Welcome to Oscar Talk.

In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

Oscar predictions are running rampant now with the Gurus o’ Gold at Movie City News publishing again finally and Entertainment Weekly putting out its annual look with a new prognosticator. We look at where things seem to stand among the consensus.

“Lincoln” landed at AFI Fest last night as the closing night presentation and makes its way to theaters today. We revisit the film, somewhat, and Anne reports from last night’s event.

We take a gander at the field of cinematography contenders, dipping our toes into the below-the-line water.

And finally, reader questions. We address queries concerning the potential for more live sung-through musicals and the voting practices of the crafts branches.

Have a listen to the new podcast below. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. You to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here. And as always, if you have a question you’d like us to address on a future podcast, send it to OscarTalk@HitFix.com.

“Here I Come” courtesy of Stuart Park.

I’m kind of hoping I can get to the theater while I’m in LA this week to see Sam Mendes’ “Skyfall” again, which I quite liked. Guy was mostly positive on it, too. I’d particularly like to take it in on IMAX to soak in those beautiful Roger Deakins images. With much talk after the film opened early overseas (mopping up at the box office), it landed on these shores yesterday. So I’m very curious to know what our readers might think of it. If you get around to seeing it, come on back here and tell us what you thought. And as always, feel free to rate it above.

With Alan Cumming hosting, Matt Stone and Trey Parker on the winners list and Daniel Day-Lewis taking the stage with an Eastwooding routine, BAFTA/LA’s Britannia Awards sound considerably more fun than their parent organization’s February ceremony across the pond. Then again, that’s often the case with awards shows the general public doesn’t really know about — though they’ll have a chance to see for themselves when the ceremony is broadcast this Sunday on BBC America.

The Britannia Awards, which have been held by the British Academy’s Los Angeles outcrop since 1989, aren’t a competitive ceremony, but rather a celebration of a selected handful of individuals — usually mostly British, though not this year — deemed to have enriched the medium. It’s not an award tied to specific films, though they often alight on artists who already have a clear presence in the awards season.

Daniel Day-Lewis, for example, wasn’t recognized for his performance in “Lincoln,” though the timing of Steven Spielberg’s film surely contributed to the decision to hand the Oscar-winning star the Stanley Kubrick Award for Excellence in Film — an award that Spielberg himself accepted in 2000. Curiously enough, Day-Lewis is the first Brit to be given this particular Britannia Award since Hugh Grant nine years ago. In between, Americans to have taken the honor include Denzel Washington, Jeff Bridges, Clint Eastwood and Sean Penn, at the start of his 2008 path to Oscar glory with “Milk.”

Still, the award itself wasn’t why Day-Lewis has nabbed most of the headlines out of the event. The revered actor delighted the audience with a playful acceptance speech in which he dragged a chair onto the stage with him and addressed an invisible Barack Obama — who had, of course, just been re-elected the night before. “I know as an Englishman it’s absolutely none of my business,” Day-Lewis said to the chair, “but I’m so very grateful that it was you.” Parodying Clint Eastwood’s mortifying empty-chair routine may not be the most original gag by now, but if Day-Lewis is to give further speeches over the next few months — and many assume he will have reason to — it’s good that he’s feeling a little irreverent.

Another Britannia winner with a major film now out was Daniel Craig, who accepted the British Artist of the Year award –a neatly timed honor, coming just as “Skyfall” has become the top-grossing film of the year in the UK, and in less than two weeks. There’s a strong possibility that BAFTA will acknowledge the film further down the road, though Best Actor attention for Craig would be a bit of a stretch, so this seems as appropriate a way as any to recognize the current James Bond. Recent winners of the same award include Helena Bonham Carter, Tilda Swinton and Craig’s own wife, Rachel Weisz.

Meanwhile, the John Schlesinger Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing was presented to Quentin Tarantino — the first American ever to take an award that has recently been handed to the likes of Christopher Nolan, Danny Boyle and Anthony Minghella. With “Django Unchained” yet to be unveiled, we can only guess as to whether QT will be accepting any further honors this season. 

 The list of winners was rounded out by “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker — whose stage music “The Book of Mormon” hits the West End early next year — who took the Charlie Chaplin Award for Excellence in Comedy, while game designer Will Wright won the Albert R. Broccoli award for Worldwide Contribution to Entertainment. 

The full list of winners:

Stanley Kubrick Award for Excellence in Film: Daniel Day-Lewis
British Artist of the Year: Daniel Craig
John Schlesinger Award for Excellence in Directing: Quentin Tarantino
Charlie Chaplin Award for Excellence in Comedy: Matt Stone and Trey Parker
Albert R. Broccoli Award for Worldwide Contribution to Entertainment: Will Wright

The AFI Fest closed last night with the “world premiere” (even if the NYFF let the cat out of the bag weeks ago) of “Lincoln,” but not before handing out some awards. And the big winner was… well, Scandinavia. Swedish immigrant drama “Eat Sleep Die” took the Grand Jury Prize, and the superb Danish thriller “A Hijacking” (see my Variety review) took the Audience Award in the New Auteurs section, but the big winner from an Oscar perspective was Denmark’s foreign-language submission “A Royal Affair,” which underlined its serious contender status by taking the World Cinema Audience Award. Not many were paying attention when it won two prizes at Berlin in February, but this smart historical romance has grown in stature ever since. It wasn’t the only foreign Oscar hopeful to take a gong: Kenya’s first-ever entry, “Nairobi Half Life” was also rewarded. [AFI Fest] 

The Hollywood Reporter presents its annual actors’ roundtable, with Denzel Washington, John Hawkes, Matt Damon, Alan Arkin, Richard Gere and Jamie Foxx. [THR]

Xan Brooks talks to “Amour” stars Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant, who constitute an actors’ roundtable of their own. [The Guardian]

How Virginia, home state of one Mr. Kris Tapley, got a boost from the filming of “Lincoln.” [LA Times]

Still on “Lincoln,” which I haven’t seen yet, Zach Baron writes one of the most interesting pieces I’ve read on it so far: “It’s Spielberg doing Sorkin.” [Grantland] 

Speaking of Sorkin, Scott Feinberg reports on a sneak preview the Oscar-winning writer hosted for Gus van Sant’s upcoming awards hopeful “Promised Land.” [The Race]

Noting that almost half of last year’s Best Picture nominees failed to secure screenplay nominations, Jon Weisman wonders if the categories are as wedded as they used to be. [Variety]

The Makeup and Hair Stylists Guild — one of the few that doesn’t feel the need for its own award — celebrates its 75th anniversary. [Below the Line]

Speaking of guilds, I only just discovered the Art Directors’ Guild magazine, Perspective, online. Nice feature this month of Jack Fisk’s extraordinary work in “The Master.” [ADG]

David Poland sits down with Melissa Leo to talk “Flight” and her fearless, nomination-worthy work in “Francine.” [Hot Blog]

The sounds you hear are the competitors jockeying for position. “Argo” is the frontrunner. There’s no other way to put it. And it will still be the frontrunner when “Silver Linings Playbook” hits theaters just around the corner. After that, “Life of Pi” will put up a big fight upon release, while “Lincoln,” landing tomorrow, will be in the thick of it, too.

