Jean Dujardin may be the frontrunner to take the Best Actor Oscar in Hollywood on Sunday, but he had to endure a defeat on his home turf tonight, as the French superstar lost the César Award to the comparatively unheralded Omar Sy, who plays a young man from the projects hired to look after a wealthy quadriplegic in the domestic smash “Untouchable.” (The film, incidentally, was crucified by Variety’s Jay Weissberg, who describes it as racist claptrap; the Weinsteins have the remake rights.)

I doubt Dujardin is too bothered: clearly, voters for the France’s answer to the Academy Awards loved “The Artist” enough that they felt free to throw someone else a bone in one major category. The Oscar frontrunner took six awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius and Best Actress for Bérénice Bejo, questionably nominated in the supporting race across the pond. If I’m keeping score correctly, this is Bejo’s first actual trophy of the season — it’s nice for her that it came in the correct category.

“The Artist” wasn’t the only English-language film honored in the Gallic ceremony: longtime French favorite Roman Polanski, together with playwright Yasmina Reza, took Best Adapted Screenplay honors for “Carnage.” This is the veteran director’s sixth César, and comes back-to-back with last year’s Best Director win for “The Ghost Writer.” English-language cinema took a back seat, however, in the Best Foreign Film category, where “A Separation” beat the likes of “Drive,” “The King’s Speech” and “Black Swan.”

Maiwenn’s Cannes-honored police drama “Polisse” may have pipped “The Artist” in the nomination tally, leading the list with 13 nods, but had to settle for two minor wins (one of them tied) in the Most Promising Actress and Best Film Editing categories. Still, it fared better than foreign-language Oscar submissions “Declaration of War” and “Le Havre,” both of which came away empty-handed.

Anyway, this is the certainly the first time we can expect a number of the Césars’ choices to be mirrored at the Oscar ceremony. Vive la France, and all that. Full list of winners below:  

Best Film: “The Artist”

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”

Best Actor: Omar Sy, “Untouchable”

Best Actress: Bérénice Bejo, “The Artist” 

Best Supporting Actor: Michel Blanc, “The Minister”

Best Supporting Actress: Carmen Maura, “The Women of the Sixth Floor”

Best Original Screenplay: “The Minister”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “Carnage”

Best Foreign Film: “A Separation”

Most Promising Actor: Grégory Gadebois, “Angèle and Tony”  

Most Promising Actress: (tie) Clotilde Hesme, “Angèle et Tony”; Neyda Yadri, “Polisse”  

Best Cinematography: “The Artist”

Best Art Direction: “The Artist”

Best Costume Design: “House of Pleasures”

Best Film Editing: “Polisse”

Best Original Score: “The Artist”

Best Sound: “The Minister”

Best First Film: “When Pigs Having Wings”

Best Animated Film: “The Rabbi’s Cat”

Best Documentary: “Larzac”

Best Short Film: “L’accordeur”

Remember to keep track of the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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Over the course of a 30-year career that includes work on over 70 films, Willem Dafoe has demonstrated an eclectic range in role selection. A quick glance at his IMDB page illustrates the variance in his cinematic range. The top four “known for” films that the site has pulled out for him are “Spider-Man,” “Finding-Nemo,” “The Boondock Saints” and “The English Patient.”

The upcoming “John Carter” reunited Dafoe with “Finding-Nemo” helmer Andrew Stanton and provided the actor with a fresh opportunity to be “turned on” as an artist: performing in a motion-capture suit on stilts. His character in the film, Tars Tarkas, is a 9-foot-tall alien from Barsoom (Mars). While speaking about his career at the recent Tempe, Arizona press event for the film, Dafoe mused about the somewhat capricious nature of cinema.

As most actors do, he recognizes the limits of his control on a film”s final outcome, as well as the audience and critical response, saying you have to be an “idiot” to use box office as a barometer for merit.

“Some movies I”ve made have done well when they”ve opened and then they”re largely forgotten,” he said. “Other ones have been disasters when they”ve opened and have gone on to have a long life and really lived or been important to other filmmakers or contributed in a special way. So you never know. Every film has its little story.”

What is interesting is that during the course of the dialogue, Dafoe acknowledged some of the intangible elements that play into both awards success and larger audience reach. As has often been discussed, Kenneth Lonergan’s “Margaret” was besieged with distribution challenges. But the actor also noted that, because his schedule allowed for it this year, he was able to truly watch nearly all of the “for your consideration” screeners that the studios released, and thus, “Margaret” was brought to his attention.

“It basically got lost in the shuffle,” he said of the film. “But it was beautifully written and beautifully performed. I thought it really captured something of New York, a certain kind of people, a certain kind of political problem. I thought it was really interesting as a movie, but again, it totally got lost.”

A few key members of the filmmaking world did see “Margaret,” however, and had the timing been different, perhaps they would have championed it. Accepting her Golden Bear award for lifetime achievement at the Berlinale recently, Meryl Streep highlighted Anna Paquin”s performance in the film as what should have been the one to beat.

“This year, particularly for women, there have been so many wonderful performances, many of them not even nominated,” the actress said. “For instance, our co-star Olivia Colman, in a film called ‘Tyrannosaur,’ which is absolutely breathtaking, and she has not been recognized for it. Anna Paquin made a film called ‘Margaret’ that very few people have seen. Again, in any other year, it would have won every single award.”

Interestingly enough, in our interview with Anna Paquin, the actress reflected on her own commitment to focusing on her work sans an eye to the outer world results. It’s a pragmatic (and likely sanity-saving) attitude given the variables under discussion here, but one that must be, upon occasion, challenging to maintain. Certainly, in his conversation with Kris, Lonergan expressed a deep sense of gratitude to those who have demonstrated an appreciation for his film.

“Listen, if you think something is beautiful, you want to share that,” Dafoe said of his own body of work. “Particularly if there is something inspiring about it or particularly smart. You want people to share that. It makes you feel good about the world; it makes you feel like you”re in the world. But it doesn”t always happen.”

No. Sadly, it does not.

Offerings come and go and only a rare few endure the test of time. It is far too early to predict “Margaret””s chances for a lasting impact on the cinematic landscape and it would be really nice if we could still be discussing it in terms of an awards season that shines a brighter spotlight than anything else the rest of the year. For now, what many consider Lonergan”s (almost in spite of itself) masterwork remains a bitter-sweet example of an Oscar “if only.”

For year-round entertainment news and commentary follow @JRothC on Twitter.

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He may actually have a gold statuette on his mantelpiece, and therefore less to complain about than wholly unawarded contemporaries like Todd Haynes and Mike Leigh, but Ang Lee’s Oscar history is a curiously spotty and compromised one — repeatedly following a pattern of apparent goodwill on the industry’s part, followed by the Academy unceremoniously pulling the rug from under his feet.

Following two consecutive losses in the Best Foreign Language Film race in the mid-1990s — one of which, for the popular family-and-food drama “Eat Drink Man Woman,” qualified as a semi-surprise — the Taiwanese native returned the very next year with his English-language debut, “Sense and Sensibility.” It was a sufficient critical hit to emerge as a considerable Oscar favorite, landing Lee Best Director wins from the New York Critics’ Circle and the National Board of Review, plus his first DGA nod, only for its hopes to be swiftly and surprisingly dashed when the Academy nominated the Jane Austen adaptation for seven Oscars — none of them for Lee. 

Undaunted, he returned to the Academy fold five years later with a far less obviously Oscar-friendly proposition, the Taiwanese martial arts epic “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” —  the critical plaudits and unexpected commercial success of which carried it to 10 nominations, a record number for a foreign-language film, and Lee to his first DGA Award. With Golden Globe and BAFTA wins aiding his cause, the stage was perfectly set for Lee to make history by becoming the first person to win a Best Director Oscar for a foreign-language film — only for Steven Soderbergh to swoop in and take the prize in one of the Academy’s once-in-a-blue-moon disagreements with the Guild.

I hardly need to remind you what happened five years later, when Lee was once more nominated for the gay cowboy romance “Brokeback Mountain”: this time, the Academy did follow the DGA’s (and pretty much everyone else’s) lead by handing the director the Oscar, but dismayingly denied his film in the top category — again suggesting that, as much as they liked Lee’s work, they couldn’t quite go all the way with him.

However, between “Sense and Sensibility” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (and before the quiet failure of his ostensibly baity Civil War drama “Ride With the Devil”), came a less high-profile indignity that nonetheless ranks as the most egregious. 

“The Ice Storm,” a 1997 adaptation of Rick Moody’s novel about upper-class familial erosion in the Nixon era, remains, for me, the best work of Lee’s career by some distance, and one of the great American films of its decade: sharp, sexy and porcelain-brittle, it cut through the genial humanism Lee had exercised in his previous, more popular films to reveal the coolly, even cruelly, meticulous stylist within.

Delineating the seemingly separate but unwittingly paralleled moral transgressions of two well-to-do Connecticut families over an ultimately tragic Thanksgiving holiday, it’s an atmospherically immaculate 1970s period piece that somehow seemed as keenly tuned into the social flux of Clinton’s America as Nixon’s, articulating modern family structures in which children have grown up too fast and parents haven’t grown up at all. Exquisitely filmed in minty, wind-slapped November grays and precisely performed by an ensemble of treasured not-quite-star actors, from old hands like Kevin Kline and Joan Allen to off-center young talents Christina Ricci and Tobey Maguire, who would, in many cases, never have quite so much to chew on again, it was a genuinely probing and unsettling film that nonetheless felt it had enough burnished weightiness and worthy relevance to be an Oscar player.

