It’s obviously a slow day for movie news, but this Atlantic piece about the danger posed to classic cinema by the digital revolution really registered with me. Much column ink has already been spilled on the demise of 35mm in contemporary film — some of it overly doom-laden — but less has been said about the effect the digital switchover will have on repertory screenings. Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker, who recently found herself unable to obtain a new print of “The Age of Innocence” for a museum screening, is worried, not just about the future availability of older titles, but the preservation of the ones that do get converted: “I saw a digitized version of a film that David Lean made during World War II, and it looked just like a TV commercial that was shot yesterday. It was wrong, the balance was completely off. [Colorists] have no idea what these movies should look like anymore.” [The Atlantic]    

Solvej Schou on the importance of older female characters in the movies, as reflected in roles played this year by Sally Field, Judi Dench and Helen Mirren. No mention of Emmanuelle Riva? [EW] 

Alexandra Marshall talks to Riva, along with Michael Haneke and Jean-Louis Trintignant, about the making of “Amour.” [Hollywood Reporter]

Days after the news dropped of GKIDS acquiring “Grave of the Fireflies” for a US re-release, UK company Dresden Pictures has bought the rights for a live-action remake. Hmm. [Screen] 

The Wrap team highlight a dozen long-shot contenders that they think deserve some Oscar love. [The Wrap]

Production designer Rick Carter and costume designer Joanna Johnston on fabricating the sombre authenticity of “Lincoln.” [Gold Derby]

“Life of Pi” is the latest film to get a SoundWorks Collection study of its aural landscape. [SoundWorks Collection]

Kyle Buchanan and Claude Brodesser-Akner contemplate the rising stock of Best Actor hopeful Bradley Cooper: one of their sources calls him “the next Paul Newman.” I like Cooper, but… [Vulture]

Eugene Jarecki, who has to be regarded as one of the frontrunners for Best Documentary Feature, talks about his searing drug-war doc “The House I Live In.” [The Guardian]

Charlie Lyne on the thing that also bothered me most about the otherwise admirable “The Sessions”: why so coy with the male nudity? [Ultra Culture]

We don’t have much more to say about “Hitchcock” around these parts. Greg Ellwood was mostly positive at the AFI Fest premiere. I was surprised at how much it’s tale of an artist desperate to feel the spark of creativity again spoke to me. We’ve talked to star Helen Mirren and even dedicated some content to Hitchcock’s own history at the Oscars. But now it’s time to hear your thoughts on Sacha Gervasi’s film, which makes its way to limited release today. So if you aren’t too stuffed with Thanksgiving goodies, give us your take. And feel free to rate it above.

Last year”s Best Picture winner highlighted one of the great innovations in cinematic history – the introduction of sound. As I noted in my cinematography column, it is the moving picture that, first and foremost, distinguishes cinema from other art forms. But in the absence of sound, our films feel incomplete. On this American Thanksgiving (even if I”m spending the day north of the border), I”m very grateful for our movie sound artists.

The category of Best Sound Mixing awards those who bring all elements of a movie”s aural experience – music, dialogue, effects – into a soup of sound. When done well, it exquisitely develops the atmosphere and brings the audience into the world on screen.

Up to three re-recording mixers are eligible for the prize (concerned with mixing in post-production) and the production sound mixer (who has the exceptionally important task of capturing and leveling the sound during filming). This is certainly a category where favorite artists tend to do very well as many, many sound re-recording mixers have seven-to-15 nominations over the course of their career, or even more.

Blockbusters and war films do very well in this category. Best Picture contenders are prevalent enough, as they can often get surprising nominations when other typical nominees don’t show up. There is one other sort of film – the musical – that does disproportionately well here, as the creation of a musical”s soundtrack is obviously incredibly important to the film”s success.

And the musical is where I”ll begin. Tom Hooper”s “Les Misérables” has the potential to earn a plethora of nominations across the crafts categories. Academy favorite Andy Nelson (17 nominations, including two for musicals) is working alongside yet-to-be nominated mixers Mark Paterson, Jonathan Allen and Simon Hayes. If the film is the Best Picture contender we all expect it to be, it will be nominated. Not only is it a musical but it is also a revolutionary film of sorts. Even if it is not a major Best Picture player, I expect it to be in the running.

If the Academy goes nutso for “Lincoln,” Nelson could find himself nominated for that film, too. Nelson, Ben Burtt, Gary Rydstrom  and Ron Judkins have 47 nominations (including two as directors of short films for Burtt and Rydstrom) and 12 competitive (plus two honorary) wins between them. That is simply astounding. Even so, in my opinion the film spends too much time away from the battlefield and in Congress to get into this category in a stacked year. But never say never. How many people saw the nomination in this category for “The King”s Speech” coming from this vantage point?

Christopher Nolan”s “Inception” won this award two years ago, for the same trio – Gary Rizzo, Lora Hirschberg and Ed Novick – who were nominated for “The Dark Knight.” “The Dark Knight Rises” brings back Novick and Rizzo. Hirschberg has moved on, but has been replaced by three-time Oscar winner Gregg Landaker. This is the sort of successful, prestigious blockbuster filled with action scenes and explosions that tends to find a home here. I wouldn”t call a spot assured — after all, criticism of the handling of Bane’s voice became a talking point — but it seems a solid bet.

That’s not the only major summer title I expect to score. The mammoth box office haul of “The Avengers” puts it in an even better position, in my opinion. With a crew anchored by Hirschberg and Oscar favorite Christopher Boyes, this strikes me as a safe bet.

I don”t want to rule out a third summer blockbuster – “The Amazing Spider-Man” – quite yet. Production sound mixer John Pritchett has two nominations, and re-recording mixers Paul Massey, Deb Adair and David Giammarco have six, between them. While the film didn”t really add anything new to the “Spider-Man” story in my opinion, it did respectable box office and the soundtrack as a whole was impressive. “Prometheus,” meanwhile, has superb production values across the board, and D.M. Hemphill has seven nominations including a win to his name. Though he and partner Ray Beckett have another horse in this race I”m coming to. Even if I wouldn”t rule either out, I suspect both these summer titles are a long way behind “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises” among summer contenders.

Of films already released, “Looper” is certainly a high-concept action movie that has received top-notch reviews from critics. Its sound is sorely deserving of a nomination. But sometimes “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” The crew hasn”t received love from the branch to date and I don”t think this is the sort of film that can get a nomination here without more love overall. I”d be delighted to be proven wrong, though.

“The Impossible” also has, by all accounts, extraordinary sound work. I haven”t heard it yet. Like “Looper,” however, its crew has no experience with Oscar. “Slumdog Millionaire” is the last film to be nominated in this category with a crew of Oscar virgins. I doubt this film will match that feat but one never knows.

“Django Unchained” will provide us with a western-ish take on slave liberation. Or so it seems. One can never quite tell with Tarantino movies. Westerns do quite well in this category, actually. Tarantino”s last film also scored here: “Inglourious Basterds” brought three-time winner Michael Minkler back into the game, alongside production sound mixer Mark Ulano, who won this award for “Titanic.”

