Oscar night is known for its glamor. “Who are you wearing” becomes a popular question to ask nominees as they make their way down the red carpet. But on screen, clothes do more than make actors look good. They certainly do that, but they also tell us something about the characters who wear them. They reveal things, telling the story visually like every other element of a production.

More than any other category, period pieces tend to dominate here. In many years, all five titles could have been classified as period. While there is usually room for one or occasionally even two fantasy nominees, such titles are not as welcome here as in, say, Best Production Design. Moreover, contemporary films tend to be cited no more than a few times a decade. Indeed, no such film was nominated between 1994 and 2006! Within this realm of “period,” clothes which are foreign and/or exotic are especially welcome, as is royalty.

The branch certainly cites its favorite costume designers frequently enough. Even so, room is always made for at least one, and usually two or three, new nominees each year. Also, with a few notable exceptions — such as Sandy Powell and Colleen Atwood — it is rare for a costume designer to have more than three or four nominations.

One other important fact should be said about this category. Much like Best Makeup and Hairstyling, the branch tends to concentrate on the work, regardless of a film’s acclaim. While being a Best Picture nominee or crafts category behemoth, as always, is a bonus, it is not as helpful as in other categories. Dreadful and/or divisive films are frequently cited, and it is commonplace for at least one, if not two or three (as occurred last year), nominees to be the only nomination received by their films.

The one nomination this year that I”m confident can be taken to the bank is Jacqueline Durran for “Anna Karenina.” Having been nominated for both “Atonement” and “Pride & Prejudice,” Durran seems destined for her third nomination and potentially her first win for her latest collaboration with Joe Wright. This film has extremely showy costumes that are both period and foreign. And by all accounts the work is superb. Even the film”s detractors have nothing but praise for Durran”s achievement.

Durran is not the only two-time nominee named Jacqueline in the race this year as Jacqueline West designed the threads for Ben Affleck”s “Argo.” Previously cited for “Quills” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” West did an exceptionally good job of recreating the fashion of the late 1970s. The outlandish movie costumes were also a hoot. This led another recent 1970s-set Best Picture nominee to a somewhat surprising nomination here a few years ago: “Milk.” I”m not sure if “Argo””s designs will leave lasting memories but the work is very accomplished nonetheless and I expect the film to do very well with AMPAS.

Julie Weiss is another two-time nominee in the race. She recreated classic Hollywood in “Hitchcock.” The film isn”t loved but most people have found it enjoyable enough, and it highlights various elements of movie-making. I think it will struggle to find nominations outside its leading actors and makeup (and even those are far from assured), but if there was a fourth place I could see a nod, it would be here.

Keeping with this theme of two-time nominees for one more contender, I must mention Sharen Davis”s costumes for Quentin Tarantino”s “Django Unchained.” Nominated for both “Dreamgirls” and “Ray,” Davis will bring us back to 1800s America. Tarantino films always give designers opportunity to show their talents. Remarkably (or some would say pathetically), none of his films has made the final five in either Best Production Design or Best Costume Design. But I think this title has a good chance of changing that, especially if it is a hit. But even if not, the costumes may stick out. As I said, this branch doesn”t care about a film”s overall reception the way many others seem to.

Also set in the 1800s, albeit a continent away, is Tom Hooper”s “Les Misérables.” Not only is this potential crafts category sweeper appropriately period, but it also belongs to the musical genre, one of this branch”s favorites. Paco Delgado has made a name for himself in Spanish-language films and this could well be his first Oscar nomination. He”ll have to design for many classes in French society. I expect him to earn his first nomination, and I”d probably rank him behind Durran in terms of likelihood.

Also seeking a first nomination for an 1800s-set film is Joanna Johnston for Steven Spielberg”s “Lincoln.” Johnston has done great work over the past quarter-century with both Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis. On “Lincoln,” she showed us not only soldiers (whose uniformed nature tends to make getting a nomination in this category difficult) but also the political leaders and common people of the day. The work is still not as showy as others in contention. But I”d say it is still Johnston”s best chance to (finally) earn her first nomination.

Almost a century later in American history is Paul Thomas Anderson”s “The Master.” Clearly headed to multiple nominations in the acting categories and screenplay, the recreation of post-World War II America was helped immeasurably by Mark Bridges” superb yet never distracting costumes. Bridges won this award last year for “The Artist.” Even so, he had never been nominated before, despite having done outstanding work for years. So maybe his style doesn”t really tickle the branch”s fancy? We”ll see.

Eiko Ishioka is another one-time nominee/winner (“Dracula”) who has been snubbed in the past for exquisite work. Sadly, she passed away in January. Though this exceptional Japanese costume designer had already completed her work on “Mirror Mirror.” While I would normally say this film would be forgotten, untimely deaths can make crafts colleagues remember those they”ve wronged in the past. For instance, Marit Allen received her long overdue nomination posthumously for “La Vie en Rose.” So this Snow White tale could result in Ishioka”s final nomination.

Of course, that’s not the only Snow White adaptation this year. Colleen Atwood did typically brilliant work on “Snow White and the Huntsman.” Atwood is one of the staples of this category, with nine nominations and three wins to date. If this film can survive anywhere, expect it to be here. Even so, she isn”t nominated for everything – no costume designer is. Nor does Rupert Sanders command the respect that the directors of some other random nominees in this category have, such as Baz Lurhmann, Jane Campion or Julie Taymor. Despite these reservations, however, I believe Atwood is firmly in the running.

Atwood had to blend period and fantasy. Kym Barrett and Pierre-Yves Gayraud did the same on “Cloud Atlas.” In a panoply of eras, this duo created costumes that even detractors of the film have gone out of their way to praise. Barrett wasn”t nominated for her iconic work on “The Matrix” films, and Gayraud has also never been nominated despite doing superb work for over two decades. Even so, I can”t help but wonder if this will rectify that. The work is so memorable. The film”s flop status is a hindrance but, as I said earlier, that”s not devastating in this category.

I”ll end with a title that this site has been predicting for weeks in what is, in my opinion, an inspired call. “A Royal Affair” seems poised to be a major contender in the race for Best Foreign Language Film. As stated at the outset, this category loves period royalty. And it has an affinity for foreign work. I”m not saying a film like this could be “locked” in this category. But this strikes me as a strong contender.

Those are the top 11 players in my opinion. I could likely add more but most of these seem such strong contenders already. We”ll see what the Academy nominates in two months time. Who do you expect to see on top?

After “Les Mis” premiered last week, a lot of pundits — including our own Kris Tapley — installed the film as the Best Picture frontrunner, but I’m not so keen to jump the “Argo” ship. The potential Oscar narrative for Ben Affleck is an attractive one for his Academy peers, and he’s sure to receive a lot of honors and accolades over the next few weeks — beginning with the handy publicity boost of Entertainment Weekly’s Entertainer of the Year title. I’d have bet on Jennifer Lawrence taking that one, but this is a reminder of just how well-regarded Affleck is in showbiz circles: “Argo” producer George Clooney, naturally, leads the cheers in the magazine’s tribute to him. Lawrence is also featured in the issue, of course, alongside Anne Hathaway, Seth MacFarlane and Channing Tatum, all of whom have enjoyed similarly bang-up years. [EW]

In case you missed it, the Sundance competition lineup was announced yesterday, and Daniel Radcliffe is among its star attractions. [HitFix]

Nathaniel Rogers considers a Best Actress race that looks a lot more crowded now than it did at the start of the season. He’s also hearing Academy support for Emmanuelle Riva. Huzzah. [The Film Experience]

So, Matthew Vaughn has been confirmed as the Chosen One to direct the next “Star Wars” movie. Or not, as the case may be. [Cinema Blend]

Steve Pond looks over the high and low points in the colorful history of Oscar campaigning. [The Wrap]

“The Hobbit” may be under critical embargo after its premiere yesterday, but you can silence Twitter. Or Bryan Singer. [Screen Crush] 

R. Kurt Osenlund considers the Oscar prospects of “The Impossible,” which could still be a spoiler if Academy members see it in time. [Slant]

Here’s a list I can jive with: the greatest jackets in the movies. Astonishingly enough, Bane’s flea-market sheepskin coat doesn’t make the cut. [The Guardian]

Leo Barraclough examines the crossroads the European Film Awards find themselves at on their 25th anniversary. Look out for my coverage from Malta over the weekend, by the way. [Variety]

And to close on a solemn note, famed Broadway producer Martin Richards — who also won a Best Picture Oscar for “Chicago” — passed away earlier this week. RIP. [The Inquisitr]

There’s something to be said for not handing out lifetime achievement awards on an annual basis: when someone gets one, it’s because a voting body genuinely thinks an artist’s career merits the effort that goes such a tribute, and not just because they have a space to fill and that person’s number has come up.

The Directors’ Guild of America has been particularly stingy with their own top honor of late: the last recipient was Norman Jewison in 2010, and that came four years after the previous presentation, to Clint Eastwood. This year, the DGA has decided it’s in a generous mood again, and the beneficiary is a worthy one: 80-year-old Czech-born master Milos Forman.