Things started promisingly: the film premiered (alongside future Oscar players “L.A. Confidential” and “The Sweet Hereafter”) at Cannes in the spring, where it was admiringly received by critics and landed the Best Screenplay award for producer-writer James Schamus. The film, backed by the then-fledgling Fox Searchlight Pictures, opened timeously at the end of October to further good reviews — but as the season’s gears began grinding, an early chill set in.

The film picked up a couple of encouraging precursor citations — notably a Golden Globe nod (and, later, a BAFTA win) for Sigourney Weaver, a WGA nod for Schamus and five top nominations from the astute London Critics’ Circle — but it became quickly apparent that the film was too reserved, too low-temperature for major Academy love, particularly with flashier critics’ darlings like “L.A. Confidential” and “Boogie Nights” hogging the alternative-vote conversation. Searchlight, meanwhile, was too young, and too distracted with sleeper-hit Britcom and eventual Best Picture nominee “The Full Monty,” to campaign as hard as they should have for their less likeable pet.

Still, if it was clear that this wasn’t Lee’s moment, the film still had reason to expect a stray mention or two on Oscar nomination morning: the overdue Weaver, at least, seem primed to collect a fourth career nod for her delicious, whip-wielding suburban vixen, while the film seemed exactly the kind of austerely witty screenwriting feat that the writers’ branch routinely stand up for when no one else will. And there was always the faint hope of a nod for Mark Friedberg’s extraordinary period-patchwork production design, or Frederick Elmes’s serenely autumnal lensing.

Alas, it was not to be, as the film scored a grand total of zero Academy Award nominations — yes, even Sigourney Weaver had to make way for surprise nominee Minnie Driver in the Best Supporting Actress race. A cold shoulder for a pretty frosty film, then, and not one that many industry observers particularly mourned at the time — particularly with cheerleaders of smaller contenders already intimidated by the Academy colossus that was “Titanic.” But as “The Ice Storm” has held on to its select but keen critical following, its ignoble Oscar donut looks like a curious blip, especially in light of its director’s later successes. I’d have handed the film a dozen Oscar nominations; I’d have settled for one.

Two years later, the Academy shook off their period prestige habit with another darkly comic study of warped suburban manners and mores as viewed through the prism of a dysfunctionally loveless family: “American Beauty” is a fine film, and still a pretty fresh choice of Best Picture winner, but it can’t equal Ang Lee’s 1997 masterpiece for psychological complexity or poetic formal assurance. I wonder if any members thought of the less beloved film when they cast their votes for Sam Mendes’s Oscar beast — probably not, but it reads like an apology anyway.   

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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Not to get all Donald Rumsfeld about it, but considering how many pundits are approaching Sunday’s ceremony with an air of blasé resignation, there are still an awful lot of known unknowns in this year’s Academy Awards race — more, I’d venture, than there usually are at this eleventh-hour stage in the game. A presumed weight of predictability has held down the nomination list for several weeks now, dulling speculation and analysis… yet when you actually sit down to cast final predictions in all 24 categories for whatever pool you’re playing in, you find yourself pausing, or even stalling, for thought far more often than you thought you might.

Of course, the blind spots in this year’s race aren’t where most observers would like them to be. Yes, Best Picture for “The Artist” is a done deal, and honestly, has been so for the better part of the season — to such a degree that even picking an alternative for my final predictions list proved as difficult as it is surely futile. When the runners-up in a marathon aren’t even visible from the winners’ position, it can be hard to distinguish between them.

People will inevitably grouse about such inevitabilities — more so when they don’t like the frontrunner in question — but the truth is that they are par for the course in big-ticket Oscar races. There hasn’t been genuine suspense over the Academy’s verdict in the top category since “The Departed” claimed a presumably tight win five years ago. The manufacturing of other potential outcomes using a mixture of statistics, wishful thinking and dose of blind perversity is what keeps Oscar bloggers busy for the languid latter stretch of the season, but signs of dissent tend to reveal themselves in industry gestures, not journalists’ musings, and we haven’t had any this year.

“People don’t want ‘The Artist’ to win,” stated Sasha Stone earlier this week, temporarily defining “people” as a small but vocal band of weary industry-watchers, rather than any clearly defined sect of Academy voters — most of whom don’t pay much attention to the chorus of media analysis surrounding the awards, and would be rather surprised to hear that “people” don’t like the charming French outsider that struck them as so fresh and novel when they saw it comparatively recently. Yes, I said outsider: thanks to its nationality, lack of star names and formal dissimilarity to anything else in theaters, “The Artist” is the rare Best Picture contender that has managed to remain both an underdog and a behemoth for months on end.

How far that unbeatable formula can trickle through the lower categories, however, is hard to gauge. This time last year, “The King’s Speech” was bathing in an equivalent glow of industry goodwill and secure Weinstein support, and was therefore predicted by many to run the table. It wound up winning where it counted, sure, but with only four trophies from 12 nominations, it clearly wasn’t so unanimously adored as to blind voters to other achievements.

“The Artist” could find itself in this position. With his newcomer status against four previous nominees more a help than a hindrance with voters seeking fresh options, Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius seems a given; Jean Dujardin for Best Actor marginally less so, but his star power is so integral to the film’s success that it seems unwise to bet against him, particularly with George Clooney’s case for becoming a two-time Oscar winner, atop an already elegant sufficiency of success, a reasonably resistible one.

But move down to Best Original Screenplay and the question marks begin to pop up. Writing wins have gone hand-in-hand with Best Picture ones for six years running, and it’s easy to imagine besotted voters checking off Hazanavicius’s name in that category too — for every dim-bulb voter who wonders if a silent film even has a script, there’ll be another who’s tickled by that very irony. Will there be enough of them to override the sentimental pull of a third win for the verbally advantaged Woody Allen? Or will they find little appeal in rewarding someone everyone knows couldn’t care less what they decide?

We’re now firmly in the area of known unknowns, and many of them do involve “The Artist” — including Best Costume Design, one category where no nominee can be counted out, and where the sway of a Best Picture nomination has recently counted for a lot less than the visual spectacle at hand. The reverse might apply in Best Cinematography, the category in which the precursors have most overwhelmingly instructed the Academy to vote for a single candidate — Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” — and in which it’s all too easy to imagine voters instead bumping up the statue count of a less polarizing Best Picture nominee.

These are just two of many categories I’ve hemmed and hawed over in compiling these final predictions, and where I reserve the right to change my mind between now and Sunday afternoon. Others include Best Visual Effects, where Best Picture momentum for “Hugo” could well see it erase an early lead for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” despite the comparative negligibility of its FX work; the sound awards, which statistics reliably suggest will both go to one film, though I’m damned if I know whether that film is “Hugo” or “War Horse,” and Best Documentary Feature, another five-way free-for-all where the only rationale behind my prediction is that I picked it back in October, and I’d feel awfully silly if I jumped ship now and it went on to win.

Meanwhile, I’m not optimistic that I’ll repeat last year’s feat of correctly calling all three short awards: the documentary short category, in particular, came down to coin-toss between two equally convincing possibilities. And who knows, maybe it’s neither of those.

I’m not going to bore you with further back-and-forth reasoning; we’ve already hashed this all out in our Oscar Guide series, and I’ve already wasted more words than should sensibly spent on saying, “Well, I’m sure about some things, but I’m less sure about others.” It may not be scintillating journalism, but sometimes, a simple predictions list should suffice. And here is mine.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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The International Film Music Critics Association has offered up the final precursor awards announcement of the season as we head into the weekend, which will bring the Independent Spirit Awards and, finally, the Oscars.

John Williams had a great day, it turns out. The famed composer netted seven nominations two weeks ago and won in five of those categories, proving, in case you didn’t know, that film music critics really like John WIlliams.

His work on Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse” earned awards for Film Score of the Year, Best Original Score for a Drama Film and Film Music Composition of the Year for the track “The Homecoming,” while “The Adventures of Tintin” won in the animated field. And just for good measure, Williams grabbed the Film Composer of the Year honor, too.

The year’s expected Oscar winner, Ludovic Bource, won the Breakout Composer of the Year award for his work on “The Artist,” while Michael Giacchino won in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror department for “Super 8” (after racking up three nominations himself).

I wonder, though, while everyone is busy conceding this to Bource, could this be an upset possibility in two days? I’ve honestly been thinking “War Horse” could wind up with a few Oscars when all is said and done, with cinematography, the sound fields and original score being real possibilities.

In any case, check out the full list of winners below. And once again, remember to keep track of all the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

Film Score of the Year: “War Horse” (John Williams)

Film Composer of the Year: John Williams

Breakout Composer of the Year: Ludovic Bource

Best Original Score for a Drama Film: “War Horse” (John Williams)

Best Original Score for a Comedy Film: “The Rum Diary” (Christopher Young)

Best Original Score for an Action/Adventure/Thriller Film: “Drive” (Cliff Martinez)

Best Original Score for a Fantasy/Science-Fiction/Horror Film: “Super 8” (Michael Giacchino)

Best Original Score for an Animated Feature: “The Adventures of Tintin” (John Williams)

Best Original Score for a Documentary Feature: “The Wind Gods” (Pinar Toprak)

Film Music Composition of the Year: “War Horse” – “The Homecoming” (John Williams)

Best Archival Release of an Existing Score: The Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25h Anniversary Music Box

Best Archival Re-Recording of an Existing Score: “The Battle of Neretva”/”The Naked and the Dead” (Bernard Herrmann)

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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Roth”s column three days ago, recognizing the Academy”s genius in awarding Kevin Kline”s performance in “A Fish Called Wanda” made me reflect on many of the great Oscar surprises since then.