Kathryn Bigelow”s “Zero Dark Thirty” is another one of the relatively few unknowns still in the race. I”m not sure how much faith I have in this project. Call it a hunch. But if it can score anywhere outside its leading lady (assuming she lives up to expectations), it might be here. One would suspect the climax will require epic sound work. Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett, who won Oscars for “The Hurt Locker,” are back this time.

“Flight” is set to return Denzel Washington to the Oscar race after more than a decade in the wilderness. The crash at the center of the movie could earn it a nomination on its own. Randy Thom is a sound legend and he”s not alone among Oscar nominees on this crew. Production sound mixer William B. Kaplan has earned seven nominations to date while re-recording mixers Dennis Sands and Dennis Leonard have four and one citations to date respectively. But… it’s one scene.

Ang Lee”s “Life of Pi” will be absolutely dependent on its crafts virtues for success. The sounds of the sea and the animals will have to complement extraordinary visual work if this film is to succeed. The fact that “Prometheus” duo Hemphill and Beckett are aboard this title as well is another reason Ridley Scott”s film is unlikely to show up among the final five. Production sound mixer Drew Kunin is a veteran seeking his first nomination, and may well get it.

Speaking of tricky adaptations, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is Peter Jackson”s return to Middle Earth. We”ll see how it”s received but all three “Lord of the Rings” films found a home here. Production sound mixer Tony Johnson has also earned two nominations to date. (Final credits on re-recording mixers are not available at this time.)

I”ll end by considering a film that is part of a series that, remarkably, has not been nominated in this category in over four decades: Bond. “Skyfall.” AMPAS favorites Scott Millan and Greg P. Russell are responsible for the sound mix on this film. Production sound mixer Stuart Wilson is also coming off his first nomination, for “War Horse.” Russell has been nominated enough to prove the kind of respect his peers have for him, so with this film”s reception, I could easily see the first Bond nomination in this category since 1971’s “Diamonds are Forever.” Maybe the golden anniversary of 007 on the big screen will finally give Russell the chance to get his golden boy?

There are the 14 contenders as I see them. Quite a few for late November. But I honestly don”t want to rule any of them out yet – by my reckoning, this is one of the most stacked crafts categories this year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! Everybody who gets to participate in it, at least: the rest of us are getting on with our working days and eating less-than-festive dinners. My experience of Turkey Day comes mostly through the movies, so I’m interested to hear if you have any go-to Thanksgiving movies that make the holiday complete. “The Ice Storm” comes first to mind for me, though it’s hardly celebratory. Tim Grierson makes a solid case for “Hannah and Her Sisters,” which is one of my favorite movies, period. Woody Allen’s film, he writes, “recognizes that life is never perfect but that sometimes we can cobble together enough happiness to keep going… there are reasons to be thankful all around us, if only we”ll stop and appreciate them.” What films give you that feeling? [IFC]

While we’re talking Thanksgiving viewing, Katey Rich looks at this week’s holiday releases, and breaks down who should be seeing what. [Cinema Blend]

From “Moonrise Kingdom” to “The Master,” Todd McCarhy round up the film music that stood out for him in 2012. [Hollywood Reporter]

Oscar-nominated editor Tim Squyres talks about his working relationship with Ang Lee, and negotiating the unconventional narrative of “Life of Pi.” [Below the Line]

Meanwhile, Sasha Stone meets Ang Lee, whom she calls one of the five most influential directors of the last 20 years. I’m a fan, but I’m not sure of that. [Awards Daily]

Still on “Life of Pi,” Oli Lyttelton surveys the Best Visual Effects race and wonders if Ang Lee’s film has it wrapped up. [The Playlist]

R. Kurt Osenlund sizes up the Oscar prospects of “Silver Linings Playbook.” [Slant]

Kate Winslet receives a CBE from the Queen for services to drama. Nice job on the fascinator. [The Guardian]

I love the Gray Lady’s ‘Anatomy a Scene’ series: in this one, Sacha Gervasi talks us through a key scene in “Hitchcock.” [New York Times]

Tambay Obenson looks at the possibilities for African-Americans in this year’s Best Actress race, whittling it down to just two names: Quvenzhane Wallis and Emayatzy Corinealdi. [Shadow & Act] 

Ang Lee’s addition to the season is finally here as “Life of Pi” — hotly anticipated for years — hits the multiplex. I was favorable when I saw the film at the 50th annual New York Film Festival, though I took some mechanics issues with it. I still feel that way, though the creamy center has really felt richer and richer the further I’ve spun away from it. HitFix’s own Drew McWeeny, meanwhile, has a completely different take, a disagreement with fundamental elements. But let’s see what you have to say. Drop your comments below when you get around to seeing the film, and as always, feel free to rate it above.

You needn’t have been following the Oscars for long to know that — the usual inseparability of the Best Picture and Best Director awards notwithstanding — Academy voters aren’t particularly auteurist-minded.

That’s not a comment on the films and filmmakers they’ve chosen to reward over the years, though the winners list would look somewhat different if they were. Rather, it alludes simply to the practical consideration that their top prize is still awarded to a film’s producer, not the director — a tradition inherited from the days when producers often wielded more creative control in Hollywood than the helmers they hired to shepherd their projects to fruition. (Not coincidentally, the Academy was happier to split the Picture and Director awards back then.) If the Academy worked more along the lines of film festival juries, the director would claim, or at least share, credit for the year’s best film — and Alfred Hitchcock would have one competitive Oscar to his name. 

It’s telling that in the 1966 volume of interviews between Hitchcock and François Truffaut, a founding father of auteur theory if ever there was one, Truffaut is under the impression that Hitchcock won the 1940 Best Picture Oscar taken by his neo-Gothic romantic thriller “Rebecca.” Hitchcock rather tersely corrects him that the award was given to Hollywood super-producer David O. Selznick, and that he’s never won a statuette; Truffaut swiftly changes the subject.

Given how routinely Hitchcock’s name crops up on lists of artists most shabbily treated by the Academy — see Kris’ recent review of his strike rate with the voters — those less well-versed in Oscar history may be surprised to learn that the great man did, in fact, direct a Best Picture winner, and not a negligible one, either. When the Academy splits its two top awards, the losing director is usually not a name held in the very highest regard: a John Madden, say, or a Hugh Hudson. But the club also includes such notables as Ridley Scott and Francis Ford Coppola, and Hitchcock is at the top of that rewarded-and-yet-unrewarded pile.

Hitchcock almost certainly never came closer to winning Best Director than he did with “Rebecca”: for one thing, only one of his other four nominations, for “Spellbound” five years later, was attached to a Best Picture nod. But while general Oscar logic dictates that a repeat nominee gains momentum with each successive bid, this nearest of misses came not just at Hitchcock’s first nomination, but for his very first American film. Had “Rebecca” been made a further few years into his career, by which time the British director would have been less of a stranger to the Hollywood crowd, things might well have gone differently. 