Forman is, of course, already a two-time DGA winner, for the same films that netted him his pair of Oscars: “One Few Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975) and “Amadeus” (1984). Those remain his only films to have been recognized by the Guild, though he received a third nod from the Academy (and a third Golden Globe win) in the 1996 race for “The People Vs. Larry Flynt.” He’s one of only a dozen filmmakers to have won the DGA Award twice, and now the ninth member of that select group to receive the Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award. (The remaining three — Oliver Stone, Ang Lee and Ron Howard — can afford to wait.)

Anyway, enough with the stats: Forman’s movies make their own case for this honor. Not the most prolific of talents — in almost half a century, he’s made only a dozen theatrical features — he has nonetheless established himself as one of modern cinema’s wittiest, most fastidious humanists over a boutique-sized but eclectic filmography. His two Best Picture winners hold up well, with “Cuckoo’s Nest” earning extra distinction for having beaten arguably the most impressive lineup in Academy history. In my opinion, they’re not even his best films, but the tonal contrast between them — “Cuckoo’s Nest” all loping candor, “Amadeus” all porcelain irony — is as useful an indication as any of the reach and range of Forman’s filmmaking.

Those who haven’t explored his work far beyond those films — or the still-scorching bio-satire “Larry Flynt” — would do well to seek out the two Czech New Wave features, “Loves of a Blonde” and “The Firemen’s Ball” that made his name before he crossed over to the States. Both nominated for the foreign-language Oscar in the late 1960s. Both wry, sad examinations of community politics and personal discoveries and small-town Czechoslovakia — the latter film particularly pointed in its satirical jabs at Eastern European Communism — they remain remarkably bracing and precise.

His delicate touch remained intact abroad from 1971’s lovely “Taking Off” onwards, but I’d wager he never quite outdid that one-two breakthrough. (Or maybe that’s just my Czech blood talking.) Though he shot a filmed-theater piece for Czech television three years ago, he hasn’t completed a feature since 2006’s lesser effort “Goya’s Ghosts.” Coincidentally or otherwise, his last three films form a rough trilogy of ambitious reworkings of the biopic template, with “Flynt” and “Ghosts” sandwiching the 1999 Jim Carrey/Andy Kaufman film “Man on the Moon.” There was talk last year of him furthering that investigation with a biopic of influential fraudster Charles Ponzi; I don’t know where that project’s at right now, but here’s hoping he gets round to it.

Announcing the Lifetime Achievement Award today, DGA president Taylor Hackford stated “It is a tremendous privilege to present the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award for feature film to one of the greatest filmmakers of our time, Milos Forman. No matter what subject or genre he tackles, Milos finds the universality of the human experience in every story, allowing us – his rapt audience – to recognize ourselves within the struggle for free expression and self-determination that Milos so aptly portrays on the silver screen.”

The formidable list of previous Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, meanwhile, reads like this: Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Ingmar Bergman, Frank Borzage, Frank Capra, Francis Ford Coppola, George Cukor, Cecil B. DeMille, Clint Eastwood, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, James Ivory, Norman Jewison, Elia Kazan, Henry King, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, Sidney Lumet, Rouben Mamoulian, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Stevens, King Vidor, Orson Welles, William A. Wellman, Billy Wilder, Robert Wise, William Wyler and Fred Zinnemann.

Forman’s award will be presented at the DGA Awards dinner on February 2.

NEW YORK — Focus Features is rallying the discussion around its late-season arrival “Promised Land” with a press day on Monday and an intimate luncheon this afternoon at Aquavit on 59th. Stars/screenwriters Matt Damon and John Krasinski were on hand, as well as director Gus Van Sant.

By way of a brief synopsis, the film tells the story of a fracking company — Global — that comes to a small town in the form of Damon’s character and his associate, played by Frances McDormand. Their task is to offer money to the citizens for their land in order to drill for natural gas, and the justification is in poor economic times, their offer is a godsend. But what does it mean, beyond environmental ramifications, for a way of life to be shoved aside? That’s the question the film attempts to answer in some way.

Van Sant, it turns out, was also a late addition. After working on the script in 2011 with Krasinski, much of the work done while filming Cameron Crowe’s “We Bought a Zoo,” Damon had the project all prepped to be his directorial debut. But when the production schedule for Neil Blomkamp’s “Elysium” began to get too unruly for that to be a reality, he had to bow out, begrudgingly.

“That was the first time as a producer I yelled at Matt,” Krasinski said jokingly. “I was like, ‘You couldn’t tell me this a month ago?’ It was right before Christmas and my whole world just fell apart. I was like, ‘Well, that’s that.'”

But Damon had an ace up his sleeve, so before boarding a plane, he quickly threw a text to Van Sant, with whom he had collaborated on films like “Good Will Hunting” and “Gerry” in the past, and asked the director if he would read the script. Van Sant was happy to tackle it. He saw it as an opportunity to make his Capra movie, and indeed, the famed director of such films as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” was uttered by all three today.

“The Capra movies all have some rousing moment in the end when the character stands up for something,” Van Sant said. “That’s what I wanted.” But that’s not what was there originally, it should be noted. Without giving too much away, the script’s initial ending featured just one more crooked maneuver in a line of them, albeit a noble one. But Van Sant opted for something else, something broader, in the spirit of Mr. Capra — and yes, with a speech.

Krasinski first met Damon through his wife, actress Emily Blunt, who had worked with Damon on “The Adjustment Bureau.” Damon said that he was immediately impressed by the star of TV’s “The Office,” and that he reminded him of George Clooney. “For the longest time, everyone just knew Clooney from ‘ER,'” he said. “And then everyone said, ‘Why is Steven Soderbergh forming a company with the guy from ‘ER?’ And I think John is similar. He’s very talented.”

They knew that a film dealing with the issue of fracking was sure to be politicized, but their goal was to steer as far away from that as possible. The rhetoric leading up to release has been all about fracking being more of a backdrop for a story about shifting American values, and it’s not nonsense. That’s what “Promised Land” is, a tale of American identity and what of that identity people are willing to hold fast to, as well as what they are willing to relinquish.

“Matt’s been through the ringer with things being politicized,” Krasinski said. “He told me early on, ‘You know this is going to become a political thing.’ And that’s the last we said about it. A lot of it is just fact-based with no conservative or liberal agenda.”

Krasinski was passionate about writing the script largely because of his father, who grew up just 10 minutes away from the Pennsylvania filming location outside of Pittsburgh. He was a guy who grew up with no money, and yet that was okay. “He would say, ‘No, it was awesome,'” Krasinski recalled. And in an era when the American dream has become less about providing by efficient and humble means than about amassing the most wealth and status possible, that rings a certain note.

“I wrote this with him in mind,” Krasinski said. “He’d be on set and say, ‘We used to pick apples here.’ And it would blow my mind! I’m like, ‘Hang on, guys, I’m having this existential moment with my father.'”

Damon, meanwhile, said it was moreover a movie about democracy. “Corporations may be bigger than ever but the power still lies with the people,” he said. “So I think it’s a pro-community movie.”

Filming was completed in late May of this year and post-production moved along swimmingly. Van Sant said they finished it on October 1, in fact, “because Focus Features seemed to indicate that they needed it by then.” Assumably that’s because the studio felt they needed a little insurance in the awards season, as films like “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Anna Karenina” began to appear like tougher sells on the circuit. But at least the former has gotten indie traction.

Nevertheless, “Promised Land” is a film free of overly accented authorship from Van Sant, who has moved between that and intense stylization with ease throughout his career. It could find its stride in the onslaught of latter-year titles or it could be drowned out. But for this trio, it’s been a pleasure to tap into the spirit of a filmmaker who reflected the pulse of the American way for so many years.

“Promised Land” opens in limited release on December 28.

In case you were worried that Jennifer Lawrence is going a little under the radar this season, don’t worry: the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is taking care of the situation. Festival director Roger Durling announced yesterday that the 22 year-old actress will receive their Outstanding Performer of the Year honor of February 2, in recognition of her 2012 work in both “Silver Linings Playbook” and “The Hunger Games.” (“The House at the End of the Street” went unmentioned, though I assume that’s an oversight.) 

It’s an award that has a reliable habit of going to Oscar frontrunners. Previous recipients Colin Firth, Penelope Cruz, Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron all received the honor en route to their eventual Oscar wins, while Kate Winslet, Heath Ledger, James Franco and last year’s recipient Viola Davis were honored in years they were nominated by the Academy. (The only time the SBIFF selectors behind this award haven’t seen eye-to-eye with the Academy was with Angelina Jolie in 2007, who missed the Oscar cut for “A Mighty Heart.”)

Of course, this should be regarded as an award in itself, not merely grist for the Oscar mill. And while it hardly hurts that Lawrence is widely presumed to be in the driver’s seat for Best Actress — Jessica Chastain is now giving her some heat, though some wonder if her “Zero Dark Thirty” character is too remote for the win — she makes as much sense as anyone for a Performer of the Year citation, given the artistic range and industry impact she has shown between her two major films this year.