But as I said a few months back, I can’t help but feel that, barring the film being a sudden commercial and/or critical bomb, Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables” is going to be the one to watch in the Best Picture race. It’s been seen. It’s not some great mystery anymore. And the campaign is gearing up with the first major screenings set to take place immediately after Thanksgiving.

A new trailer landed today, and just like with the teaser, I’m not really liking Tom Hooper and Danny Cohen’s wide angle lens thing this time around. I liked it in “The King’s Speech” and defended it, but here, It takes away from the scope of the film, somehow. I want to see all those pretty clothes and sets, but I feel like I’m getting a headache peering around whoever’s head is up in my face — Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Eddie Redmayne, etc. — at any given moment. I don’t know how to put it any other way than that.

Anyway, the last time a musical really cleared a path through the awards race, it was Rob Marshall’s “Chicago” 10 years ago. “Dreamgirls” missed in 2006. “Nine” face-planted in 2009. We’ll see how “Les Misérables” fares.

Check out the new trailer below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvHzCLP6ug&w=640&h=360]

The acting races are in full sprint at this point. Everyone concedes the Best Actor race is stuffed to the gills, only more so with consistent additions. The lead actress category began to look a bit fuller when Helen Mirren’s name was thrown into the ring and, as Guy pointed out yesterday, features plenty of performances for Academy members looking to venture even the least bit out of their comfort zones.

One actress recently added to that flock is Jessica Chastain in “Zero Dark Thirty,” which will screen for press at the end of the month. And another added to the boys’ club is Christoph Waltz in “Django Unchained,” as reported earlier today. Many who have read the script (probably the most widely read awards season hopeful before the fact ever) had noted that Waltz felt like more of a co-lead in the piece. But the way I hear it, as good as Waltz may be in the film, this all likely clears some room in the supporting ranks for a pair of actors poised to strike.

The first one we all know, based on the trailer, was chewing the scenery and clearly on a tear. Hence, Leonardo DiCaprio has been in our Best Supporting Actor predictions since day one, and many other outlets followed suit. According to a non-vested source who’s seen the film, he really is a wicked delight and even a bit controversial.

“Leo is BIG,” the source tells me. “But in this context and this world, it works really well and his boyishness acts as a good mask for the underlying evil inherent in the character. He’s ticky and actory, but in a way that I wasn’t used to seeing him. And the movie is pretty controversial and offensive (there’s a couple scenes involving him that are pretty hard to watch), so there’s the whole ‘brave’ factor involved. Which, I guess, could work against him as well.”

However, the actor who really stands out, this person says, is Samuel L. Jackson. “He is in BY FAR his best role in a long while,” the source says. “And he’s not phoning it in.”

Foxx is fine, I’m told, “and doesn’t detract from the film, but he doesn’t really add to it either. He plays it in a very modern way. QT’s dialogue doesn’t really sound natural coming out of him. But that’s okay because it’s a riff on the whole Man With No Name, so he doesn’t have too may monologues, as the others do.” The source says that, in his/her opinion, Waltz “kinda carries” Foxx.

The film “is way overlong and of course not everything works,” the source goes on, “but it’s wildly entertaining and full of legitimately badass moments, especially for a western fan. The pulpy/genre elements don’t at all serve to view the controversial stuff with ironic detachment, as I thought they did in ‘Inglorious Basterds’ (and I know I’m in the minority on that). Rather, they elevate those aspects with heart in only the way QT really can. More along the lines if ‘Kill Bill.’ It’s his own world mixed with some pretty brutal and fucked up stuff…and I don’t think the ‘N’ word has ever been used so much in a film…but it works, and is full of rousing moments.”

So, there you go. Just one person’s opinion. I wouldn’t say there’s anything there shocking/surprising, particularly given the fact that everyone and their brother has gotten their hands on this script (I never bothered reading it). But it’s nice to know Sam Jackson could be a fall surprise amid the usual this season.

“Django Unchained” opens everywhere Christmas Day.

The Best Actor field is already sufficiently crowded — with a couple of nominees seemingly glued in place — that you wouldn’t envy any newcomer to the race. Yet The Weinstein Company, which is hardly short of a serious contender in the category, is reportedly sufficiently high on Christoph Waltz in the still-unseen “Django Unchained” to campaign him in the lead category.

Gold Derby’s Tom O’Neil quotes an unspecified “insider” as saying Waltz’s performance as a dentist-cum-bounty-hunter, who joins Jamie Foxx’s title character in a rescue mission, “towers over the whole movie.” That’s the kind of claim many had assumed would be made for Leonardo DiCaprio’s villainous supporting turn. Is Waltz really the film’s MVP — just as he was, to Oscar-winning effect, in Quentin Tarantino’s last effort — or is he being elevated to declutter DiCaprio’s Best Supporting Actor campaign?  

Either way, it’s a bold move, considering he’ll now be competing for Best Actor traction with Foxx, who was previously presumed to be the film’s sole play, if not a particularly threatening one, in the category. Is Foxx’s performance a non-factor for awards, or will they be competing with each other for votes? It’s a long time since a major film ran a campaign for two Best Actor candidates — indeed, no film has managed a double nod in the category since “Amadeus” in 1984.

Interestingly enough, the Weinsteins had the opportunity to take this very approach with another of their 2012 hopefuls. Many would argue that “The Master” is a two-lead film, yet the company has opted to split the difference by campaigning Joaquin Phoenix for Best Actor and Philip Seymour Hoffman in supporting — a tactic that could well wind up snaring gold for both actors. The Weinstein Company is canny about such matters, so they wouldn’t be promoting Waltz if they thought a lead campaign was detrimental to his chances: if he and DiCaprio each have a lot to chew on, after all, a dual supporting campaign wouldn’t be in either man’s best interests.

The question now, of course, is whether Waltz can really unseat any of the presumed frontrunners in the lead category. The Weinsteins are already aiming to get both Phoenix — likely to be a force in the year-end critics’ awards — and “Silver Linings Playbook” star Bradley Cooper into the top five. With Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes and Denzel Washington currently riding high, Anthony Hopkins lurking just outside the top tier, and Hugh Jackman’s potentially forceful Jean Valjean yet to be unveiled, can the company really muscle three of their guys into the field?    

On-paper instinct says no, but then again, “Django Unchained” as a whole is no more than an on-paper Oscar prospect right now. It may not turn out to be an awards player at all, or it may please critics and audiences enough to emerge as a late-breaking spoiler in more categories than just Best Actor. Given Tarantino’s Academy strike rate, there’s no way of guessing until we actually lay eyes on the thing. Either way, as someone who believes Waltz’s turn in “Inglourious Basterds” actually deserved a crack at the Best Actor Oscar in 2009, it’s nice to see him playing with the big boys.

“CUT!”

This word is iconic in popular culture as something the director shouts to end the shooting of a scene. It even featured prominently in last year”s Best Picture winner.

But it’s the film editors who truly “cut” our films down to what we actually see on screen. Deciding what leave in, what to leave out, how to convey the narrative and how to establish pace are just a few of the editor”s extraordinarily important roles.

The work of many other crafts artists, to say nothing of the actors, is finished when the shoot is done. Others, such as the composer, only begin when the shoot is over. The film editor, on the other hand, is there throughout, working with the director until the film is just right.