Unfortunately, this process also made me realize that I”m usually not pleased when the Academy throws us a curveball. Indeed, since Kline”s extraordinary victory in 1988, there have been surprisingly few Oscar upsets I”ve found satisfying.

This is not to say there are not exceptions to this. Tilda Swinton becoming an Oscar winner for her utter intensity in “Michael Clayton,” for instance, will always remain a highlight of the 2007 show for me. The Academy”s recognizing the future classic status of “The Usual Suspects” by rewarding Kevin Spacey and Christopher McQuarrie is another finer moment. Three 6 Mafia”s joyous reaction to deservedly winning for “It”s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” will be something I”ll never forget.

Let’s see, Rick Baker and David LeRoy Anderson”s meritorious makeup win for “Men in Black” put a smile on my face, especially as it prevented “Titanic” from a dozen statuettes. And who didn”t love the wonderful shock of Roman Polanski”s victory, or Adrien Brody”s pure joy, upon winning for “The Pianist” (even if I found Nicolas Cage and Daniel Day-Lewis equally deserving)?

To me, however, Steven Soderbergh”s triumph for “Traffic” in March of 2000 rises to the top. Eleven years ago, Soderbergh and Ridley Scott (who directed best Picture winner “Gladiator”) were expected to come up short against Ang Lee”s directing of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Even though Soderbergh had virtually swept the critics” awards, and was nominated for both “Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich,” after Lee”s Golden Globe and DGA wins, it seemed as though Soderbergh was destined to come up short.

At this point, let me state that I love Ang Lee. His “Brokeback Mountain” losing Best Picture is the epitome of an unpleasant Oscar surprise in my opinion, and I also cannot believe he was overlooked for “Sense & Sensibility.” But to me, “Traffic” was so well crafted, with appropriately different moods, and it never felt clichéd despite a premise (large ensembles demonstrating everyone”s interconnectedness) that was starting to be done to death. Most of that was due to Soderbergh.

While “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was beautifully directed, I had the minority opinion that it did not add up to the sum of its parts (I found it a bit boring) and Soderbergh was certainly my favorite of the nominated five. Ridley Scott”s work on “Gladiator” was good if slightly bloated, while I found nothing particularly accomplished about Soderbergh”s take on “Erin Brockovich” or Stephen Daldry”s handling of “Billy Elliot.” The desire not to see Soderbergh lose twice did give one an added desire to root for him.

On top of that, Soderbergh always seemed to me the sort of filmmaker who would never win an Oscar. Sure, he might end up like Gus Van Sant, Robert Altman or David Lynch, and get a few nods upon entering the semi-mainstream, and perhaps even become a lone director otherwise. But never did I think he”d actually win. I was so happy to see the Academy prove me wrong.

Then there was his speech. By announcing, “There are a lot of people to thank [so] rather than thank some of them publicly, I think I’ll thank all of them privately,” he appeased the many Oscar viewers concerned by speeches that are tremendously important to the people mentioned in them, but hardly relevant to almost everyone watching the show. (I am not suggesting his approach should be adopted by everyone, but it was nice to see it adopted by someone.)

More importantly, however, he tipped his hat to the Academy and his fellow nominees by thanking anyone who spends part of their day creating, from media to books to painting. His statement “this world would be unliveable without art” seemed to be the reason we have the Oscars, and it was wonderful to see that recognized at the core of his acceptance speech.

Finally, there was that deep thrill that “Traffic” was going to pull off the Best Picture upset, having won all of its four nominations so far that night. Alas, it was not to be, as Michael Douglas, who had probably expected to present to “Gladiator” prior to Oscar night, was unable to read his film”s name. (The opposite situation occurred two years later where he presumably thought he could present to his wife”s film “Chicago” until “The Pianist” won Best Director, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, only to have “Chicago” win after all.)

In any event, from the perspective of deservedness, the thrill of seeing him with an Oscar in his hand, the opportunity to hear a great speech, and for creating suspense the night of the show, Steven Soderbergh is my favourite Oscar upset, indeed, my favorite Oscar win.

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(The Oscar Guide will be your chaperone through the Academy”s 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 26, with the Best Picture finale on Saturday, February 25.)

On Sunday, five of our leading men will don their tuxes and walk down the red carpet at the top of their profession. Earlier this awards season, it seemed as though this would be a battle between two A-list movie stars. Since then, however, a silent Frenchman has proven himself very adept at charming everyone in sight, and will be difficult to beat.

After predictable nominations for leading turns in three Best Picture nominees, the Academy threw us some curveballs in this category. It ignored another movie star with an Oscary-role in a maligned film directed by a legend, and an up-and-coming British actor who topped off an incredible year with a tremendously acclaimed, if controversial, performance. Instead, we find in the final five a Mexican actor, who has rarely acted in English, in a small message film, and a British stalwart whose nomination-less status had become infamous.

The nominees are…

Demián Bichir (“A Better Life”)

George Clooney (“The Descendants”)

Jean Dujardin (“The Artist”)

Gary Oldman (“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”)

Brad Pitt (“Moneyball”)

Michael Fassbender: take a bow. With his extraordinary performance in “Shame” topping off an outstanding year, 2011 will always remain his. On the note of movie stars, I”m going to state an unpopular opinion: I preferred Leonardo DiCaprio”s always engaging and deep work in “J. Edgar” to the performances that led to two other A-listers being shortlisted. The epitome of a non-showy turn that nonetheless carried his film was Ewan McGregor in “Beginners,” and I need to cite the best lead turn by a man who has potentially revolutionized acting: as Caesar in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” Andy Serkis created a historic character, and gave us possibly the best line reading of the year.

Demián Bichir“s SAG nomination for “A Better Life” seemed like a very union thing to do – cite a hard-working actor, for playing a hard-working man who represents a story we have all heard but so frequently becomes dehumanized. Lo and behold, however, Oscar bit as well! I do not find Bichir”s work as worthy as that of his fellow nominees, but it is impossible not to be touched by it. By citing him, the Academy also tipped their hats to the plight of illegal immigrant workers in the United States. Bichir is clearly going to need to be content with his nomination, being the only nominee from his film, not being due for an Oscar and not having won any precursors, but it’s nice to see him in the mix.

George Clooney“s third Best Actor nomination predictably came this year for Alexander Payne”s “The Descendants.” Also nominated for writing “The Ides of March,” Clooney now has seven nominations overall and this is his fourth for acting. A typically charming performance, he was tremendously sympathetic. A leading statuette seems likely some day, and after BFCA and Golden Globe triumphs, it looked like it might just be this year. Since then, however, the film seems to have stalled a bit. Like “Up in the Air” two years ago, I could see it finishing with zero wins. (I have since backed away from my earlier opinion that this will happen as I now believe it will win screenplay.) There also seems to be a realization that this performance is not that much of a stretch for this modern Cary Grant. I wouldn”t rule him out entirely but his biggest problem of all seems to be…

…Jean Dujardin, who came out the gate with a Best Actor win at Cannes and cruised to frontrunner status in the lead-up to the awards. Despite carrying much of “The Artist” on his shoulders, he tended to be second fiddle to the film”s director, Michel Hazanavicius, and producer, Thomas Langmann, in the early awards circuit. But beginning with his Golden Globe win a month ago, Dujardin began charming everyone in sight. There is no denying that his interviews and speeches have been delightful. More importantly, these awards have highlighted the fact that he carries the Best Picture frontrunner with humor, energy, grace and charisma while (almost) never using his voice. Now with BAFTA and SAG awards, the Oscar seems his for the taking.

Say it out loud: Academy Award nominee Gary Oldman. Feels good, no? While not my favorite performance of the final five, Oldman is nonetheless the nominee I was happiest to see announced. As George Smiley in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” he put thirty years of acting experience into crafting the wise, observant protagonist of John Le Carré”s novels, making every line reading count and saying so much with both his voice and his face, despite never showboating. After his failure to win the BAFTA, it is safe to say that he should merely be seeking to enjoy Sunday night. But a nice night in Hollywood he deserves. Here”s hoping this nomination leads to more great roles heading the way of the man who gave us Sid Vicious, Joe Orton, Lee Harvey Oswald, Count Dracula, Sheldon Runyon, Sirius Black, Jim Gordon and many, many more.

There is no doubt that Brad Pitt“s fine effort is much of the reason we cared about Billy Beane, the protagonist of Bennett Miller”s semi-biopic “Moneyball.” When combined with his (even better, in my opinion) work in “The Tree of Life,” it adds up to a great year for the actor, who earned LAFCA and NSFC awards for his two performances. I have little doubt that Pitt, also nominated for producing the film, will win this category eventually. But after losing the BFCA and Golden Globe to Clooney, and the SAG and BAFTA to Dujardin, this does not appear to be his year. Like Paul Newman, another great actor who was also frequently considered a great movie star and humanitarian first, I suspect Pitt may have to wait a while before his colleagues finally give him his due.

Will Win: Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”

Could Win: George Clooney in “The Descendants”

Should Win: Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”

Should Have Been Here: Michael Fassbender in “Shame”

Keep track of our current rankings in the Best Actor category via its Contenders page here.