Plus, when you factor in the commercial connotations of the term “performer,” it feels right: “Silver Linings Playbook” may be the performance that’ll net her more honors, but it was her sturdy anchoring of the “Hunger Games” franchise-starter that announced her as a box-office player to be reckoned with. Whether or not she wins the Oscar (we know the Globe is hers, at least), she’s arguably the face of 2012 — and that’s with an Oscar nomination and established indie credibility already under her belt. The world is hers, and I’m happy with that. 

Durling agrees: “Ms. Lawrence impressed us earlier this year in The Hunger Games, but has now left us moonstruck with her career-defining performance in Silver Lining Playbook – recalling classic turns by Lombard, Stanwyck and Colbert. Naming her our Outstanding Performer of the Year is an understatement.” Some of you will doubtless call that hyperbolic praise, but I already invoked Stanwyck’s name in my own assessment of her “Playbook” performance, so I’m no position to talk.

As if the box-office numbers for “Life of Pi” over the weekend weren’t enough, Ang Lee has found himself honored with two very different accolades over the past 24 hours. First, the French Ministry of Culture presented the Taiwanese-born director with the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters for his contribution to the arts — an honor previously bestowed on such non-French filmmakers as Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg. While that was going on, it was also announced yesterday that Lee will receive that 2013 Filmmaker Award at the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ Golden Reel ceremony on February 17. MPSE president Bobbi Banks credited him with “continually break[ing] ground through the use of the latest technology both visually and sonically,” adding that in “Life of Pi,” “his use of Dolby Atmos guides audiences into the emotional intimacy of the sound experience.” Is it one to watch in the sound categories?

The world premiere of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is presently under way in New Zealand. Gotta love the Ian McKellen stand-in they found. [The Guardian]

Some may be questioning the validity of “Silver Linings Playbook” as an Independent Spirit nominee, but for David O. Russell, whose got a boost from the Spirits early in his career, it’s a happy homecoming. [The Vote] 

Anne Thompson contemplates the Oscar path ahead for Russell’s film, along with those of the Weinsteins’ mixed bag of prestige prospects this year. [Thompson on Hollywood]

Best Actress underdog Emayatzy Corinealdi has been having a good week: first a Gotham Award and now a Spirit nod for her work in “Middle of Nowhere.” She gets the David Poland video treatment. [Hot Blog]

Tom O’Neil talks to Kristen Stewart about what he sees as career-topping work in “On the Road.” (For my part, good as she is in the film, I think “Adventureland” remains her personal best.) [Gold Derby]

So, turns out Sam Mendes mightn’t have been the biggest name ever to steer a Bond movie: Spielberg wanted a crack at it in the 1970s, but got turned down. [Movieline]

Sasha Stone looks at the state of the race now that “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Les Mis” — which she’s not personally high on — have landed, and wonders what difference, if any, the currently embargoed reviews for the latter will make. [Awards Daily]

Kicking around “Liz and Dick” appears to be the latest online sport, but Karina Longworth takes the fairest stab: the film, she argues, isn’t bonkers enough to serve its bigger-than-reality subjects. [Slate] 

With “Casablanca” approaching its 70th anniversary, Martin Chilton takes its beautiful friendship as the starting point for a roundup of cinema’s greatest closing lines. [The Telegraph]

NEW YORK — Fox Searchlight Pictures held its annual east coast holiday party this evening at Andaz 5th Avenue with a nice second-floor spread with principals from the studio’s awards season hopefuls — “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Hitchcock” and “The Sessions” — on hand. Spirits were particularly high after “Beasts” and “Sessions” combined for six Independent Spirit Award nominations (with one each for “Ruby Sparks” and “Sound of my Voice”).

I was glad to finally meet “Hitchcock” director Sacha Gervasi, a charismatic guy who spoke with me about film critics baring their teeth and declaring that he “made up” the events of his film. I would posit that hero-worship may have gotten the better of many — like, say, Manohla Dargis, whose review basically refuted reporting done by her New York Times colleague John Anderson a week earlier. “It…takes extravagant liberties with the dead,” Dargis wrote. “Stephen Rebello, author of ‘Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho,’ the book on which ‘Hitchcock’ is partly based, interviewed many of Hitchcock”s collaborators on ‘Psycho’ and confirmed the film”s version of events,” Anderson wrote.

He was also particularly riled at the notion that his film is in some way spiteful of the masterful director. HitFix’s own Drew McWeeny proclaimed in his review, “Only someone who hates the filmmaker would endorse this mess,” for instance. “I have the utmost respect for Hitchcock,” Gervasi said. “This was made with love.”

Indeed, perhaps those who would have preferred hagiography will be a bit silenced when they hear it from people like “Psycho” script supervisor Marshall Schlom, who told Gervasi that his film “captured the warmth and the heart of the man I worked with.” Gervasi’s number one goal, though, was to tell the story of a woman — Hitchcock’s wife and collaborator Alma Reville — who has gone unsung for far too long.

But still, amid all this, the director won’t deny the usual dramatization. He noted (what should go without saying), “By the way, it’s a MOVIE.”

The last couple of days I keep bumping into “Beasts” director Benh Zeitlin at these things, and there’s only so many ways you can ask, “How are you handling all this?” It’s a haze for the guy, but he’s loosening up a bit. He marveled at how accustomed to the rhythms of the season his young star Quvenzhané Wallis has become, having observed her not only adapting to all of this since the film’s big Sundance bow in January, but also basically growing up amid the fray.

“She picks things up so quickly,” he said. “She just decided, ‘This is my job now. And I’m going to be good at my job.'” He expects Wallis will continue to work in the business, even though it’s a precarious position, to be a child actor. But he’s happy that her family doesn’t have plans to move to Hollywood and dive right in. And he has ideas for projects on which he’d like to collaborate with her in the future. “I’d like us to have a Kinski/Herzog thing,” he joked. We then pondered what on earth might one day be her “Woyzeck.”

Zeitlin also said he unfortunately hasn’t seen most of the other films in play this season, but the first one on his (and “Beasts” producer Dan Janvey’s) list of must-sees is “Zero Dark Thirty.” Indeed, Kathryn Bigelow’s film was the most-discussed of the week’s events amongst film journalists. It seems it’s brought up in every new conversation.

“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” screenwriter Ol Parker apparently sussed out who I was by hearing my voice as I passed (I assume he’s a listener of the podcast) and stopped me for a quick chat. There’s another lovely guy totally flummoxed by the intrigue of the season. “Wow, there’s my movie,” he said as one of the many television screens throughout the venue played a featurette on the film.

We chatted a bit about India and I expressed regret that a planned trip there next year might be put on hold. But he was extremely encouraging. “Just go,” he said, with nothing but wonderful things to recall about the Rajasthan film shoot. (Parker, by the way, is married to actress Thandie Newton. I had no idea.)

I didn’t get a chance to speak with “The Sessions” director Ben Lewin, who put a lot of heart into the film given that he is a polio survivor. Stars John Hawkes and Helen Hunt couldn’t make the trip but he’s as vital a face for such a personal work as anyone else.

Tomorrow many of these folks will be doing the same thing all over again as Searchlight has its annual WEST coast holiday party. More events like yesterday’s luncheon and face time with Academy members will surely be in the cards as phase one marches on. “Beasts” seems to be the big shot in the stable, and there’s hope that it can resonate and swing back around, particularly in the wake of things like the Indie Spirit nods and Gotham Awards.

One third-party publicist working on the film confided in me yesterday that he’s hopeful the screener will be a priority over the holiday. Me too.

Every year, the Independent Spirit Award nominations reveal American independent cinema to be a landscape where, to pinch Orwell’s well-worn line, some are more equal than others. The awards may idealistically present themselves as a union of Davids standing tall against the hulking big-studio Goliaths, but the cosy we’re-all-in-this-together front doesn’t ring true when the nominees show up the gaping class chasms that exist merely within the so-called indie sphere.

No one’s pretending a shoestring independent like “Middle of Nowhere” genuinely comes from the same stock as a starry mainstream entertainment like “Silver Linings Playbook”; these awards may ostensibly pitch them as fighting the same good fight, but they’re doing so against very different obstacles. 

All of which is to say that, as worthy of recognition as “Silver Linings Playbook” (or, if you prefer, “Moonrise Kingdom”) may be, the Spirit Awards are most useful when they shine a light on genuine fringe works that aren’t likely to receive many more accolades as the season unfolds. For a film like “Keep the Lights On,” for example, today’s Best Feature nomination represents a significant endgame in terms of attracting publicity and prospective viewers; for the Weinsteins’ Best Picture Oscar hopeful, meanwhile, it’s merely a handy notch on the bedpost.

Another name whose nomination today already represents a form of victory is Julia Loktev. When her challenging, much-admired but little-seen festival soldier  “The Loneliest Planet” popped up in the Best Director lineup — pushing indie veteran and Best Feature nominee Richard Linklater out of the running, to boot — Twitter lit up simultaneously with the delight of attuned critics and the confusion of awards enthusiasts still uninitiated in the film’s disquieting pleasures.