More than any other category with the possible – and even that is debatable – exception of Best Director, the Academy Award for Best Film Editing is very often tied to the Best Picture race. The two categories are intertwined. Prior to the Best Picture expansion there were almost always three-to-four nominees in common between the two categories. In 2002, there was a 100% matchup. Of the past 15 nominees, 14 have been Best Picture nominees. The one exception, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” actually won the category. That was the first time since 1968″s “Bullitt” where a film won this category and no others.

But the branch does look for things beyond Best Picture potential. Action films and musicals do quite well here, due to the fact that making coherent fight scenes and song-and-dance numbers is hardly an easy task. By “action films” I include war films and suspense films. Films with interesting and unusual narratives such as “Memento,” “United 93” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” also score often.

Probably more than any other, the category is *not* principally concerned with in-club considerations. Many editors receive second or third nominations, but only two working editors – Michael Kahn and Thelma Schoonmaker – have seven nominations to date. While that is a lot of nominations, it is not a great deal for “most among working artists” when compared to every other crafts category.

On the note of Michael Kahn, he has the potential to earn his eighth nod this year for Steven Spielberg”s “Lincoln.” With six of his seven nominations coming for Spielberg films (including at least one nomination in each of the past four decades), Kahn clearly has a great working relationship with the director. An epic film involving numerous characters would seem a good bet for yet another nomination. Moreover, “Lincoln” is poised to be Spielberg”s best reviewed film in quite some time. Even so, Kahn has been a surprise omission before (“The Color Purple,” “Minority Report,” “War Horse”), so let”s not take anything to the bank.

Chris Dickens won this award four years ago on his only nomination. Cutting Danny Boyle”s “Slumdog Millionaire” was doubtless a difficult task. This year, he collaborates with another recent Oscar-winning director – Tom Hooper – on “Les Misérables.” With this being a musical, everything seems set for the nomination. This is all of course subject to the condition that the film actually lives up to expectations, which have been set high indeed.

Another one-time nominee working with an Oscar-winning director is Tim Squyres, on Ang Lee”s “Life of Pi.” Squyres earned his only nomination for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” despite editing popular movies such as “Gosford Park” and “Sense & Sensibility.” I”ve written before that adapting this book is going to be exceptionally difficult, and expert pacing will be a necessity. So if this becomes the Best Picture Best Picture contender it looks like it will be, one would expect Squyres to be among the nominees. Even so, two of Lee”s three previous Best Picture nominees (“Sense & Sensibility” and “Brokeback Mountain”) came up short here.

Yet a third one-time nominee working with an Oscar-winning director is Dylan Tichenor, who is cutting Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty.” The veteran Tichenor finally garnered his first nomination in this category for “There Will Be Blood.” “Zero Dark Thirty” will presumably rely heavily on both suspense and action, so Tichenor”s potential is great. It all depends on the quality of the film in my view. If it becomes a major player, a nomination here would seem probable. Tichenor worked on the film with two-time Oscar nominee William Goldenberg (“The Insider,” “Seabiscuit”).

I don”t believe “Zero Dark Thirty” is Goldenberg”s best chance this year, however, as he also is responsible for having cut Ben Affleck”s “Argo.” This exceptionally well-made and suspenseful thriller seems the perfect vehicle for the Academy to welcome Ben Affleck to the list of Oscar-nominated (and probably Oscar-winning) actor/directors. Goldenberg has been nominated for the two previous Best Picture nominees he edited. He may be a double nominee this year, but I”m confident he”ll at least score for this title.

“Django Unchained” is Quentin Tarantino”s latest hotly anticipated cinematic event. Tarantino”s films have narrative structures that inherently require great editing. This one looks that it will involve suspense and action as well. Sadly, Tarantino”s longtime editor Sally Menke has passed away, and Fred Raskin is filling her shoes. Good luck to him – he has big shoes to fill.

“The Master,” like all of Paul Thomas Anderson”s films, featured a visual assemblage that was integral to its success. In the race for a Best Picture nomination, it also must be considered here. Peter McNulty and Leslie Jones have taken over from Anderson”s previous collaborator Dylan Tichenor. Keeping the audience”s interest in this movie was a challenge. At the same time, I can”t help but feel that the pacing was one of most people”s gripes with the film. So I wouldn”t bank on a nod.

“Silver Linings Playbook” could easily benefit from a likely Best Picture nomination resulting in citations in other, unexpected categories. This should be considered first among them. By all accounts, the pacing of the film is top-notch. Jay Cassidy managed a nomination for “Into the Wild” (its only recognition in the crafts categories), so he and Crispin Struthers could well end up in the final five.

Elena Ruiz and Bernat Villaplana have the responsibility of blending the stories of separated family members in “The Impossible,” to say nothing of making sense of the tsunami at the center of the movie. I could see this film getting anywhere from zero to seven nods. If it is closer to the latter, it may find a place here.

“Looper” is the sort of high-concept action movie that occasionally finds a home here. I”m still doubtful it will be loved enough among AMPAS circles. And Bob Ducasy, like most of this film”s crew, has no history with Oscar. Even so, I thought I”d mention it. The film will be remembered by its rabid fans, regardless of what the Academy does.

Robert Zemeckis”s “Flight” opened last week to very good reviews and very solid box office. A suspenseful tale with scenes from a plane crash featuring prominently, this seems the sort of movie that could place here. This is especially the case if it makes a solid Best Picture run – something I”m doubtful of but you never know. Zemeckis hasn”t had an Oscar hit in a while and I suspect Washington will have all the praise for the movie directed his way. Even so, Jeremiah O”Driscoll probably has the best opportunity of his career.

Another exceptionally reviewed November release, “Skyfall,” opens today. Stuart Baird likely came close to a nomination for “Casino Royale.” This latest Sam Mendes movie has surpassed even that in the eyes of most observers. I fully expect a BAFTA nomination to come. And if the “best of the series” raves resonate with AMPAS, this could even become the first Bond flick to score here.

Each of the three installments of “The Lord of the Rings” found a home in this category, with the final entry winning. So can Jabez Olssen, Peter Jackson”s new editor of choice, benefit on “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”? To be frank, I”m doubtful, though that could be because I”m doubtful of the film”s chances overall. But balancing these characters, and integrating inevitable action scenes, has the makings on paper of a Best Film Editing nominee. So if the film is a hit, and certainly if it is a Best Picture contender, it will have to be considered.

So there are the lucky top 13 contenders as I see them. Who do you see making the cut? And do you think I missed a genuine contender?

