Many of you would really like to see the Oscar-nominated shorts prior to Sunday’s telecast but can’t make it to one of the theaters currently running the package. Well, better late than never, I guess. I’ll let the press release speak for itself:

“Just days after the February 10th theatrical release of The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012, and just in time for the 84th Academy Awards, ShortsHD, the only TV network dedicated exclusively to short movies, today announced the collection of Oscar nominated films will be available to cable subscribers on demand.

“Starting Feb 21st, the best of this year”s nominated shorts are offered in two special packages: Best Animated Short Films and Best Live Action Short Films, in both HD and SD. These films are presented to cable television subscribers by ShortsHD in conjunction with the nation”s leading Movies on Demand (MOD) distributor, iN DEMAND.

“With just the click of a remote, digital cable customers of Comcast/Xfinity, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, Cox Communications, Cablevision, Bresnan and Charter systems will see the short movie compilations listed as: “The Best 2012 Animated Nominated Shorts” or “The Best 2012 Live-Action Nominated Shorts.”

With Movies On Demand through digital cable, viewers can watch movies instantly, pause, fast-forward and rewind. TV subscribers can also watch the Oscar Nominated Short Films 2010 and Oscar Nominated Short Films 2011 in both live action and animation genres.”

So grab your remote and hunt them down if you have those services and then you can be in the know, too! Pity the docs aren’t included, though they are on the theatrical package, which is still playing in select theaters nationwide.

Here are the Oscar Guides for Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short and Best Documentary Short.

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

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Nearly every year there are a number of films that Oscar simply seems to miss. Just recently Steve McQueen addressed some of the reasons he believes that Oscar ignored Michael Fassbender’s performance in what was, for me, one of the best films of the year: “Shame.” Certainly Guy, Kris and I have all expressed our support for “Margaret” and our wish that the Academy voters had caught onto its value in time for it to make even a small showing.

Over the years there have been a number of omissions that have inspired either a quiet or riotous outcry from audiences and critics circles. In recent memory “The Dark Knight” and “Dreamgirls” were each considered shocking snubs by many given their momentum in the precursor circuit. In general terms, there are certain categories that tend to yield frustrating nominations and wins due to nonsensical and counterproductive voting practices.

This year”s Best Original Song field is droopy at best with only one song from “The Muppets” (if the world made sense there would be three) and two songs in total. In a noteworthy turn of events in another oft problematic arena for the Academy, documentarian Steve James”s “The Interrupters” (a film which many expected to win Best Documentary Feature) failed to receive a nomination.

An overhaul of the Academy”s documentary branch was already in the works, but the hope is that the shifts will correct the oversights that have plagued the documentary field over the years. The new regulations will eliminate the practice of splitting the submissions into groups and limit entries to films that have been reviewed by The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times.

James is also the director of the film that, for me, represents the Oscars’ most stunning and lasting snub of the last several decades: “Hoop Dreams.” Though two critical darlings were left out of the documentary feature nominations in 1995, “Hoop Dreams” and Terry Zwigoff’s “Crumb,” it was the former that was referred to as “one of the most embarrassing and widely criticized episodes in its (the AMPAS) history” in an EW article that year, and is still considered by many to be the quintessential example of Oscar dropping the ball (had to).

At the time, changes were implemented to (ostensibly speaking) correct the flaw that allowed not one, but two, of the year”s superlatives to slip through the cracks. The adjustments were minimal, however, and brought with them a whole new batch of holes for great films to fall through.

In a recent interview with The Wrap, Michael Moore, who chairs the Academy”s current documentary branch (there was no official branch in place at the time of the “Hoop Dreams” debacle), had the following to say about the current adjustments in the documentary nomination process: “The decades of a few people deciding have come to a complete end. I think we have a better chance of ‘Hoop Dreams’ not happening again.” The film has become shorthand for the Academy”s limitations, particularly in terms of this field. As Steve Pond reminds us, “‘Hoop Dreams” got more perfect scores than any other film, but a small group gave it minimum scores and knocked it to sixth place.”

There are a number of theories concerning the aforementioned small group’s devaluing of the film. Some felt that they were favoring filmmakers they were already familiar with, others that they were simply too lazy to watch the film in its entirety. Whatever the reasons were, the fact remains that both “Hoop Dreams” and the Academy’s failure to honor it remain embedded in our cinematic memory. The film ranks as Roger Ebert”s number one film of the 1990s and enjoys a name recognition and popularity that few documentaries are blessed with.