Frankly, this nomination would be surprising even if “The Loneliest Planet” were more widely seen: its gutsy, opaque, quasi-European sensibility doesn’t invite the approval of any mass voting body, let alone one with a notion of independence as qualifier-laden as that of the Spirits. It’s a nomination to celebrate, even if you find admiring the film at arm’s length.

Following on from the film’s similarly unexpected Best Feature nod at the Gotham Awards, this mini-surge of attention for a film that’s been quietly travelling the festival circuit for over a year has me eager for a return visit: some parts of Loktev’s starkly designed relationship drama have gnawed at me since our first encounter at the IndieLisboa festival back in April, others remain elusive. Such is the unstable place the film occupies in my memory that I’d forgotten I actually reviewed it. It took a reader to point me back to my own review, buried under an unspecific headline — so today seems a good occasion to repurpose it:

“At London last autumn, I heard precious little chatter about “The Loneliest Planet” (B+), a gutsy, ostentatiously forbidding relationship drama from Russian-American writer-director Julia Loktev that also took top honors at last year”s AFI Fest; at Lisbon, promoted to big-ticket status via more streamlined programming, it more readily invites your attention.

It deserves it, too: existing at a kind of twilit international meeting point between US mumblecore and the so-called “slow cinema” that Eastern European filmmakers, especially, have lately brought into arthouse fashion, Loktev”s third feature is a testy, deceptively languorous exercise in nerve, pivoting on essential narrative micro-incidents that belie the scale of both its setting and its filmmaking: not unlike Kelly Reichardt”s “Meek”s Cutoff,” this a story of humanity made smaller by the comparative vastness of the elements.

Those elements, in this case, belong to the intimidatingly verdant Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, where chipper, nearlywed American couple Alex and Nica (Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg) are spending the summer hiking – the film”s title, as well as implying man-versus-nature disparities, is a cruelly funny dig at the chummy, youth-oriented series of travel guides that have sent countless well-meaning trustafarians backpacking. With hulking local Dato (first-time actor Bidzina Gujabidze) hired to guide them through this tricky terrain, they set off in a gung-ho spirit that predictably dwindles with each rough-sleeping night, making an advance honeymoon into a critical relationship test – one Alex subconsciously and rather drastically fails during a fraught altercation with some threatening mountain residents.

His error, best left unspecified here, is never articulated or analyzed by any of the principals; nor, smartly, does Loktev choose to dwell on its gender politics. What it does prise open, however, is the audience”s curiosity and eventual scepticism as to the raw material of their relationship and the value of their future marriage – placed far outside an everyday social context, Alex and Nica not only have very little in common, but also exhibit few productive differences. Dato is with the audience in this observation, though his attempts to exploit the tension between them are as regressively misguided as Alex”s initial offense.

Loktev allows this subtly fascinating moral disconnect to fracture and fester over gruellingly long take after gruellingly long take, her wind-whipped camera and rattling sound design ensuring the physical demands of this vacation are no less precisely conveyed than the emotional ones. The actors, for their part, suffer it well. Bernal”s puppyish qualities, by turn winsome and petulant, are cleverly used, but Furstenberg is the revelation here, her faintly put-on girlishness making it difficult to decipher the character”s wall of pet neuroses from, when it arrives, her genuine panic. It”s this kind of bruised turn “The Loneliest Planet” needs to temper filmmaking that, however dazzlingly accomplished, can be a little too satisfied with its barriers. Often brilliant, often boring, often at once, Loktev”s film should remain a valuable conversation piece.”

Have you seen “The Loneliest Planet?” Are you surprised and/or pleased by its success with the Gotham and Spirit voters? Let us know in the comments. 

The season’s first major precursor nominations (sorry, Gotham Awards) have landed and, as usual, the Independent Spirit Awards have given the biggest boost to the biggest indies, amplifying the Oscar buzz they already had. It’s no surprise, then, to see the Weinsteins’ “Silver Linings Playbook” and Focus Features’ “Moonrise Kingdom” leading the field with five nods apiece.

However, while the former’s Best Picture Oscar nod was already a sure thing, the haul for “Moonrise,” coming on the heels of its Gotham triumph last night, raises the question of whether Wes Anderson’s nostalgic bauble, earmarked by most pundits chiefly as a screenplay contender, can crack the Academy’s top field.

Fox Searchlight’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is close behind with four nods including Best Feature, keeping its Best Picture campaign nicely on track. Also landing a top nod was Richard Linklater’s well-liked “Bernie” — that won’t do much for its Academy profile, but it’s a popular choice. The biggest surprise, and a welcome one at that, is seeing Ira Sachs’ delicate gay romantic drama “Keep the Lights On” in the Best Feature category, with three other major nominations to boot.

The Best Director field mirrors the Best Feature field — with the exception of Linklater, who sits out for “The Loneliest Planet” helmer Julia Loktev, in another small victory for lower-profile independent cinema. I’d expected to see a different female director, “Middle of Nowhere” helmer Ava DuVernay, in her place, though DuVernay did feature on the John Cassavetes Award shortlist for outstanding low-budget productions, while “Nowhere” nabbed an impressive trio of acting nods.

Elsewhere in the acting categories, Oscar hopefuls Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Quvenzhane Wallis, John Hawkes and Helen Hunt are all present and correct. Given the overall love for “Silver Linings,” some will be surprised to see Robert De Niro missing from the Best Supporting Actor race, though the Spirits routinely omit at least one surefire Oscar contender to little after-effect. 

One A-list star who certainly wasn’t forgotten, however, is Matthew McConaughey, who managed a pair of nominations: Best Actor for “Killer Joe” and Best Supporting Actor for “Magic Mike.” He’s the only mention for either film, while some will question the latter’s independent status, so the Spirit voters are clearly high on the actor’s recent career revival. This keeps hope alive for what would be a most deserving Oscar nod for “Magic Mike” — fingers crossed.

Finally, in a high-quality Best Actress field that puts to shame all those pundits talking about the “weakness” of the category, it’s thrilling to see Linda Cardellini score a nod for her remarkable work in the microbudget February release “Return.” I recently wrote about her self-financed Oscar campaign for her work — it’s nice to see this grassroots effort taking hold.

Others will chime in with more analysis soon. For now, however, here’s the full list of nominations:

Best Feature
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“Bernie”
“Keep the Lights On”
“Moonrise Kingdom”
“Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Director
Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Ira Sachs, “Keep the Lights On”
Julia Loktev, “The Loneliest Planet”
Wes Anderson, “Moonrise Kingdom”
David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best Actor
Jack Black, “Bernie”
Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”
John Hawkes, “The Sessions”
Thure Lindhardt, “Keep the Lights On”
Matthew McConaughey, “Killer Joe”
Wendell Pierce, “Four”

Best Actress
Linda Cardellini, “Return”
Emayatzy Corinealdi, “Middle of Nowhere”
Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “Smashed”

Best Supporting Actor
Matthew McConaughey, “Magic Mike”
David Oyelowo, “Middle of Nowhere”
Michael Peña, “End of Watch” 
Sam Rockwell, “Seven Psychopaths”
Bruce Willis, “Moonrise Kingdom”

Best Supporting Actress
Rosemarie DeWitt, “Your Sister’s Sister”
Ann Dowd, “Compliance”
Helen Hunt, “The Sessions”
Brit Marling, “Sound of My Voice”
Lorraine Toussaint, “Middle of Nowhere”

Best Screenplay
Ira Sachs, “Keep the Lights On”
Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, “Moonrise Kingdom”
Zoe Kazan, “Ruby Sparks”
Martin McDonagh, “Seven Psychopaths”
David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”

Best First Feature
“Fill the Void”
“Gimme the Loot”
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
“Safety Not Guaranteed”
“Sound of My Voice”

Best First Screenplay
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, “Celeste and Jesse Forever”
Rama Burshtein, “Fill the Void”
Jonathan Lisecki, “Gayby”
Christopher Ford, “Robot and Frank”
Derek Connolly, “Safety Not Guaranteed”

Best Documentary
“The Central Park Five”
“How to Survive a Plague”
“The Invisible War”
“Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present”
“The Waiting Room”

Best Foreign Film
“Amour”
“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”
“Rust and Bone”
“Sister”
“War Witch”

Best Cinematography
Ben Richardson, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Roman Vasyanov, “End of Watch”
Lol Crawley, “Here”
Robert Yeoman, “Moonrise Kingdom”
Yoni Brook, “Valley of Saints”

Best International Film
“Amour”
“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”
“Rust and Bone”
“Sister”
“War Witch”

John Cassavetes Award
“Breakfast With Curtis”
“The Color Wheel”
“Middle of Nowhere”
“Mosquita y Mari”
“Starlet”

Robert Altman Award
“Starlet”

Truer Than Fiction Award
“Leviathan”
“Only the Young”
“The Waiting Room”

Someone to Watch Award
Rebecca Thomas, “Electrick Children”
Adam Leon, “Gimme the Loot”
David Finker, “Pincus”

Producers’ Award
“Nobody Walks”
“Prince Avalanche”
“Stones in the Sun”

