NEW YORK — Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead has been developing quite the career for herself in the commercial sector. Parts in “Final Destination 3,” “Black Christmas,” “Grindhouse,” “Live Free or Die Hard,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and “The Thing” have been a slow build for the actress, right up to this summer’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” But while she’s always showed a spark that promised more, it didn’t really hit full bloom until James Ponsoldt’s “Smashed” premiered at Sundance back in January.

And indeed, the Sundance experience meant a great deal to Winstead, who grew up in Salt Lake City and always saw the fest as something of an El Dorado. “Sundance was always a big goal of mine, since I was a kid,” she says. “It was always like this thing that was so close but I could never find my way into actually being a part of it. It was pretty emotional. Yeah, I think I broke down several times when I was there so it meant a lot.”

In the film, Winstead stars opposite Aaron Paul (TV’s “Breaking Bad”) as an alcoholic caught up in a co-dependent relationship, hiding all the embarrassment and lies that come with addiction. It’s similar in that vein to Robert Zemeckis’s “Flight,” which closes out the New York Film Festival this weekend. Unlike “Flight,” though, “Smashed” is a bit of a dark comedy, with plenty of emphasis placed on the “dark.” But Winstead says when she first read the script, she knew one thing: she had no idea how to play the part.

That was kind of the first step toward understanding what she might have to tap within herself to carry across a certain authenticity. After that, she says, it became all about looking at herself and her own own life, her own issues, and digging deep to figure out what those were.

“I drew from my own personal life, but it was very non-literal,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be anything like alcohol. It doesn’t have to be a substance at all. For me it was more about relationships in my life that were maybe toxic or co-dependent that I was keeping myself in because they sort of validated my pain in some way, and I kept sort of going through the cycle, even though it wasn’t really doing anything positive for my life and they weren’t making me happy at the end of the day.”

Which is a nice segue into her work with Paul, who hasn’t broken out on the big screen just yet because he’s been a little busy winning Emmys for his work in AMC’s “Breaking Bad.” The two actors carve out a wholly believable “toxic” relationship, as Winstead says. Anyone who has been in a situation of co-dependency will instantly relate. And Winstead has nothing but love for her co-star.

“He’s so great,” she says, smiling big. “He’s so talented and just the sweetest person you could ever meet, just open and warm and generous as an actor. He really just wants to give you whatever you need in order to go to the place you need to go to. But even when he wasn’t on camera he was giving me so much. He was just lovely.”

As Winstead’s character goes on her journey throughout the film, however, it becomes an issue of leaving that toxicity behind, and all the pain and heartbreak that comes with that. This is a SPOILER, so skip this and the next paragraph if you don’t want to know where the film goes, but the ending is interesting. Following a full year of sobriety, Winstead’s Kate visits Paul’s Charlie one more time as he’s trying to get his own life together. They play a game of croquet, as they used to do wasted in their back yard together, and before the film fades out, Charlie asks if they can play one more game. In some ways it could seem like the same unfortunate cycle is creeping back in, but in others, it could be seen as hope for the future. Personally, I like to see it as the latter.

“For me, when I first read it, I think I had that same response,” Winstead says. “It’s such a great love story of these two human beings who have problems and make mistakes but they’re trying to be better. After researching the role, my take is kind of different on it now. But I don’t think any take is wrong, it’s just how you look at it.

“For me, having gone to AA meetings and talked to a lot of people, it just seems like the wrong thing for her to do, to put herself back in that situation, even if he does get sober, even if he does really get his life together, they just have such a history of toxicity, those memories being constantly put back in their lives would be a constant temptation for them to go back to drinking. So it’s just not a healthy thing to do. But what I love about the ending is that it feels like the beginning of his story. It feels like the beginning of his journey to becoming an adult and becoming a better person, so I like that it’s really hopeful in that sense, that you feel like down the line they’re gonna be at least friends. They’re gonna be okay. Which is great.”

You can come back from spoiler-land now.

Finally, Ponsoldt was “incredible” to work with, Winstead says. Calling him “the epitome of an actors’ director,” she praises his effortless communication and really digs in to pin-point what it is about his handling of the material that worked for her.

“He already understands where you’re coming from as an actor,” she says, “so that’s the language he speaks. He speaks in emotions. He doesn’t speak in results. He tells you what you should be feeling as opposed to what you should be doing. So those things make it so much easier as an actor because you don’t have to translate in your head that, ‘Okay, the director tells me I have to do this but I have to look at it from a different perspective.’ You can just listen to him and go straight into doing it without having to sort of rethink it in your mind.”

The Best Actress race finally started filling up this season with the rise of players like Jennifer Lawrence and the addition of others like Helen Mirren. So calling it a thin race ripe for the picking is no longer all that accurate, but nevertheless, a performance like Winstead’s deserves a hard look amid the fray of typical contenders. She gives everything to the role and her character takes a significant journey. She’ll get support from Sony Pictures Classics, which has a few other contenders in the race as it is, but whatever happens, it will be easy enough to point to this moment as the one in which the actress started to break out and deepen her craft, a beginning of sorts.

“Smashed” opens in limited release on Friday.

Can we already be at this point? It may be in one of the least-heralded categories, but the Oscar shortlisting process has officially begun: this morning, the Academy announced a shortlist of eight semi-finalists for the Best Documentary Short award, drawn from 31 eligible entries. That’ll be it for this particular race, of course, until the five nominees are revealed with all the rest on January 10 — while a feature doc shortlist will be announced later this month.. So, here’s its brief moment with the spotlight to itself.

The shortlisted titles include: “Mondays at Racine,” a look at a Long Island hair salon that caters to cancer patients; “The Education of Mohammad Hussein,” about an American Muslim community’s struggle with an anti-Islamic priest; “Inocente,” a study of a teenaged artist who has been homeless for six years; “Kings Point,” about a Florida retirement community; “Open Heart,” about Rwandan children undergoing high-risk surgery in Sudan; “Paraiso,” about immigrant Mexican window-washers in Chicago; and “The Perfect Fit,” a silent portrait of five women colliding in a vintage clothing store. 

The nominees? Your guess is as good is mine, though it’s worth noting that “Paraiso” won the Best Documentary Short award at the Tribeca Film Festival back in the spring, while “Mondays at Racine” and “The Perfect Fit” also have festival honors to their name. Beyond that, throw five darts.  

The full list:

“The Education of Mohammad Hussein,” Loki Films

“Inocente,” Shine Global, Inc.

“Kings Point,” Kings Point Documentary, Inc.

“Mondays at Racine,” Cynthia Wade Productions

“Open Heart,” Urban Landscapes Inc.

“ParaÍso,” The Strangebird Company

“The Perfect Fit,” SDI Productions Ltd.