There is an argument to be made that the Academy Awards are in some ways irrelevant and not necessarily a measure of a film”s merit. True enough, and perspective, in all things, is key. Yet, we must acknowledge that Oscar (for good or for ill) acts as a spotlight, and in this case the glare of the AMPAS omission has brought a film to the attention of new viewers in a way a win actually may not have. And so in some ways, “Hoop Dreams” becomes an example of the paradoxically significant insignificance of the Academy Awards.

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

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There’s a stand-by in Oscar season, if you’re one of us who obsesses on guessing below-the-line categories, that I learned never to forget last year: Don’t bet against a Tim Burton film in the Best Art Direction category.

Last year it was “Alice in Wonderland” that took the award, when I and a number of others thought “The King’s Speech” might grab it in a bit of a sweep scenario for the eventual Best Picture winner. Three years prior, it was this season’s expected victor, Dante Ferretti, winning the award for Burton’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” Eight years before that, the inarguable work of Rick Heinrichs and his team took it for “Sleepy Hollow.”

That run started, though, in 1989, when Anton Furst and Peter Young beat out James Cameron’s “The Abyss,” Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” Best Picture winner “Driving Miss Daisy” and Edward Zwick’s “Glory” for their towering Gothic creations on the year’s (and, to that time, the industry’s) biggest hit: “Batman.”

The spring and summer of 1989 were dominated by a solitary image — the Batman logo — plastered on lunch boxes, hats, posters, anything marketable. It was a beautiful image, a painting by Furst, in fact, boldly stretched across the film’s one-sheets and cut off on the sides, indicating that, indeed, this film would be big, too big even for the poster.

That was the start of the film’s visual identity, but when we got a load of what Furst and his team had been busy cooking up on London sound stages, it was just awe-inspiring. I’ve written briefly about this before, but the design stemmed from one line in Sam Hamm’s script for the film, which read something like, “Gotham City: As if hell had erupted through the sidewalk and kept growing.” It was up to Furst and Burton to translate that, and the hard work paid off in the form of an Oscar win.

Benjamin Melniker, the film’s executive producer, was walking around the five-square-block set one day and said to fellow producer Michael E. Uslan that it was more impressive than the sets he’d seen on “Ben-Hur.” Being someone who had seen some lavish MGM productions in his time, from “Doctor Zhivago” to “Gigi” to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” that was high praise indeed.

It wasn’t just the creativity and scale of the work, though. Furst and company came up with some specific art department elements that, to this day, are just, well, awesome. The Batmobile, anyone? The gadgetry and attention to detail? Yes, I’m a dork for the character, but this was some impressive commitment to bringing Batman to life on all levels, and that it received an Oscar still, to this day, surprises me. Not because it’s not deserving, of course, but because, well, the Academy is just never so cool.

They were pretty cool when they tapped Kevin Kilne for a win the year before, too (which Roth outlined yesterday). And again a few decades later on a new Batman franchise when they gave Heath Ledger an award, however expected.

Other Oscar wins that have always stuck out as personal favorites include Jeff Bridges finally getting his trophy for “Crazy Heart” in 2009, Kim Basinger getting some love for “L.A. Confidential” in 1997, both wins for “The Usual Suspects” (for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor, Kevin Spacey) in 1995, the Best Picture victories for “Unforgiven” (1992), “Annie Hall” (1977) and “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), Paddy Chayefsky’s “Network” original screenplay win in 1976 and cinematography wins for films like “JFK” and “Apocalypse Now.” And nomination-wise, I love to look back and see that films like “Speed” were recognized for film editing. That just never happens anymore.

But I have to say, this is my favorite. Tragically, Furst threw himself from a parking garage in 1991 after breaking up with then girlfriend Beverly D’Angelo and amid prescription drug dependence and heavy drinking. He had never reached the success of “Batman” again and, indeed, never felt he had been properly paid for his contribution to such a global blockbuster. But his (Oscar-winning) work lives on nevertheless.

What’s your favorite Oscar win? Have your say in the comments section below!

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

For many Oscar voters and watchers, Best Director appears to be something of a superfluous category: If you directed the best film of the year, the reasoning goes, you must be the best director of the year too. That may be true more often than not, but the Academy doesn’t always distinguish between a true visionary and a safe pair of hands guiding well-chosen collaborators.

So it is that, over 83 years of Academy Awards history, the Best Picture and Best Director awards have gone to the same film 75% of the time — and in recent years, haven’t been separated since the 2005 ceremony. Last year, the Academy opted for the safe pair of hands: Tom Hooper, a comparatively untested Brit with a TV background, beat four idiosyncratic American auteurs, to the chagrin of critics everywhere. This year again sees a foreign first-time nominee pitted against a quartet of more established Yanks. (All four of them, moreover, are previous nominees — the highest proportion in the category since 1993.) Once again, the outsider is favored to triumph, though in this case, it’s for a work of more director-centered ingenuity. He’s also one of four writer-directors among the nominees, a number last matched in 1995.      