It sure feels like a long time ago that Fox Searchlight announced it was releasing “Hitchcock” in 2012 and multiple Oscar pundits adjusted their Best Picture charts: the film’s detractors keep growing in number, some offended, others merely bored. (I haven’t had an opportunity to see it yet.) One of the best pieces for the prosecution I’ve read comes from Scott Tobias, who uses his issues with the film as a springboard for a discussion about the problem with artist biopics in general: they tend to be so much more conventional than the figures they’re about, and “any scene that fails to illuminate the creative process is more banal than trivia.” He cites “Topsy-Turvy” and “32 Short Films About Glenn Gould” as examples of films that successfully dodge the “Wiki-movie” pitfalls of the artist biopic; I’d add “I’m Not There” and “Before Night Falls,” among others. [A.V. Club]

Always nice to welcome a smart new voice to the Oscar-blogging fray: the excellent Joe Reid is covering the season for Film.com and kicks off with column explaining why the awards slog is ultimately good for us. [Film.com] 

Ian Sandwell looks into why even a nomination for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar makes a world of difference to distributors and bean-counters. [Screen]

While others are going full steam ahead with Best Picture predictions for “Les Mis,” Jon Weisman is a little more cautious: it can win, he says, but has “enough bumps and bruises to hurt it.” [The Vote]

Also unconvinced is Steve Pond, and not just because he was personally left cold by much of the film: he remembers that “Dreamgirls” also premiered to a rapturous response. [The Wrap] 

Meanwhile, with many of her colleagues reaching for newer, shinier toys, Sasha Stone restates the case for “Argo.” [Awards Daily]

India will be next year’s “guest country” at the Cannes Film Festival, following Brazil this year and Egypt in 2011. I was at Cannes both years and confess I have no knowledge of this tradition, but it sounds good. [Hollywood Reporter]

Mary Ann Skweres talks to editor William Goldenberg (who’s shooting for two Oscar nods this year) about his work on “Argo.” [Below the Line]

Amy Kaufman talks to Cheryl Cohen Greene, the  real-life sex surrogate played by Helen Hunt in “The Sessions.” [LA Times]

Empire magazine votes “The Avengers” the best film of 2012. I am an occasional contributor, but I had no part in this. [Twitter]

NEW YORK — The Gotham Awards at Cipriani Wall Street were a first for me this evening. Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Jack Black, Mark Duplass, Melanie Lynskey, David O. Russell, Marion Cotillard, all on hand to ring in the season with the first (real) awards show of the year.

There’s very little I could add that Greg didn’t already cover in his live-blog of the awards, New York’s answer to the Independent Spirit Awards. I sat, I ate, I endured Mike Birbiglia (hey, he tried). “Moonrise Kingdom” was the big winner as “The Master” got nowhere (and looks to be going nowhere fast in the awards race unless a critics group or two speaks up fast).

I was very happy for documentary winner “How to Survive a Plague,” which will be discussed at length along with other docs in the race in Friday’s podcast. But the rest felt like my screener pile awards, because other winners — “Middle of Nowhere,” “Your Sister’s Sister” — and nominees — “Safety Not Guaranteed,” “Hello, I Must Be Going” — are sitting over there on the shelf, waiting for me to see them. And I will.

These early awards do a decent enough job of that, helping voters narrow down their stacks. And Focus should be delighted that “Moonrise Kingdom” will get a glance now, as their slate is sorely in need of a thoroughbred. Maybe they’ll circle the wagons on that one.

Tomorrow brings the Independent Spirit Award nominees, which will breathe wind into the sails of a number of other contenders. Who’ll benefit? Perhaps “Beasts of the Southern Wild” can come on strong after being squeezed out of the Best Feature category at the Gothams. We’ll see.

Check out the full list of Gotham Award winners below.

Best Feature
“Moonrise Kingdom”

Best Documentary
“How to Survive a Plague”

Best Ensemble Performance
“Your Sister’s Sister”

Breakthrough Director
Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Breakthrough Actor
Emayatzy Corinealdi, “Middle of Nowhere”

Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You
“An Oversimplification of Her Beauty”

Bingham Ray Award
Benh Zeitlin

Tributes
Marion Cotillard
Matt Damon
David O. Russell
Jeff Skoll

With awards season now unavoidably under way — the Oscar nominations are just over six weeks away, if you can get your head around that — I’m facing the possibility of another year where few of my personal favorites are in the hunt. Of course, I have yet to see the likes of “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Les Misérables” or even “Lincoln”: I could fall in love with any one of them, as so many others have, and thus have something to root for as fervently as I did “The Hurt Locker” a few years ago. For now, however, the projected Best Picture roster and the early drafts of my 2012 Top 10 mostly appear poles apart. 

Which is all the more reason to get invested in the finer details of the race: the narrow openings and blind spots that could benefit less expected films in less keenly scrutinized categories. Be it last year’s Best Sound Editing nod for “Drive,” a Costume Design mention for “Bright Star” or an Original Song bid for “Dancer in the Dark” — making Lars von Trier an Oscar-nominated songwriter, if nothing else — I’ve come to treasure isolated votes of Academy approval for adored outsiders. Such nominations are almost comical in how inadequately they represent the films’ qualities, but there’s something perversely satisfying about seeing these largely uninvited Cinderellas turning up at the dance after all. And the outlier I’m rooting for most this year? “Holy Motors.” 

On the face of it, it’s patently absurd to mention Léos Carax’s dizzy French odyssey into (and out of) dreams, performance and the director’s own particular cinematic obsessions in the same sentence as the Academy Awards. Taken as a collective, the Academy wouldn’t touch this surrealist crazy-quilt with a bargepole, and that’s if they even bothered to see it in the first place. Taken as a collection of independent and independent-minded entities, however, the Academy offers rather more leeway to Carax’s film: if not for the director and his virtuoso leading man Denis Lavant, then with two of the Academy’s least predictable technical branches.  

In a recent Oscar Talk pocast, Kris touched on the possibility of a Best Makeup & Hairstyling nomination for the film — which would certainly be appropriate recognition, given that the entire film is predicated on the notion of diguise. Not only does the film show us Lavant’s shape-shifting protagonist taking a multitude of forms, from a bent-backed crone to a flame-haired Rumpelstiltskin of sorts, but it repeatedly lets us in on the process of his metamorphosis, as Lavant applies, removes and switches his transformative prosthetic layers.

It’s as direct and lovingly reflective a showcase of the makeup artist’s craft as anything we’ve seen in recent years, and I couldn’t agree more with Kris’ assertion that the film deserves to take the makeup Oscar in a walk. He currently has it in the Top 10 on the category’s Contenders page — and though the competition is unusually stiff this year, I like its chances of reaching the bakeoff stage.

Though Gerard didn’t mention the film in his recent Tech Support survey of the category, he correctly pointed out how open-minded this branch is to foreign-language fare, and not just high-profile contenders like “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Sea Inside” and “La Vie en Rose”: “Il Divo” was a delightfully improbable nominee a few years back, while “Gainsbourg” made the bakeoff last year. It wouldn’t be a shock to see them stump for “Holy Motors.”

More surprising would be a nomination for Best Original Song. Yet in a category that goes out of its way to surprise us every year, I’m not going to count out the possibility — not least because “Holy Motors” boasts one of the best, and most evocatively incorporated, original tunes of the year. Performed on screen by Kylie Minogue in the film’s most romantically melancholic set piece, “Who Were We” is a swirling, semi-narrative pop aria that, in its lush orchestration and wistful emotional undertow, hearkens back to 1960s-era Michel Legrand. If you haven’t seen the film, you can get a brief taste of its on-screen context in the clip below.

Set in an abandoned department store, it’s the kind of isolated scene that could play well in the music branch’s viewing-and-voting process, if submitted for consideration. Indeed, with its impact wholly self-contained, it could positively benefit from voters not seeing the rest of the film. And once more, this branch has been kinder than most to foreign films in recent years — a lot of people hadn’t even heard of “Paris 36” before it turned up in this category three years ago — while the fact that the song itself is in English lends this exotic contender a best-of-both-worlds quality. On the flip side, it’s lyrically a bit spare for their tastes, on top of its more obvious long-shot qualifications.

Still, we can hope. After getting ignored by the Cannes jury and missing even the longlist for the European Film Awards (which, incidentally, I’ll be covering from Malta this weekend), Carax’s very odd duck is quite used to sitting out the awards game — which would make a bolt-from-the-blue Oscar nod or two all the sweeter.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga794Gsgiwk&w=640&h=360]

NEW YORK — How do you bring an indie darling back around when the season is filling up with quality work of the “Oscar” sort? Well, you do whatever you can, and for Fox Searchlight and “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” it started with an intimate luncheon at Tomate Rouge this afternoon on 60th Street.

Many Academy members turned out to meet and great filmmaker Benh Zeitlin, writer Lucy Alibar and especially young actress Quvenzhané Wallis. Composer Dan Romer was also on hand, along with a number of the film’s producers. Directors Julian Schnabel and Albert Maysles turned out as well as actors such as Joe Pantoliano, Dennis Christopher, Robert Wuhl, Celia Weston and Delroy Lindo, among others.