“Redemption,” Downtown Docs

Every year I say it again: our cinematographers are the heart of filmmaking. It is, after all, the use of the camera to capture a director”s vision that, more than anything else, separates cinema from every other art form. Innovation in camerawork has immeasurably improved the quality of our films. Capturing stories visually is the essence of filmmaking.

The talented individuals who serve as directors of photography are awarded by the Academy in the category of Best Cinematography, one of the few crafts categories to be cited by all major critics” awards, and probably having a reasonable degree of public acknowledgment. The category definitely tends to award “pretty” films that draw attention to themselves by having especially striking imagery. Black-and-white films also do disproportionately well when they are in contention. The branch tends to have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with digital photography, which is becoming increasingly prominent in blockbusters and action films. Frequently these films are snubbed but when nominated, they often win.

While a newcomer, or two, or three, is welcomed with a first nomination every year, the branch undeniably has its favorites who are cited consistently. Remarkably, though, no woman has ever been nominated in this category.

Prominent among those favored DPs is last year”s winner in the category, Robert Richardson. This three-time winner (“JFK,” “The Aviator” and “Hugo”) is responsible for shooting Quentin Tarantino”s “Django Unchained” this year. Tarantino”s movies, especially in recent years, always give superb opportunities for cinematographers to shine. Even so, it”s always debatable how well his work will be received, so it”s probably wise to refrain from taking this nomination to the bank just yet. Though Richardson was nominated for his last Tarantino collaboration, “Inglourious Basterds,” and westerns present a great opportunity.

Bob isn’t the only Richardson in the running this year. Ben Richardson”s lensing of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” was exceptional and important to the film”s success. I fully expect year-end citations for the film and its actors to bring this young-up-and-comer into the conversation and perhaps the nominations.

“Les Misérables” could bring Danny Cohen back into the fold two years after lensing Tom Hooper”s Best Picture winner “The King”s Speech.” Musicals usually provide the opportunity for interesting lighting. French landscapes and elements of revolution also ought to provide great visual fodder. So while cinematography likely isn”t this film”s most surefire nomination, if it becomes the crafts category behemoth that it has the potential to be, I”d expect a nod.

Also the beneficiary of a nomination for a Best Picture nominee in recent years is Claudio Miranda. Cited four years ago for David Fincher”s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” he teams up this year with Ang Lee for “Life of Pi.” Now, adapting this book to the screen has proven an incredibly different task. And the film seems to have moved people to tears. Cinematography, moreover, is absolutely key if this project is to be realized. Unless something truly goes awry on release, I fully expect Miranda to be among this category”s frontrunners.

Mihai Malaware Jr. offered some exceptional 65mm work in Paul Thomas Anderson”s “The Master.” Virtually everyone has acknowledged how accomplished the photography was, and indeed, the choice of 65mm has been a major talking point. Considering that and the fact that critics awards will surely come into play, it may be difficult to overlook Malaware in the end.

Greig Fraser is another up-and-coming cinematographer. Responsible for “Snow White and the Huntsman” and “Killing Them Softly,” I”d say this Aussie”s best chance lies in Kathryn Bigelow”s “Zero Dark Thirty.” We know surprisingly little about this title, one of few films in that situation at this point in the year. Even so, Bigelow”s last film was nominated here and she’s tackling another gritty military subject with this one.

With “Lincoln,” Janusz Kaminski will be looking to earn his sixth Academy Award nomination, his fifth for a Spielberg film. Having won for “Schindler”s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” and having been nominated for “War Horse,” “Amistad” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” Kaminski is clearly respected among his peers, notwithstanding his falling out with his guild (from which he resigned in 2007). “Lincoln” will presumably include war scenes, certainly a boon in this category. More importantly, I simply expect Kaminski to show off his talents, much like he did with his pastel-like work on “War Horse” last year. While the category is stacked with contenders, I fully expect Kaminski to remain in the conversation until the end.

Wally Pfister has become somewhat of a staple in this category in recent years for his collaborations with Christopher Nolan. After being the sole nominee for “Batman Begins,” he was nominated for “The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight” and “Inception,” winning for the latter. He was probably pretty close to a nod for “Moneyball” last year as well. Nevertheless, I cannot help but wonder if the branch will be content to let someone else have a turn, especially as “The Dark Knight Rises” doesn”t seem to add much visualy to what has been done before in the series.

John Toll seemingly had this category by its tail after back-to-back wins for “Legends of the Fall” and “Braveheart.” After a nomination for The Thin Red Line,” however, he has been absent for more than a decade. On “Cloud Atlas,” he teams up with never-nominated veteran Frank Kriebe. The film is apparently visually extraordinary. It seems the sort of digital-heavy work this branch is likely to shy away from, however, so I”m not banking on a nomination.

I have considerable faith in Ben Affleck”s “Argo” to do fairly well with the Academy. Affleck”s third-straight critical success is also the most Oscar-friendly of his efforts. Rodrigo Prieto, a past nominee for “Brokeback Mountain,” showed us revolutionary Iran in all its chaos, giving us an appropriately gritty feel. A likely nominee? Probably not with so many riches on display in this category. But I”d still consider him.

Joe Wright”s “Anna Karenina” is by all accounts a visual treat. I, unlike many, am skeptical if this will actually be that successful on the Oscar circuit outside of Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. The novel doesn”t naturally lend itself to cinema (though Wright’s vision has leaped that hurdle) and the film seems divisive. Even so, a stylized visual treat with Best Picture potential must be watched closely in this category. Seamus McGarvey was, after all, nominated for “Atonement.”

“The Impossible” features many long, glorious shots of unforgettable footage. Does that mean an Oscar nomination is to follow? Probably not. But Óscar Faura could find himself chalked up alongside Naomi Watts (akin to Roger Pratt for “The End of the Affair”) should the film leave a lump in the throat of many cinematographers. The tsunami, as well as the starkness of devastated Southeast Asia, will make the photography noticeable. There is invariably a first-time nominee in this category and should Malaware fail to score, there seems to be an opening. Fraser and (Ben) Richardson both have strikes against them.

I”ll end with a seemingly unlikely possibility I nonetheless insist should be considered. Roger Deakins has, almost tragically, never won this award despite nine nominations. It”s not that he”s ever lost to a film that had no business winning. But there are at least a half-dozen of his achievements that easily could be considered worthy of triumphs in this category. This year, he”s reunited with Sam Mendes on “Skyfall.” I expect this to be one of the best-reviewed James Bond films ever. That can lead to nominations elsewhere. And Deakins never misses an opportunity to shine. However, there is the fact that it’s a digital production, which could be a mark against.