The nominees are…

Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”

Alexander Payne, “The Descendants”

Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”

Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”

Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”

This was a relatively easy field to forecast, and one of the few where I went 5-for-5 with my own predictions. Some were expecting to see David Fincher score a second consecutive nod here for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” but his DGA nomination was a surprise to begin with; the Academy’s smaller, more highbrow directors’ branch was always likelier to favor the loftier auteur sensibility of Malick instead. Would that their adventurous extended to the silk-and-steel genre expertise of Nicolas Winding Refn for “Drive” or Lynne Ramsay’s rigorous stylization of “We Need to Talk About Kevin” — both BAFTA-nominated — but we shan’t ask for miracles.  

The comparative young Turk in the field is, conversely, a fortysomething Frenchman. I doubt most voters were familiar with Paris-born Michel Hazanavicius‘s name a year ago — unless, of course, they’re devotees of commercial Gallic comedy, in which case his pair of “OSS 117” spy spoofs, both smash hits at home, would have prepared them for the fleet-footed pastiche expertise of Best Picture frontrunner “The Artist.” Hazanavicius stands to win three Oscars on Sunday — he’s also up for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing — but this is the one that makes the most sense: whether you think it a gimmick or a revelation, “The Artist” is primarily a directorial gambit, appropriating past cinematic forms while reflecting its maker’s own artistic enthusiasms. The BAFTA, BFCA, London and New York Film Critics’ awards have all gone his way — as, most crucially, has the DGA Award. As if you needed reminding, the Guild has anticipated the Oscar on all but six occasions. Don’t expect this to be the seventh.

After “Sideways,” for which he landed his first Best Director Oscar nomination and won his first statuette in the writing category, Alexander Payne indulged in a seven-year break. His return, however, suggested no time had passed at all: his latest dramedy of middle-aged, middle-class ennui, “The Descendants,” returned him directly to the Academy fold, earning him a second straight directing bid and his third in the Adapted Screenplay category. It seems, however, that the Nebraskan will once more have to settle for the consolation prize of a writing Oscar: even at the film’s peak points in the race, when it won Best Picture from the LA Critics and Golden Globes, Payne hasn’t managed to take a single precursor prize for Best Director. It could be that the industry still views Payne as a writer first and a filmmaker second, in which case the modest, even televisual qualities of his latest won’t do much to change their minds.

For a good few weeks, the blogosphere was hell-bent on making us believe this was a race between two directors with separate valentines to silent-era filmmaking, that even if the French film was unstoppable in the top category, sentiment would carry the day for Martin Scorsese. The Golden Globes, always glad of a chance to reward a known name, played along by handing him their Best Director award; the Academy, meanwhile, did their bit by making “Hugo” the top nominee. But is anybody really feeling it for Marty? His meticulously crafted children’s film appears to be more admired than actively loved in the industry, and the fact remains that it’s a wildly expensive commercial flop — the kind of achievement the Academy is usually loath to reward with more than technical prizes. If he was still Oscar-less, it’d be a different story; but voters rewarded him only five years ago for a more popular movie, and are unlikely to feel they still owe him.   

Scorsese isn’t the only former Best Director winner in the mix here, nor is he the only seven-time nominee. For his amiable time-travel comedy “Midnight in Paris,” Woody Allen scored his first nomination in the category since 1994’s “Bullets Over Broadway,” and only his third tied to a Best Picture nomination. The media has heralded several mini-comebacks for Allen over the last few years — as opposed to simply acknowledging that, like most directors, his latter-day work is uneven — but this is the first of them the Academy has bought wholesale. They may yet reward him with a third Best Original Screenplay Oscar, but in the bigger categories, he’s likely to be a victim of his past success: given that he won here 34 years ago for “Annie Hall,” do even the new film’s most devoted fans think it’s in the same league as that classic? With no Best Director wins this season, Woody remains on the sidelines — which is just how he likes it.

Rounding out the category is the second nominee, alongside Allen, unlikely to show up on Oscar night. The clear first choice of many a cinephile, reclusive slow-loris auteur Terrence Malick scores his second Best Director nomination 13 years after his first — though only one film has landed in between, so his strike rate’s getting pretty good. That’s all the more impressive given how far his sensibility has drifted from any conventional notions of Oscar-friendliness: the only straight-up art film in the mix, “The Tree of Life” is a poetically personal meditation on faith and mortality that some find rapturous, some pompous and some simply inscrutable. (Some of us, meanwhile, opt for a bit from all three boxes.) It’s always pleasing when the directors stand up for achievements this singular and polarizing — but even if there’s no mistaking just how directed the whole enterprise is, it’s hard to see the membership at large being persuaded in sufficient numbers.

