama. It”s a Nazi who”s the victim here, albeit a chilly one: the adolescent girl”s inscrutable behavior gradually reveals the crippling degrees of prejudice she”s been brainwashed into holding, and the film makes it clear that deprogramming is going to be an even longer journey than her cross-country trek to safety. 

Though the film is based on proven source material – one segment of British novelist Rachel Seiffert”s Booker-shortlisted triptych novel “The Dark Room,” in turn based on the experiences of Seiffert”s mother – Shortland admits to being nervous when her producer first suggested she tackle the story. 

“The perspective was scary, in terms of doing a film from the perpetrators” – or their children”s – point of view,” she says over the phone from Australia, where she”s home after a day spent shooting on a new Gallipoli-themed miniseries for local TV. She explains that she”d first been drawn to other strands of Seiffert”s novel with Jewish protagonists. “We kind of knew Lore”s story was less explored territory, and we worried that people would think that we weren”t considering the atrocities that had happened.” 

Much of the difficulty lay with the characterization of Lore herself – a prickly figure not immediately sympathetic to viewers, but one whose complicated psychological arc is braided with more fundamental coming-of-age concerns. “Early on, people who read the script said that if I asked the viewer to inhabit Lore, I was going to have a problem,” says Shortland. “But in a funny way I think I did inhabit her, and that came as a shock.” 

Shortland”s acclaimed first feature, 2004″s “Somersault,” was also preoccupied with teen sexuality in an unstructured social environment. “Somersault” was the film that launched Abbie Cornish to stardom, and “Lore” features a similarly revelatory talent in classically trained dancer and first-time actress Saskia Rosendahl. Initially rejected for being too beautiful – “an Aryan goddess,” says Shortland – she finally impressed the director with her combination of serenity and “an amazing kind of combustion.” 

“It”s a bit of a kick in the guts when Lore just comes out with the National Socialist propaganda and the anti-Semitism. Because first you”re thinking about how pure and brave this poor girl is, looking after her brother and sisters, but at the same time she”s kind of a monster – a monster created by her time.” 

Meeting the woman on whom Lore herself is based, meanwhile, also helped Shortland make emotional sense of the character. “I”ve met Rachel Seiffert”s mother and her aunt, and the thing that strikes me about them is that they still carry this enormous burden: the crimes that were committed were not their crimes, but it”s their blood. How do you live with that? How do you equate that with somebody that you really love?” She adds that Seiffert”s mother has now seen the film three times, describing her reaction as “very complicated.”

Meanwhile, Shortland has been pleasantly surprised by the warm responses to the film from a range of emotionally invested communities, noting that it”s also been programmed in a couple of Jewish-specific film festivals. “We tried to put the facts forward, and I think people respect that,” she says. “Even if they don”t love the film, they find the performances, and what the characters go through, truthful. I wasn”t interested in making a biopic or a historical drama. To me, it had to have a lot of relevance to contemporary society.” 

To further her understanding of the narrative, Australian native Shortland considered her home country”s legacy of racial oppression – as well as that of South Africa, where, in the gap between “Somersault” and “Lore,” she lived for a time and adopted two children. “I looked at our own atrocities, and they”re not really being dealt with. In Germany, the transparency with which they deal with history, at least on an educational level or a government level, is incredible. Same thing in South Africa. Living in those two countries had a big influence on looking at Lore and how she confronts her own history.” 

Perhaps appropriately, given these universalities, the film doesn”t feel much like a period piece – styled in the same brisk, exterior-dominated tones that made the contemporary “Somersault” so coolly bracing. “I love the detail of period pieces, but I also love looking beyond the corsets, beyond the hairstyles, and equating it to my own life – the morality, the humor.” She credits ace DP Adam Arkapaw – who recently made a splash in “Animal Kingdom” and “Snowtown” – with keeping the film fresh in this manner. “We”d be shooting in houses that were 200 years old, but he just has this kind of refreshing anarchy about him, and the way he was shooting it.”

Between its handheld camerawork and saturated jewelry-box palette, Arkapaw and Shortland have devised a roughly stylized aesthetic that she likens to a tainted fairyland – all the better to convey Lore”s growing disillusionment. “When I was about five years old, my mom gave me a big picture book and it was Red Riding Hood – but, like, the ‘Jaws” version of Red Riding Hood. Horrendous violence, but incredibly, incredibly beautiful. And it was tattooed into my soul or something. I think that”s in there.” 