So there are 14 luscious contenders in this always-loaded category. Who do you see making the cut?

Attention, “Django Unchained” pre-fans! Please note that we’re leading off today’s roundup with the film — all brownie points will be graciously received. Anyway, it’s looking likelier that a rumor I first heard at the Venice Film Festival a month ago may come to pass: Tarantino’s latest could have its world premiere at the rapidly growing Rome Film Festival. Fest director Marco Mueller, who was dumped by Venice last year, certainly sounded confident when he announced the screening of two surprise films in the Italian capital next month: “You will see Tarantino soon, here. You will see him here soon for a big surprise… This is something we will announce in detail in a few days’ time, and you will see that Django will be stepping on the stage of the Auditorium.” If true, that’s a massive coup for a festival that never used to get much attention. Watch out, Venice. [Reuters]

Still on “Django” (I know!), Ben Child wonders if Leonardo DiCaprio will be a force to be reckoned with in Best Supporting Actor. [The Guardian]

I love that we still know so little about “Zero Dark Thirty.” So little, in fact, that Anthony Breznican only just unearthed the news that James Gandolfini is in it. Psyched. [EW]

In case you missed, the A.V. Club gang have been counting down the best movies of the 1990s. Numero Uno? “GoodFellas.” Much to wallow in here. [The AV Club]

One of Jacqueline Durran’s spectacular “Anna Karenina” gowns will join the much-anticipated Hollywood Costume exhibition at London’s V&A Museum. [THR]

Oscar-winning writer-director Martin McDonagh talks about his ambiguous relationship with Hollywood after making his first semi-American film, “Seven Psychopaths.” [Time Out NY] 

This may surprise you, but David Poland has some thoughts about Variety sharing a stable with Deadline. [Hot Blog]

Scott Feinberg discusses how a number of earlier award shows will benefit from this year’s unusually early Oscar nominations. [The Race]

Jon Weisman imagines how the remake of “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” will shape up in 20 years’ time. Here’s hoping Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett have better things to do then. [The Vote]

Clint Eastwood now has to make his “A Star is Born” redo without Beyonce. Or, you know, he could not make it at all. [Variety]

The 56th BFI London Film Festival kicks off tonight with the UK premiere of Tim Burton”s “Frankenweenie” — it’s playing as I write this, in fact — but Burton”s moment at the festival isn”t limited to the curtain-raiser. Indeed, a couple of further showcase events have combined to make the kooky London-based director the festival”s unofficial mascot – in tandem with his personal and professional partner in crime, Helena Bonham Carter.

Indeed, there”s a pleasing symmetry to Burton and Bonham Carter”s presence at the LFF. While he is opening proceedings, she gets to see them out: the festival will close on October 21 with Mike Newell”s new adaptation of “Great Expectations,” in which she takes on the plum role of Miss Havisham. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, the selections ensure that the offbeat couple could be in red-carpet attendance – in all their uncombed glory – at both ends of the fest. (It”s almost as if programmers were miffed that “Frankenweenie” is Burton”s first HBC-free project in 13 years. They mustn”t be separated, dammit.)

Capitalizing on their mutual presence, meanwhile, the British Film Institute has taken it upon themselves to honor both Burton and Bonham Carter at the festival with BFI Fellowships — the Institute’s highest accolade. Previous recipients range from Laurence Olivier to Martin Scorsese to Harvey Weinstein, while last year’s year’s honorees were Judi Dench and Isabelle Huppert. So, pretty good company, then. The Fellowship presentations will be made at the festival’s awards dinner on October 20: I’m happy to say I’ll be in attendance.

Burton is quoted in the press release as saying, “I feel very touched and grateful to the BFI for this tremendous honor. It means more than I can put into words to receive the BFI Fellowship and to be included alongside the great directors who have received it before me.” Bonham Carter, meanwhile, responded with customary self-deprecation: “I am somewhat bewildered and not sure that I am deserving of such an honour as a Fellowship from the BFI, but shall accept it with deep gratitude.”

Finally, just in case Burton was still feeling a little under-exposed at the festival, his film will also be the subject of a multimedia exhibition in the festival’s closing days. “The Art of Frankenweenie” will include all manner of sketches, puppets, props and further 3D footage from the film, showcasing Burton’s inspiration and creative process in making it. This unusually warm LFF welcome — hey, where was the exhibition for festival opener “360” last year? — is a nice consolation after the film’s slightly soft opening weekend across the pond. Applause all round.

Finally, in another nugget of LFF news, the festival revealed the full lineup of juries for the assorted competition strands — listed in an earlier post — with renowned playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter David Hare presiding over the jury for the Best Film prize. Argentinian director Pablo Trapero and Romola Garai are among his jurors. Arguably even name-ier, however, is the jury for the Best British Newcomer prize, headed by “Harry Potter” super-producer David Heyman, and including Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Colman (yay!) and lauded novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.   

Meanwhile, look out for my coverage of the festival over the next week and a bit. Having seen a number of the major attractions already, I’ll be digging into some smaller discoveries, as well as catching up with some foreign Oscar hopefuls.

“Hitchcock”  is the late arrival in this year’s Oscar race, yanked forward from Fox Searchlight’s 2013 slate into a prime-bait November slot. Does that mean they think they’ve got something genuinely special on their hands –, or just easy fodder for acting nominations, given the Academy’s recent weakness for famous people playing other famous people?

A newly unveiled trailer doesn’t do much to answer the question, though it does confirm what early marketing materials suggested: that “Anvil!” director Sacha Gervasi’s film — not a formal biopic, despite what the bland title promises, but a study of the making of “Psycho” — is taking a comedic approach to the material. Given Hitchcock’s own playful sene of humor, that seems the right approach to take… though let’s hope the film has a black edge to it, and isn’t just a puffball in the “My Week With Marilyn” vein.

Either way, the timing couldn’t be sweeter for a Hitchcock-related film. Here in the UK, at least, after “Vertigo” came out tops in the decennial Sight & Sound critics’ poll, there’s been a renewed surge of media scrutiny of the man and his work, including a three-month British Film Institute retrospective in London. Fanning the flames is the controversial BBC/HBO TV film “The Girl,” which focuses on Hitch’s relationship with Tippi Hedren and casts him in a less-than-flattering light — it would appear that Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal in “Hitchcock,” opposite Helen Mirren as his long-suffering wife Alma, is a more affectionate portrait.

Check out the trailer below and share your thoughts. Could Hopkins and/or Mirren be Oscar-bound once more? Or is does this promise a minor diversion while “Beasts of the Southern Wild” remains Searchlight’s chief Best Picture player?