Will win: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”

Could win: Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”

Should win: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”

Should have been here: Lynne Ramsay, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Keep track of our current rankings in the Best Director 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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With many grousing that the Academy’s technophobia deprived Andy Serkis of an Oscar nod for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” Matt Zoller Seitz makes a case for a compromise honor: a new Oscar category for Best Collaborative Performance, for characters created by heavily altered actors in conjunction with motion-capture artists, animators and makeup wizards. Serkis aside, performances Seitz suggests could have won here include Jeff Goldblum in “The Fly” and Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — though his notion that anti-FX bias cost Pitt the 2008 Best Actor Oscar is an empty one when you consider his competition. Overall, It’s an intelligent suggestion, though it would surely hinder the possibility of such performances cracking the main acting races. [Press Play]     

Michael O’Connor, both my prediction and my personal pick for the Costume Design Oscar, talks us through his gorgeous work on “Jane Eyre.” [Entertainment Weekly]

Melinda Newman talks to the great Sergio Mendes about the Oscar-nominated “Real in Rio,” the first song he’s ever written for a film. [The Beat Goes On]

David Poland rails against the idea that any of this year’s nominees (or, indeed, some high-profile non-nominees) set out to make an “Oscar movie.” [Hot Blog]

The Academy is worried that Sasha Baron Cohen will pitch up to the Oscars at “The Dictator.” Because, you know, that would risk amusing people. [Deadline] 

Jeff Wells whinges that “nobody of any consequence” loves “The Artist.” Nobody of as much consequence as Jeff Wells, at any rate. [Hollywood Elsewhere] 

Predicting the visual tech categories, Mark Harris bets against “Anonymous” in Costume Design because “no movie that terrible” has won the award. I dunno — “Elizabeth 2: The Deadly Art of Illusion?” [Grantland]

Sasha Stone picks her “favorite cinematic moments” from this year’s Oscar contenders. I had no idea she was a fan of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” [Awards Daily] 

Phil Hoad bemoans the fact that the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is essentially designed to exclude international co-productions. [The Guardian]

Should have mentioned this ages ago, but hey, pretty pictures don’t have a sell-by date: BAFTA’s awesome official posters for their Best Film nominees. [The Film Experience]

The 14th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards were held this evening, and it was a good night for wizards, hackers and, uh, Madonna.

The Harry Potter franchise was honored for the first time since 2001 by the group as Jany Temime, who has been with the series since 2004’s “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” won the Excellence in Fantasy Film award for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.” The last Potter costumer awarded by the guild was Judianna Makovsky, way back on the series’ first installment, “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” making for nice bookends for the franchise. The series’ only other nomination was for Temime again on “The Order of the Phoenix” in 2007.

Elsewhere, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” won in the contemporary category (beating out films like “Bridesmaids” and “Drive”), while “W.E.” costumer Arianne Phillips was the surprise winner of the evening, besting Oscar frontrunners “The Artist” and “Hugo.”

Best Costume Design has been one of the toughest categories for me to pick this season. I’ve buried myself way too deep in the history of that, the cinematography and costume design categories this week. There’s this: only the only film in the post-black-and-white split era to win cinematography and costume design but not art direction was 1968’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

I’m not sure what that means. Probably nothing. Probably that I’m a loser for even looking it up.

Sandy Powell deserves the Oscar for “Hugo” in my book, but I don’t think she’ll be taking the honor this year. I don’t think “Jane Eyre” will figure in (though, per Guy’s Oscar Guide on the Best Costume Design category, he’s betting on it), and the cynical part of me feels like if the title of “Anonymous” had “Shakespeare” in there somewhere, it might have won. People do just vote blindly in these categories.

The win for “W.E.” here gives me slight pause, though. The guild has matched up with the Oscar winner frequently enough as of late. But nevertheless, I’m going with “The Artist,” despite the film coming up short tonight. I sense few saw Madonna’s critically skewered period romance and most will lean toward one of the two Best Picture nominees.

As previously announced, Clint Eastwood and his costumer of choice Deborah Hopper received the Distinguished Collaborator Award. Presenting Sponsor LACOSTE recognized actress Kate Beckinsale with the Spotlight Award (given to “an actor whose talent and career personifies an enduring commitment to excellence, including a special awareness of the role and importance of costume design,” according to the literature), while veteran costumer Marlene Stewart (who, speaking of Madonna, designed the wardrobes of several classic music videos for the artist, including “Vogue,” “Like a Prayer” and “Material Girl”) received the Disaronno Career Achievement in Film Award. Lou Eyrich was given a similar honor for his television career.