From sketchy beginnings, The Weinstein Company has grown into a major Oscar player, ruling even the documentary race last year — but one category they have yet to score in, unlike back in their Miramax days, is Best Foreign Language Film. This year, they’re looking to change that with French crossover smash “The Intouchables,” but they’ve also just extended their stake in the race by nabbing Norway’s submission, “Kon-Tiki.” I’ll be seeing it myself soon, but even when its selection was announced, I figured this factual tale of explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 expedition from South America to Polynesia on a wooden raft — the most expensive film in Norwegian history — would be something that could appeal to the Academy. The Weinsteins’ attachment now confirms it as one to watch. True-life of Pi, anyone? [Variety]  

From “All the President’s Men” to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Tom Huddleston picks 10 films — mostly from the 1970s — that he feels most informed “Argo.” [Time Out]

An interesting featurette on the sound design of “Flight,” with Robert Zemeckis, Randy Thom and Dennis Leonard. [SoundWorks Collection]

Oscar-winning production designer Preston Ames (“An American in Paris,” “Gigi”), along with Richardson Macdonald and Edward Stephenson, will be inducted into the Art Directors’ Guild’s Hall of Fame in February. [ADG]

Clayton Davis contemplates the chances of two lead acting hopefuls from the Lionsgate-Summit-Roadside stable: Naomi Watts and Richard Gere. [Awards Circuit]

Tom O’Neil chats to Ben Richardson, the gifted young cinematographer of “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” It’s his first feature; will this often insular branch acknowledge him? [Gold Derby] 

AFI Fest’s Secret Screening last night was… “Skyfall.” Isn’t that a bit anticlimactic, given it opens tomorrow? [Deadline]

Speaking of which, more Best Picture talk for Bond’s 50th-anniversary outing. I like the film and all, but I can’t quite board this train. [The Envelope]

Nathaniel Rogers, still in an election mood, invites your re-vote in some famously competitive and/or richly stacked Oscar races. [The Film Experience]

Home favorite Michael Haneke took top honors at the Vienna Film Festival with “Amour,” while Kenneth Lonergan’s “Margaret” — still chugging along — won the critics’ prize. [Viennale]

Earlier this week, I saw “Amour” for the second time, far removed from the hustle and fatigue of Cannes. My thoughts on the film settled on a return visit (and they’ll be gathered soon in an overdue review), but this was one of them: if Emmanuelle Riva doesn’t get a Best Actress nomination for her work here, the Academy’s entire acting branch may as well turn in their cards. 

It’s not just that her performance as a refined, intelligent music teacher descending rapidly into undignified, inarticulate dementia after a sudden stroke is a marvel of thespian technique as well as emotional intuition. It’s that it’s the kind of showcase performance, with its self-evident degree of difficulty and devastating audience connection, that most Academy voters wouldn’t hesitate to recognize if it came from within their ranks: if “Amour” were an equivalently acclaimed US indie and a revered veteran like, say, Gena Rowlands were in Riva’s place, I’d wager the Best Actress race might already be over. 

Yet ask many an awards pundit about Riva’s chances, and they’ll tell you the 85 year-old star will be lucky just to get the nomination – a feat, incidentally, that would make her the oldest lead acting nominee in Academy history. Subtitles remain a tricky barrier to any Oscar campaign, and Riva is in no position to do the extensive industry gladhanding generally required to surmount it. 

Marion Cotillard, for one, pulled off that trick in 2007 with “La Vie en Rose.” One would like to believe that her remarkable performance as Edith Piaf, in a far ropier and less critically endorsed film than “Amour,” spoke for itself — but the actress, then widely unknown in the States, didn’t spend three months turning up at every Hollywood party, benefit and ribbon-cutting opportunity for her own health. She’ll be taking the same tack this year, of course, with “Rust and Bone”: another committed, courageous performance in a hard-sell French feature that’ll hopefully benefit from the level of transatlantic celebrity she’s attained in the last five years. 

Riva’s team, on the other hand, will mostly be depending on acting branch members to watch their “Amour” screeners. If they do, they’ll be suitably dazzled. But what if they think the film sounds too much of a downer? What if they don’t remember Riva’s name from “Hiroshima, Mon Amour” over a half-century ago, and aren’t curious to see the actress in the twilight of her career? However many critics’ groups stump up for her, it’d be all too easy for many voters to overlook Riva – and indeed her younger compatriot – and gravitate instead to the more familiar comforts of Helen Mirren in “Hitchcock” or Judi Dench in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” 

As such, in many ways, Best Actress strikes me as the most interestingly loaded – and most fragile – of the major Oscar categories this year. The choices it presents allow the Academy to demonstrate, however inadvertently, how adventurous or conservative a body they really are. 

The potential exists for it to be one of the most rewardingly unconventional slates in memory, and not just because nominating both Frenchwomen would mark the first time since 1976 that more than one foreign-language performance has cracked a single acting field. Nominating eight-year-old discovery Quvenzhane Wallis for her ferociously unschooled turn in “Beasts of the Southern Wild” wouldn’t just make pleasingly symmetrical history – she’d be the category’s all-time youngest nominee to Riva’s oldest – but it’d represent an bold stylistic leap for the category as well. 

That Jennifer Lawrence, currently the bookies’ favorite to win for “Silver Linings Playbook,” seems to occupy the aesthetic middle ground in the race says more about her unorthodox competition than her fast, frisky turn in David O. Russell’s left-of-center romcom. She may be a white-hot movie star riding a popular festival hit, but it’s the kind of lickety-split, lightly soured comic turn that rarely gets to lead the Oscar race, not least because the actress blithely disguises the difficulty of its construction. Watching it, I kept thinking it was a role Barbara Stanwyck might have played in a 1940s incarnation of the film – and we all know how many statuettes she won. 

Even with Jessica Chastain’s reportedly strong work in “Zero Dark Thirty” still an unknown quantity, these are exciting performers and performances to be talking about at the top of any acting race. Yet talk persists across the blogosphere, as it does on an almost annual basis, of Best Actress being a “weak” category – a kneejerk complaint I really can’t square with this year. 

That the majority of year-end, Oscar-targeted prestige titles are male-focused means, in most years, that the search for leading female contenders must extend to independent, foreign and sometimes even genre fare. If anything, this kind of deeper consideration should strengthen a category rather than the opposite: a weaker category, if you ask me, is one where the top contenders are idly creamed off from the year’s baitiest juggernauts. That’s a luxury Best Actress is rarely afforded, and whatever that says about the retrograde gender politics of Big Hollywood, it shouldn’t be a slight on the smaller vehicles and performances that benefit from this blind spot. 

That said, the Best Actress category is precisely as weak as the voters allow it to be, and some years they’re more vigilant than others. For every year they take advantage of the field’s flexibility to recognize truly special work from less obvious sources, there’s another when they settle for padding out the category with inessential work from familiar names. For every Emily Watson in “Breaking the Waves” there’s an Angelina Jolie in “Changeling,” and not for lack of better options. 

Two years ago, voters looked to the independent sphere and compiled a banner Best Actress slate of rich, surprising, tonally varied work in equally vital films: Natalie Portman may have cruised to a win for “Black Swan,” but it was a field that deserved to be more competitive. Last year, however, the voters backslid, forgoing risky, high-wire work from Tilda Swinton, Charlize Theron and further outliers like Olivia Colman for a field in which, excepting a faintly hip, semi-surprise nod for Rooney Mara in a frosty David Fincher thriller, only one nominee’s performance (that’d be runner-up Viola Davis) stood with her best. 

It’s hard to guess, at this stage, which way the Academy will swing. They might decide they’re not in the mood for reading subtitles this year, or follow SAG’s lead of denying young Wallis the keys to the kingdom. We already know they’re unlikely to consider, or even see, such worthy contenders as Michelle Williams in “Take This Waltz,” Melissa Leo in “Francine,” Linda Cardellini in “Return,” Rachel Weisz in “The Deep Blue Sea” – or even Anna Kendrick, so instrumental to the fizzy fun of “Pitch Perfect.” 