It’s an annual (if not always accurate) complaint: the Best Actress category is so much weaker than its male counterpart. Even when that does seem to be the case, however, that statement doesn’t paint the full picture. Every year, there’s an abundance of rich, challenging female lead performances to be found — just not always in the kind of film Academy members are generally willing to consider. Blame them to some extent, but also blame Hollywood for ensuring that so many gifted actresses have to look to the indie and arthouse fringes for opportunities to shine.

Earlier this year, pundits suggested that the Best Actress field was looking even thinner than usual. As we crawl closer to awards season, picking up festival discoveries and critical favorites along the way, it’s looking increasingly competitive — with only one name, I’d venture, assured a spot on the ballot. Thanks to the trend described in the above paragraph, it’s a varied an unusual field, with frontrunners ranging from a red-hot Hollywood ingenue to an 8-year-old amateur to not one, but two, marvelous French-language Cannes sensations. Check out the gallery below as we weigh up their individual pros and cons. You can also keep up with the ups and downs of this race at In Contention’s Best Actress Contenders page.   

In what will be a handy boost to her Best Actress Oscar campaign for “Rust and Bone,” French star Marion Cotillard will receive a career tribute at next month’s IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards, traditionally the first stop on the awards calendar. Also due to receive non-competitive honors at the ceremony are Matt Damon, David O. Russell and Participant Media chairman Jeff Skoll. The ceremony takes place a little over a week after Cotillard’s film lands in US theaters. Joana Vicente, director of the IFP, stated: “Marion Cotillard is not only a delight to watch, she is one of the most talented women working in cinema around the world today. Her acting choices are always challenging and rewarding, and her performances show that she is a truly skilled artist, totally dedicated to her craft. We are so honored to present this Tribute to a woman of her magnitude.” Here’s hoping the Academy agrees. [Filmmaker]   

Venice Golden Lion winner and South Korean Oscar submission “Pieta” has been acquired for US distribution by Drafthouse Film, who scored a nod last year for “Bullhead.” [Austin Chronicle]

Tom O’Neil claims “Silver Linings Playbook” could suffer in the Oscar race because it won’t reap many craft nods outside editing. Didn’t stop “The Departed” or “Million Dollar Baby” recently, did it? [Gold Derby]

Fassbender joins Gosling, Blanchett, Bale, Portman et al in Terrence Malick’s latest… but who will make the final cut? [Thompson on Hollywood]

Guy Ritchie interviews Brad Pitt about “Killing Them Softly,” this, that and the other. [Interview]

Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis talk about adapting the supposedly unfilmmable in “Cloud Atlas.” [New York Times]

The Film Experience’s Oscar Horrors series continues with a reflection on the Best Art Direction win for “Pan’s Labyrinth.” [The Film Experience]

Check out six minutes of Thomas Newman’s score for “Skyfall.” Haven’t heard it myself yet, but Newman and Bond still don’t quite go together in my mind. Intrigued. [Rope of Silicon]

The film’s been out a while, but this is a good read: Nick Bradshaw interviews the makers of “Searching for Sugar Man,” a good bet to crack the Oscar documentary shortlist. [Sight & Sound] 

I’m a bit behind the curve on this news, but since it was rather buried beneath the surge of autumn Oscar-contender updates, I thought it worth flagging up anyway. I’ve recently been combing the US release calendar for possibilities in the Best Documentary Feature race, looking in particular for the slightly left-of-center contenders that routinely pop up in the branch’s shortlist — the eligibility rules may have changed this year, but we have no reason to think voters will suddenly start focusing more intently on much-hyped frontrunners.

In doing so, I found myself wondering what became of “Stories We Tell,” Sarah Polley’s lovely non-fiction debut — a critical hit at the Venice and Toronto festivals that did rather well for itself by scoring a US distribution deal with a relatively high-profile indie outfit, Roadside Attractions. In recent years, Roadside has been a tidy little player in the Oscar race, scoring major nominations for “Winter’s Bone,” “Biutiful,” “Albert Nobbs” and “Margin Call,” in all cases against significant odds. However, they made their name with the Academy in the documentary race: founded in 2003, they landed their first nod less than two years later with “Super Size Me,” and took the win five years later with “The Cove.”

Between Roadside’s skills and the considerable merits of Polley’s film, I thought we had the makings of a possible nominee. Turns out the distributor thinks likewise — just not this year. Late last month, the Toronto Star’s Pete Howell reported that while release date for “Stories We Tell” in its Canadian homeland remains imminent — it opens there this Friday, in fact — Roadside has delayed the US release until mid-2013.

Company spokesman David Pollick told Howell that they were “excited” about the new release, and spoke of their “plan to focus on awards after the film has been established in the US theatrical market.” Polley herself concurred that it was “the best possible strategy” for her film.

A malleable study of Polley’s own complicated family history, “Stories We Tell” was, for me, one of the highlights of last month’s Venice Film Festival. I didn’t get to write about it much on these pages, but I did have the pleasure of reviewing it for Variety, and my enthusiasm was matched by the critical majority. As much as I agree with their sentiments, however, I’d warn you off reading most reviews, since it’s very much a film that’s best served cold, its staggered revelations turning it into something far more profound and surprising than the gentle maternal tribute it initially appears to be. I can, however, safely relay the first paragraph of my review (if you’ll forgive the self-quotation):

After two exceptional dramatic features, “Away From Her” and “Take This Waltz,” Sarah Polley appeared to be taking a discursive left turn with a documentary on her own family. As it turns out, the alternately playful and elegiac “Stories We Tell” is wholly of a piece with her fiction work, and just as rewarding… sewn from the occasionally sparring firsthand accounts of loved ones, it’s another delicate, surprising reflection on intimate relationship politics from the young Canadian.

I’m interested to see how Roadside handle the film, given that, critical laurels notwithstanding, it’s not an easy sell, either to audiences or the Academy. The personal history of a gifted, well-regarded but not super-famous actress-turned-filmmaker sounds like more of a niche topic than it is in the film, and it’s hard to illustrate what’s so compelling and universal about it without stepping on the film’s own story-weaving. The Academy’s documentary branch, for their part, tends to favor less watercolor-delicate work, on more capital-I Important subjects — one could perhaps liken “Stories We Tell” to the more personal work of Agnes Varda, who has never scored with the branch. Something tells me, however, that it could find a way through, particularly if reviews next summer echo the intensity of praise in festival notices. Either way, it’s one to look forward to in 2013.

Meanwhile, Polley’s 2012 Oscar hopes rest with the fiction film to which “Stories We Tell” forms an unlikely lateral companion piece: “Take This Waltz.” And yes, those hopes are slim: also granted a summer release by its indie handlers (Magnolia, in this case), her ripely sensual marital drama deserves serious consideration at least for Polley’s original screenplay and Michelle Williams’ marvelous lead turn, but it’ll struggle to overcome the twin obstacles of polarised reviews and minimal campaign resources. Still, if it’s any comfort, Polley has a serious shot at holding down two spots on my own end-of-year list.