Once again, check out the list of this year’s Costume Designers Guild Awards winners below.

Excellence in Period Film: “W.E.”

Excellence in Fantasy Film: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”

Excellence in Contemporary Film: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

As always, remember to keep track of the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

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

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In the final heated build-up to Oscar night, the tendency is to look at all of the ways the Academy has failed us or is bound to fail us. We do last-minute championing of underdog films and performances or perform a final public, or private, snub lament (not to worry, some of that is forthcoming).

I thought it might be nice, however, to take a look back at some of the moments where the fates have aligned to provide a win we can really appreciate. I spent some time yesterday afternoon looking over the Academy Award winners of the past 20-odd years, and there were some notable pleasures in the mix. Whether they were upsets or favored, whether I recall watching the moment live or have since come to appreciate the significance, they inspire that rare sense of visceral gratification.

Glancing down the list I assembled I’m reminded of films and performances that I’m happy to see preserved by at least the small measure of posterity that an Academy Award win in their category affords them. Whether it was the world’s discovery of Geoffrey Rush in “Shine,” Chris Cooper”s “Adaptation” win and acceptance speech, the brilliantly satiric and effective “No Man”s Land,” the acknowledgment of cinematographer Guillermo Navarro”s work on “Pans Labyrinth” or my own strange affection for Anjelica Huston”s win for her portrayal of “yeah, right here, on the oriental with all the lights on” Maerose Prizzi in “Prizzi’s Honor,” there are a wealth of solidly satisfying Oscar wins in my book.

As much as I appreciate all of the other honorees, however, I must say, the Oscar win that was at the forefront of my mind at the beginning of my investigation remained at the top of my list at the close. There are few Academy Awards moments that evoke as deep and cathartic a sense of pleasure as Kevin Kline”s Best Supporting Actor victory for his portrayal of the hapless, but most certainly not stupid, criminal simple-mind Ottto in “A Fish Called Wanda.” Kris, you’ll note, also mentioned it in Friday’s podcast when prompted by a questioner for his favorite Oscar win.

Firstly, Kline was the strongest in his field that year. He was fresh, spontaneous, and yet so finely tuned. Secondly, his win represents one of the rare occasions in which the Academy voters have demonstrated a real respect for legitimate comedy rather than splitting the difference with a drama peppered with comedic tones. On a more ephemeral level, Kline is an actor who inspires goodwill with his mere presence. He is someone we want to see win and it is especially gratifying that he did so on merit, in a surprising role.

Aside from Kline”s performance, which holds up beautifully, the film remains one of the best comedies of the last several decades. It sometimes happens that we do not care for a particular actor but can concede that his or her performance is the strongest in a given year, or we like the portrayal but not the film as a whole, or we love the film and think the depiction is fine, but do not find it outstanding or particularly memorable. It is rare and significant when all of the elements are in place.

Kevin Kline”s win stands out as the one that, 24 years after the moment occurred, is guaranteed to bring a smile to my face.

For a reminder of the events that make Oscar worthwhile, re-familiarize yourself with the Otto:

Meanwhile, how ironic that just as this piece goes up this afternoon, the Academy has just announced a new comedy bit between Kline and Mike Myers called “Oscar Etiquette,” which you can view at Oscars.com or via the embed below.

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

So, 39 songs were qualified for eligibility in this year’s Best Original Song race. 39. That’s one short of 40. But apparently 37 of them just weren’t good enough for the music branch, as the category turned up two — yes, two — nominees. One of them, at least to my mind, is dubious at best, while the other would at least appear to be in a cakewalk for the win (judging by consensus).

Is it not just patently obvious that the music branch can’t be bothered with this category anymore? Just get rid of it if that’s the case. I happen to like the category (many would like to see it die a quick death), but seeing something like this go down, after countless screw-ups in better fields over the last few years, it’s just painful to watch.

The nominees are…

“Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets” (Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie)

“Real in Rio” from “Rio” (Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown; Lyric by Siedah Garrett)

The big snub here, surely, is “Star Spangled Man” from “Captain America: The First Avenger.” If something like that isn’t good enough, when it’s so clearly what the category is supposed to be about, then, again, just hang it up.