Australian-funded, but shot in Germany with a part-German crew, “Lore” is a proudly international production, even if it”s representing only one country at the Oscars. Against the advice of some producers, Shortland insisted on shooting the film in German – though her own command of the language is limited. She”s firm in her belief that any other option would amount to “some kind of bullshit reality,” and as excited as she is to be in the Oscar race, she”d rather not think of herself or the film as representing the Australian film industry on a global stage. 

“I really do see ‘Lore” as an amalgamation,” she says. “Part German, part British, part Australian. And we had a fantastic patchwork of people working on it. But the really incredible part of the whole journey has been that the Australian government believed in the film, believed in what we wanted to do, and didn”t say no. It”s the way the industry”s got to go. The time of a white man in his forties making most films in Australia has come to an end.” 

Though Shortland is reluctant to label herself a ‘female filmmaker” – as if that intrinsically defines the films she makes – she says it”s no coincidence that the Australian film industry boasts a higher proportion of high-profile female directors than most, from Jane Campion to Gillian Armstrong to Julia Leigh. Much of the credit, she explains, goes to producer Jan Chapman who, in the 1970s, started a women”s film cooperative, with particularly emphasis on the technology of filmmaking. 

“They lobbied when the film school started, and women were a big part of the first intake. From that moment it”s sort of never been questioned. I was asked to direct a television show straight out of film school and I haven”t stopped working since. I never wanted to be a male director.” 

So she”s not dismissing the gender factor out of hand, then? After all, both her features have been centered on complex, conflicted female protagonists. “I think I”m fascinated by the female psyche,” she says, after a moment”s consideration. “I”m fascinated by women”s sexuality and the way that they see the world: the details that make up that big canvas. It really excites me shooting like that.”

Nearly a full year later, Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey” is still, to me, one of 2012’s best films. There was talk last year of it being released in time for awards consideration, but it didn’t happen. And when the January bow happened this year, there was discussion of bringing it back around for consideration by year’s end. It looks like that will happen, in some small way.

Open Road Films has announced that the film will be given an exclusive two-week engagement at Laemmle theaters in both Santa Monica and Encino starting this Friday, December 7. Guild and Academy members will be given free entrance to the showings by presenting their membership cards, so obviously the goal is to get them out of the house to see the film on the big screen rather than risk it being lost in the never-ending stack of screeners that accumulates this time of year.

Meanwhile, star Liam Neeson has done Q&As at a few screenings this season, even touching on the personal nature of the role (a man who lost his wife, cutting close to the bone for the actor, whose own wife Natasha Richardson died following a skiing accident in March of 2009).

Open Road has also announced — as noted in a recent interview with Jake Gyllenhaal — a re-expansion of David Ayer’s “End of Watch,” hoping to angle some consideration for Gyllenhaal and co-star Michael Peña. Will any of it work? It would certainly be nice if voters would look beyond the usual films in play this season for nuggets like these. Here’s hoping.

The surprise-sprinkled New York Film Critics’ Circle vote may have been the biggest news of a stacked precursor day yesterday, but as usual, stories of the voting conflicts behind the scenes are even more interesting than the results themselves. The most detailed report I’ve read comes from esteemed NYFCC member J. Hoberman, and it’s a fascinating read for awards geeks. While the winners list might suggest Best Picture was a close-run thing between “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Lincoln,” the latter actually didn’t even figure in the final three: “Argo” came in second and “The Master” took the bronze position, though neither film received any kind of consolation prize. Moreover, Steven Spielberg didn’t receive a single Best Director vote. Moral of the story: this remains anyone’s race, and hurrah for that. [Art Info]

Nominations for the ACCTA Awards — the Oscars of Australian film — bring good news for “Lore,” the country’s foreign-language Oscar submission, and the Weinsteins’ upcoming release “The Sapphires.” [Stale Popcorn]

Speaking of Aussies, Jacki Weaver — an underdog nominee two years ago, vying for a second for “Silver Linings Playbook” — talks about playing two very different kinds of mother hen. [Gold Derby]

Sundance has announced their 2013 Premiere selections, and will close things out with the Ashton Kitcher-starring Steve Jobs biopic “jObs.” [HitFix]

Ang Lee will receive the Harold Lloyd Award, the highest filmmaker honor given out by the International 3D Society, for “Life of Pi.” [The Race]

Looking over the range and reach of Kym Barett and Pierre-Yves Gayraud’s costume designs for “Cloud Atlas.” [Frocktalk]

Multi-Oscar-winning makeup master Rick Baker has received a well-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. [Below the Line]

Randee Dawn considers the actors in this year’s Oscar race who have been waiting a long time for their first nomination, including Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor. [Variety]

Pete Hammond examines the growing presence of independent films in the Best Animated Feature Oscar race. [Deadline]

Finally, The Guardian is revealing their Top 10 of 2012 one day at a time — and their #9 pick is one that cracked my own top five last year. [The Guardian] 

Amid today’s mad rush of awards activity, we almost forgot to mention the Satellite Award nominations. I confess I’ve never been sure entirely sure what these awards represent — they’re voted for by a group called the International Press Academy, but my knowledge ends there — but they’ve been cheerfully going their own way for 17 years now, annually coming up with one of the season’s more entertaining, eclectic nomination lists.