Five years ago Alan Arkin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in “Little Miss Sunshine,” an award many thought would end up going to “Dreamgirls” star Eddie Murphy. He’s back knocking on the door of another tip of the Academy’s hat with his work as a cranky, seen-it-all film producer in Ben Affleck’s “Argo.” But he probably couldn’t care less.

“To me that’s a euphemism for saying, ‘I liked your work,'” he says of awards speculation by telephone. “I’m just as happy with people saying that.”

Nevertheless, as short-answered and moderately cantankerous as Arkin can be in an interview situation, there’s something lovable there. He’s not the sort who has to work the circuit hard to get kudos because, after all, we’re talking about someone whose first nomination was 45 years ago (for “The Russians are Coming the Russians are Coming”). He’s been there. Done that. So the terse replies to queries become a bit of a warm blanket that lets you admit, yes, this is all rather silly.

What sold him on the script? “I didn’t need any selling,” he says. “My agent sent me the script and I said, ‘Yes.’ That was the amount of selling I needed.”

Was there any particular element that jumped out at him and made him want to do the project? “Everything,” he says. “Equally.”

Did he pull his quirky producer from any of those he’s met throughout his distinguished career? “A few of them,” he says. “Not all of them.”

And that’s fine. Arkin is an old pro. He gets in and out, doesn’t say anything he doesn’t have to say, sells the movie and his collaborators succinctly.

For instance, working with John Goodman, with whom he shares a good amount of screen time in the film? “He and I had never met before we started shooting,” he says, “but within 10 minutes I felt like I had met an old friend. I get the impression he feels the same way about me. I hope so because I loved working with him.”

Ben Affleck behind the camera? “He’s as good as they get,” he says. “He’s gonna be considered a major, major director, and deservedly. They don’t get any better.”

Bringing anything new to the script? “I didn’t change any of the dialogue,” he says. “I’m used to changing a lot of the dialogue. But if I feel like the script is working I don’t want to mess with it. And this script was working. It didn’t need any textual embellishments from me so I was happy to do what was on the page.”

Knowledge of the events depicted in the film prior to being made aware of the project? “I didn’t know anything about it,” he says. “And as much as I liked the script when I read it, it didn’t hold a candle to what I ended up seeing on the screen with what Ben did to it. It’s just his handling of it was so meticulous and very courageous, and with great subtlety.”

And don’t worry about dolling the thing up too much. Arkin isn’t having it. Like, for instance, “Argo” as a project the film industry is likely to take to because it’s very much a story about Hollywood saving the day. “I don’t think in those terms,” he says. “Those are kind of headline ways of looking at something.”

I see.

“I look at it in the terms of the emotional effect that the piece has on me.”

Oh, maybe we’re getting somewhere.

“To me it talked about people cooperating in a peaceful way, in an inventive and courageous way that could have turned into a world conflagration in somebody else’s hands. It was done with invention and without anybody getting hurt.”

The answers are getting a little bit longer. An opportunity is surfacing. So maybe I’ll try this: Affleck, an actor, working as a director. How did that strike Arkin? Did he seem more sensitive to an actor’s plight? Was it obvious that an actor was directing the film, in a sense? “Well, yeah, because he would periodically stop directing and start acting.”

Touché, sir.

But, again, it’s fine. Arkin is well on his way to being a strong contender in the Best Supporting Actor race this year for his work in the film. It’s a scene-stealing role, the one that gets all the laughs. And in a film that is nail-biting for its tension, the release that Arkin’s producer provides is welcome and memorable.

So you can stuff your think-piece questions. Sometimes it’s just the movie, stupid.

“Argo” opens nationwide October 12.

Pete Hammond reports that the Weinsteins have won yet another Oscar race: the annual scramble to see who can get the first formal For Your Consideration screener mailed out to voters — an early-bird strategy that has previously paid off for under-the-radar contenders like “A Better Life” and “Frozen River.” (Millennium sent out “Bernie” a while back, but it was a commercial disc that didn’t comply with official Academy regulations.) The lucky beneficiary? French Oscar submission “The Intouchables” — an obvious contender for Best Foreign Language Film, but a crowdpleaser that I think most pundits are underestimating in other categories. Omar Sy is an outside shot who shouldn’t be discounted in the Best Actor race, while I recently added the film to my Best Original Screenplay predictions. [Deadline]

The LA Times’s Steven Zeitchik concludes that “Lincoln”‘s presumed status as an Oscar heavyweight was sealed after yesterday’s premiere, though qualifies that it “plays on the talky side.” [LA Times]   

Nick Vivarelli notes that while there may be a record number of foreign-language Oscar submissions this year, politics have ensured a minimal presence for the Middle East after last year’s Iranian victory. [Variety]

It’s official: after being up for sale for several months, august trade paper Variety has been bought by Penske Media, who also own rival outlet Deadline. [The Wrap]

Oscar-winning Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s European Film Awards in December. [EFA]

“Take Shelter” and “Mud” director Jeff Nichols will preside over the jury at next month’s Rome Film Festival. [Rome Film Festival]

Following its NYFF appearance, David Hudson considers Italian Oscar entry “Caesar Must Die,” and suggests that winning the top prize in Berlin did it no favors. [Fandor]

Among other things, Ethan Hawke explains how the Oscars inspired him not to fix his crooked teeth. [The Telegraph] 

Jack Black talks to Daniel Montgomery about his much-lauded work in “Bernie” — a film that made no impression whatsoever on me when I saw the film over a year ago. Maybe I should look again. [Gold Derby] 

On a sad closing note, Oscar-nominated producer Hank Moonjean (“Dangerous Liaisons”) passed away from cancer at the age of 82. [Deadline]

I could tell things weren’t going swimmingly for “Frankenweenie” this weekend when I could use a single hand to count the responses to our post inviting your thoughts on the film. For whatever reason, and not for lack of critical enthusiasm, Tim Burton’s peculiarly personal stop-motion animated feature just hadn’t caught the public’s imagination, and the figures last night made for discouraging reading: after opening wide in over 3000 theaters, “Frankenweenie” limped into fifth place with $11.4 million, less than half of what rival Halloween-friendly animation “Hotel Transylviania” managed to gross in its second weekend. International box office will surely be required to clear a budget of $39 million.