As it stands, Hitchcock was the most illustrious casualty of what was surely one of the most evenly matched and tightly contested fields in Oscar history. The opposition in the 1940 Best Picture race included not just substantial works from John Ford, George Cukor, Charlie Chaplin and William Wyler, but another of Hitchcock’s own films. Yes, both his maiden US efforts — “Rebecca” and pulpy WWII potboiler “Foreign Correspondent” — made the grade, notching up 17 nominations between them, though the director himself was only cited for the former.

In a more contemporary Oscar race, directing two of the year’s top nominees would launch a filmmaker to the front of the Best Director pack — particularly if he were only nominated for one of them. Coppola reaped the benefits of double-dipping with “The Godfather Part II” and “The Conversation” in 1974; more recently, Steven Soderbergh overcame the risk of splitting his own vote when he was nominated for both “Erin Brockovich” and “Traffic,” ultimately winning for the latter.

In 1940, however, when directors moved far more quickly between projects under the studio system, that wasn’t nearly such a noteworthy achievement. Several names had already managed to steer two Best Picture nominees in a single year: most impressively, Michael Curtiz, who in 1938 even copped an extra lone-director nomination for a third film. Hitchcock wasn’t even alone in the achievement that year: John Ford (“The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Long Voyage Home”) and Sam Wood (“Kitty Foyle,” “Our Town”) also boasted a brace of 1940 Best Picture nominees. By passing over Hitchcock and handing the Best Director prize to Ford for “Wrath,” the Academy effectively split the difference between the year’s two most commendable over-achievers.  

Viewed in isolation, however, Hitchcock’s two 1940 nominees make an interesting pair: even as they contrast completely in tone, “Rebecca” and “Foreign Correspondent” both show the director assembling the stylistic building blocks of his future genre work in Hollywood, while hanging onto stray elements of his earlier British output.

“Rebecca” was the more prestigious, awards-targeted production: completed in 1939 but released in the spring of 1940, Selznick had specifically postponed it so it wouldn’t be trampled by his own blockbuster “Gone With the Wind” in the Oscar race. Laurence Olivier, then at his most movie-star handsome, was hot off his first Oscar nod for “Wuthering Heights”; 21-year-old ingenue Joan Fontaine had been cast as the film’s nameless heroine after a lengthy audition process that, according to Hitchcock, Selznick falsely extended only with the intention of generating equivalent media hype to his search for Scarlett O’Hara.

Daphne du Maurier’s National Book Award-winning source novel had been published only two years previously, to vast popular acclaim — it may have been a contemporary romantic mystery rather than a noble historical tome, but in every other respect, the film was the equivalent of what we currently term Oscar bait, with Selznick as its Weinstein-like mastermind.

So it’s all the more impressive that the moody, swoony, genuinely disconcerting film that emerges feels as authentically Hitchcockian a work as his later, less producer-steered works. By editing the film in-camera, Hitchcock cunningly curbed Selznick’s capacity for creative interference, and also worked some subtle alterations into a script that the producer had insisted remain as faithful as the Production Code would allow to du Maurier’s text. (If you’re thinking of sex, think again: the Code prohibited the criminal activity undertaken in the novel by Olivier’s Maxim de Winter character.)

Hitchcock’s most successful innovation concerned the character of housekeeper Mrs Danvers, whose interpretation by British-Australian actress Judith Anderson earned a deserved Best Supporting Actress nod: by making her younger than du Maurier’s aged harridan, and bringing sleek lesbian insinuations to her relationship with the deceased title character, Hitchcock and Anderson created one of the screen’s greatest, and eeriest, villains. 

Hitchcock himself wasn’t wildly keen on the story, which he criticized for its lack of humor. (He’d originally signed on to do Titanic-themed film with Selznick, only for the producer to switch projects.) But “Rebecca” holds up beautifully: it’s easy to see why Selznick thought this very English story would be a suitable bridging vehicle for Hitchcock’s Hollywood career, but while it shares the crisp storytelling of his British-made mysteries, it feels dreamier and more expansive, a blueprint for the obsessive serenity of form he’d later blur and perfect in “Vertigo.” Perhaps his unfamiliarity with Hollywood keyed into the protagonist’s own sense of being a stranger in her newly adopted home. Either way, it’s one of his most emotionally open films — and one of the best ever to take the Academy’s top honor.

By contrast, Hitchcock cheerfully admitted “Foreign Correspondent” was a B-picture: a fast-moving adventure centered around a naive New York crime reporter sent by his editor to Europe to report on the early rumblings of the Second World War, before becoming dangerously entangled in an international spy ring. Hitchcock intended it as a vehicle for Gary Cooper, but had to settle for the lesser star wattage of Joel McCrea. As the director told Truffaut, “In Europe, the thriller, the adventure story, is not looked down upon… in America, it’s definitely regarded as second-rate… This attitude was so commonplace when I started to work in Hollywood that I always ended up with the next best.”

With none of the lingering subtext or emotional resonance of “Rebecca,” “Foreign Correspondent” is simply a well-executed genre exercise. On his second US assignment, Hitchcock seems more casual at the controls, airily pulling off showy set pieces like the playful Dutch windmill charade and a climactic plane crash; if “Rebecca” teases us with the Hitchcock of “Vertigo” and “Marnie,” this is very much the work of the man who’d make “North by Northwest,” with McCrea an early model of the urbane but out-of-his-depth American Joe who’d later become a recurring presence in the director’s work.

Hitchcock understandably demonstrates less conviction in the story’s somewhat tacked-on US patriotism (the closing credits feature “The Star-Spangled Banner” over an image of a bald eagle) that at once dates the film and gives it its most enduring historical value. By making a strapping Yank the hero of a tale of Nazi subterfuge in London, the film stands as a defining piece of Hollywood’s early WWII propaganda: rumor has it even Joseph Goebbels was a grudging admirer. “The picture was pure fantasy,” Hitchcock admitted, “and in my fantasies, plausibility is not allowed to rear its ugly head.”    

Released in August 1940, four months after “Rebecca,” “Foreign Correspondent” was a moderate box-office success, though it didn’t quite recoup its substantial budget. So it was more likely its politics than its popularity that impressed the voters enough to net it six Oscar nominations; Hitchcock may have thought it a fantasy, but voters evidently took it rather more seriously. We still annually talk about contenders succeeding in the Oscar race by capturing the zeitgeist: this is as direct an example as you can find of that phenomenon. Together with Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” moreover, it also marks the starting point of the Academy’s enduring fascination with WWII stories.

Still, “Foreign Correspondent” entered the 1940 Best Picture race as an also-ran. With war grimly brewing outside the cinemas, the escapist allure of Hitchcock’s other film was strong for audiences and voters alike: adult fairy-tale that it was, “Rebecca” delivered another smash hit for Selznick, winding up as the fourth-highest grosser of 1940 (on a list unsurprisingly led by animated fantasies “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia”) and nabbing a field-leading haul of 11 nominations.

So the stage was set for Selznick’s production to sweep the Oscars again, just as “Gone With the Wind” had the year before. But whether it was down to the strength of the competition or outside-world events, voters found themselves torn between romance and reality — the latter most strongly represented by “The Grapes of Wrath.” Ford’s superb adaptation of another recent bestseller, John Steinbeck’s rich evocation of 1930s Dust Bowl desperation, had ruled with the New York Film Critics and National Board of Review — back then, believe it or not, the only Oscar precursors to speak of. (The Globes and the Guilds would only get their act together later in the decade.)