This year is no exception. Amid the predictable spread of mentions for the likes of “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook” — “Les Mis” leads with 10 nods, though director Tom Hooper was left out — are wildcard Best Picture nods for “Skyfall” and “The Sessions.” More interesting still are crossover nominations for some pretty out-there foreign fare.

I think it’s safe to say this is the only Best Director nomination Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk will be getting all season, while I’m pleased to see perhaps my favorite female performance of the year — Emilie Dequenne’s searing turn in Belgian Oscar hopeful “Our Children” — somehow cracking the Best Actress list. Keep doing your thing, Satellites, whatever that thing is.

The winners will be announced on December 16; full list of nominations below. 

One of the callbacks critics are noting vis a vis Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” is Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 political thriller “All the President’s Men.” Both films detail the minutiae of following a process to an end and how that end impacts the psyche of a nation, never shying away from inherent narrative bogging, unfussy in their visual vocabulary. It’s no surprise, then, that cinematographer Greig Fraser, who shot “Zero Dark Thirty” for Bigelow, finds such minutiae fascinating.

“I think the cinematography in ‘All The President”s Men’ is riveting, actually,” he says, calling from Pittsburgh where he’s currently shooting Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher.” “It”s like lots of offices and lots of fluorescents and all those things, but Gordon Willis is a master framer. He”s a master lighter. He wasn”t afraid to be so flat with the lighting in those offices because he knew, I think — I mean, I”m speaking for Gordon Willis here — but he knew that when you had the opportunity to have visual beauty then it would actually read stronger and it would be more influential in the overall feeling of the film.”

Which is an interesting comment to make, seeing as the procedural whole of “Zero Dark Thirty” — the story of one woman’s nearly decade-long slog through red tape, intelligence and politics to find the location of Osama bin Laden — eventually gives way to a gripping final act, staged with precision, arresting in its execution on every level of production. And it’s not that those final moments resonate for their “beauty,” but that they have such a strikingly unique visual signature compared to the rest of the film. The juxtaposition makes that final build to the raid on bin Laden’s Pakistan compound at the tail-end of “Zero Dark Thirty”‘s 160 minutes all the more exciting and invigorating.

Bigelow was looking for something a little more vital for the sequence. Having already settled on digital photography for the film, due to the format’s sensitivity to light, the director and DP talked a lot about night light, which Fraser says is a passion of his. And they really hoped to capture that, initially.

“If you go out into the middle of the desert right now with absolutely no ambience around you, your eyes can see,” he says. “On a moonless night, you can see. But it”s almost like you”re looking at an impressionistic painting. The rocks are soft edges and the mountains are kind of shapes on a dark horizon and tress are kind of blurry.  Things are soft. Not out of focus, but soft. It”s actually quite stunning and I applaud anyone who has that ability to go out and do that because you see the world in a very different way.”

Nevertheless, it’s a difficult look to capture. Shooting day for night — the process of simulating the look of night by underexposing film shot in daylight — was not something Bigelow wanted. The other way to approach it was to create a form of moonlight for the event, which in actuality took place on a moonless night for tactical reasons. That route, therefore, would have been inaccurate.

“This is one thing I will absolutely give credit to both Kathryn and to Mark [Boal] for,” Fraser says. “Their drive to be as realistic as possible in this film. I mean, it makes life hard for technicians like myself. But Kathryn would say, ‘We want to go real. We want the viewer to believe they”re in bin Laden”s front yard walking towards that front door as much as possible.'”

And so, ultimately, a night vision look was decided upon. The scene plays out largely in first-person perspectives from members of the SEAL Team Six squad that executed the mission. But Bigelow wanted something even more vital than the standard processes.

“There are different ways to do night vision,” Fraser says. “You can shoot it for real and put a green cast on it. That”s the most common way to do it. You can shoot it with a high ISO with lots of grain and a green filter. But Kathryn kind of went, ‘Well, why would we do that?’ And here I am cheering her on because it”s the hard path. It”s the path less known that we were trying to go down…to come up with something that was probably more realistic and visually more interesting than it would have been if we”d gone standard.”