I’m no box office analyst, but as disappointed as I am by this tepid reception for a lovingly made film that deserves an audience, I’m hardly surprised. As much as Disney tried to underline Burton’s money-raking “Alice in Wonderland” credentials in the marketing, “Frankenweenie” is a tough sell: a stylized, macabre and boldly black-and-white mosaic homage to vintage horror/monster movies, it’s a film for the director’s devotees who likely loathed “Alice.”

Disney are to be congratulated on stumping up for what is essentially an auteur piece, but if they thought it was going to gross as much as “Corpse Bride” — which, in addition to being in color, boasted to marquee appeal of Johnny Depp — they were kidding themselves. Certainly, the warmly-reviewed film hasn’t done anyone’s reputation any harm: in Burton’s case, it’s positively salvaged it after the frosty critical reception for “Alice” (for all its millions) and “Dark Shadows.” The question now is whether Academy voters will admire the artistic commitment evident in “Frankenweenie,” or hold the film’s commercial performance against it.

With healthier box office, the film would comfortably be in the driver’s seat for the Best Animated Feature Oscar in a year that hasn’t delivered a true phenomenon in the medium. Pixar were widely deemed to be treading water with “Brave,” well-liked as it is; “Paranorman” has some ardent champions, but not everyone seems to get it; we’re still waiting on “Rise of the Guardians.”

“Frankenweenie” has the potentially winning combination of exquisite craft, hip but not alienating humor and a retro aesthetic and sensibility that could inspire a feeling of protectiveness in some voters; better yet, it gives them a chance to honor a major filmmaker who may well never win an Oscar in a major category. It’s worth noting that, on the rare occasions Pixar hasn’t triumphed in this category since its inception in 2001, the Academy has often opted for a filmmaker who’s a known quantity: Gore Verbinski for “Rango,” George Miller for “Happy Feet,” Hayao Miyazaki for “Spirited Away,” even the three-time Oscar-winners behind “Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit” — who beat Burton the last time has was up for one of these.

That’s all good news, but the fact remains that this is an Oscar category that overwhelmingly favors blockbusters. The average Stateside gross of a Best Animated Feature winner is around $218 million, while of 11 previous winners, only two have totals below nine figures: “Spirited Away,” an anomalous art-film victor that did well to reach $10 million, and “Wallace & Gromit,” still a tidy little underdog performer with $56 million. (It was narrowly the highest-grossing nominee that year.)

Perhaps not coincidentally, they’re also the only two past winners to veer from the slick computer animation that is the norm these days: with a similar handmade appeal, “Frankenweenie” will be going after the same nostalgia vote that those films successfully chased, though neither had to contend with the faint stigma of box office disappointment. It’d be nice to see this puppy come through on its own charms. 

Well, we’re finally there. After three months of submissions, which we reported on at regular interviews, the Academy has lowered the boom and announced the official longlist of films in the running for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. And quite a list it is too: with 71 countries represented, including a first-time entry from Kenya, it’s the longest in the category’s history.

Last week, after glancing over the near-final list as it stood after the October 1 submissions deadline, I mentioned that a few additions, switches and/or disqualifications would take place before the Academy set it in stone. Happily, only the first of those modifications came to pass, with three last-minute entries joining the fray: Malaysia’s “Bunohan,”  Kyrgysztan’s “The Empty Home” and Singapore’s “Already Famous.” Contrary to the title of the latter film — a showbiz satire about a TV soap addict trying to launch an acting career — none of these latecomers have much of a profile, though reviews from last year’s Toronto fest of the Malaysian entry make it sound like a hoot: Variety calls it “a fight film with echoes of ‘King Lear,’ and a ghost story about living people who occupy the edge of existence.” It’s remake-ready, apparently. Sign me up.

With the contenders finalized, the Academy will soon begin its series of official screenings of each of the 71 submissions, to be attended by blocs of volunteer voters from the branch. (The rules don’t require all the voters to see all the films; rather, they’re divvied up and vote on the group of films assigned to them.) In January, the six top vote-getters from this process will be joined by three extra titles chosen by an executive committee, making up a nine-film shortlist from the entire branch will then vote on the final five nominees.

It’s a complicated process, and with more films than ever in the running this year, it’s going to be a particularly brutal one. At this stage, I’ve only seen 18 (just over a quarter) of the hopefuls — and am set to add several more to that tally at the London Film Festival — yet I can still confidently say that the standard is inordinately high this year.

As I’ve remarked before, there were fewer selection scandals than usual this year: most countries chose the films they were expected to choose, and the result is field rich in critical favorites, festival hits and the odd commercial sensation. Unusually, all three champions from the major European festivals are in the mix: Austria’s “Amour” (winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes), Italy’s “Caesar Must Die” (winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin) and South Korea’s “Pieta” (winner of the Golden Lion at Venice). I’ll leave it for someone else to do the legwork on this, but if that’s ever happened before, it can’t have been in a good long while.

However the shortlist shakes out, some superb films are going to be left on the sidelines: you can see how I’m currently ranking the field on our Contenders page, but I’m sure things will shift and slide as I see more of the entries. Right now, “The Intouchables” and “Amour” are the only titles I feel have secure spots on the shortlist: the former because it’s already a crossover hit and plays extremely well to the Academy demographic, the latter because there’s no chance in hell the executive committee would let it slip through the cracks, even if the general voters did.

Beyond that, well, it’s going to be tough, but the voters would truly have to go out of their way not to come up with truly stellar lineup this year. (After “A Separation” broke a long run of oatmeal winners in the category, could the prize go to a major critical hit two years in a row?) Right now, with plenty yet to see, the five films that have my heart are Belgium’s “Our Children,” Germany’s “Barbara,” Switzerland’s “Sister,” Austria’s “Amour” and Chile’s “No,” but I’m looking forward to digging deeper. Check out the full list here. 

The Hamptons International Film Festival wrapped this weekend, delivering another Audience Award to Toronto favorite “Silver Linings Playbook” — more ammo the Weinsteins to campaign it as the crowdpleasing Oscar choice — and a hat-trick of prizes for Australia’s foreign Oscar contender “Lore.” Meanwhile, the festival hosted the official celebrations for Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch, a well-chosen bunch that includes Scoot McNairy (“Monsters”; “Killing Them Softly”), Nate Parker (“Arbitrage”) and the film-stealing “Anna Karenina” duo of Alicia Vikander and Domnhall Gleeson. (Yep, son of Brendan.) Cheers all round. [Hamptons Film Fest] 

More good news for “Playbook,” as Bradley Cooper takes the Hollywood Actor honor at the Hollywood Film Awards — they may invite much sneering, but a prize is a prize. [The Race]

Harvey Weinstein will deliver the keynote address at the upcoming London Film Festival, where his company’s films “Quartet” and “The Sapphires” are playing. [Variety]