What do you think deserves the Oscar for Best Actor? Who was robbed? Have your say in the comments section below!

(Read previous installments of the Oscar Guide here.)

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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.

It’s all come down to this. Pencils down, the music has stopped, find a chair, etc. The Academy Awards are a mere two days away and we’re entering Oscar weekend. Before you know it, it’ll all be a memory. So let’s see what’s on the docket today…

Well, just one thing, as it happens: OSCAR PREDICTIONS. Anne and I run through each of the 24 categories and make our final(ish) calls. My in-stone picks will be revealed in a column later this afternoon, so if anything changes from this podcast, you’ll know then.

That kicks off with an in-depth discussion of the Best Documentary Feature category, which is one of many we agree on this year..

Which ones do we not agree on? Just four: Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Sound Editing. And if I make a couple of potential changes, that could be upped by one to five.

And that’s that. Have a listen to the new podcast below and listen to our final calls. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. And as always, remember to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

“The Final Countdown” courtesy of Europe and Epic.

“I Stay Away” courtesy of Alice in Chains and Columbia.

For whatever reason, I didn’t know that Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams were teaming up to write and arrange the musical accompaniment to Sunday’s Oscar ceremony. (Is that partly why Zimmer withdrew himself from consideration for “Rango?”) If this had happened in last year’s “we’re young and hip — honest!” ceremony, you know we’d have been reminded of the N.E.R.D. beatsmith’s involvement ad nauseum. As it stands, it comes as a pleasant surprise: while I somehow doubt these musical interludes will be as memorable as the pair suggest in this interview (“We’re going crazy!” Zimmer boasts, showing off the synths and drum machines that will sit amid the traditional Oscar orchestra), it’s a pleasingly inventive step for telecast — and with the nixing of the Best Original Song performances, the only aural fix we’ll get all evening. [LA Times]

Meanwhile, to perform at the post-Oscar Governors’ Ball, the Academy has chosen “that rare artist who reaches across generations,” Tony Bennett. And you thought they were a bunch of old white guys. [Thompson on Hollywood]

James Rocchi has a few suggestions for improving the Oscars. Among them: fix the Best Picture category at eight nominees, and while you’re about it, raise all other categories to the same number. [The Hitlist]

Bradley Porter is on a similar mission to mend the awards. LOVE his Mid-Year Voting idea. [Eat Sleep Live Film] 

Xan Brooks asks: Is “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” the worst Best Picture nominee ever? I answer: It’s not even the worst Best Picture nominee this year. [The Guardian]

Glenn Close on making “Albert Nobbs”: “I cried when I first saw myself as a man.” Oh, fill in your own jokes.[The Telegraph]

Steven James Snyder feeds Oscar viewers lines that’ll make them sound smart on Sunday. Fine, but will people please stop referring to Viola Davis’s likely Best Actress win as an “upset?” [Time]

The Academy denies that it has banned Sacha Baron Cohen from the Oscars on Sunday. Fine, but what about The Dictator? [The Independent]

Greg Ellwood offers some predictions for Saturday’s Spirit Awards. Nothing for “The Artist?” [Awards Campaign]

Nathaniel Rakich breaks down the three technical categories giving him the most trouble in his predictions. [Base Ballot]

Everyone’s going to be scrutinizing the gowns on Sunday, but what about the guys? The excellently named Guy Trebay discusses the art of the tux. [New York Times] 

When Kris asked me to contribute a piece to our mini-series on all-time favorite Oscar wins, I wasn’t quite sure where to begin. However often they get it wrong, over 83 years, the Academy has made more than enough good decisions, and honored more than enough good movies — even handing Best Picture to my favorite film of all time — to make selecting just one a tortuous process.

How to judge the value of Robert De Niro’s Best Actor win for “Raging Bull” against, say, Sven Nykvist’s Best Cinematography win for “Cries and Whispers?” I’m glad both came to pass, but we’re not comparing apples and oranges so much as apples and hotdogs.

I decided to limit my search to winners from 1990, the year I actually started watching the Oscars, onwards: as satisfying as it is the learn of deserved wins in the history books, nothing compares to the in-the-moment thrill of watching your favorite nominee triumph before your own eyes.

The first time I actively punched the air in response to a win was during the 1996 ceremony, when Juliette Binoche, one of my favorite actors even then, beat Lauren Bacall to the Supporting Actress trophy; it remains one of my favorite wins for that moment of euphoria, even if I can now admit that Barbara Hershey was better than either nominee. And even if it wasn’t remotely a surprise, I’ll always treasure the memory of Charlize Theron’s Best Actress win eight years ago — partly because it was so richly deserved, and partly because I was then still living in South Africa, where national excitement for the homegirl’s success reached an infectious fever pitch.

Still, if I have to pick one win from my Oscar-watching lifetime that shocked me for being so emphatically, improbably, beautifully right, I’d have to go with Pedro Almodóvar’s 2002 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his exquisitely warped love story “Talk to Her” — my #3 film of the last decade, and what I suspect will remain the best film of his career.

Honestly, the win still shocks me to this day: there is nothing in the Academy’s regular makeup or voting routine to suggest that they’d respond to this strange, sad, sporadically surreal tale of two men bonding over the comatose women they love and abuse. A richly poetic study of the compromises and transgressions we make to stave off loneliness, it’s messier, more poetic and more brazenly eccentric than any character-oriented drama voters tend to celebrate in the writing races — and that’s before we factor in that the film is in Spanish.  

This was, of course, Almodóvar’s second Oscar: he’s won three years previously in the Best Foreign Language Film category for “All About My Mother,” the film that kick-started the former enfant terrible‘s crossover to global arthouse darling status. The lavishly acclaimed “Talk to Her” smoothly aided this transition with American audiences: it scandalously wasn’t submitted by Spain for the foreign-language Oscar, spurring the Academy to pointedly nominate it instead for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, the latter citation coming rather stunningly at Peter Jackson’s expense.  

Even if Almodóvar had a measure of sentiment and momentum on his side, then, a win still seemed a stretch of the imagination: no foreign-language film had won a screenplay award since “A Man and a Woman” in 1966, and that was an infinitely less avant garde proposition than this stylized, morally ambiguous auteur work. 

The Academy’s writers’ branch, however, did their bit by fielding a truly odd quintet of Best Original Screenplay nominees, the two most mainstream of which weren’t really original screenplays at all: summer comedy sleeper “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” was openly adapted from writer-star Nia Vardalos’s one-woman stage show, while the lone Best Picture nominee in the lineup, “Gangs of New York,” was a much-rewritten patchwork screenplay inspired by Herbert Asbury’s non-fiction book of the same title. Another nominee, Todd Haynes’s “Far From Heaven,” was so heavily informed by the 1950s domestic melodramas of Douglas Sirk as to seem a virtual adaptation; a second Spanish-language nominee, Alfonso Cuaron’s sharp, sexy, wise coming-of-age road movie “Y tu Mama Tambien,” was an undeniable original, but an even more out-of-character choice for the Academy than “Talk to Her.”  

It was a lineup rife with mixed signals. It may have been the top contender, but “Gangs of New York” was widely disliked, and no writing showcase to boot. There was much goodwill in the industry for Vardalos, but was the Academy really going to hand the prize to an overgrown sitcom pilot from a talent many (correctly) assumed would be a one-film wonder? Haynes’s film had more gravitas, plus a glossy American pedigree, but was it too archly academic for voters? The WGA didn’t help us out at all, handing their Original Screenplay prize to Michael Moore for the documentary “Bowling for Columbine” — as sure a sign as any that something weird was up in the category.

I remember finally placing my chips on Vardalos, dismayed in advance for Almodóvar. My older brother, whose interest in the awards extends no further than the amount of money he can win in an Oscar pool, told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was dead wrong: “It’ll be ‘Talk to Her,'” he said, with maddening assurance. “It’s too good not to win.”

My explanation of the various statistics and Academy biases standing in the way of this outcome fell rightly on deaf ears: in that splintered lineup, at least, “Talk to Her” was too good not to win, and as the chubby-faced Spaniard scrambled onto stage to accept his second statuette from, of all oddly matched presenters, Ben Affleck, I remember wondering if this indicated a progression in the Academy’s acceptance of foreign-language cinema: if, two years after “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” landed 10 nods and four years after Roberto Benigni scooped the Best Actor prize, subtitles were becoming less a barrier to voters, and more a key to a wider pool of worthy films.

Any such fantasies, of course, were premature: no foreign-language screenplay has won the Oscar since, just as no non-American foreign-language film has even cracked the Best Picture lineup. But if the win for “Talk to Her” was a fluke, it remains a glorious one: a rare moment where the Academy stepped outside their comfort zone, rejected the compromise options, and instead identified the film with the most to say, and the most extraordinary way of saying it. 

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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(The Oscar Guide will be your chaperone through the Academy’s 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 26, with the Best Picture finale on Saturday, February 25.)

After last year’s banner field of nominees, which included five peak-form performances from actresses in a range of risky, stimulating projects, this year’s Best Actress category wasn’t ever likely to live up to those standards. True enough, it hasn’t, though the problem lies less with the ladies nominated than the vehicles surrounding them: “Good performance, shame about the movie,” has been the recurring critical chorus around this race.