Ford was already an Academy insider — he’d won in 1935 for “The Informer” — and his film was too plainly important to let slide: the American director took his second Oscar, while Jane Darwell’s heartbreaking turn as Ma Joad bested Judith Anderson in what I hope was a close Supporting Actress race. “Rebecca,” meanwhile, took only one award — for George Barnes’s lustrous black-and-white lensing — on its way to taking Best Picture: it remains the last film to win the top honor without at least one accompanying above-the-line prize.

Joan Fontaine can be considered unlucky not to have won Best Actress; she lost out to a surge of insider support for musical star Ginger Rogers in an against-type dramatic role in “Kitty Foyle” — also the only reward for Sam Wood’s aforementioned Best Picture pair. Only a year later, the Academy evidently felt some remorse, handing Fontaine the award for less memorable work in another Hitchcock suspenser, “Suspicion.” It would be, as Kris noted yesterday, the only Oscar-winning performance Hitch ever directed.

Finally, further splintering the Best Picture race was Cukor’s “The Philadelphia Story”: still one of the tartest and most buoyant of all Hollywood romantic comedies, it frothed up the competition enough to beat both “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Rebecca” to Best Screenplay and Best Actor for James Stewart, himself being compensated for his “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” loss the previous year. (Olivier would get his due for “Hamlet” eight years later.) 1939 is generally regarded as the unimprovable gold standard for the Best Picture category, but its immediate successor doesn’t get enough credit. A group that includes “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “The Great Dictator” and “The Letter” — plus one great Hitchcock film and one good one — has to count among the Academy’s finer hours.

Hitch didn’t attend attend the ceremony: it is said that he nervously stayed at home and listened to the radio broadcast, instructing his wife Alma to switch it on again and off again, until his defeat was confirmed. Exasperated, Alma allegedly cried, “For heaven’s sake, these are the people who gave an award to Luise Rainer. Twice!” Her husband wasn’t too hard done by on this first occasion, but perhaps she knew worse was to come.

Yep, folks, we’re in Top 10 season already, and the first major list to land is both one of the longest-running and the most reliably eccentric: that of leading French cinephile magazine Cahiers du Cinéma.

As the journal on which the likes of Godard, Truffaut and Chabrol cut their teeth as writers after its establishment in 1951, Cahiers retains a staunch auteurist sensibility, and that’s evident every year in their Top 10 — though they don’t always favor the same auteurs most other critics do.

Last year, they surprised everyone with an atypically softball choice — Nanni Moretti’s amiable ecclesiastical comedy “We Have a Pope” — as the year’s best. This year, paradoxical as this sounds, they’re back on more familiarly adventurous ground, as Léos Carax’s wild, weird, thrillingly bewildering shapeshifter study “Holy Motors” topped the list.

Carax has twice before featured on the Cahiers list, for 1986’s “Bad Blood” and, of course, 1991’s “Lovers on the Bridge,” though never in such a high position. It’s nice to see the long-absent director get a pat on the pack from an august French institution after “Holy Motors” left Cannes empty-handed earlier this year; as if in pointed rejoinder to that festival’s jury (headed, as it happens, by Moretti), Michael Haneke’s universally acclaimed Palme d’Or winner “Amour” is nowhere to be seen on the list. 

The Cahiers can be perverse like that. While “Holy Motors” is a relatively unsurpising #1 pick, the usual eyebrows will be raised over the inclusion of Francis Ford Coppola’s tepidly reviewed fantasy “Twixt” — still unreleased in the US, as far as I’m aware — at #3, or indeed the inclusion of two low-profile Abel Ferrara films with their share of detractors. I have yet to see “Go Go Tales,” which premiered at Cannes way back in 2007; meanwhile, I walked out of “4.44: Last Day on Earth” at Venice last year, and don’t yet regret doing so. Further down the list, you’ll find last year’s Venice Golden Lion winner, “Faust” — another film that didn’t do much for me.

One film from the Cahiers list, however, will certainly be featuring in my own year-end Top 10: Miguel Gomes’s glorious “Tabu,” which I reviewed out of Berlin.

The full list:

1. “Holy Motors” (Léos Carax)

2. “Cosmopolis” (David Cronenberg)

3. “Twixt” (Francis Ford Coppola)

4. “4.44: Last Day on Earth” (Abel Ferrara)

=4. “In Another Country” (Hong Sang-soo)

=4. “Take Shelter” (Jeff Nichols)

7. “Go Go Tales” (Abel Ferrara)

8. “Tabu” (Miguel Gomes)

9. “Faust” (Aleksandr Sokurov)

10. “Keep the Lights On” (Ira Sachs)

And, just to give you an idea of the unusual company “Holy Motors” joins, here are their top picks from each year of the 21st century. (There was no list in 2003.)

2000 “Esther Kahn” (Arnaud Desplechin)

2001 “Mulholland Drive” (David Lynch)

2002 “Secret Things” (Jean-Claude Brisseau) and “Ten” (Abbas Kiarostami)

2004 “Tropical Malady” (Apichapong Weerasethakul)

2005 “Last Days” (Gus van Sant)

2006 “Private Fears in Public Places” (Alain Resnais) and “The Sun” (Aleksandr Sokurov)

2007 “Paranoid Park” (Gus van Sant)

2008 “Redacted” (Brian De Palma)

2009 “Wild Grass” (Alain Resnais)

2010 “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

2011 “We Have a Pope” (Nanni Moretti)

2012 “Holy Motors” (Léos Carax)

DreamWorks Animation’s “Rise of the Guardians” was once viewed by many pundits as the studio’s best shot at an Oscar since winning the inaugural award 11 years ago for “Shrek,” but things don’t quite seem to be going to plan. Critics so far aren’t wildly excited, and now box office projections for the holiday weekend suggest audiences aren’t either. Variety is projecting a $25 million gross: nothing to be ashamed of, but it’d put it well below last year’s “Puss in Boots,” and among DreamWorks Animation’s lowest openings ever. “Wreck-It Ralph” has evidently stolen its winter cartoon thunder, but can it also zoom ahead in the Oscar race? Or will voters retreat to the familiar comforts of “Pixar,” or disregard commerce and side with the auteurism of “Frankenweenie?” For once, the race really is on. [Variety] 

From “The Master” to “Anna Karenina,” A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis discuss the films this year playing fast and loose (or, in some cases, slow and loose) with storytelling convention. [New York Times]

Jude Law and Michael Gambon will receive honorary awards at next month’s British Independent Film Awards. [BBC Film]

Earlier this week it was Fiona Apple, and now you can add another big name to the Best Original Song race: Frank Ocean has written one for “Django Unchained.” [HitFix]

There are apparently eight references to other Hitchcock films in “Hitchcock”; Jennifer Vineyard gets seven-and-a-half of them. [Vulture]