Zeitlin was excited to be able to speak with so many fellow artists who had seen his film. It’s part of the campaign circuit he hasn’t really dealt with yet as the season is really just now ramping up and events like this are becoming more and more common. Maysles in particular was a heart-stopper for him. “He’s sitting there telling Godard stories,” Zeitlin told me with a bit of awe in his voice.

Wallis was seated at my table, her mother diligently at her side as ever. She’s 9-years-old now but was 6 at the time of filming, and she’s as charming as ever. Weston and Christopher fawned over the young star and Weston cutely explained which fork to use for the salad. She and Pantoliano told Wallis that they were just a couple of “old actors” who had been in many films. “You don’t look that old,” Wallis exclaimed. “Oh, you’re looking for an Oscar nomination,” Pantoliano quipped.

Separately, Christopher explained to me how humbled he was at the opportunity to work with “a director in his prime,” which he was afforded by starring in Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” this year. He gushed over the director, noting that he was confused when he first got the script. “I’ve been cold in the business for years,” he said. But Tarantino even re-wrote the part for Christopher’s age, which just lit the actor up. “He’s the tits as far as I’m concerned,” he said. Perhaps another resurrection of a sort? Christopher’s big moment was “Breaking Away” over 30 years ago.

Swinging back to “Beasts,” the film is in an interesting spot. Searchlight’s other films — “The Sessions,” “Hitchcock” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” — didn’t end up having the stuff to make big pushes for Best Picture this year, but “Beasts” could. It was conspicuously absent from the Best Feature category at the Gothams, which will be held this evening, though it did receive breakthrough recognition for Zeitlin and Wallis. Still, if the studio has a player, this is it. Tomorrow’s holiday party will bring more face time for its principals (and for those of the other films), as will Wednesday’s in Los Angeles.

For Zeitlin, though, it’s all about maintaining a foothold amid the whirlwind. “This is amazing,” he told me, looking around the posh restaurant. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

I never much cared for the term “Oscar bait,” at least the consistency with which it’s tossed around and the connotation it carries. (Though I’m well aware we launched a feature recently called just that.) Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t believe anyone sits down to map out an Oscar movie. It’s turning evening, you’re chasing the light, the crew’s tired, you have tomorrow’s schedule to iron out…the last thing you’re thinking about are the awards prospects of your project. And I think anyone who feels differently hasn’t spent much time on film sets.

Beyond that, it just seems to me a disdainful way to diminish or discredit films of a certain ilk. Biopics, “issue” films, projects shrouded in the prestige of respected and/or previously awarded source material or high-caliber acting ensembles, they signal something for many — a red flag. Which is odd, but maybe that speaks to the track record of such projects more than the inherent thing of it all. So it’s with hesitation that I even begin to say this, but 2012 seems to be the year the “Oscar bait” got good.

I’m leaving the term in quotes. It’s still an unfair narrowing of consideration, but nevertheless, look at the work itself. “Lincoln,” for instance. Steven Spielberg taking on American political history and the nation’s most celebrated Commander-in-Chief? It’s bizarre to think that things have come to a process by which a project such as this is faulted in some circles from the outset simply for being the sort that might be presumed a no-brainer success sight-unseen. Follow that? And yet here’s the thing: It’s great! And that ends up being the surprise.

Funny.

The overall concept is illustrated by the fact that “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is so undervalued going into the last month of the year. It feels like a former fantasy quarterback stud who never gets drafted in the early rounds anymore. But maybe this is the year he throws for 5,000 yards and 45 touchdowns.

So let’s start with “Lincoln.” It’s widely acclaimed. It’s box office gold (sure to threaten $150 million — think on that). Some might disagree, but most don’t, so the generalization is fair: It’s Spielberg’s finest hour in years. I’m quite the fan, eager to see it again (if it’s not sold out). But look at it on paper and cynicism jumps in. “Oh, that’s Oscar bait.” Well, regardless, it’s good!

How about another big frontrunner, Ben Affleck’s “Argo?” A zeitgeisty tale of nations coming together to avert international tragedy. The next step in an evolution for a filmmaker establishing himself — and proving himself — with every new endeavor. Sounds too good to be true, so naturally, it must be a cloying re-imagination of history. Well, it’s actually a riveting piece of craftsmanship. The same could be said of its distant cousin in the race, “Zero Dark Thirty.”

My feelings on it aside, look at “Silver Linings Playbook.” By-the-book romantic comedy. But beloved as a deeper realization of that, a penetrating piece that rises past the low-set bar.

Even “Amour,” some of Michael Haneke’s most accessible work — a story of age, love, life’s autumn — seems like a love letter to the Academy, right? But naturally, it’s more than that with Haneke at the wheel, and one of the richest experiences of the year. Interestingly, Haneke’s Sony Pictures Classics stable mate, Jacques Audiard, plays convention in a unique key with “Rust and Bone” this year.

With “Anna Karenina,” Joe Wright takes Tolstoy to a creative visual place. With “The Impossible,” J.A. Bayona taps his genre sensibilities for a singular portrayal of endurance in the face of tragedy. With “Promised Land,” Gus Van Sant gets completely out of the way to tell a dialed-down, humble yarn about American values (though some aren’t as favorable). And with the newly unveiled “Les Misérables,” Tom Hooper uniquely captures the spine-tingling emotion of a source’s stage roots.

But weren’t they just supposed to be by-the-numbers pieces of “Oscar bait?” Films easily consumable with the ability to pluck the right strings? Not to refrain but, well, regardless…they’re good!

So it’s little surprise that the fall films — spread over that period of time each year usually reserved for “Oscar bait” — look to have produced the frontrunner in every major category. (Though I can’t quite figure out what to make of Best Supporting Actor at the moment.) The films are GOOD.

Mixed in all of this, by the way, is a lot of balls. Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal had balls to track down the facts and give us a film like “Zero Dark Thirty.” Ang Lee had balls to learn 3D on the job and give us a film like “Life of Pi.” Paul Thomas Anderson had balls to drill down deeper into his new aesthetic and give us a film like “The Master.” The Wachoskis and Tom Tykwer had balls to put their heads together and give us a film like “Cloud Atlas.” Benh Zeitlin had balls to let his imagination run rampant and give us a film like “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” So while the “Oscar bait” is surprisingly impressive this season, so are the bigger leaps of faith.

It’s a damn good year for movies. I pity all of us soon to sit down and settle on 10 to reflect it. And we’re not even finished yet.

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

I had never heard of Guy Fieri until a few days ago, so I have no dog this fight, but I’m interested in how the media kerfuffle over a single scathing restaurant review has opened up a conversation on critical boundaries and responsibilities in all fields. The New York Times, who ran the offending review to begin with, has fed back into it with a piece by Margaret Sullivan on the necessity of what she terms the “exuberant pan” — the review that zestily takes no prisoners in shooting down a creative endeavor, whether it’s a film or a diner. Having written a few such pans myself — I’m likely never going to be on Madonna’s Christmas card list, nor Julie Taymor’s — I side with Sullivan: criticism is an artform itself, with no place for bland prose or tempered honesty, but the harshest words should be, in her words, “an arrow reached for only rarely.” [New York Times]  

Tom Shone on why an Oscar race filled with po-faced frontrunners really, really needs “Silver Linings Playbook.” [The Guardian]

Academy president Hawk Koch introduced a Friday screening of “Les Miserables,” quoting one of the Oscar producers as predicting multiple nominations for the film — an endorsement rival executives are dismissing as “bullshit.” [The Wrap]

David Hudson comprehensively rounds up critical reactions so far to “Zero Dark Thirty.” [Fandor]

A second link to the Gray Lady today, but this interactive feature on the sound design of “Killing Them Softly” is a must for audio geeks. [New York Times]

Oscar hopeful “Searching for Sugar Man” won the Audience Award at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam this weekend. [Screen]

Nathaniel Rogers looks at the Best Actor race, and wonders if Hugh Jackman can become the first male performer in 40 years to win for a musical. [The Film Experience]

Makeup artist Lois Burwell talks about the process of turning Daniel Day-Lewis into Abraham Lincoln. Will she be Oscar-nominated for her pains? [Gold Derby]

While “Rise of the Guardians” disappointed, robust numbers of “Twilight,” “Skyfall,” “Lincoln” and “Life of Pi” suggest Americans were thankful for the movies this weekend. [Box Office Mojo]

Anthony Hopkins talks “Hitchcock,” as well as his upcoming work in Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah.” [IndieWire]

When Kathryn Bigelow walked away with honors for Best Picture and Best Director at the 2009 Academy Awards, she was the little guy. The narrative was David vs. Goliath as James Cameron’s “Avatar” was the big dog on campus, the money-guzzler, “the future.” This year things are a little different.

“Zero Dark Thirty” arrives amid a cloud of secrecy. Columbia Pictures — and Bigelow and Mark Boal — have been very careful about what is and isn’t known about the film, which details the near-decade-long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden. Even the particulars of Jessica Chastain’s character had been held somewhat close to the chest. But enough peek-a-boo.