In any case, barring something unexpected happening, Bret McKenzie might want to go ahead and dust off a space on his mantle for his new Oscar, because “Man or Muppet” is kind of the no-brainer choice here. (Then again, “no brain” is the operative language here.) It’s bitter-sweet, though, because I actually thought “Pictures in My Head” was the best track from “The Muppets,” certainly the most emotional. And I’ve never been quite as taken with this one as everyone else has. Additionally, it was too bad the music branch shot the Oscarcast production in the foot by nominating the ONE song that isn’t performed by the classic Muppets, but now Jasen Segel and Walter can’t even carry the torch for Kermit and the rest, as the performances of this year’s nominees have been nixed altogether. Sigh…

Meanwhile, “Real in Rio” from 20th Century Fox’s animated effort “Rio” was the WTF nomination of the field. It’s a great little song with all the energy you’d expect of Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown‘s music. It’s used in the context of the narrative as a big number (just like the snubbed “Life’s a Happy Song” from “The Muppets,” actually) with perfunctory lyrics from Siedah Garrett. I’m listening to the song while I write this and I’m still running out of things to say about it, but I guess that big show-stopping moment was enough to sway opinion when they screened the various clips, because I don’t think there’s anything inherently award-worthy about the track itself. I guess it’s cool Mendes is an Oscar nominee now, though. Nevertheless, watch out. Seriously. While we’re all expecting “The Muppets” to prevail, this one could easily slide in for the gotcha moment of the evening as the Academy isn’t exactly the most pro-Muppet group of people on the planet. Indeed, I may change this prediction before long.

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: “Star Spangled Man” from “Captain America: The First Avenger

Keep track of our current rankings in the Best Music (Original Song) 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 year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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In five hours, it’s pencils down for the Academy. Ballots are due this afternoon and then it’s five days before we find out what they amounted to.

For the most part, these races are decided. We sometimes get big, stunning upsets, though typically they have one or two indicators that we only pick up on after the fact. Sometimes, though, they don’t. Who can forget humble “Precious” scribe Geoffrey Fletcher having his name called for Best Adapted Screenplay two years ago, speechless as he took to the stage, expecting, like all of us, for the category to go a different way?

Those are the kinds of moments you hope for to shake things up, but particularly if you think they are deserving upsets. This year, there are certainly a few of those across the Academy’s 24 categories worth spotlighting, and so we have, dedicating this last pre-show list to the cause.

I tapped all our writers here at In Contention to put our heads together and come up with 10 envelope reveals we’d be delighted to hear on Sunday night. I’d wager just about all of them are so unlikely as to make this a wishful thinking collective and nothing else, but that’s kind of the spirit of the grouping, too. We don’t expect any of these to happen, but man would we be delighted if they did.

Hopefully this gives you an even deeper insight into how we saw the film year, and where we see the deserving elements scattered throughout. Of course, a non-Oscar nominated list of choices would be much different, but this is what the Academy has given us to work with. But it wasn’t that hard to find things worth championing.

So have a look at our choices in our new gallery and feel free to comment and/or offer up yours in the comments section below.

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

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Michael Fassbender’s had nearly a month to get over missing out on an Oscar nod for “Shame,” but clearly the snub still rankles for others. While we recently had Alfre Woodard calling out the Academy on being too conservative to consider him, “Shame” director Steve McQueen has now weighed in, calling Fassbender a “once-in-a-generation actor” and extending the blame for his non-nomination to America in general: “In America they’re too scared of sex, that’s why he wasn’t nominated. If you look at the best actor list you’re saying, ‘Michael Fassbender is not on that list?” McQueen may be right that a lot of voters were uncomfortable with the film, but I think he’d be surprised how many of them didn’t see it at all. [Yahoo! Movies]

An interview with 101-year-old producer Arthur Gardner, the oldest member of the Academy. He’s voting for “War Horse.” [LA Times]

Larry Rohter sits down with the five filmmakers nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. [New York Times]

Kicking off his predictions with the aural categories, Mark Harris makes a compelling argument for “War Horse” taking both sound Oscars. [Grantland]

Putting this year’s Best Picture nominees to the Bechdel Test for female representation on screen. Only two pass. [YouTube]

Steve Pond spotlights the four categories he thinks have the best chance of springing a surprise on Sunday. [The Odds]

Everything you ever wanted to know about the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” title sequence. [Art of the Title]

Nathaniel Rogers wonders if Sandy Powell will win a fourth Oscar after reacting so indifferently to her third. [The Film Experience]

Roger Ebert is less than impressed by “Titanic 3D,” calling it “a shabby way to treat a masterpiece.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

As the absence of any potential Oscar fodder from the just-wrapped Berlin Film Festival became apparent — pundits on the hunt for a second consecutive “A Separation”-style crossover item were disappointed with the lineup, though cineastes needn’t have been — I got to thinking about the presence of festival fare in this year’s Academy Awards class.

In recent years, the festival circuit has become far more integral to the Oscar race than it used to be: all but one of the last six Best Picture winners debuted at a high-profile festival, from Cannes and Venice to Toronto and Telluride.