Steve Pond talks to documentary maker Steve James — notoriously Oscar-snubbed for both “Hoop Dreams” and “The Interrupters” — about his latest work “Head Games,” about the rise of concussive injuries in professional sport. Can this one impress the Academy? [The Wrap] 

Anne Thompson talks to one of 2012’s brightest breakout talents: Alicia Vikander, star of “Anna Karenina” and “A Royal Affair.” Amazingly, the Swedish actress had to learn Danish from scratch for the latter film. [Thompson on Hollywood]

“Marfa Girl,” Larry Clark’s first feature film in six years, won top honors at the Rome Film Festival. [The Guardian]

Marian Evans is not happy with the Hollywood Reporter calling its all-male, all-white Writers’ Roundtable “among the most eclectic bunch [they’ve] ever assembled.” [Women and Hollywood]

Speaking of which, W.R. Wilkerson III, son of Hollywood Reporter founder Billy Wilkerson, issues a formal apology for his father’s role in the Hollywood Blacklist in the 1940s and 1950s. [THR]

Continuing our survey of this season’s major-category contenders, we arrive at the screenplay races — and in a super-sized gallery, we’ve combined both the original and adapted categories, with hopefuls ranging from summer blockbusters to upcoming prestige items to scrappy foreign and/or indie fighters.

The writers’ branch is often said to be the most discerning branch of voters in the Academy, and frequently choose to go their own way. They’re the ones who ignored “Titanic” when all the other voters lost their hearts to it; on the flip side, they’ve been to only branch to stand up for such outsiders as “Another Year,” “Before Sunset” and “Y tu Mama Tambien.” They can generally be counted on for a surprise or two come nomination morning.

This year, as if so often the case, it’s the adapted category that’s more stacked with heavyweight Best Picture contenders — “Argo,” “Lincoln,” “Les Mis,” “Silver Linings Playbook” — but that only makes the original race more interesting: with multiple left-field critics’ causes and fringe favorites jostling for position, it’s impossible to call right now. 

For an in-depth overview of both fields, click on the gallery story below composed and constructed by Kris, Greg and me — and be sure to share your own thoughts in the comments. 

Remember last year when Jessica Chastain was everywhere? It wasn’t by design. After being discovered by Al Pacino some years ago during an audition, the actress made her way into the business. She was cast by Pacino (who she called her “acting godfather” at last year’s Palm Springs awards gala) in “Wilde Salome” and landed roles in a slew of other films that all just happened to drop at once. So 2011 became her big coming out…to the tune of an Oscar nomination for her work in “The Help” and various precursor wins for her performances in that film, “Take Shelter” and “The Tree of Life”

Well, she arguably deserved to win the Oscar over her “Help” co-star Octavia Spencer last year, but we all figured we’d see her again. A talent like this doesn’t just fade away. But who knew it would bubble up again so soon? While Sony has been busy keeping a lid on most of the details of Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty,” right down to the specificity of the role Chastain would play in the film, the Best Actress race has been slowly congealing into a big bid for Chastain’s fellow young ingenue Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook.” But I’m betting that’s all about to change.

It’s probably ill-advised to write something like this before seeing “Zero Dark Thirty,” so let’s get that out of the way first. This is pure sideline guessing (informed by this and that from those who have seen the film). But I’ve nevertheless been wondering for some time whether Chastain could spoil, and the way I hear it, she stands out enough in Bigelow’s film to do just that.

I have had an inkling about the role itself for a while, but it’s really started to out a bit this past week: Chastain is tackling a real-life CIA analyst who made it her mission in life to hunt down Osama Bin Laden. As noted by Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon, a 60 Minutes interview with Seal Team Six member “Mark Owen” (he’s protecting his real identity) and author of “No Easy Day” — an account of the assault on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan compound — revealed that said analyst, called only “Jen,” was the spearhead of the entire thing. (Though Mark Boal is remaining coy about this note.)

“I can’t give her enough credit,” Owen says in the interview. “In my opinion she kind of tee’d up this whole thing. Just wicked smart, kind of feisty. And we’d always talk back and forth, ‘Hey, what do you think the odds of this are? What do you think the odds of that are? You think he’s there?’ She’s like, ‘100%. 100%. He’s there.’…Our intel folks come up with assessments all the time…but what was interesting was after the fact, when we got back, everything she had said — her whole assessment — was accurate. Not one thing that she had told us was out of play…Very impressive.”

A press friend who’s seen the film called Chastain’s performance all-consuming, pointing to intense training the actress went through and chalking it up as the kind of thing that makes other actors jealous. And this person noted a complaint many have expressed: that there aren’t enough roles like this in Hollywood these days, with a kind of toughness and intellect. I keep saying someone needs to write an “Aliens” for Viola Davis.

Guild and further press screenings of the film begin Sunday afternoon. They will be held at the same time in New York and Los Angeles. And I have to say, after watching that interview, hearing the nuts and bolts, that “whisper” story — I am jacked to see this thing. More than I have been, anyway. I’m also very excited at the prospect of a big, swinging contender waltzing into the lead actress race like this.

Just imagine what kind of an intriguing bookend to, say, Daniel Day-Lewis winning Best Actor for “Lincoln” (if that actually happens) this would be. It’s an election year. The zeitgeist is in the air.

But enough of that. You watched the 60 Minutes piece, right? I want to know what the story is with assault dog “Cairo.” Uggie who?

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

I briefly mentioned last week how GKIDS are swiftly establishing themselves as the first name in arthouse animation — in large part thanks to their recent haul of three Oscar nominations in three years. (Their first-ever acquisition, “The Secret of Kells,” got the nod in 2009, while “Chico and Rita” and “A Cat in Paris” both cracked the 2011 lineup.)

Arguably an even bigger coup for their reputation as an animation house, however, has been the pact they formed last year with Studio Ghibli, the Japanese giant whose films were previously distributed Stateside by Disney. Not only will GKIDS be releasing Ghibli’s latest film “From Up on Poppy Hill” — one of their four Oscar hopefuls this year — in US theaters next March, but they’ve also secured the theatrical rights to 14 titles from the Ghibli library, many of them directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Those include 2002 Oscar winner “Spirited Away,” 2005 nominee “Howl’s Moving Castle” and enduring children’s favorite “My Neighbour Totoro.”

Today, it was announced that GKIDS has added to its collection one of Ghibli’s most complex and sophisticated features: Isao Takahata’s 1988 classic “Grave of the Fireflies,” a devastating anti-war drama following two starving, orphaned children in flashback through the dying days of WWII in Kobe. It’s a remarkable film that knocked me sideways when I first saw it a few years back, not least because I watched it back-to-back with the far gentler “Totoro” — which, coincidentally enough, is how the films were first released in Japan.

Once hailed by Roger Ebert as one of the greatest war films ever made, it’s a film that could do with more exposure, and GKIDS plans to give it with a 25th-anniversary re-release next year, and a place in their travelling Studio Ghibi Retrospective, currently making its way through North American theaters. Having secured the rights to the film from a separate Japanese company, Toho, GKIDS president Eric Beckman offered this statement: “This deal finally reunites a great Isao Takahata masterwork with the rest of the Studio Ghibli films. It is a profoundly moving film and an essential part of the Ghibli legacy.”