Love this idea for a Halloween-month series: Oscar Horrors looks at rare Academy Award nominations for films in and around the horror genre, beginning with “Addams Family Values.” [The Film Experience]

Oli Lyttelton considers the Best Supporting Actor race, describing Philip Seymour Hoffman’s co-lead turn in “The Master” as the category’s only lock. [The Playlist]

Nick Davis, meanwhile, serves up a far tastier roster of candidates in the same category — only one of whom has a shot in hell at an Oscar nod, sadly. [Nick’s Flick Picks]

Sasha Stone is high on Sundance prizewinner “Middle of Nowhere,” which she believes could make Ava DuVernay the first female African-American filmmaker to land an Oscar nod. [Awards Daily]

Remember when “Battleship” came out, and we all joked about adapting “Monopoly” and “Hungry Hungry Hippos” for the screen? Well, Hollywood knows not the meaning of “joke.” [The Guardian]

Elizabeth Olsen talks “Liberal Arts,” Spike Lee’s upcoming “Oldboy” remake and why she likes Cillian Murphy. [GQ]

Looking at how Bond films have fared in the past with the music branch, Paul Grein wonders if “Skyfall” composer Thomas Newman — and, of course, the ubiquitous Adele — can snag Oscar nods. [Yahoo!]

We may have led with “The Paperboy” yesterday, but if we were to focus on the new release that’s likeliest to find awards recognition in the next five months, it’d have to be Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie” — the kook merchant’s first animated feature since 2005’s “Corpse Bride,” and a likely bet to repeat that film’s nomination for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. (I think it could easily go one better.) Due to the quirks of transatlantic embargoes, I’m not supposed to discuss the film until its UK premiere on Wednesday, when it’ll open the London Film Festival, but I will say that I can happily endorse our colleague Drew McWeeny’s enthusiastic take. But let’s turn it over to you. Do you think it’s a return to form for Burton? Could it net him his first golden statue? Feel free to rate the film above, and share your thoughts below.

NEW YORK — Almost a decade ago, Richard Linklater and Jack Black first crossed professional paths. Black had been a fan of the sometimes-studio-usually-indie director going back another decade, all the way to Linklater’s debut, “Slacker,” but never really thought of him when he and buddy/screenwriter Mike White were developing “School of Rock.” Producer Scott Rudin offered the outside-the-box suggestion of Linklater and the rest was history.

Earlier this year, Linklater and Black clocked in their second collaboration, the dark comedy/true story “Bernie,” which just recently made its way to DVD and Blu-ray. Ostensibly, they’re out on the circuit now to promote the home video release, but with it comes a fair amount of rejuvenated awards buzz. The film was critically acclaimed when it hit theaters in April and many called Black’s performance as a small town Texas mortician who murdered an elderly woman (in a story where that premise doesn’t begin to scratch the surface) his best to date. And now, after an intimate soirée down town the night before, they’re sitting with me having lunch, more than happy to breathe more life into it.

“I can’t imagine Sean Penn going around town doing a dog and pony show to get prizes,” Black tells me after thoroughly flossing his teeth. “I’ve never been asked before to go and do extra stuff after the DVD’s been released because there’s a buzz for accolades [he emphasizes it in that Jack Black way — you know] and prizes. So I was like, ‘I want to give it its best chance.’ Not just for me but for Rick and the cinematographer and the rest of the cast. We’re all really proud of the film. So you just keep on going, keep on selling!”

Going back to that premise, though, for Linklater — who first heard of the story through a newspaper article — it was broadly about “a nice guy [the titular Bernie Tiede] who did a bad thing,” he says. “I was so intrigued by that relationship. You do movies to figure something out, I think. You’re looking for something. Until Jack and I really met Bernie I hadn’t really thought about what was going on between these two people. This old, cantankerous woman, kind of hateful. She clearly had problems, whatever, personality disorder. No one liked her. She should have been seeking some mental help, but she’s so rich, the rich are just put up with.

“So why would Bernie stick around? So many questions. But it was when we were talking to Bernie, Jack asked, ‘Why didn’t you leave?’ And he’s like, ‘She didn’t have anybody. I was her only friend.’ He cared about her so much that he didn’t want to hurt her by leaving her. And it’s perverse but that is the psychology of the abused spouse. So I realized Bernie’s an abused partner in a strange, perverse way. But she had to leave him. He wasn’t going to leave her. If you could get in his head, it has its own logic.”

Linklater attended the trial and had seen Tiede give testimony prior to the meeting, of course, but he didn’t really know the man. But that visit confirmed the tone of the movie for him. “We came out going, ‘What’s that guy doing in prison still,'” he says. “He really is a sweetheart of a guy.”

And that “sweetness” is the element Black says he most wanted to convey. Meeting with Tiede of course gave him plenty of clues into physicality and syntax, etc., but he was most drawn to that spark Tiede has, the same spark that kept him, despite being a murderer, a beloved member of the community.

“I could see why everyone in town liked him,” he says. “But it was important for me to meet Bernie because he’s alive and you want to get the blessing of the person you’re going to play. You don’t want that haunting you. I’ve got a little bit of that Bernie thing, too, where I want to be loved.”

Linklater takes a moment to interject and note that this was why it was, for him, such a pleasure to cast Black, who he calls “the nicest guy.”

“Although he’s way nicer than I am,” Black says of Tiede.

“Yeah, he doesn’t have your sinister undercurrent,” Linklater responds.

“He doesn’t have the devilish glint I can have at times,” Black says with a smile. “And so a lot of the times I was trying to suppress my inner demon. Because he didn’t really have that escape valve of letting out a little evil, and maybe that was the problem, that he bottled it all up.”

And in more ways than one, perhaps. There were more layers there that Black was interested in, such as the question of Tiede’s sexuality. “I never asked him but I felt like I knew the answer,” Black says.

“And that’s Bernie,” Linklater adds. “He’s kind of dignified, straight-ish, in a small, Southern town. I think it’s less and less that way, thankfully, but every church has that lifelong bachelor who’s really sweet and leads the choir and everyone likes him and, he’s gay. And he’s really religious, too. I mean, it’s a tortured life, in a way, to not really be yourself.”

The nature of the circumstances, despite the presence of a vicious crime in the narrative, never once suggested a drama to Linklater. It had to be a comedy, rather, a dark comedy, because it was just so bizarre. And it was likely the only way he’d tackle something like this.

“It would be very different if he had done this five other times and bumped off old ladies, then he’s a serial killer,” Linklater says. “But there’s really no darkness in Bernie. Some people want to push in that direction. I mean, murder’s a dark subject. But in this case, it really isn’t. The act is tragic and dark but everything around it, strangely, wasn’t. That’s what attracted me. I’m not really interested in murder or psychopaths as subjects for things I want to spend time on. I don’t do serial killer movies. But this was my kind of murderer. I think any of us could be this guy. None of us should be too confident that it couldn’t be us, let’s put it that way.”