Should all of this come to pass, there is no shortage of respectable dramatic work in sure-to-be-campaigned prestige fare that voters could more easily reach for: Naomi Watts in “The Impossible,” for example, or Keira Knightley in “Anna Karenina.” Such perfectly commendable performances would nonetheless sell the category short if nominated at the expense of a Riva, a Cotillard or even a Wallis – nominations for any or all of whom could prove to the mainstream how much more resourcefully it could use its female talent. If that makes for a “weak” Best Actress year, ladies, it definitely ain’t easy being independent.

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

Legendary documentarian Ken Burns wants to make sure the spotlight isn’t too focused on him this time around. The fact is, the story of Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana Jr. and Kharey Wise — the “Central Park Five,” as they have come to be known — had galvanized his daughter, Sarah, while she was in college. It was her passion, through school studies and a published book that spawned the film in the first place. The two serve as co-directors on the new film “The Central Park Five” along with Sarah’s husband, David McMahon.

But the story of Burns’s perch, seeing his daughter grow a passion for a subject and see it through, is a touching one. It began when Sarah was a little girl, he says, crawling under and behind the editing machine when he was working in analog in the early-1980s. And now, she’s grown into an accomplished filmmaker just like her father.

“She”s been that way all along,” Burns says. “She”s a steel trap. She”s serious. She”s not sentimental. She kept this on a straight, journalistic track that made it, I think, as good as it is. So it”s been a source of great pride and excitement for me.”

“The Central Park Five” revisits the miscarriage of justice that saw the five aforementioned youths, now grown men, wrongfully convicted of the rape of a Central Park jogger in 1989. New York had reached a peak of racial tension, one largely fueled by the media, which in turn fanned the flames around the case and played its own role in the convictions. The film, then, is a commentary on mob mentality, from pressured cops leaning on kids for a confession to news outlets banging the drum for justice to convinced jurors pressing a lone hold-out for a guilty vote. But for Burns, it also ended up being a story about character.

“What”s so interesting is the way that these five have taken lemons and made lemonade,” he says. “‘The Central Park Five’ meant, in the very beginning, ‘criminals,’ and now it means something else: people who are standing up and have a humanity and have a dignity.”

There’s a great deal of irony, he submits, in that a group painted as the worst possible people turn out to have been good kids and good human beings, and that those who are stuck in a lie (media, law enforcement) can’t get out of it. “As Jim Dwyer from The New York Times says, we all make mistakes in our lives,” Burns says. “It”s the question of what we”re gonna do with it…I think somewhere along the line they went, ‘Uh,’ and they realized, ‘We”ve got to keep going with this,’ because to say that ‘we screwed up’ was to essentially take back every lurid headline, every ‘if it bleeds it leads’ local TV and national TV thing. It just meant, ‘We didn”t do our jobs right. We made a mistake.’ But that”s what the justice system should be about.”

His passion bubbles up as he talks, digging back into the case, the lack of DNA evidence, the botched investigation of a suspect who turned out to be the real and admitted rapist, the half-hearted mea culpa 13 years later, etc. And, of course, his harsh gaze eventually falls upon the media.

“They amplified it,” he says. “They shouted this to every Middlesex village and farm and I think now the media has to own its own culpability of this. And one of the ways they can do it is scream just as loudly about the continuing injustice of delaying the closure of this trial. They have, by not settling this, taken a 13-year-old tragedy and they”ve left these kids, these men, in limbo for another 10 years. That”s justice delayed, which we know is justice denied. And settling this, finding a conclusion, finding closure in this heals not only the five and their families, it heals those cops and those prosecutors and the entire city of New York. This is a festering, infected wound that has the possibility of being healed.”

The project grew out of an internship Sarah took on in the summer of 2003 as part of her American Studies major at Yale. She worked for the firm that was preparing the Five’s lawsuit against the city of New York for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination and emotional distress. She got to understand the story, and the Five, very well, which led to the decision to write a paper about it in school. That work finally culminated in the 2011 book “The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding.”

Burns was reading the first pages and found it instantly compelling. He knew the story, remembered how much play the original crime got and how little play the exoneration and vacation of the convictions got over a decade later. But he wasn’t aware, until he read those first few pages, of how great the story was.

“That”s what we look for,” he says. “And even though the film is so stylistically different from many of the other films I”ve done — no narration, different sort of musical sensibility to it — it nonetheless is in keeping with the many themes that we find throughout our work, which is race and justice and American good and bad. It”s in all of it.”

Over the years Burns has worked with his daughter and McMahon on documentary projects, but this is the first time they share credit for the finished product equally. The collaboration was smooth, he says. There was no real sense of competition or fights or anything. Just a nice system of checks and balances.

“Two of us always agreed on something and the other one had to give it up,” he says. “Sometimes it was Sarah and Dave saying, ‘No, Dad,’ and other times it was Sarah and me saying, ‘No, Dave,’ or sometimes it was Dave and me, having had the most filmmaking experience saying, ‘No, Sarah.’  And it really worked well.”

He also makes it a point of mentioning editor Michael Levine as a crucial collaborator in the enterprise, drawing all of the original interview material together with news footage and the accoutrement of investigative filmmaking to compose a powerful but strictly informative piece of work.

But one under fire itself, nevertheless.

In early September, lawyers representing New York City subpoenaed unused footage from the film to use as supporting evidence in the still-pending, aforementioned lawsuit. The city feels the film is in the realm of advocacy, rather than documentary, but Burns feels first and foremost that shield laws apply for the film’s protection as journalism, and that, more to the point, his and his co-directors’ continued request for law enforcement participation in interviews shows a clear objective intention. It’s ironic, he feels, that his “least subjective film” has drawn this kind of controversy, but he is also incredibly insulted by the whole undertaking.

“In their original subpoena, they put the Matias Reyes, the actual rapist”s, confession in quotes,” he says. “They put the word ‘confession’ in quotes, which I found just an unbelievable insult, not just to us but to the judge that ruled on the vacation of the conviction, on the other colleagues of theirs who reinvestigated, on their old boss, Robert Morgenthau, who is now retired but still actively following this. It”s an amazing, amazing bit of cynicism and an attempt to rewrite the facts. Its like saying, ‘No, no, no. Two and two really do equal five. I promise. I promise.'”

The film enters a lively documentary fray later this month as it joins such heralded work as “The Imposter,” “Searching for Sugar Man” and “West of Memphis.” The wealth of quality work will make for an intriguing awards race in the non-fiction realm, and it’s representative of something larger, too.For someone who has had his finger on the pulse of documentary filmmaking for three decades, Burns has a fair idea of how thriving it may be. His optimism bursts through as he notes that the form is “only getting better” as more and more people are turning to it.

“I”ve been saying for 30 years that it”s a golden age,” he says. “We thought for a while that documentary was a narrow band of the spectrum and that Hollywood produced this wide variety of things, but as we”ve seen the forms get so tired and so worn out and the same familiar plot, we realize that each documentary is itself a new set of dramatic things.