What they decided on was infrared lighting. But that presented its own bag of problems because infrared is a military item and the production crew would have faced difficulty importing and exporting it to and from the overseas locations. So Fraser’s camera department found themselves taking the infrared LEDs from prop security cameras used by the art department in embassy scenes and mounting them to the camera (he shot on the Arri Alexa) with gaffer tape to light the sequence.

They then mounted night vision devices to the camera so that the lens could actually pick up the invisible light of the LEDs. The result is an entire sequence filmed in near-darkness (to the point that dailies would arrive for editor William Goldenberg with action that was impossible to make out to the naked eye prior to color-correction). But it had the sense of authenticity to it, which, as Fraser noted, was key for Bigelow and writer/producer Mark Boal.

Another element of the photography that had to be taken into account — given that Fraser operates the camera himself — was that the first-person material meant had to serve as an actor in a way. Each of the camera’s movements in those moments is specific, tailored to trained military personnel.

“It’s almost like robots,” he says. “Like aliens. That was one of the things early on that Kathryn and I discussed in terms of the way the camera should move…[The SEALs are] experts. They know exactly what they”re doing the same way you know exactly what you”re doing when you sit down at the typewriter and I know exactly what I do when I get behind a camera. You still have that degree of creativity and degree of things that change in every job, but they know exactly how they”re gonna behave. And we talked about the camera being the same way.

“The camera should never have felt outlandish or uncontrolled. It needs to feel human. And that, I guess, is the underlying principle of the way this camera moves. It”s human but controlled. So rarely did it ever go on a dolly. It was always generally on the shoulder. There were no zooms or running. The camera always just walked – a very methodical sort of simple pace.”

The cobbling together of all these elements for the sequence painted it in such stark contrast to the rest of the film’s aesthetic, but it was a delight for the cinematographer, who’s having a busy year with “Snow White and the Huntsman” and “Killing Them Softly” in addition to “Zero Dark Thirty.”

“It was very much a guerrilla-style shoot in most respects,” he says, “even though it had, you know, the weight of history behind it and we had the amount of days we needed to shoot this. Still, in some ways it felt very guerrilla, like we were a team going into a situation, achieving our goals and then quickly getting out.”

Still, he thinks more on that initial instinct, to capture night time the way the eye sees it, and how difficult it is to represent. But he notes the quickly evolving technology of the day, that when we first spoke three years ago about his work on “Bright Star,” the Arri Alexa was still but a pipe dream. And he’s hopeful that one day maybe he’ll satisfy his own quest.

“Night time is an elusive thing still for us to capture in all its beauty,” he says. “And, you know, you have films coming out like ‘Drive,’ for example, that captures amazing city nightlife in a way that hasn”t been done before. And ‘Collateral,’ that captured this light in a very unusual sort of way. It”s hard to find reference for desert night lighting. I found it really hard. And I”ll keep my eye on looking because I still want to get better at that craft.”

“Zero Dark Thirty” opens in limited release on December 19.

More good timing as the Academy has announced its shortlist of 15 advancing titles in the Best Documentary Feature race after Anne and I discussed the field at length on the podcast Friday. And it naturally figures that most of the films we talked about were not passed through.

The biggest omission to my eyes is “The Queen of Versailles,” one of the best films of the year — doc or narrative — period. Maybe they didn’t like that filmmaker Lauren Greenfield lucked into her story, but that film is of the moment and vital as all hell. Alas, this is to be expected. Great stuff is so often skipped over, and it appears the new rules and regs did little to alter that course.

Also left off the list: “West of Memphis,” which is just a travesty. I get worked up every year on this shortlist and I’ll try not to now, but Amy Berg’s film is a monument. Ditto “The Central Park Five,” which just won the New York Film Critics Circle prize for non-fiction film this morning and now has to deal with this.

Others I’d have liked to see make the cut include “Paul Williams Still Alive” and “Marley,” but, alas, it’s all the same as it ever was. Check out the full list below. I’ve put an asterisk next to the ones I currently expect to make the final five. But what do I know?

“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry”

“Bully”

“Chasing Ice”

“Detropia”

“Ethel”

“5 Broken Cameras”

“The Gatekeepers”*

“The House I Live In”

“How to Survive a Plague”

“The Imposter”*

“The Invisible War”*

“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God”*

“Searching for Sugar Man”*

“This is Not a Film”

“The Waiting Room”