That’s not to say it was a year short of challenging, substantial vehicles for women. But with many of them falling in the less illuminated corners of the arthouse, the Academy inevitably favored the softer, more middlebrow prestige vehicles, few of which had any worthwhile cinematic ambitions beyond showcasing their established stars for maximum vote-grabbiness. (It may or may not mean something to you that this is the category’s first all-American lineup in 20 years.) The exception, a relatively untested ingenue in a hard-edged genre piece, is both the only first-time nominee in the field and the only one unapproved by the Screen Actors’ Guild.

The nominees are…

Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”

Viola Davis, “The Help”

Rooney Mara, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”

Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

The name most conspicuously missing from the list is also the one, for my money, would handily outclass the field if nominated: Tilda Swinton may have received nominations from SAG, BAFTA, the Golden Globes and the BFCA, not to mention wins from the National Board of Review and the European Film Awards, but all that wasn’t enough to overcome the fact that “We Need to Talk About Kevin” was too chilly, abrasive and, well, interesting for this crowd. Still, at least she got close: Olivia Colman (“Tyrannosaur”), Anna Paquin (“Margaret”) and Juliette Binoche (“Certified Copy”) gave performances of staggering reach and complexity in films worthy of such work, but never had so much as a prayer. 

That the aforementioned performances were frozen out becomes more galling, I’m afraid to say, when you consider the work of our first nominee. Glenn Close labored for 30 years to get the Irish-set cross-dressing drama “Albert Nobbs” made after initially heading a stage production, taking producing, writing and even songwriting credits on the film. The Academy clearly responded to the encouraging narrative of a veteran actress developing her own headline vehicle long after Hollywood had resigned her to television — but sadly, “Albert Nobbs” is a bust and Close’s performance as a sexually naïve butler hiding her true gender from the world, underplayed to the point of catatonia, isn’t much better. Touted as a frontrunner on paper, Close’s chances nosedived once critics laid into the film at Telluride, but peer respect was enough to earn the actress her first nomination in 23 years, and her sixth overall — a stat that will see her join Thelma Ritter and Deborah Kerr as the most-nominated actresses never to have won.

If Close went from contender to also-ran once people saw her movie, Viola Davis has enjoyed the reverse trajectory. Not many people had her pegged as a threat before “The Help” was released in August, but once it screened, the hard-working character actress immediately ascended to frontrunner status, assisted by phenomenal box office for her film — the only Best Picture nominee in this race. Not even the film’s detractors (of which there are many) have a word against Davis’s measured, compassionate, quietly stirring performance as a put-upon servant belatedly asserting her personal worth, which carries the film thematically and emotionally despite comparatively limited screen time. The actress has been the very model of gracious intelligence on the campaign circuit — so much so that even her chief opponent and former co-star, Meryl Streep, has practically been campaigning for her. The promise of becoming only the second black actress to win this award helps her cause, as does her strong presence in a second Best Picture nominee, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

The least typically Oscar-friendly performance in this lineup comes from the youngest of the nominees in the nastiest of the nominated films. That’s not to say the Academy was going way out on a limb in nominating Rooney Mara for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” even if SAG didn’t — thanks to the zillions of copies sold of Stieg Larsson’s pulpy Millennium thrillers and Noomi Rapace’s BAFTA-nominated turn in 2010’s Swedish-language screen adaptation, the character of antisocial punk-hacker Lisbeth Salander was firmly stitched into the mainstream cultural fabric before the relatively little-known American offered her stamp on it. Happily, Mara opted for reinterpretation, rather than idle appropriation, of a character treasured by many as a neo-feminist icon of sorts: both more vulnerable and sexually self-possessed than Rapace’s creation, and possessed of a dry wit, she shoulders David Fincher’s slightly self-admiring film with disarming swagger. It’s too coolly muted a performance to challenge for the win, but it’s a nifty calling card. 

The possibility of a third Oscar for Meryl Streep has become a semi-annual sticking point in recent years. One the one hand it’s ludicrous to complain, as her more excitable fans do, that an actress with a record 17 nominations is “taken for granted” by the Academy; on the other, zero wins from 12 straight nods over 29 years is a run that demands to be broken at some point. And God knows “The Iron Lady” must have looked like the one to break it: a technically impressive, elaborately accented, decades-spanning inhabitation of a famous (or infamous) political figure in a December-scheduled prestige biopic shepherded by the Weinsteins. BAFTA and Golden Globe voters were wowed, as were the New York critics, so why does everyone’s default choice for The Greatest Living Actress once again find herself in the runner-up position? Most of the blame can be directed at the movie itself, which, however baity, is almost universally unloved. Whether an element of Streep fatigue is at play, however, is something we won’t know until she’s nominated for a movie even half as worthy as she is. 

The second actress in this year’s lineup nominated for playing an iconic real-life figure, Michelle Williams seemed perfectly poised, at the start of the season, to run the table. Playing Marilyn Monroe, against type and rather well at that, is a grabby enough stunt as it is, even before you factor in that Williams is coming straight off her second nomination last year, and once more has the Weinsteins in her corner. The actress, the role and the timing seemed so neatly aligned that it didn’t much seem to matter that neither critics nor audiences cared all that much about “My Week With Marilyn” — but after a healthy showing in the December critics’ awards and a Golden Globe win (in the comedy category, dubiously enough), Williams’ campaign promptly eased off the gas and settled for also-ran status. Did the publicity-shy actress simply not have the stamina? Did the Weinsteins make a tactical decision to go full-tilt for Streep instead? Williams will be one to watch on her fourth go-round, at any rate.   

Will win: Viola Davis, “The Help”

Could win: Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”

Should win: Viola Davis, “The Help”

Should have been here: Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy”

Keep track of our current rankings in the Best Actress category via its Contenders page here.

What do you think should be taking home this gold in this category? Who got robbed? Speak up in the comments section below!

(Read previous installments of the Oscar Guide here.)

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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Earlier this week the LA Times unveiled the fruit of 20 researchers” labor: old, rich, white men dominate the AMPAS. I was as shocked as you are.

I kid. I do. There”s nothing wrong with the article as such, and the structural dynamics of the Academy do bear looking at.

One of the strange, self-devouring aspects of the internet is that it is now common practice for critics to reflect on, riff off, add to or otherwise deconstruct one another”s work. A positive element of the trend is that a conversation develops in our virtual realm. Of course, levels of discourse are, as ever, varied. We”ve not yet weighed in on the matter and I do so now with a grain of salt, and a bit more sass than I had originally intended. Is it earth shattering news? Clearly not. Does it seem to be indicative of an overindulgence of the paper”s resources? Ish.

Let”s take a glance at the United States Congress. According to ThisNation, the House has 362 men and 76 women. In the Senate, there are 17 women and 83 men. 361 members of the House are white, 44 are African American, 25 are Hispanic and seven are Asian. 96 members of the Senate are white, two are Hispanic and two are Asian. To be frank, I”d rather see the LA Times devote those man-hours to investigating how the racial and gender composition of Congress effects the way laws are created and implemented.

(Hint: They convene a council on women”s reproductive health issues, and decide that it”s best for the ladies to retire to the drawing room at that time.)

I assess a fair portion of this situation from the feminine perspective because it is one I can speak to on an experiential level. But the truth is that the bias revealed in the LA Times piece is felt across gender and race lines.

We”ve all had to manage and negotiate the burden of perception in one way or another. Though the lion”s share of the people in my field are remarkable creatures I feel blessed to know, I tire of the indulgent looks a small (but felt) number my colleagues bestow upon me as they assume a position of grandiosity whilst stating their cinematic opinions. It seems to matter little to them what my background may or may not be, and they rarely bother to investigate as it is so much easier to assume, for the most part, inaccurately. I am a small blond female and have encountered countless “oh, look, it talks and knows what color reversal is!” expressions of shock mid-interview with a filmmaker. Annoying? Very. But there are certainly larger issues in the universe, even in my own little world.

I can say with clarity that I”ve had jobs where I was hired based on appearance (though they were primarily in a service capacity) and I have had positions where, due to superficially based perceptions, I was paid less than a male who had fewer skills and qualifications than I. And so it goes. Should it be an issue that I am a female? Who cares? It is one. Not one that defines my choices, but to pretend that things aren”t so keeps them stagnant. Women still earn roughly 75 cents to the male dollar here in the U.S. and until I receive a 25% “vagina discount” from my creditors, I”m going to find that more than a little bit problematic.

Does it matter that the Oscar voters are (as the LA Times reports) nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male? Well, it does to me. It matters in the sense that it speaks to an industry that is grotesquely outdated and atrophied. It happens to be my industry, so yes, it matters. It affects the livelihoods of many people I care about, as well as my own. In light of a continued recession, it matters.

The real issue is employment and how these figures effect and reflect employment practices. Believe me, most of us would rather have a job than see the Academy manufacturing a false sense of diversity. Create diversity via your hiring patterns and then let that, over time, be reflected come Oscar night.

Here is a brief overview from the article of how employment breaks down along gender lines in the industry at present:

“Women account for 17% of film writers employment. The academy’s producers branch is about 18% female, and the directors branch is 9% female, figures comparable to those in a study by San Diego State University’s Martha Lauzen. She examined the 250 top-grossing movies of 2011 and found that women accounted for 25% of all of the films’ producers, and 5% of all their directors.”

(Let us pause to really reflect on the fact that women represent over 50% of the population.)