The film is as clinical as they come, a 160-minute procedural. It details Chastain’s “Maya,” what may be a slight composite but is in all likelihood “Jen,” the woman recently heralded by the member of Seal Team Six who wrote a book about the final raid on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound. She came into the CIA young, entered the Bin Laden case early and did nothing else until he was confirmed dead.

And that’s literally all we know about her. This character is a machine. No back story. No real life outside of her work. We know nothing…just that she’s passionate. That either works or it doesn’t, depending on your point of view. On one hand, Boal isn’t doing a puff magazine profile here. This isn’t even shoe-leather reporting — it’s BOOT-leather reporting, and he’s managed journalism by way of the cinema in a brilliant way here. It’s a gift, really, to have so thorough an examination of these events.

On the other hand, one might prefer something to grab onto with the character, a greater sense of dimension, so that maybe the tear that streaks down her face in the film’s final shot — I don’t think this is a story that can be spoiled; we got him, y’all — might mean something more. But I submit that moment of release might not be hers alone. It might be a nation’s.

The rest of the cast fills out very nicely, an organic ensemble with highlights from Jason Clarke and Mark Strong in particular. Kyle Chandler and Edgar Ramirez are judiciously used and to good effect. When James Gandolfini shows up, it’s pitched just right. Jennifer Ehle, though not in the film for long, adds her own spark.

But Chastain is at the center. It’s her eyes we’re meant to see this story through. It’s her progression we’re meant to absorb (my wife noted to me the subtle changes in her hair over the years, from soft and wavy to straightened and serious to drawn back in a tight bun with aggression). And as driven as she is in the role, it’s still a role lacking a certain humanity. She’s The Terminator. But, again, this isn’t a puff piece. It’s cut, dry, facts.

Formally, the film is mostly paced out well. It starts to bog down in the middle but that’s by nature of what’s going on here. A lot of this stuff is inherently dull and repetitive. But that’s also kind of the point. When it starts mounting, however, the film builds masterfully, and to a final sequence that will rightly have you gripping the armrests of your chair.

Oscars? I mentioned to a colleague who’s over the moon and thinks it’s assured a spot in the Best Picture category that you might be hard-pressed to find another nominee this sterile. “All the President’s Men” might be a template. (Might.) It’s not a film of overt emotion…I’m tip-toeing too much there. It’s not a film of emotion at all, really, beyond that aforementioned moment. Even when tragedy strikes, the hunt just continues on. And, again I submit, that’s probably the point. I just wonder if that is the kind of movie that manages a Best Picture nomination, or whether the formal aspects and the nature of the film’s story are enough to get it there.

Bigelow’s direction is as crisp as ever. I still feel “The Hurt Locker” has more overall resonance, particularly thematically, but this is some top-notch work. I was reminded of “Black Hawk Down” a couple of times, not because of intense action scenes (it’s not that kind of movie), but for how high the level of difficulty is when you’re navigating material such as this.

Chastain is poised to enter the Best Actress race, sure. She might threaten a win, she might not. I’ll be interested to see how this dense, long film is received overall before really committing an opinion on that. But throughout the crafts, you could see respect paid. The film editing, the production design, the sound, all crucial.

And so the season marches on. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” will screen by week’s end, with “Django Unchained” landing sooner than anticipated, in the first week of December (unless, of course, waves of screenings are again cancelled due to it not being ready). We’re almost there. Just about every trip to the theater this season has been a positive experience in some way. Will that trend continue?

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

NEW YORK — “Happy Thanksgiving,” director Tom Hooper said by way of introduction to an Alice Tully Hall packed with guild and Academy members this afternoon. He was on hand to present his latest film, an adaptation of the musical “Les Misérables,” his first effort since the Oscar-winning “The King’s Speech” two years ago and one of the awards season’s most anticipated titles.

The film had screened for Screen Actors Guild Nominating Committee members earlier in the morning, but Hooper nevertheless made the crowd feel special with a little white lie. “In case you feel you’re slow to the party, you are the first audience to see the film,” he said. “We finished it at 2am yesterday.”

Being that it’s Thanksgiving week, Hooper — a Brit who noted that he went to his first Thanksgiving dinner last night and “learned the ritual of saying what we’re thankful and grateful for” — said he was mostly grateful to have finished in time for today. The pressure is on in the shortened phase one window for studios to get their contenders out there ASAP, and indeed, Hooper will be on his way to Los Angeles soon enough to do the very same song and dance tomorrow. But he said he was pleased to be able to treat the New York scene first.

“It’s great to show the film at the Lincoln Center, which is really the home of the human voice at its best and most wonderful,” he said. “We’re sitting underneath Julliard. Next door we have great temples to the human voice, and it’s great to be presenting this live-sung musical in this wonderful venue.”

That point about live singing would be a big one during the post-screening Q&A, which featured Hooper and stars Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Samantha Barks and Eddie Redmayne. Universal Pictures has already produced and proliferated a featurette playing up the virtues of the practice, which is indeed unique to the genre. But while it presented clear challenges, Hooper said he felt it was the only way to go.

“I wanted to see what I could learn from the masters doing the musicals, and I always thought there was some tiny amount of distance I was experiencing between me and the form,” he said. “I felt in the end that there was a falsity…I think of it as emotional. There can’t be any distance between you and the person expressing emotions through song…Most importantly, for me, acting is all about pure language in the present tense. To act is to create the illusion that these songs, these speeches are produced by the character in the heat of the moment. This gave the actors the freedom to control tempo, maybe to take a tiny fraction of a second to alter an emotion or express it.”

Hooper first came to the project because he had been working some time back with screenwriter William Nicholson on something else entirely. This was before the big ride that was “The King’s Speech.” Nicholson got the call to adapt “Les Misérables” for the screen, and Hooper’s first thought was shock that the musical — which first hit the stage on London’s West End in 1985 — hadn’t been translated to film yet. His second thought was equal shock that he had never seen the theater show himself.

So he went to see the show in August of 2010, a month before “The King’s Speech” bowed at the Telluride Film Festival. And the emotions of the piece really spoke to him.

“There’s a moment at the very end of the film where Valjean is walking out towards the bishop and you hear the ghostly chorus of the people’s song coming in,” he said. “When that moment hit, I felt stunned. I had the most extraordinary physical sensation and I wondered if I could create that same physical power on film.”

He then started the long journey of exploring the material, which led to a reading of the original Victor Hugo novel, which he had never read. “In England I suppose we read Dickens more than we read Hugo,” he quipped. “But it’s a masterpiece. And I began to see things in the novel that excited me for the film. There’s a brilliant moment when Valjean meets Cosette and Victor Hugo writes, ‘This was the second white apparition Valjean had encountered. The Bishop taught him virtue. Cosette taught him the meaning of love.’ I began to think there was this story of twin epiphanies, of the discovery of spirituality and compassion and the transformative power of love.”

That’s also, interestingly enough, what led him to collaborate with the show’s original songwriting team of Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boubil and Herbert Kretzmer on the one trackign completely unique to the film: “Suddenly.”

For Hathaway, the chance to tackle the role of Fantine was particularly special because her mother was the understudy for the part in the show’s first national tour. That’s a narrative that starts to write itself in an awards season desperate for a certain kind of personal touch, and she may well win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress despite the role’s brevity. Her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” is a bonafide show-stopper that sent the theater-loving crowd into ecstasy when it concluded (after being captured in one single shot, no less).

“It was great to, as you would in a scene — you learn your lines, you learn your lines, you learn your lines, you forget your lines,” she said, referring to the live singing element. “You forget anyone ever wrote your lines, because they’re yours. They’re just what your character is saying in that moment. It was wonderful to have the freedom to turn your brain off and just live it and let it come out as it did, and it was great to have a live piano there, so that if a particular emotion overwhelmed you, you could ride the emotion out. It was wonderful.”

On that note (so to speak), Redmayne added that “the unsung hero of the film was the two accompanying pianists. Throughout the day I could do one scene but they would have to do five. Their sensitivity and response, that got removed in post-production and got replaced by an orchestra, but they were like the other character in the scenes.”

Seyfried, meanwhile, felt a lot of pressure just to keep her voice in shape. “I was always conscious of how I sounded and how my sinuses were, and all that gross stuff that you keep hearing about, not staying out late, it’s tough,” she said. “After every day that I did my one or two big pieces, I was so relieved and felt like I was glad I cleared them out because I’m just not used to singing so much, and it’s so fragile.” She took a breath and sighed, “I’m just really glad it’s over.”

However, it wasn’t Seyfried’s first experience with the older Cosette. She actually played the part in a recital when she was 15 and studying classical music. “I wasn’t great,” she said, “but I certainly enjoyed the music.” In recalling her first viewing of the whole experience, she said, “I saw ‘Les Mis’ in Philadelphia and I was, like, on the edge of my seat. It was the first time my mom said I sat still for three hours. And it’s been playing in my house ever since.”

Barks also has history with the production — recent history. She played the role of Éponine on stage in London from June of 2010 to June of 2011 and even starred in the 25th Anniversary Concert of the production at the O2 Arena there in October of 2010.