It’s a nice build-up to the studio’s first release of a new Ghibli film — “From Up on Poppy Hill,” which was written by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by his son Goro, was Japan’s top grosser in 2011, so they’ll be hoping for solid arthouse business in the States. An Oscar nomination, of course, would be helpful in that regard, though they’re facing some stiff competition — not least from themselves.     

With HBO’s “The Girl” hitting the small screen recently and Sacha Gervasi’s “Hitchcock” due in theaters this week, and with Universal’s big boxed set of most of Alfred Hitchcock’s great works on shelves, it seems that most identifiable of rotund maestros of the cinema is en vogue. But what has always been fascinating about “Hitch” for Oscar watchers is that, despite his legendary status — “the premiere image-maker of the 20th century,” as author Mark Cousins called him — the man never won a competitive Oscar.

It really does seem like Oscar’s big miss. Stanley Kubrick is a big deal — my favorite filmmaker — but there’s something really strange about a guy like Hitchcock, who certainly never dallied in inaccessible realms, having never received his due. Sure, a mid-career work won Best Picture, and he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy in 1968, but Best Director eluded him throughout. As did the DGA prize, in fact (though the guild saw fit to bestow lifetime achievement recognition the very same year he received the Thalberg).

“The lack of respect from the Academy pained him,” Hitchcock biographer Stephen Rebello, whose book “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” was the basis for Gervasi’s film, told The Hollywood Reporter last month. “He felt they resented him for being an entertainer and working in genres that weren”t perceived as worthy.”

And perhaps that was true. But looking at the director’s overall luck (or lack thereof) in the awards season, it’s striking just how many organizations often passed him over. He never won a prize from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The New York Film Critics Circle awarded him only once, for 1938’s “The Lady Vanishes” rather than anything from his generally agreed-upon top-tier canon. At the Golden Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association crowned his show, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” on the TV side of things, but only nominated him once for directing features (in 1972 for “Frenzy,” of all things). And that group, too, dealt him a career recognition prize, via a Cecil B. DeMille Award the year prior.

In his time, it was just never meant to be. He would wait to be truly heralded as an artist. Film critics may have collectively chosen “Vertigo” as the greatest film of all time in the recent installment of Sight & Sound’s decennial poll, for instance, but it was a critical and commercial flop upon release in 1958.

On the Oscar side of things, 16 of Hitchcock’s films were nominated for this or that, tallying 52 nominations over the years. But they only won six trophies total. It’s a staggering statistic, and one that sparked an interest in digging through the films again and spotlighting what it was the Academy deemed worthy of recognition.

So click through the gallery below to relive Hitchcock’s history with Oscar, the ups and, mostly, the downs: 23 years of Oscar heartache. Feel free to rate the titles as you go along.

“Hitchcock” opens in limited release tomorrow.

It’s been 15 years since Anthony Hopkins was last in the Oscar hunt, and even with Best Actor buzz brewing around his performance in “Hitchcock,” he’s in no hurry to get back on the campaign trail. Though he’s not as impolite as Joaquin Phoenix recently was about the institution itself, he doesn’t mince words when speaking about the “disgusting” process of industry glad-handing in pursuit of a nomination: “Kissing the backside of the authorities that can make or break it… It makes me want to throw up, it really does. It’s sick-making. I’ve seen it so many times. I saw it fairly recently, last year. Some great producer-mogul and everyone kisses this guy’s backside. I think, ‘What are they doing? Don’t they have any self respect?’ I wanted to say, ‘Fuck off.'” [Huffington Post]   

Steve Pond on why many Academy members aren’t happy with the Academy’s decision to move the nominations forward. Among other things, they need more time to see the movies. [The Wrap] 

The Hollywood Reporter offers its annual Actress Roundtable — nice to see Rachel Weisz in the group alongside Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway, et al. Does her work in “The Deep Blue Sea” have a prayer? [THR]

The Cesar longlist for Most Promising Actor features two of the year’s best performances: Matthias Schoenaerts for “Rust and Bone” and Kacey Mottet Klein for “Sister.” (Ernst Umhauer ain’t half bad in “In the House,” either.) [Premiere]

Sasha Stone digs into five documentaries she believes are worthy of Oscar consideration, including “Samsara” and “The Central Park Five.” [Awards Daily]

Among the people not excited about the upcoming premiere of “The Hobbit”: PETA, who plan to picket the red carpet over allegations the 27 animals died during the film’s shooting. [The Telegraph]

Check out “Dull Tool,” the Best Original Song hopeful written by Fiona Apple for Judd Apatow’s “This is 40.” Having her at the Oscars would make my year. [Slate]

Diane Garrett on the number of damaged souls — the characters, that is, not the actors — in the running for awards glory this year. [Variety]

Spotlighting the unflashy but effective period work by production designer Sharon Seymour on “Argo.” If the film’s frontrunner status really takes off, could it find its way into the design fields?  [Below the Line]

And finally, just in case you haven’t seen this yet: Terrence Malick’s got moves, y’all. [Vulture]

I’ve been kind of waiting to see how J.A. Bayona’s “The Impossible” will fare with Academy and guild voters. The film hit first at Toronto. I saw it just before that and loved it. It felt, to me, like a sure-fire Oscar play. But will it find room in the bait-infested waters of December?

An award for star Naomi Watts will sure give it some higher wattage going into the holidays, and that’s just what the Palm Springs International Film Festival has done. Watts will receive the Desert Palm Achievement Award at the 24th annual fest, an award that, in recent years, has gone to Michelle Williams, Natalie Portman, Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Kate Winslet and Halle Berry in recent years.

“We’re delighted to pay tribute to Naomi Watts, one of the most gifted and versatile performers to grace the screen,” festival chairman Harold Matzner said via press release. “‘The Impossible,’ the true story of the tsunami that stunned the world with its fury, is the vehicle for Ms. Watts to display the talent and sensitivity that cinema lovers have come to expect and appreciate from her.”

Competing fest Santa Barbara recently announced Ben Affleck as this year’s recipient of their highest honor, the Modern Master Award. So the jockeying for position is very much off to the races (too many horse metaphors).

The 24th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala will be held on January 5, 2012 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The festival runs January 3 – 14.

In a recent Long Shot column, I wrote about the shabby treatment typically given by awards pundits and voters alike to the Best Actress category, a race routinely described as “weak” due to the scarcity of major female-propelled prestige titles — despite the abundance of outstanding work on the independent, genre and foreign fringes. One of the names I highlighted as unlikely to receive the attention they deserve was Linda Cardellini, whose measured, quietly aching performance as a returning war vet in Liza Johnson’s microbudget debut feature “Return” went largely unseen on its release back in February.

I’m not the only one who believes the film and the actress, still arguably best-known for her TV work in “Freaks and Geeks” and “ER,” deserve a second look. Over the weekend, the LA Times reported that Cardellini herself is launching a self-financed awards campaign for herself and for the film, mailing screeners to all 2200 members of the Screen Actors’ Guild nominating committee, as well as to the actors’, directors’ and ‘producers’ branches of the Academy. More power to her, I say.