As we can see, women have fared a bit better in the producer”s sphere. That is a good thing. And yet it so often feels like one step forward, two steps back. Brand new stereotypes have cropped up to stranglehold women in what is so often, at its root, a support role. “Producer” is an amorphous term in Hollywood. There are so many facets to the job that it can describe a myriad of positions. Sometimes it denotes a high level of influence (indeed, the most significant if you are a studio executive), sometimes it denotes a financial stake and sometimes it denotes a role that is more akin to a management position.

So we begin to hear things like “women are good producers because they are organized, because they can multitask, because they are nurturing” and so on. There may in fact be some truth to those assessments. I would not and do not argue that men and women are very different beasts. Indeed, I love those variances. I love that we each have some of the masculine and some of the feminine. I love the way that balance plays out in both our individual psyches, in our relationships and ultimately in society at large. I love the traits that are so uniquely male and I also, very much, love being a woman. The point is to recognize our unique skill sets and value them equally. Additionally, we must account for individual strengths and weaknesses.

It may be true that women (in very general terms) have some native and some developed attributes that lend themselves to a producer”s tasks. It is also true that those same attributes can, and do, lend themselves equally well to a director”s chair.

Scientists are working to understand how the physical differences in the male and female brain translate to traits and strengths. But one difference they can discern is that women have more white matter, a larger corpus collusum and more cellular connections, allowing for a faster transfer of information between the left and right sides of the brain. This means, theoretically, they can connect seemingly unrelated pieces of information and tend to conceptualize in less linear terms (think: big picture).

Whereas men have more grey matter, tend to operate more from the left-side of the brain, and function in more individuated terms (think: one task at a time). Both the male and female proclivities lend themselves to different, but effective, directorial styles that have an equal chance of yielding powerful and evocative films.

Of course, these are incredibly broad stokes and each person is going to bring their own singular talent palette to the table. But the endeavor is to get a seat at said table to begin with.

The Times article indicates that Frank Pierson, a former Academy president who won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for “Dog Day Afternoon,” feels that the Academy”s structure is a result of an egalitarian meritocracy. “I don’t see any reason why the academy should represent the entire American population,” he said. “That’s what the People’s Choice Awards are for. We represent the professional filmmakers, and if that doesn’t reflect the general population, so be it.”

The notion that the financial and power discrepancies present in the world are entirely a result of the “cream rising to the top” as it were, is willfully ignorant, rude, self-aggrandizing, irresponsible and frankly bullshit. We could sit here and argue about the cause for the incongruity “on the ground.” But let us look at just the U.S. as an example.

The truth is, if you really cannot concede that a culture that emerged from a history of slavery, that signed the 14th amendment into law less than 150 years ago and the Civil Rights Act that supported it and eradicated Jim Crow less than 50, never (yes never) signed the ERA into law and has misogyny imbedded in nearly every aspect of the language (“Hi, I am a FeMALE, be careful or I may get hysterical”) has some intrinsic and deeply ingrained biases then…you must be on your period.

With all that in mind, let’s take a look at the (quite salient) video Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood put together looking at some of the extraordinary work from women directors just this year. And let’s also remind ourselves that in 84 years only four women (Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow) have been nominated for Best Director.  Only one, Bigelow, has won.

Again, I must beg pardon for focusing on the feminine aspect of the issue, when the problem (and by that I mean inequity across industry and national lines) is clearly far larger in scope.

In any event, we must take note that this business of the Oscars is really a small matter in the grander scheme of global concerns. And the weight and gravity with which the LA Times presented their (somewhat “common-sense says”) study begged for a bit of ribbing. With that in mind, and to conclude on a slightly lighter note, here’s a look at what goes on behind the cotton blend golfing pants curtain of the Academy Awards:

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Who doesn”t love watching a great fairy tale on screen? But how often do new ones arise that make us think “Wow, that”s something new,” while also being deep, funny, engaging and gorgeous to watch?

1990″s “Edward Scissorhands” manages to do all these things. While it landed only one Oscar nomination (for Best Makeup), it manages to show the very best of filmmaking in innumerable ways and ranks among my favorite films of all-time.

First, we have the story, already alluded to. Capturing the themes of loneliness, innocence, growing up, family, self-doubt, doomed romance and the ironies of life, Tim Burton”s story hits on multiple human themes to which we all relate. It also managed to do this within heavy genre. Fairy tales have never been Oscar”s cup of tea, but they make for a great narrative. Of course, they have also been done to death, so coming up with a story that is old-fashioned yet completely modern and remarkably original while true to the genre is a feat that deserves special recognition.

That resonant themes, life lessons and a fantastical take on an ordinary childhood question (“Why does it snow?”) are worked into it in a way that is not cheesy makes it all the more remarkable.

And then there are the visuals. The makeup is just the tip of the iceberg here, with cinematographer Stefan Czapsky”s extraordinary color palette and Bo Welch”s glorious production design (now where was that Oscar nomination?) being loyal to the themes and the genre, in addition to bearing eerie resemblance to modern, sprawling suburbia in expressionistic ways original even for Burton.

Danny Elfman, of course, was not nominated for his luscious score, which I still maintain is the best of his career (Why does he never get nominated for his best work?). But to call it “classic” would not begin to do justice to its range in setting the mood and complementing what we see on screen.

Dianne Wiest, of course, gave us her Avon Lady charm, reminding us of what a wonderful character actress she is. Why doesn’t she get more work these days? Winona Ryder continued her oh-so-promising rise, making us regret the mistakes that led to her downfall. Vincent Price wonderfully captured “The Inventor” as an appropriate swan song to his career, making us reflect on his extraordinary contributions to cinema.

And then we come to the stars: Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Much has been made of this duo”s friendship and their collaborations with each other. In recent years, I have found that they have gone off into the realm of excessive style and gimmickry. But here, when they were just embarking on their relationship with each other, each brought his all and it was a potent essence.

Depp”s conveyance of naivety and innocence was always palpable. But he managed to have great comic timing, and despite rarely speaking – and at never more than a whisper – he kept us enthralled: laughing, crying and “feeling embarrassed” at just the right times. It was the essence of a fine leading turn.

As for Burton, his extremely personal film may have been sentimental, but never excessively so. Rather, its sentimentality was in the best of fairly tale ways. He brought together all these artists to make a film that varied in mood but always was true to itself, being original and creative yet never showing the excess that has marred some of his recent efforts.

In essence, all the elements of a great story are here with all the elements of a great film: directing, writing, acting, storytelling, visuals, music. It was all so original, managing to contribute something new to one of the oldest, classic genres.

If this is not what the Oscars, awarding “excellence in film,” were meant to capture, what is? Yes, of course they were not going to look past the fantasy stigma, but with just one nomination from the typically adventurous makeup branch, it sits as a blight on Oscar history to me. Every time I watch this movie, I continue to laugh, smile, cry and be in awe.

Sometimes, you can still catch me dancing to it.

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I”m scared. Why, you may ask? First, I”m wondering where on earth this year went. It seems like yesterday when Tech Support was beginning the 2011-2012 season. Next week”s wrap-up column will be the last of the season as the Oscars are given out Sunday night!

Second, however, I am scared because I am truly not confident in my predictions in the crafts categories this year. Only four – Art Direction, Makeup and the music categories – have me certain. Beyond that, things are quite open. I fear I may embarrass myself. That said, this does make things more exciting than is the case in the “major” categories!

So now, on to a final analysis!

BEST ART DIRECTION

Even detractors admit “Hugo” looked nothing short of extraordinary. It’s the winner of all precursors of note in this category and this is the one place where I think the film is assured a statuette. Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo will be winning their third Oscars Sunday night. Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan may garner some sympathy votes but not enough to win. They can take consolation in the fact that their work on the “Harry Potter” franchise is going down in history regardless.

Will Win: “Hugo”

Could Win: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”

Should Win: “Hugo”

Should Have Been Here: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Oy. As Kris and Guy have noted, this is a seemingly easy category that is also agonizingly difficult to predict.

I am going to go with the flow and predict Emmanuel Lubezki will deservedly triumph here for “The Tree of Life.” It does have much of the look of a classic winner and has won all the precursors except the BAFTA and a couple of small critics” awards. The Best Picture and Best Director nominations also prove support for it within the Academy. The arguments against it are strong, however: the film is divisive, it will not be sweeping the crafts categories and so many other movies have major factors in their favor.

Even so, despite “The Artist””s black-and-white status, it isn”t that showy a film cinematographically. “Hugo,” while having a great look to it, hasn”t yet triumphed in this category in a precursor and the Academy tends toward external photography. Jeff Cronenweth should be happy with his nomination for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

Rather, I feel the biggest challenger may actually be “War Horse.” This could be paranoia on my part – I felt the cinematography was ridiculously over-the-top. But it sure looks like a painting and the fact that it won (well, tied) the BFCA may be indicative that those not learned in cinematography may blindly vote for it. I also note that the last time Lubezki was nominated and won the ASC, he lost to a film (“Pan”s Labyrinth”) that had been snubbed by the guild entirely. Could history repeat itself?

Will Win: “The Tree of Life”

Could Win: “War Horse”

Should Win: “The Tree of Life”

Should Have Been Here: “Drive”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

I originally assumed this was a race between “The Artist” and “Hugo.” Guy”s thorough analysis in the category last week and Kris”s open musings have made me reconsider my approach to it. I still think “Jane Eyre” would have won the BAFTA if it were going to win this Oscar, and it doesn’t have the “royal” or even upper class character of films that have won here in recent years despite minimal nominations. Arianne Phillips”s guild win for “W.E.” did not surprise me given the nature of the work and the respect she commands among her peers. But I doubt enough AMPAS members saw the movie, much less liked it. “Anonymous” has everything going for it on paper, but has the same problems as “W.E.”