“And there’s so many varieties of documentaries, from the stylized work of Errol Morris to the political advocacy of Michael Moore, from the humor of Morgan Spurlock to the cinéma vérité of Fred Wiseman. There”s just tons and tons and tons of varieties of documentaries that are, I think, expanding the notion of how we tell stories. And they”re no longer didactic. They”re no longer homework. They”re as dramatic as feature films.”

“The Central Park Five” opens in limited release on November 23.

Not much news out there that isn’t focused on the vastly gratifying result of yesterday’s election: well done, America. But to switch gears to movie matters, are you among those totally psyched for the new frame-rate technology set to be showcased in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey?” Hard luck if you are, since it’s been announced that just 450 theaters across the US will be screening the film in the 48-frames-per-second format — a little over one-tenth of the likely screen count. Hardly a surprising turn of events after the largely tepid response to the 48fps footage screened at Comic-Con: while some advocates claimed to be seeing the future of cinema, many others found the future of cinema looked too much like hi-def TV for their liking. Will you be seeking it out in the new format? [LA Times] 

Okay, back to politics for a minute: Tina Daunt examines the possible effects Barack Obama’s re-election will have on Hollywood. [THR] 

“Skyfall’ continues to burn up the UK box office: after taking a record $85m in 10 days, it’s already the 13th-highest grosser of all time. [The Guardian]

With several of the submissions playing at the AFI Fest, Michael Nardine does some Best Foreign Language Film handicapping. I think he’s possibly dismissing some titles too hastily — and “The Hunt” wasn’t eligible for submission this year. [LA Weekly]

As audiences and critics alike stretch to interpret “Cloud Atlas,” Ebert advocates keeping it simple. [Roger Ebert]

Tariq Khan remembers some of the biggest landslide acting victories in recent Oscar history. [Gold Derby] 

Terrence Rafferty weighs up the literary fidelity of Joe Wright’s “Anna Karenina” against previous screen adaptations. [New York Times]

“Les Miserables” unveils a new TV spot — “vivid and special,” sez Jeff Wells, though that voiceover is surely beyond parody. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

Mark London Williams looks into the technological innovations of “Wreck-It Ralph.” [Below the Line]

How the casting of 66 year-old Sally Field in “Lincoln” represents a small victory against ageism in Hollywood. [Vancouver Sun]

Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme has been tapped by the Cinema Audio Society for special recognition this year. The helmer of such films as “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Philadelphia” and “The Manchurian Candidate” remake will receive the organization’s Filmmaker Award at the 49th annual celebration.

“Jonathan”s career…illustrates an incredible talent for both narrative films and documentaries,” CAS president David E. Fluhr said via press release. “Following in a tradition of synergy between our two honorees, Demme as the Filmmaker Honoree and Chris Newman…as the Career Achievement Honoree have had a long working relationship and on Demme”s multiple Oscar winner, ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ both were rewarded with golden statues.”

Thanks for doing my homework there, Mr. Fluhr. Indeed, as previously announced, Oscar-winning sound mixer Chris Newman (“The Exorcist,” “Amadeus,” “The English Patient”) will receive the CAS’s Career Achievement recognition. Demme — who has been in the midst of a love affair with Neil Young as of late, it seems — has worked with Newman on five features.

Gerard will be covering the sound mixing category via his weekly Tech Support analysis series in the near future, but in surveying the sound editing contenders, he found “The Dark Knight Rises,” “The Avengers,” “Django Unchained” and “Life of Pi” to be formidable contenders. I would agree, and would put particular emphasis on “Skyfall,” too, which is sure to be an attractive choice for sound mixers as well. Ditto “The Impossible.”

The 49th annual Cinema Audio Society Awards acknowledging outstanding achievement in sound mixing will be held on February 16, 2013. Results will be updated live at www.cinemaaudiososciety.org.

Beyond the smallish circle of UK-based critics and industry folk, yesterday’s British Independent Film Awards didn’t attract much attention — which is hardly surprising, given what a quiet year it’s been for British film. Heavily-nominated titles like “Berberian Sound Studio” and “Sightseers,” excellent as they are, aren’t of much interest to awards-watchers with an eye only on Oscar possibilities — of which the BIFA list presented very few.

Crossover nominee “The Imposter” is certainly one to watch in the documentary Oscar race, especially given the new voting system’s emphasis on higher-profile theatrical releases. But the nominee we seem likeliest to hear more of in major categories through the rest of season is also the one that took BIFA observers most by surprise: John Madden’s “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” 

As a mainstream smash hit (with $33m, the 13th highest grosser of 2012 in the UK) with limited critical endorsement, the glossy but independently produced comedy wasn’t necessarily expected to be a major factor in an awards ceremony largely dedicated to work on the fringes. Yet not only did it receive acting nods for beloved veterans Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Tom Wilkinson — it also popped up in Best Film, and even Best Director. That’s indicative of significant support in the UK industry for a film that hasn’t left people’s memories — or affections — since its local release way back in February, and is continuing to find viewers through word of mouth on DVD.

When a populist favorite registers with the independent crowd, that invariably spells mainstream awards success — which positions “Best Exotic” well with BAFTA voters, who have a habit of sidelining more arthouse-oriented homegrown fare. At least one top BIFA nominee — recently, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “The King’s Speech,” “An Education” and “Slumdog Millionaire” — tends to rake in a hefty haul of BAFTA nods, so it seems likely that the genteel oldsters’ favorite will follow suit. Even if British studio films like “Les Miserables” and “Skyfall” wind up stealing its thunder in the larger awards race, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Best Film, British Film, Director, Adapted Screenplay and a slew of acting bids for the “Exotic” crowd when the British Academy unveils their nominations in January.

Of course, the enthusiasms of the wily Brit contingent aren’t always reflected in the awards race across the pond, but I can’t help wondering if “Best Exotic” mightn’t be a stronger dark horse in the Oscar derby than we’re currently giving it credit for being. The British voting bloc within the Academy is not to be underestimated, often giving UK contenders a boost in the Oscar voting even when they stumble with the Guilds and other US-centric precursors: they’re the ones who showed up for “Atonement” in 2007, and who helped “Tinker Tailor” star Gary Oldman come from behind to land a Best Actor nod earlier this year.

Most pundits are predicting a Best Supporting Actress nod for Maggie Smith — more in recognition of her recent, “Downton Abbey”-assisted career surge than anything spectacular about her schticky performance — but is that where the film’s Oscar prospects end? One might think the Best Actress race has become too crowded for Judi Dench’s similarly unremarkable turn, but could the film’s increased momentum, assisted by “Skyfall” fever, boost her chances? There’s still room for maneuver in Best Adapted Screenplay. And is there a chance that 5% of Academy voters might like the film enough to put it atop their Best Picture ballots?

Right now, the smart money says no — as do those who like to imagine that the film is too televisual and too disposable to merit consideration as one of the year’s finest examples of cinematic craft. Yet it’s hard to ignore just how much people out there — particularly those in the senior demographic that is so crucial in the Academy — really love this film, which has had a long time to reach voters.