But for as wretched and villainous as Shirley MacLaine’s depiction of the late Marjorie Nugent might be, the two note that, even by the admission of the Carthage, Texas residents who knew her, the film took it easy on her.

“The movie’s way nice to Mrs. Nugent,” Linklater pleads.

Adds Black, “Her family members in particular were like, ‘She was way meaner than that.’ The reality was maybe a little more Nurse Ratched. You remember in ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ when Nurse Ratched gets the choking, you’re fucking saying, ‘Yeah, choke that fucker!’ But what villain thinks they’re the villain?”

Whether or not the push on behalf of “Bernie” and particularly Black gains traction, it’s anyone’s guess. Oscar is tough but Independent Spirit Awards recognition isn’t out of the question. And he did, after all, land a comedy/musical Golden Globe nomination for his last Linklater collaboration, so that’s a distinct possibility, too. For now, though, they’re happy to have gotten back in the saddle again after “School of Rock.”

“We had been flirting around for a couple of years, trying to get the planets to align,” Linklater says.

“Now that we’re on a schedule, it’s every eight years, I know,” Black says. “So, I look forward to 2020. Have you started working on it already?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Linklater says with a smile. “But I’m not gonna drop it on you for another five or six years.”

“Bernie” is currently available On Demand and on DVD/Blu-ray.

NEW YORK — It was either serendipity or programming genius that the first NYFF press screening of David Chase’s “Not Fade Away” was held today on the 50th anniversary of a seminal moment in the history of rock and roll: the release of the Beatles’ first single, “Love Me Do.” The fab four’s burst onto the scene is in fact one of the moments depicted in Chase’s directorial debut that sends its protagonists on a journey of self-discovery and artistic awakening.

It’s an era Chase captures with joy and passion in a film both funny and, at times, profound. Indeed, the theme of the film, Chase said in a post-screening press conference, is the conflict between security and freedom. “Human beings are always in that conflict of, ‘I want to be part of something, I want to be babied, I want to be taken care of’ and ‘I also want to tell everybody to go fuck yourself and I’m free and I want to do what I want and I’m just my own person,” he said. “That’s one of the things that launched the movie in my mind.”

John Magaro stars as a boomer generation New Jersey native making his way through love, sex, drugs and, yes, rock and roll in the early-to-mid 1960s. He forms a band with a few friends and experiences the ups and downs inherent in that relationship, made all the more authentic with the participation of E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt as a producer. It’s the rise and fall of a band you never heard of, one that could probably stand in for countless others across the country at that time, including Chase’s own cardboard-boxes-as-drumset crew.

Van Zandt’s participation was a boon, particularly for a group of actors with no experience as musicians. The band formed in the film plays through a few years of covers, which Van Zandt said was important for the authenticity of the time, before developing their own original song toward the end of the film.

“Most of the bands, Beatles, Stones, you name it, E Street Band, spent a few years doing other people’s songs…when they should be, actually,” he said. “These days, not so much, and it’s actually a bad thing. That’s how you form your identity and that’s how you learn to write songs, from analyzing those existing songs and absorbing them, and that’s how you have standards. So we wanted to be very authentic about that stuff.”

The “original” song, however, won’t be making the awards rounds. It’s actually “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” which Van Zandt developed for another project.

But while Chase had his hand at a band in his youth, the film isn’t autobiographical, he insisted. Though it’s certainly personal.  “I always felt that I was very lucky to be that age at that time,” he said. “And music was, at that time, a way into everything. That’s where I first learned about art, poetry, fashion, humor, film, it all came from there. Rock and roll was my first glimpse of, ‘Oh, that’s art. Maybe I could do that.'”

Magaro’s character, who sports a Bob Dylan look throughout most of the film (much to the chagrin of his father, played by James Gandolfini), makes mention a few times of wanting to head west and learn film. He talks about an interest in the juxtaposition of music and imagery, and that’s something Chase reiterated about himself, that one of his favorite things about working on “The Sopranos” was putting picture and sound together. “Not Fade Away,” he said, is therefore just a compilation album of his favorite songs.

But the moment was a fleeting one, too, and however strongly identifying it may have been for the country, it has been lost along the way.

“Rolling Stone was a magazine that was formed right as this movie was ending,” Chase said. “It was a rock and roll magazine but everything, politics, was filtered through that lens. And I don’t think it is anymore…The revolution was bought out. Nike and those people said, ‘We’ll take it and use it to sell shoes.’ And they did. So that was very much in my mind.”

That’s why the film clicked so much, for me anyway. It’s a fun romp in one respect, but it’s also deeply concerned with generational ideas and a life lived free versus a life lived in regret. There is a beautiful moment vis a vis the latter involving Gandolfini toward the film’s end that really sells the notion.

The film is also paced at a clip, the result of a larger version that Chase has been honing down for a number of months now. The final assemblage is a mostly crisp and tight offering that nevertheless sports a wild side, the director finding interesting ways to use his camera (on a cymbal, in the reflection of a sheered-off side-view mirror) but also delicately finding intimacy with his characters (a number of close-ups, particularly on Magaro and co-star Bella Heathcote as they watch “Touch of Evil” together, really stuck out as unique).

More importantly, though, is the fact that, while that moment in music history was fleeting, it’s representative of something universal. It says something about inspiration and about artistic passion, and that is why that music will be immortal. Immortality is, after all, what every artist is truly striving for, whatever the medium.

“Not Fade Away” premieres tomorrow night at the Alice Tully Hall as the Centerpiece selection of the New York Film Festival. It opens December 21 in limited release.

Welcome to Oscar Talk.

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

This week the New York Film Festival rages on and the Academy made a pretty significant announcement, among other bits and bobs that bubble up. So let’s see what’s on the docket today…

The biggest news of the week was the Academy’s announcement that Seth MacFarlane will be hosting the 85th annual Oscars. We discuss the pluses and minuses of the somewhat surprising pick.

Also, it’s time to dig in on another category, and this week, it’s Best Actress. A survey of Movie City News’s Gurus o’ Gold collective shows that, beyond a handful of agreed-upon bets, things are a bit all over the place. We run through the players.

One of those contenders, young Quevenzhane Wallis, won’t be in the hunt for SAG recognition as the guild has disqualified the film from contention. We briefly touch on that and whether the film, as well as fellow indies like “Moonrise Kingdom” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” can come back around in the season.

And finally, reader questions. We address queries regarding perceived frontrunners at this early stage, Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION FOR US, please write in to OscarTalk@HitFix.com.

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.