Therefore, my head leads me to Mark Bridges, who has won the CDG, BAFTA and BFCA for the Best Picture frontrunner. This seems clear indication in my opinion that he could very well win this award on his long overdue first nomination.

However, I am sticking with my gut and predicting Sandy Powell for “Hugo.” Her threads seemed to jump out at you more while watching the movie (black-and-white does not help highlight costumes), and that can make all the difference. I mean, as a small example, is anyone really going to forget Sacha Baron Cohen”s blue suit in any short order?

Will Win: “Hugo”

Could Win: “The Artist”

Should Win: “The Artist”

Should Have Been Here: “My Week With Marilyn”

BEST FILM EDITING

As I wrote on Monday, I think this is tremendously difficult category to predict. Cases could be made for all five. When in doubt, go with the Best Picture frontrunner.

Will Win: “The Artist”

Could Win: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”

Should Win: “Moneyball”

Should Have Been Here: “Drive”

BEST MAKEUP

Barring a sympathy vote for “Harry Potter” (as did occur at the BFCA), “The Iron Lady” has everything going for it: old age, transforming a famous actress into a famous person, precursor attention. I”d be very surprised if it did not win.

Will Win: “The Iron Lady”

Could Win: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”

Should Win: “The Iron Lady”

Should Have Been Here: “War Horse”

BEST MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

For reasons I stated in my Oscar Guide analysis, I believe “The Artist” will win this handily. Its subsequent winning of the BAFTA only increases my confidence.

Will Win: “The Artist”

Could Win: “War Horse”

Should Win: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

Should Have Been Here: “Jane Eyre”

BEST MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)

We have a 50% chance of getting this category right! I think they”ll go for the funny song from the popular film, which leaves Bret McKenzie in very good shape. Sympathy for the non-nominated songs from “The Muppets” can only help matters.

Will Win: “Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets”

Could Win: “Real in Rio” from “Rio”

Should Win: “Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets”

Should Have Been Here: “Life”s a Happy Song” from “The Muppets”

BEST SOUND EDITING

The sound categories usually go together and when they do not, the winner of one is almost always not nominated in the other: 2008″s “Slumdog Millionaire”/”The Dark Knight” split is the only exception since 1967. It seems as though the Academy as a whole does not know much about the distinction between them. Therefore, I am going to mostly analyze them together and come to the same prediction. (I also have a “once burned” reason for doing this, having predicted “The Dark Knight” to win Sound Mixing but not Sound Editing three years ago – I ended up missing both categories as a result.)

“Drive” can likely be safely ruled out, as a sole nominee. I also have difficulty believing the Academy will look past the (lack of) quality of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” a.k.a. “Michael Bay blows stuff up.” This is unfortunate, because it has superb sound work. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” seems too subtle to win here in my opinion.

Therefore, I think this is between “War Horse” and “Hugo.” “War Horse” certainly has the showier sound work, even more so for editing than for mixing. This has been reflected in its success at the MPSE. If I were to predict a split, I”d say “War Horse” takes this and “Hugo” takes Best Sound Mixing. That said, “Hugo” is clearly preferred overall by the Academy. The fact that it has won both BAFTA and the CAS leads me to think it”ll take these categories at the Oscars. That said, the aural work is not as noticeable or memorable as most winners in these categories, so I think it remains quite beatable.

Will Win: “Hugo”

Could Win: “War Horse”

Should Win: “Drive”

Should Have Been Here: “Rango”

BEST SOUND MIXING

For reasons basically stated above, I”m going to go with “Hugo.” The arguments for “War Horse” are weaker here than in Best Sound Editing. While “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” should win, and perhaps Greg Russell”s prominence will pay off, I am doubtful. (The names of the individual nominees are not listed on the ballot.)  I”d love to be wrong about this.

Will Win: “Hugo”

Could Win: “War Horse”

Should Win: “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”

Should Have Been Here: “Super 8”

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

As I said last week, I feel people”s confidence in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” may be misplaced. Its failure to have any other nominations, and “Hugo””s status as a Best Picture nominee, are strong marks against it. Given that I feel “Hugo” will be blindly ticked off in many categories, I suspect this will be among them and, unfortunately, the “Apes” will come up short. If “Hugo” simply does not have showy enough visual effects, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is still a contender, probably being preferred by AMPAS to “Apes.” Who knows, though? Maybe I have simply overanalyzed a category that should be easy to predict because it is easy to predict.

Will Win:  “Hugo”

Could Win: “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”

Should Win: “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”

Should Have Been Here: “The Tree of Life”

So that”s it. Here”s hoping I don”t embarrass myself Sunday night!  I”ll be back early next week for a final wrap-up of Oscar season 2012.

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Later today, I’ll be serving up our Oscar Guide in the Best Actress category — but if you want an appetizer for that subject, Andrew O’Hehir has written a good piece on the sincere, season-long show of mutual appreciation between the category’s frontrunners, Viola Davis and Meryl Streep. (“This is your year,” Streep apparently said to Davis at the New York critics’ awards.) He gets a few things wrong (like saying that Davis wasn’t a surefire nominee last month, when she’s plainly been the frontrunner since August), and I’m not sure the title “how Viola Davis took Meryl Streep’s Oscar” hits the right note, but O’Hehir’s insights into Davis’s canny but not cynical self-campaigning, as well as the value of her relationship with Streep, are pointed and sensible amid a chorus of more hysterical commentary about the race. [Salon] 

After Seth Rogen knocked the Academy for not nominating “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” Ben Child thinks he has a point. Where’s the genre love? [The Guardian]

Oscar-nominated sound editor Lon Bender — one of the nominees we’re hoping will upset on Sunday — talks us through his work on “Drive.” [New York Times]

Steve Pond on actress-turned-nun (and still-active AMPAS voter) Dolores Hart, subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary short “Gold is the New Elvis.” [The Odds]

Applying something called the “Heat Meter” to gauge if this is the best year of Meryl Streep’s career. Isn’t et easier just to look at the performances? Either way, the answer is no. [LA Times]

Harvard freshman Ben Zauzmer has devised some kind of mathematical formula to predict this year’s Oscar winners. Note: if/when Viola Davis wins, we’ll officially know that ALL MATH IS WRONG. [Oscar Forecast]

Julie Miller thinks it’s “safe to assume” that “W.E.” is winning an Oscar on Sunday. I reckon there’s an 80% chance of Julie Miller being very surprised. [Vanity Fair]

Ryan Jones consults the kids of America on this year’s Oscar race. They like the chance of “The Tree of Life” for Best Picture, and Selena Gomez for Best Actress. [Vulture]

On the resourceful ways studios have found to get around the Academy’s newly tightened campaign restrictions. [Baltimore Sun]

Away from the Oscar beat, Mike D’Angelo speaks up in defense of movie piracy. [Listen Eggroll]

With four days to go until the Academy Awards, we’ve reached the point in the season — indeed, given the season’s inordinate length and predictability, we’ve been there for some time — where everything that’s potentially exciting or commendable about this year’s awards can be turned against the institution behind them by sufficiently ill-tempered critics and observers.

Isn’t it kind of cool that the Best Picture winner is almost certain to be a silent, black-and-white comedy with no household names involved, and the first Oscar champ in the category from outside the US or UK? Oh, I’m sorry, it isn’t: assorted corners of the blogosphere have ruled that “The Artist” is disposable, middlebrow fluff, that the Academy is caving to the cynical philistinism of Harvey Weinstein, that voters are out of touch and un-American to boot. (Oh yeah, and Jean Dujardin is bloody Roberto Benigni all over again — because all Europeans are the same, right?)

Isn’t it great that a gifted, long-serving character actress is finally getting her due, despite belonging to a demographic minority rarely afforded such opportunities in the Hollywood mainstream? Oh, I beg your your pardon, it isn’t: certain commenters would have you believe that Viola Davis is an over-entitled fraud, using her race as a ploy to guilt AMPAS members into voting for her in an elevated supporting role. And while we’re about it, she’s directly to blame for the fact that she’s a black woman playing a maid in the film, and not the President of the United States.

Well, we can at least be happy that, at the ripe old age of 82, Christopher Plummer is set to finally receive his long-overdue Oscar statuette for a deft, witty, moving performance in an unusual independent film, right? Wrong again. His win will be a display of shameless sentimentalism on the Academy’s part, and a conservative celebration of a nobly doomed gay character, and anyway, he was way better in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Okay, he wasn’t, but how square is the Academy for not nominating that in more top categories? Well, except Best Actress, but Rooney Mara’s totally full of herself, and that shouldn’t be rewarded.

And so on and so forth. The words “you can’t please everyone” come inevitably to mind, but given that the Academy is a compromised collective of conflicting opinions, they’re equally unlikely to please themselves on an individual-by-individual basis. Is any one person pleased with the way all 119 nominee slots in this year’s Oscar list have been filled? Has that ever been the case in any year? I can’t imagine so. Yet the volume of journalistic and fan-based whinging about this year’s race seems, if you’ll forgive me, extremely loud — or perhaps it’s just set to amplify with each passing year, regardless of the films and names in contention, as the proliferation of columns, blogs and Twitter feeds devoted to the subject creates ever more outlets for venting over this or that slighted film, and this or that undeserving frontrunner — the latter often a film that extended awards buzz and eventual Oscar success tend to demote in certain critics’ estimation from mild appreciation to retroactive scepticism to outright demonization. 