Golden Globe voters are likely to be generous in the Comedy/Musical categories; added to the likelihood of BAFTA attention, Fox Searchlight has the basis for a strong campaign across multiple avenues in the season, and they’ll be aware of that. How will it stack up in their priorities against “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” seemingly the studio’s top Best Picture prospect, “The Sessions” and “Hitchcock?” The latter, though a US production, might have seemed an obstacle to the British vote, but with last week’s muted reception having seemingly relegated it to performance awards consideration only, “Best Exotic”‘s larger squad of British vets could yet make it the stronger player. Keep an eye — peering over half-moon reading glasses –on it. 

Well, given what’s going on out there, it’d seem inappropriate to lead with news of some minor precursor award announcement or random pre-release bumf for “The Hobbit” — it’s Election Day, and that weighs as heavily on Hollywood’s mind as anyone else’s. Variety Ted Johnson breaks down the implications for the film and entertainment industry of an Obama or a Romney victory, which could have a significant impact on issues ranging from piracy to censorship to same-sex marriage, and also examines the California propositions, some of them with starry cheerleaders, pertinent to showbiz folk. Good luck, America. Do the right thing. [Variety] 

Heineken may have paid $28m for the privilege of having their bottle featured in “Skyfall,” but Budweiser are desperate to have theirs removed from the alcoholic-pilot drama “Flight.” [AP]

Jon Weisman thinks it’s time the Oscar nominations announcement was moved to primetime. I’m all about the crack-of-dawn tradition, personally, but that’s because it hits me at lunchtime. [The Vote]

Hungry for “August: Osage County?” Nathaniel Rogers catches an early glimpse of some promotional material for the potential 2013 awards biggie. [The Film Experience] 

The DVD release of “The Master” will feature 20 minutes of deleted scenes, which were screened last week at LACMA. [The Playlist] 

Kevin B. Lee rounds up the many and varied interpretations of Abraham Lincoln across cinema history. [Fandor]

Sally Field, who’s seeking her first Oscar nomination in nearly 30 years for “Lincoln,” gets the David Poland video treatment. [Hot Blog]

Sasha Stone launches her Oscar cheat sheet feature, and keeps fighting the good fight for “Middle of Nowhere.” [Awards Daily]

Naomi Watts talks about “The Impossible,” and why she chooses to suffer so much on screen. [New York Times]

Finally, with election matters on the brain, this seems as good a day as any to rewind to my own list of the Top 10 politically-themed films. [In Contention]

For a producer of such lush and exquisite work, cinematographer Roger Deakins is often a man of select words. Thoughtful, yes, but never of a mind to over-think it.

Responsible for some of the most stunning images on film in our age — “Kundun,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” to barely scratch the surface — he shook the landscape of his field a bit two years ago when he went digital for Andrew Niccol’s “In Time.” And this year he’s back in the form with “Skyfall,” the first James Bond installment to eschew celluloid for the progression of digital filmmaking.

“Right now I don”t see a reason to go back and shoot film,” Deakins says. “And probably if I leave it much longer then I won”t have the opportunity, because it just won”t exist anyway.”

Indeed, Deakins’ switch came at a crucial crossroads in the industry. Kodak was on the way to being removed from the S&P 500 index (and facing imminent bankruptcy). Long-time champions of film, like Martin Scorsese, were reaching the end of their rope. An on-going debate on the benefits of celluloid vs. digital was erupting with marquee names in the world of film on both sides of the line.

For Deakins, though, as unexpected as the switch may have been from those on the outside looking in, it was an organic decision to adopt something that ultimately befits his work ethic.

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

And ultimately, he’s not overly romantic about the loss of film. He says if anything he’s a romanticist in the sense that it has its place in his own personal history, that he’s happy he had the opportunity to shoot something like “True Grit” on film. “But to say I couldn”t have done it digitally and would it have looked that much different,” he asks. “I don”t think so.”

He goes further, though. “I think digital is a better representation of reality than film,” he says. “That”s not to say I don”t love film. I love the look of film, but film isn”t quite as sensitive in terms of its color depth, the color contrast. You get more subtleties than you do with film.”

On a film like “Skyfall,” that would be of the utmost importance. Seven years ago Deakins stepped in as Sam Mendes’s new cinematographer of choice when legend Conrad L. Hall — who shot “American Beauty” and “Road to Perdition” for the director — passed away. It was a daunting task to come aboard “Jarhead” and Deakins says he was very nervous about it. But “Skyfall” actually ended up calling back a bit to that experience.

“It was interesting because on ‘Jarhead’ we basically shot everything handheld,” he says. “And I like to operate, so that was a great opportunity for me to go back to sort of documentary days in a way. ‘Revolutionary Road’ was different because it was quite controlled and a different sort of camera style. But I think we took a lot from ‘Jarhead’ for ‘Skyfall.’ A lot of the action we shot handheld and a lot of that later part, that last sequence on the moors, we used a lot of the techniques and basically shot a lot of that scene the same way as the oil fields in ‘Jarhead.'”

He says he doesn’t remember a single conversation he may have had with Mendes about the overall look of the film because it’s something that develops throughout production with this particular collaboration. They would talk about the script and certain scenes, how they wanted London to be gray and rainy to contrast not only with the riveting opening sequence in Turkey but also with a jaw-dropping neon-lit Shanghai-set sequence in the second act. But there was no bogging down in discussing a visual signature. Again, he’s not one to over-think it.

Nevertheless, regarding that Shanghai sequence — which was as much a feat of art direction as it was photography, as it was shot on a soundstage and not on location — it’s sure to be a visually identifying element for viewers of the film after the fact. “We wanted this kind of blitz of color,” Deakins says. “Originally they were talking about shooting in Shanghai on a real location. And in talking to Dennis Gassner about it I said, ‘Well, I kind of like the idea of these big advertisements lighting the whole scene.’ And then we talked about the set and said, ‘Well, what if it was all glass, and it was all about reflections?’ So that kind of evolved.”

And you can expect something from that sequence to pop up on our annual Top 10 Shots of the Year column later in the season, I assure you.

The opportunity to work on a Bond film didn’t really click for Deakins as a cultural honor or anything. He wasn’t even aware of the 50th anniversary hype until closer to release, in fact. But when it did hit home, it resonated a bit for him, because the themes of the film and its place in the canon seems to be more significant than ever.

“There was a premiere in London the other day and that was like, ‘Wow. Oh, I realize. I”m glad I didn”t think of that while we were shooting because the pressure would have been a little bit too much.’ You know the idea of going back to England, to Britain, with Sam, and neither of us have actually worked in Britain on a film together. That was a very big pull.”

“Skyfall” opens nationwide on November 8.