That’s in marked contrast to the beginning of the new century, when all five winners from “Gladiator” through to “Million Dollar Baby” were major studio productions that had no need of a festival platform. As independents increasingly dominate the awards conversation, so too do the festivals that birth them: spotting an orphan film that can be groomed into a major Oscar player has become a more viable practice for many studios than developing their own, with Harvey Weinstein still the master of the game.

Five of this year’s nine Best Picture nominees took their first steps on the festival circuit; six, if you count the New York Film Festival unveiling of the then-unfinished “Hugo.” Three of them, however, came from a single fest — and while it’s lately been the fall festivals that reveal a good proportion of contenders, this year it’s the daddy of them all, Cannes, that can take the most credit.

Cannes babies haven’t been that prominent in the Best Picture recently: last year’s field featured none at all. This year, however, “The Artist” looks set to be the first Best Picture winner to emerge from the Cannes competition since “No Country for Old Men” four years ago; you have to go all the way back to 1981’s “Chariots of Fire” to find another.

On neither of those previous occasions was the Oscar winner accompanied in the nominees by another Croisette alumnus, much less the Palme d’Or winner. Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is the first winner of Cannes’s top prize to land a Best Picture nod since Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” nine years ago.

It’s rare enough that the Academy’s middlebrow sensibilities and the French festival’s routine preference for rarefied art cinema overlap on a single film — least of all one as challenging and polarizing as Malick’s opus — but for them to do so in the same year they also agree on the festival’s breakout crowdpleaser is pretty special. Add in “Midnight in Paris,” which had the honor of opening Cannes last May, and the festival has reaffirmed its reputation as the first port of call for future prestige items.

(Venice, which debuted “The Hurt Locker” 18 months before its eventual Oscar triumph, and has recently given us the likes of “Black Swan,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Atonement,” had a quieter year, introducing only “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” “The Ides of March” and the finally unnominated “Shame” to the conversation. Toronto, meanwhile, generated less buzz than usual, neatly if coincidentally symbolized by its head-scratching Audience Award winner “Where Do We Go Now?”) 

The Cannes connection continues in the Best Actor race, where Jean Dujardin is looking primed to become the first actor since Holly Hunter in 1993 (coincidentally, another largely dialogue-free performance) to win a leading-role Oscar after taking gold on the Croisette, and the first male on since William Hurt in 1985. Of course, Christoph Waltz scooped a supporting Oscar for “Inglourious Basterds” months after winning Best Actor at Cannes; the year after, joint winner Javier Bardem also found his way to an Oscar nod. Three years in a row, then, that the Academy has noticed the Cannes Best Actor win — an impressive run after 20 years of them not doing so.

Last year’s Best Actress winner at Cannes, Kirsten Dunst for “Melancholia,” wasn’t quite so lucky, despite being the most Hollywood name the category has landed upon in decades. Still, she struck in the Oscar conversation for long enough for it to be worth noting here; even closer to a nomination, meanwhile, was Tilda Swinton, whose prickly arthouse vehicle “We Need to Talk About Kevin” also competed on the Croisette.

Other awards-season notables from the Cannes Class of 2011: Best Foreign Language Film nominee “Footnote,” winner of the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes, and, of course, “Drive,” which went all the way from a Best Director win at Cannes to a puny Sound Editing nod at the Oscars. That this still counts as a Cannes-to-Academy success story of sorts suggests we mustn’t overstate the festival’s significance in the Oscar race: they’ll always be wildly different institutions with wildly opposed tastes and priorities.

Still, festivals like Cannes remain an interesting litmus test for success in the simultaneously more and less forgiving context of the US awards race. When I said at Cannes back in May that I thought “The Artist” was a likely Best Picture nominee and potential winner, a lot of people told me I was jumping the gun or flat-out crazy, but the swooning crowd reaction to the film was too compelling to ignore, with or without Harvey Weinstein’s involvement. His acquisition of the film may be the smartest festival purchase any distributor has ever made with Oscar on the brain; expect more future awards juggernauts to be hatched this way, and expect all eyes to be on this year’s Cannes competition lineup in search of the next one.  

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

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Ballots are due tomorrow. The great settling has occurred. And now is the time of year when people bored with the proceedings scratch and claw for an alternative.

There isn’t one. Despite a grand showing for “The Descendants” in the final stretch, it’s not the one to pull the carpet out from under “The Artist.” Despite “The Help” having a considerable amount of support throughout the Academy, it’s not the one. And somehow, “Hugo” isn’t the one, either, despite considerable spending in phase two (though the two nomination leaders spent quite a bit separately). There is no savior.