Given the statistical unlikelihood of the Academy’s favorite films and individual achievements aligning with our own, it’s always going to be easier to dwell on what they’ve got wrong — just as it’s always going to feel more virtuous to side against the group that preferred “How Green Was My Valley” to “Citizen Kane,” that gave Al Pacino an Oscar for “Scent of a Woman,” that never gave Alfred Hitchcock a competitive Oscar at all. Many critics feel secure when the Academy lives up to their bland expectations of their taste, and unnerved when they actually agree on something: that lovely Fiona Apple lyric, “I think he let me down when he didn’t disappoint me,” comes pithily to mind.

So it feels more heretical than it should do to say that I’m not angry with the Academy this year; indeed, I’d go so far as to say I’m moderately pleased with them. For the first time in over 20 years of Oscar-watching, almost all the frontrunners in the top categories are the contenders I’d be voting for myself if I had a ballot. (No, they’re not the ones I’d have nominated in the first place, but it’s as unreasonable to expect people to vote en masse for the likes of “Weekend” and “Margaret” as it is to denigrate those people for liking something as patently likeable as, oh, “The Artist.”)

The positives continue. They’ve assembled an unembarrassing foreign-language film list. They’ve singled out outstanding technical elements in such Oscar-disadvantaged films as “Jane Eyre” and “Drive.” They’ve adventurously reached out to both broad commercial comedy and Middle Eastern drama in the writing categories. They’ve finally let Gary Oldman past security. They’ve done okay. 

I’m even, after having belatedly seen the film, sanguine about this year’s most reviled nominee. The muddled, narratively specious “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” belongs about as near a list of the year’s best films as it does a responsible-parenting seminar, but I was surprised to find just how much I admired its tonal abrasions, technical jangle and unlovable lead: it’s perhaps the most dubious film of 2011 that I still feel inclined to defend against an overwhelming critical jihad, and far from my least favorite of this year’s iffy Best Picture nominees.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t made my own share of complaints over the course of the season — I haven’t exactly been quiet about my dislike of putative Best Picture runner-up “The Descendants,” for starters — but perhaps because the tide of ill feeling from many of my colleagues has got so exhausting to read, I feel more inclined than usual to accentuate the positive, even if the fog of the season sometimes has me confused as to what I’m defending. Am I speaking up for “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” as a movie, as an Oscar contender or as a mere variety of Oscar contender? Am I excited for “The Artist” more because I like it, or more because I like what its win suggests is possible? When the Oscar race is this far removed from one’s own personal passions, is it diplomatic or demeaning to remain invested in the outcome?

I’m wavering on the answer to all these questions, but I know I’m looking forward to Sunday — partly because the communal experience of watching the Oscars while drinking a shitload of alcohol is never without its pleasures, partly because I’m still enough of a geek to be intrigued by such up-in-the-air categories as Best Costume Design, but largely because I’m excited to see a handful of films and artists I sincerely like get a brief moment of glory before we all move on with our lives. Oh, there’s plenty to take issue with, both regarding the Academy as an institution and some of the choices they’ve made this year. But it’s late. We’re all tired. Let’s fight in the morning.  

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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The International Cinephile Society may be the last of innumerable critics’ groups to announce their top film achievements of 2011 before the Oscars finally call a moratorium on the practice — but in a season that has long since fallen prey to fatigue, this fresh, imaginative list of winners couldn’t come as a more welcome pick-me-up. As a voting member of the ICS, I’m pleased to say I’m as surprised as anyone by some of the results, which stray far from the Oscar pack and include a handful of unique choices.

I’m pretty sure, for example, that this is the first group to hand their Best Actor prize to British newcomer Tom Cullen for “Weekend” — my own first choice in the category. And if the London Critics’ Circle pre-empted the ICS by choosing Anna Paquin as Best Actress, this is certainly the first mention for Paquin’s onscreen mom in “Margaret,” J. Smith-Cameron, in the Best Supporting Actress category. Kenneth Lonergan’s beleaguered little film just keeps chugging along — who knows what could have happened had it received more critical and studio support upon its September release?

Rounding out a wholly original (and Oscar-ignored) slate of acting winners is Brad Pitt for “The Tree of Life.” The top prize, meanwhile, goes to “A Separation,” with “The Tree of Life” at its heels; the two swap positions in the Best Director category, suggesting a close race. The Iranian marital drama did very well indeed, also nabbing wins for Best Original Screenplay, Best Ensemble and (duh) Best Foreign Language Film. “The Tree of Life” was right there with four wins, too, including Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.

Finally, I must sheepishly admit to not having seen the group’s Best Production Design winner, despite having voted. What can y’all tell me about “The Mill and the Cross?” I gather it’s purty.

Check out the full list of ICS winners below.

Best Picture: “A Separation” (Runner-up: “The Tree of Life”)

Best Director: Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life” (Runner-up: Asghar Farhadi, “A Separation”)

Best Actor: Tom Cullen, “Weekend” (Runner-up: Peyman Moaadi, “A Separation”)

Best Actress: Anna Paquin, “Margaret” (Runner-up: Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy”)

Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, “The Tree of Life” (Runner-up: Shahab Hosseini, “A Separation”)

Best Supporting Actress: J. Smith-Cameron, “Margaret” (Runner-up: Jessica Chastain, “Take Shelter”)

Best Adapted Screenplay: (tie) “Mysteries of Lisbon” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (Runner-up: “The Skin I Live In”)

Best Original Screenplay: “A Separation” (Runner-up: “Weekend”)

Best Cinematography: “The Tree of Life” (Runner-up: “Mysteries of Lisbon”)

Best Editing: “The Tree of Life” (Runner-up: “Drive”)

Best Production Design: “The Mill and the Cross” (Runner-up: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”)

Best Original Score: “Drive” (Runner-up: “Mysteries of Lisbon”)

Best Ensemble: “A Separation” (Runner-up: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”)

Best Animated Film: “Rango” (Runner-up: “Winnie the Pooh”)

Best Documentary: “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu” (Runner-up: “Nostalgia for the Light”)

Best Film Not in the English Language: “A Separation” (Runner-up: “Mysteries of Lisbon”)

Best Picture Not Released in 2011: “Alps,” “Century of Birthing,” “Declaration of War,” “The Deep Blue Sea,” “Elena,” “Faust,” “The Kid with a Bike,” “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,” “This is not a Film,” “The Turin Horse”

Top 10 Films of 2011 (in order): “A Separation,” “The Tree of Life,” “Mysteries of Lisbon,” “Certified Copy,” “Weekend,” “Margaret,” “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” “Drive,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Hugo”/”Melancholia”

Remember to keep track of all the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter. 

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You might recall the story a couple of weeks back about the Kodak Theater potentially undergoing a moniker change, as Kodak, amid financial reorganization, wanted out of its deal with the Hollywood & Highland complex where the annual Oscars are held. In a nutshell, the company no longer afford the hefty yearly price tag of maintaining the naming rights to the facility.

Well, it looks like that change is already in effect. Over at The Odds, Steve Pond’s sharp eyes caught this bit of language in a press release announcing Meryl Streep as one of this year’s Oscarcast presenters: “Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, from the Hollywood & Highland Center® and televised live by the ABC Television Network.” Hollywood & Highland. Not Kodak. Most of us probably just slid that email on over to the trash, but good on Pond for catching it and ringing up the Academy to confirm.

And confirm they did. “AMPAS confirmed to TheWrap that the show, the pre-show and any additional advance promotion will now refer to the Oscars as taking place at the Hollywood & Highland Center,’ the mall where the theater is located,” Pond writes.

Last week a bankruptcy court granted Kodak its wish to back out of its deal, leaving Hollywood & Highland with $4 million less in its wallet this year than it was expecting. The search will surely be on for another sponsor, though as long as the Oscars are held there, the Academy gets pre-approval.

Honestly, though, I’ve been wondering lately if it’s not time to maybe move on from the Kod…er…the theatre formerly known as the Kodak. Academy president Tom Sherak tells Pond that there are no other negotiations taking place other than with Hollywood & Highland and it looks like the ceremony is likely to stay there, but still, I wonder. There isn’t a lot to choose from, though.

The ceremony has previously been held at venues like the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Shrine Auditorium on the University of Southern California campus (where the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards are still held). Each of those was a downtown venue, which presents its own challenges, but I say maybe it’s worth that kind of a change of pace (particularly with the on-going effort to clean up the area — a similar effort was underway in Hollywood years back, which the Hollywood & Highland complex largely signified).

Why not the Nokia Theater a few blocks north of the Shrine? The Independent Spirit Awards gave a tented parking garage roof show a shot there two years ago and quickly retreated to the beach in Santa Monica, but the LA Film Festival has had a decent enough time of things being headquartered downtown.

Additionally, with the steady jokification of the historic Chinese Theater (which sits next to the Hollywood & Highland theatre) by its new owners doesn’t provide the same classic sheen it once did. Though maybe the Academy wants to lean in that sort of a populist direction.

Is there an option near LACMA? Probably not, but that would be nice, given the recent partnership over the Academy museum. I’m just thinking out loud here.

Anyway, it’s been a good run, but it never hurts to explore other options. Just remember, Sunday night’s Oscars will not be taking place at the Kodak Theatre. They’ll be taking place at the Hollywood & Highland Center.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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