The box-office headlines from the weekend have understandably been dominated by “Wreck-It Ralph,” whose healthy opening gross (the highest ever for a Disney animated effort) helps its chances in a crowded Oscar race. But the runner-up on the chart, “Flight,” made no less noteworthy a debut, taking just over $25m, despite a relatively modest release in 1884 theaters. That puts it roughly on pace with the last Denzel Washington starrer “Safe House,” which took $40m from a wider release, though “Flight” has considerably more room to build. It’s also considerably outpaced the $13m gross box office pundits predicted for the film, and nearly recouped its tidy $31m budget. Paramount distribution head Don Harris reckons the film’s adult target market will be more in the mood for going to the movies once the presidential election and Hurricane Sandy are behind them. [Reuters]

Tom Shone, looking at the Best Actor race, thinks Washington’s performance has a “sanded ergonomic beauty” that’s too good to win the Oscar. [These Violent Delights]

Jon Weisman wonders if the strong reviews and returns for “Wreck-It Ralph” make it a candidate for not just a Best Animated Feature nod, but a Best Picture one too. [The Vote]

Between the weather and the studio juggernauts, Tom Brueggemann finds that the specialty box office is having a rough time of it. [Thompson on Hollywood]

“Hugo,” “The Avengers,” “The Adventures of Tintin” and “The Iron Lady” were among the films rewarded at the Hollywood Post Alliance Awards for post-production excellence. [Below the Line]

You’d never guess this, but it turns out Michael Haneke isn’t the easiest man to interview. [The Guardian]

Nathaniel Rogers wonders if “The Impossible” — a film he always thought a tricky prospect for the Oscars — will struggle further in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Will voters feel like watching it? [The Film Experience]

Chris Beachum brings up that old stat about no actor ever having won an Oscar for a Steven Spielberg film, and wonders if Daniel Day-Lewis is the man to break it. [Gold Derby]

On the excision of Tobey Maguire from “Life of Pi” — he was just too big for the part he was playing. [LA Times]

The London Film Critics’ Circle announces a January 20 date for their swanky awards ceremony. [Critics’ Circle]

Last year, the British Independent Film Awards — the UK industry’s answer to the Spirit Awards, though the chasm between independent and studio product here is a narrower one — made the most of a banner year for British cinema, with citations aplenty for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” “Shame,” “Tyrannosaur,” “Weekend,” “Kill List” and the like.

2012 has been a bit less bountiful, and that’s reflected in a slate of BIFA nods that reads a tad repetitively, with a small handful of films dominating the list. “Broken,” a debut feature from acclaimed theater director Rufus Norris that was rather indifferently received at Cannes in the spring, leads the field with eight nominations, while “Berberian Sound Studio,” “Sightseers” and “The Imposter” are close behind with seven apiece. Lest that field strike some as a little too niche, meanwhile, crossover smash “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” holds up the more mainstream end of the independent spectrum, nabbing five nominations, including Best Film — a showing that bodes well for its BAFTA chances in a few months’ time.

“Best Exotic” also got a trio of acting nods, for Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith — who had to be content with just the one mention, as fellow bluehair-bait item “Quartet” received a solitary nomination for Billy Connolly. (Completing the run of old-skewing comedies, “Song for Marion” got three mentions, including ones for Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave.) 

Balancing out the veteran contingent is “Ginger & Rosa,” which earned Elle Fanning her first Best Actress nomination of the season, as well as a supporting bid for her young co-star Alice Englert (Jane Campion’s daughter, incidentally) and a well-deserved technical nod for genius cinematographer Robbie Ryan. Fanning isn’t the only Yank in the Brits’ midst, as Meryl Streep also landed in the Best Actress field for “The Iron Lady” — a surprising call, given that the Margaret Thatcher biopic opened in the UK before several titles that qualified for last year’s BIFA Awards.

If the list seems a little thin this year, however, that’s not to say a number of the films that made the cut aren’t outstanding. I’m particularly delighted by the robust showing for “Berberian Sound Studio,” an eerie, technically dazzling homage to 1970s Italian ‘giallo’ horror cinema that was a UK critical favorite in the summer — you can read my Variety rave here — but is unlikely to be on BAFTA’s radar. And it’s gratifying to see that Bart Layton’s audacious, inventive “The Imposter” — the year’s top-grossing doc in the UK — hasn’t been confined to the documentary ghetto; like “Senna” last year, it’s been admitted to the top categories, and deservedly so.

It’ll be interesting to see if this genre-melding piece impresses the Academy’s notoriously sticky documentary branch. Meanwhile, one of its most high-profile competitors for doc honors this season, “Searching for Sugar Man,” cropped up in a diverse Best International Independent Film category, alongside “Amour,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Rust and Bone” and “The Hunt.”

The winners will be determined by a 16-person jury that includes such luminaries as actor Tom Hiddleston and Oscar-winning “King’s Speech” producer Iain Canning, and presented at a ceremony in London in December 9. The full list of nominees is as follows: 

Best British Independent Film
“Berberian Sound Studio”
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
“Broken”
“The Imposter”
“Sightseers”

Best Director
Peter Strickland, “Berberian Sound Studio”
John Madden, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
Rufus Norris, “Broken”
Bart Layton, “The Imposter”
Ben Wheatley, “Sightseers”

Best Actor
Riz Ahmed, “Ill Manors”
Toby Jones, “Berberian Sound Studio”
Steve Oram, “Sightseers”
Tim Roth, “Broken”
Terence Stamp, “Song for Marion”

Best Actress
Judi Dench, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
Elle Fanning, “Ginger & Rosa”
Alice Lowe, “Sightseers”
Andrea Riseborough, “Shadow Dancer”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”

Best Supporting Actor
Billy Connolly, “Quartet”
Domnhall Gleeson, “Shadow Dancer”
Rory Kinnear, “Broken”
Cillian Murphy, “Broken”
Tom Wilkinson, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

Best Supporting Actress
Olivia Colman, “Hyde Park on Hudson”
Eileen Davies, “Sightseers”
Alice Englert, “Ginger & Rosa”
Vanessa Redgrave, “Song for Marion”
Maggie Smith, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

Best Screenplay
Peter Strickland, “Berberian Sound Studio”
Mark O’Rowe, “Broken”
Abi Morgan, “The Iron Lady”
Alice Lowe, Steve Oram and Amy Jump, “Sightseers”
Paul Andrew Williams, “Song for Marion”  

Best International Independent Film
“Amour”
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“The Hunt”
“Rust and Bone”
“Searching for Sugar Man”

Best Documentary
“Dreams of a Life”
“The Imposter”
“London: The Modern Babylon”
“Marley”
“Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir”

Best Technical Achievement
Nic Knowland (cinematography), “Berberian Sound Studio”
Joakim Sundstrom and Stevie Haywood (sound design), “Berberian Sound Studio”
Electric Wave Bureau (music), “Broken”
Robbie Ryan (cinematography), “Ginger & Rosa”
Andrew Hulme (editing), “The Imposter”

Best Debut Director (Douglas Hickox Award)
Ben Drew, “Ill Manors”
Sally El Hosaini, “My Brother the Devil”
Bart Layton, “The Imposter”
Rufus Norris, “Broken”
Rowan Athale, “Wasteland”

Most Promising Newcomer
Zawe Ashton, “Dreams of a Life”
Paul Brannigan, “The Angels’ Share”
James Floyd, “My Brother the Devil”
Eloise Laurence, “Broken”
Elliott Tittensor, “Spike Island”

Best Achievement in Production
“Berberian Sound Studio”
“Ill Manors”
“The Imposter”
“Sightseers”
“The Sweeney”

Raindance Award
“City Slacker”
“Frank”
“Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet”
“Love Tomorrow”
“Strings”

Best Short Film
“Friday”
“Junk”
“Skyborn”
“Swimmer”
“Volume”