Writing about the film back in March, I described Cardellini’s performance as follows: “Given the unfamiliarity of such substantial leads in her filmography, you’d hardly blame the actress for grandly flexing her range, but she’s opted for a flintier, more morally inquisitive approach to Kelli’s surfeit of inadequately Band-Aided psychological crevices, which manifest themselves both in idle depression and more severe alcoholism.” It’s certainly the kind of work that could touch fellow actors if they only got to see it.

Speaking to the LAT’s Nicole Sperling, Cardellini is realistic in her goals. She knows she’s a long shot for an Oscar or SAG nod, but that’s not her chief objective: she’s primarily concerned simply with getting her peers to see a worthy film that hasn’t yet reached the audience it merits. With “Return,” which also features strong supporting work from Michael Shannon and John Slattery, having grossed only $16,000 in theaters, plus VOD revenue, small distributor Focus World obviously hasn’t the cash the push for awards, so Cardellini’s taking the initiative. As she puts it: 

“This is not necessarily about an award. That’s a hard baton to grasp. In the past few years there have been movies that have been very small that I never would have seen — ‘Pariah,’ ‘A Better Life,’ ‘A Separation’ — had it not been for DVD screeners that people got for free and then talked about because they were worth talking about. It felt like that was where our movie could be seen and appreciated.

“An Oscar is so far away, that if it happened, it would be kind of unbelievable. As long as I didn’t think of this [as an attempt to win an Oscar] I felt OK about that. For me, for Liza, for the other actors and the crew to be seen for the work that they did, that’s a great thing. At worst, more people have seen the movie, and that, to me, is wonderful.”

The longer-term reward of this smart strategy, of course, would be further, bigger casting opportunities down the road for a deft, charismatic actress whom many in Hollywood might still think of as a TV presence. Before “Return” came along, the peaks of her film career had been the “Scooby-Doo” movies and, more notably, a small but deeply affecting role in “Brokeback Mountain.”

“Return” proves that Cardellini can carry a feature, and in a harder-edged role than her lovable characters in “Freaks and Geeks” and “ER”; it can hardly hurt to show the directors and producers in the Academy what she can do. (Writer-director Johnson, meanwhile, is already climbing the Hollywood ladder: she’s currently shooting her next film, an adaptation of the Alice Munro short story “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage,” with Kristen Wiig and Guy Pearce.)

With this kind of campaign, then, Cardellini wins even if she doesn’t end up racing. But what if enough of the SAG voters check out their screeners, and are impressed by what they see? As Demian Bichir’s bolt-from-the-blue Best Actor nomination for “A Better Life” proved last year, mass screener mailing can prove an effective strategy for outside contenders with nothing to lose. And “Return,” modest as it is, sticks with you: it’s a little over 18 months since I saw it in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at Cannes, yet the sharp, sad details of Cardellini’s performance are crisp in my memory. I’ll be rooting for her.

LONDON – You may remember that two years ago, Julia Roberts attracted some attention in awards-watching circles when she held a private industry screening of “Biutiful” in aid of Javier Bardem’s Best Actor campaign — not because she was in any way involved or invested, but simply because she believed the performance was worthy of recognition, and wanted more of her colleagues to see it. We’ll never know how much of an influence Roberts’ efforts had, but together with the attached publicity, they certainly didn’t hurt: Bardem came from behind to score a nomination for a challenging, little-seen foreign film, and in a competitive category to boot.

This trend of peers effectively campaigning for each other looks set to continue, and we had this season’s first instance of it last night at London’s Soho Hotel, where Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie hosted an intimate reception and screening of “The Impossible” — chiefly to talk up the performance of her friend Ewan McGregor. (Before you hit IMDb to jog your memory: no, they’ve never worked together.) I was lucky enough to be in attendance.

McGregor is being campaigned in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance as a distraught father seeking to reunite his family in Juan Antonio Bayona’s harrowing survival drama set around the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. Naomi Watts is firmly in the hunt for a Best Actress nomination, while 16 year-old newcomer Tom Holland — who is being campaigned, with unusual and commendable integrity, in the lead race — will surely receive his share of breakthrough and young actor citations. But McGregor’s work has, thus far, prompted less awards talk for a turn that’s no less impressive than that of Watts — though his character comes into focus later in the action. 

Still, it’s a performance that will find many admirers among those who stick through Bayona’s viscerally moving, technically astonishing film — in particular, one scene in which an emotionally threadbare McGregor barely holds up one half of a phone conversation is Oscar clip-ready, and I mean that in the least cynical way. Yesterday, Jolie offered this tribute to the actor:

“I have known you for years and you are one of my favorite actors and I”ve always loved to watch you, but I watched this and I didn”t recognize you… To say it is one of the best performances of the year, really doesn”t give it credit, because it doesn”t feel like a performance. It”s from such an honest place and so deeply emotional. You rarely see this emotion from a man on screen and I called him later to tell him how much he made me cry. I was crying, and I looked over at Brad [Pitt] and he was crying. It”s just really, really powerful. As an actor, I”m in awe.”

Of course, Jolie didn’t limit her praise to McGregor while introducing “The Impossible,” a film she quipped “I wish I had something to do with.” She also offered warm words of admiration for Holland, who was also in attendance, together with the film’s writer and composer. (Bayona and Watts couldn’t make it, but will be in London for tonight’s UK premiere.) Jolie continued:

“What the filmmakers have done, they have made [the tsunami], through this one family”s story, personal. We feel like we are in it and we travel through it, and it changes us. That is quite an extraordinary thing and I think that is due to the brilliance and the elegance of the script by Sergio Sanchez. You can see the detail and the care that he took when you watch this, and the respect for this family and all of the families involved. When you take a true story like this, to handle it with such delicacy is really to be commended. It is also masterfully directed by J.A. Bayona, and there will be many scenes where you will be sitting here watching it thinking, ‘How did they do that? That is insane! I don”t understand.’ I was asking them myself and they said, ‘Don”t you know? Aren”t you an actor?’ And I said, ‘It is just beyond imagination.’

“The true testament of any film is what you walk away with, and I think in this film you walk away with more empathy, with a greater sense of connection to your fellow man, and you want to run home and hug your kids, and tell the people you love that you love them. There is no greater message and this is an extraordinary film.”

“Beyond imagination” is apt choice of words: it’s the film’s skill in realizing an experience effectively unimaginable to anyone but its survivors that distinguish it from the rest of the prestige pack this season — as physical, sensation-based filmmaking, it bears comparison with the work of Spielberg and Cameron. Summit has posed themselves a challenge by releasing “The Impossible” in the thick of December, but if enough Academy members make time to watch it, many of them will find themselves as profoundly affected as Jolie. 

I had a brief chat with McGregor, and seeing him in typically genial, relaxed mode only highlighted how contrastingly frayed and beaten he is in the film; he described it as the most challenging work of his career. McGregor has, of course, never been recognized by the Academy — partly, I suspect, because he excels at playing everymen. As a natural movie star, his best performances tend to look easier than they are: he was as worthy as his Oscar-winning co-star Christopher Plummer in “Beginners,” for example, but it was an evocation of anguish too subtle — too casual, even — to register with voters. In “The Impossible,” he’s crying out louder — let’s see if they hear him this year. 