“It’s been a long sort of journey with this character,” she said. “So to take it from the stage to the film has been an incredible experience. It’s completely different, those two disciplines, because [with a film] you’re allowed the intimacy of not coming to play to 2,000 people and you can use the camera to develop more of a range of emotion.” But she nevertheless admitted that it was a “mixed bag,” given the challenges.

Hathaway was also forthcoming about how Hooper’s chosen process put on plenty of pressure. “Some days you’d wake up and the top note is there, and some days it’s so not,” she said, to plenty of laughs.

Hathaway was seven when she first saw the production and, like Hooper, recognized the chills she got from the emotion while watching her mother tackling the role she would one day tackle herself. “Today, to see it on this big screen in this acoustically perfect hall, you guys are the best gift ever,” she said. “Thank you for loving it so much.”

To which an audience member shouted, “Thank YOU!”

Truly, the crowd was over the moon for the film. Particularly for things like the presence of actor Colm Wilkinson, who originated the role of Valjean on the stage and here takes the part of the bishop. It’s home town turf, of course, but my instinct is it will play just fine for audiences on the west coast tomorrow, too.

And the Best Picture landscape will be shaken up one more time this season. Is this the one to take it all the way, two years after Hooper did precisely that? I’m thinking it might just be, but I’ll get into my own thoughts on it in due time. (Indeed, we haven’t yet gotten to the hilarious duo of Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, or even the film’s two biggest stars, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe. But perhaps that’s because, in some ways, they’re not the story of the cast as much as the quartet who were on stage this afternoon.)

“Les Misérables” opens nationwide on Christmas Day.

It’s rare that a single garment in a film takes on an iconic status independent of the character or performer wearing it, yet such was the case five years ago when British designer Jacqueline Durran created That Dress for Keira Knightley in Joe Wright’s “Atonement.” I needn’t describe it: the shimmery emerald number launched a thousand prom-night knockoffs, has entire blogs devoted to it and is currently on display in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Durran may have lost the 2007 Oscar to “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” but it turns out there’s more than one way to reward great costume design. 

Intricately in-period, yet subtly, flexibly modernized, Durran’s creations were a vital collaborative element in Wright’s first two films with actress Keira Knightley: two years before “Atonement,” she earned her first Oscar nod for her youthfully mud-splashed Regency garb in “Pride and Prejudice.” 

But for her third go-round with Wright and Knightley (though she’s worked on all five of Wright’s films), the stakes were raised somewhat. The eponymous heroine of “Anna Karenina” doesn’t merely require That Dress, but one for virtually every scene – and that’s to say nothing of the other characters in Leo Tolstoy’s swirling 19th-century study of sartorially advantaged St. Petersburg society. It’s the biggest project Durran has ever taken on, and yet also one of the most playfully quirky: what appears from a distance to be a resplendent diorama of ribboned and ruffled Russian finery turns out, on closer inspection, to be alive with witty character details and calculated anachronisms. 

When Wright first told her of his intention to take on Tolstoy’s doorstop, Durran initially limited her research simply to re-reading the novel: she admits it rather passed by her by as a university student, though this time she found herself “bowled over by the richness of the text.” Further preparation, she explains, can be futile when working with Wright. 

“With Joe, I kind of don’t have too many ideas in advance of our first meeting, because he always has an angle that he wants to investigate in the piece. And he thought we should look at 1950s couture as a way into reinterpreting the 1870s. He was interested in reducing everything to the barest essentials. ” She pauses. “He says we thought this up together. I’m not sure!” 

Whether this 20th-century infusion was Durran’s idea or not, the designer found herself increasingly excited by it. “I tried to mesh the two things together, so I took very sparse details from the 1950s, the architectural simplicity of that era’s couture, and transposed those to the 1870s silhouette. So the buttons, some of the neckties, some of the sweeps around the shoulders, the use of asymmetry, are all very Fifties. It brings a modern kind of perspective to the 1870s.” 

In some areas, meanwhile, the influence was even more modern than 1950s couture: the glittering jewelry on display in the film, Durran tells me, is entirely 21st-century. She explains: “In early discussions, we thought we really should use real jewels for Anna, because she is slightly about vanity and glamor and opulence. By being part of Russian society, she would have been living in a completely opulent and privileged world. So the fact that we were committed to having real jewels meant that we’d have to make a different decision in terms of their style. ” 

The determining factor was the involvement of a certain iconic French fashion house, with whom Knightley was already closely associated. “Chanel volunteered to be involved in the movie, and for us to use all their diamonds and pearls and everything else,” Durran says. “So I went to Paris and chose the things which I felt would be in keeping with the piece, even though they’re completely modern. And personally, I don’t feel it detracts. Having taken the step into stylization anyway, you just buy into the fact. And the glory of the diamonds outweighs anything else about them.” 

I remark that the catwalk-ready quality of these accessories actually enhances the film’s characterization of Tolstoy’s taboo-breaking heroine as a woman substantially ahead of her time. Durran agrees, contrasting her costuming of Knightley to the more demurely updated styling of the virginal Kitty (played by Alicia Vikander), whose romantic arc runs counter to Anna’s. 

“Kitty we made quite 1950s, but in much less of a high-style way,” she says, before bringing another period reference into the mix. “The white dress that she wears to the ball a combination of a Fifties ballgown and a Victorian-era children’s outfit: a bodice with a skirt that’s slight short. It also has elements of a ballet dress – an underlying theme to everything, really, because of the choreography of the film.” 

Durran also used a subtly shifting color palette to mark Kitty’s gradual maturation in the film: “She starts off with an absolutely childish palette – all pale blue, pale pink, white – but as she changes in the movie, she evolves into a kind of champagne beige by the time she’s a married woman.” 

Kitty’s costume transformation as clearest in the film; by contrast, Anna’s succession of outfits is intentionally irregular, styles and hues morphing with her moods and fancies. “Anna definitely doesn’t really follow a linear pattern,” Durran says. “She refers back and forth to herself, I think. She dresses at the beginning of the movie, and she dresses again at the end, and it’s a kind of mirror image of the events. The black dress that she wears to the ball, I mirrored in the white dress that she wears at the opera. So at the two social events that mark her, she’s wearing the same thing – but one is black and one white.” 

But it’s not just the women who get all the dress-up fun in Wright’s film; in particular, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s young, callow Vronsky seems at least as much in love with his dashingly uniformed image as he is with Anna herself. In designing his character, Durran was inspired by the rough shape of 19th-century Russian military wear, but with a degree of stylized improvization. 

Fastidious historical accuracy wasn’t of paramount importance: though the ornate white dress uniform he wears for much of the film would really have been reserved only for rare occasions, Wright thought it defined the character well. “Joe was very specific in wanting Aaron’s uniform to be white, which caused me almost more problems than anything else in the film!” Durran remembers. “Because you can’t actually buy white wool. It’s really impossible. You can only buy cream wool, so I had to end up using more of a woman’s wool that was really not very good for suiting. It wasn’t heavy enough. It was just a bit of a nightmare.” 

Durran was already working a highly stylized mode before Wright dropped the news of his intention to set the action in a mostly theater-based context. While that obviously had a dramatic impact on the production design – as you’ll surely read in Gerard’s interview with production designer Sarah Greenwood next week – it didn’t greatly affect the individual costuming concepts for the film, though Durran believes the crowd costumes became bolder than they would have been in a more naturalistic context. 

Still, the shift presented less tangible challenges for Durran. “It sounds silly, but I found it very difficult to imagine the costumes when I didn’t know where they were going to be,” she says with a laugh. “It’s kind of stumbling block, because when you imagine things, you always put them somewhere – you don’t imagine them in the ether. So I couldn’t quite get on with it as fast as I would have liked.” 

This is Durran’s third time working with Knightley, and in addition to now conceiving designs with the actress’s very particular frame in mind, she’s found the ongoing relationship a personally rewarding one. “I think she trusts me more, and I kind of trust her more,” she says. “It’s just a more equal collaboration. We’ve both learned more about costume in the time that we’ve been working together, and we know we’re better at interpreting what Joe wants. She was absolutely the most conscientious at going back to the text and finding motivations for Anna, but she’ll also just go with something that Joe and I want, and see where it takes her. She doesn’t bar any kind of creativity.” 

Though her period work with Wright has earned her the most acclaim and exposure in her career, Durran’s work in more contemporary spheres is no less accomplished. A regular collaborator with Mike Leigh, she won a BAFTA for “Vera Drake” and created the gaudy, character-defining thrift-store ensembles for Sally Hawkins in “Happy-Go-Lucky.” Last year, meanwhile, she deserved more awards attention than she got for her remarkable costuming of the 1970s-set “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” – a veritable gray rainbow of men’s suiting that she describes as “a learning curve,” having never previously worked on a film without a female lead. 

Durran enjoys hopping between period and contemporary work in this fashion, and says she doesn’t actually see a vast difference between them. “I just really enjoy working with directors, and I really mind what it is that director decides to do. I like getting inside their vision. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s period or modern.” Or, indeed, somewhere in between — as is the case with “Anna Karenina”’s exquisitely adaptable magpie wardrobe.