I mentioned this on the podcast Friday and in a column recently, I think, but the lull has been considerable this year, it seems. The waiting for late-season contenders, I mean. It’s subjective. Maybe I’m just coming from a weird perspective. But enough of it has to do with the four big remaining entries — “Django Unchained,” “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” “Les Misérables” and “Zero Dark Thirty” — having been watched like a hawk as they race toward completion.

There has been this and that in the interim. Since the New York Film Festival dropped “Flight,” “Life of Pi” and “Lincoln” onto the season we’ve gotten “Hitchcock” (which I liked), “This is 40” (Judd Apatow’s richest work) and “Promised Land” (which has been shown a few times — I’m seeing it today). But mostly it’s been anticipation for what the aforementioned quartet will have to offer the season.

“Les Misérables” will finally unveil in New York for press and AMPAS/guild members the day after Thanksgiving. Director Tom Hooper will introduce the film and participate in a Q&A before hopping on a plane to go and do the very same thing the next day in Los Angeles. “Zero Dark Thirty,” meanwhile, is set to screen the NEXT day, while “Django Unchained” will wait longer than originally expected. Guild screenings for Tarantino’s film had been set for the end of November, but word is the film isn’t finished and director Quentin Tarantino has no real deadline other than a drop-dead one for release.

Regarding that, the unfortunate perception among some is that, if it’s not screening, it’s not an Oscar movie. But sometimes an artist just needs to finish his film, and you’ll see it when you see it. They were shooting into August, after all. He’s locked away in his editing suite now, getting there. So let’s just let him get there, shall we?

Then there’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” The wave of apathy toward this film that I’ve been sensing among friends and colleagues is fascinating for a project of this scope. I get the feeling there’s a bit of preemptive fatigue going on over the fact that a story that could barely make a case for two films is in fact set to be a trilogy. But that could frankly be a good thing for Warner Bros. The onus is on these other projects to perform, but if they don’t, “The Hobbit” (of all things) could be poised to surprise. I’m told it’s way behind on effects at moment, however, so it’ll be down to the wire — though much more quietly than Tarantino, it would seem. Screenings won’t happen until early December, I’m told.

So for a moment there, it really looked like everything would be seen before the final month of the year. Alas, not so. And while one or two deadlines will be missed as a result, it’s certainly not the end of the world.

“Les Misérables” will be the one likely receiving the most scrutiny as it has been considered a sight-unseen thoroughbred for quite some time. Anne Hathaway’s appearance on Saturday Night Live lit the fuse for the public last weekend. We can bet on below-the-line appeal across the board (including one original song contender), but will Hugh Jackman shake up the Best Actor race? Will Hathaway’s performance be enough for serious supporting actress consideration (given the part), or will Samantha Barks be the one? And is all forgiven enough for Russell Crowe to ride back into the race? Or will that hold until “Noah” proves surprisingly moving?

Early word on “Django Unchained” says Samuel L. Jackson might be the surprise of the film. Could he gallop alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in supporting actor races this season? Christoph Waltz’s slide over to lead actor does two things: A) It says the film is a co-lead piece with Jamie Foxx and that he might just fare better than his co-star (I’ve heard he just brings more to the table — whether that’s true and if so whether it’s the role or the performance, or both, that gets him there, I don’t know); and B) It frees up some space in the supporting ranks of the film to allow breathing room for someone like Jackson.

Jessica Chastain is taking on the part of a real-life CIA agent obsessed over tracking down Osama Bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty.” Last year’s “it” girl could easily take control in a Best Actress race that seemingly has no confident frontrunner. (In my opinion, anyway. Chastain’s fellow “it” girl Jennifer Lawrence just doesn’t seem like a typical winner to me in “Silver Linings Playbook.” Of course, I could be dead wrong.) Meanwhile, Jennifer Ehle is someone to watch in supporting, I’m told, and Jason Clarke could emerge from the film a new star — 15 years into his career, no less.

And finally, “The Hobbit.” Can anyone stand out? Or is Ian McKellen just riffing on what we’ve seen? Is Martin Freeman offering just marginally better or worse than Elijah Wood’s non-nominated work? Do the various dwarves just blend together? And has all the focus on 48 fps caused the ripple in the effects work, which by definition has to be more expensive and extensive at a higher frame rate? We’ll see. Below-the-line could come out for it, could not. I suppose it depends, across the board, on how nostalgic members are for, versus how bored they are with, Jackson’s Middle Earth — particularly knowing there’s more to come.

Somewhere in all of this? Hopefully much-needed solace. Remember last year when a Tom Cruise actioner from Paramount seemed like a quick oasis in the middle of the season? I wonder…

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.

We all know genre films don’t usually get the respect they deserve from the Academy, and the same goes for the actors in them: when pressed for options, voters will nominate a Sigourney Weaver in “Aliens,” but they’re generally more comfortable filling out the ballot with sundry biopics and prestige dramas. Geoff Berkshire wishes that would change this year, citing Liam Neeson in “The Grey,” Mark Ruffalo in “The Avengers” and Christopher Walken in “Seven Psychopaths” as examples of actors who “elevated the material” with their performances. (Perhaps the problem lies in the perception that genre material even needs elevation?) I’d throw Elizabeth Olsen in “Silent House,” Javier Bardem in “Skyfall” and assorted supporting players in “Killing Them Softly” into the mix — how about you? [The Vote]

Nathaniel Rogers gets real about the “Skyfall” hype: a couple of tech nods would be a good get, but those talking about Best Picture are overreaching. [The Film Experience]

With the Academy’s documentary feature shortlist due to land soon, Michael Ward offers a rundown of the category. (Also, we’ve finally assembled a Contenders page for it — see the sidebar.) [Awards Circuit]

One of the potential frontrunners in that category, veteran docmaker Ken Burns, talks about “The Central Park Five” and the case’s ongoing legal complications. [Vulture] 

Matthias Schoenaerts, who deserves at least as much awards traction this season as his more famous co-star, on “Rust and Bone.” [LA Times]

Daniel Montgomery offers a list of this year’s 10 directors most overdue for an Oscar. Michael Haneke and Paul Thomas Anderson, sure. Ben Affleck and Joe Wright? Talented as they are, surely not. [Gold Derby] 

Gregg Kilday wonders if likely Best Actress nominee Quvenzhane Wallis faces the possibility of a voter backlash. Also, her mom’s name is Qulyndreia. Awesome. [Hollywood Reporter] 

On the difficulties of catching a tiger — well, creating one, at least — in “Life of Pi.” [New York Times]

Brad Bird is the latest name not directing “Star Wars” this week. Still in the running: Bela Tarr, John Waters, Adam Shankman. [The Guardian]

Among other things, this interview with “Silver Linings Playbook” novelist Matthew Quick reveals (to me, at least) that the film was originally set to star Mark Wahlberg and Anne Hathaway. [Philadelphia Inquirer]