In a column today, Sasha Stone tries to make the case that more time would have mattered. It wouldn’t have. If anything, a number of members are still (believe it or not) DISCOVERING “The Artist.” When Stone writes that “no one seems to want ‘The Artist’ to win,'” she is, I think, responding to the echo-chamber that is movie punditry.

But then, there is sound advice in my colleague Anne Thompson’s warning in Friday’s podcast that there is a temptation to throw your hands up and expect the likelihoods. You have to keep your eyes peeled for upset potential, but upsets honestly look to be few (if any) and far between this year.

Take Best Adapted Screenplay, for instance, which was showcased at both the USC Scripter Awards and the WGA Awards over the weekend. Both prizes went to “The Descendants.” The editors, meanwhile, opted for the film at their show, too. And yet people still think “Moneyball” has a shot here? (And the reality is, it’s probably “Hugo” that’s coming in second.)

Take Best Actor, which was a conversation dominated by George Clooney for so long that some don’t want to give in to the inevitability of Jean Dujardin. Yet this ignores actorly support here and abroad, as he won both the SAG and the BAFTA. Only two people have ever lost the Oscar after grabbing both of those prizes: Daniel Day-Lewis for “Gangs of New York” and Russell Crowe for “A Beautiful Mind.” How did that happen? A last minute rush of support for “The Pianist” and Crowe threw a well-publicized hissy fit backstage at the BAFTAs. But as I said, no saviors this year.

How about Best Actress? This has been Viola Davis’s to lose, I’d wager, since the start of the season. Even when Meryl Streep and her performance in the dreadful “The Iron Lady” came around, as great as she was, it was clear that the season was leaning away from her. And so it did. But some inflated phase two pitching by The Weinstein Company and a BAFTA win has people thinking Streep could pull it off. She won’t.

Best Supporting Actor? Here, I think, there is potential for an upset that I can understand. Since the nominations were announced I’ve been noting Max von Sydow as a legitimate threat. He has a lot of goodwill, came around a few weeks back for press while frontrunner Christopher Plummer eased off the gas, etc. It could happen. But it’s all about momentum, and since Plummer hasn’t thrown a phone at anyone or come out with a movie called “Norbit,” his momentum should be enough to carry him across.

Additionally, I think there is a real possibility for Woody Allen to double up on his WGA win, despite the ineligibility of “The Artist” there, and grab another Oscar. But would I be surprised if voters sleepwalked all the way to the silent Best Picture frontrunner? Ha.

The only major field that everyone agrees is sewn up is Best Supporting Actress, which has Octavia Spencer’s name all over it. (Sorry, Jessica.)

The craft categories have been the unsure areas all month, however. That’s where the real excitement is, for those who pay attention to film awards beyond the headline-grabbing names. Best Art Direction looks like it’s all “Hugo”‘s, but it’s a battle between that and “The Artist” in a couple of categories, from Best Costume Design to Best Film Editing, while Best Cinematography is so not locked in for “The Tree of Life.” The sound categories feel like they could fall a couple of different ways between “Hugo” and “War Horse,” while what was once considered the gimme prize of the year, Best Visual Effects for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” somehow seems in doubt now.

So that’s where I’ll be looking for a little spice on Sunday night. The other stuff? Settled. And some of us have already moved on.

With just under a week to go, the Contenders section currently reflects our final-ish predictions. Mine won’t “officially” be finalized until Friday, when Anne and I offer up our last guesses on the podcast and I supply a separate post announcing them. I’m currently struggling with Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Documentary Feature. But for now, this is where Guy and I are leaning throughout.

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

Of all the crafts categories, Best Film Editing always tends to parallel the Best Picture race the most, both in the nominations stage and again during the race for the win. This year”s final five fit squarely into that paradigm, with the top three Best Picture contenders being joined by another film that was almost certainly in the top six and one semi-prestigious genre film that likely wasn”t far from the Best Picture lineup. Despite the surprising omission of one of the most nominated editors of all-time, Michael Kahn (who managed to score an ACE citation for “War Horse”), the nominees were utterly predictable.

But while I was quite confident in my predictions for the nominations (at least about the six from which the five would be chosen), that confidence does not extend to this final stage of the game. No title can be safely ruled out in my opinion.

The nominees are…

“The Artist” (Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius)

“The Descendants” (Kevin Tent)

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall)

“Hugo” (Thelma Schoonmaker)

“Moneyball” (Christopher Tellefsen)

Who I am sorry to see absent? Matthew Newman”s superb BFCA- and BAFTA-nominated cutting of “Drive” worked incredibly well, with suspense and action being integrated into what was first and foremost a character study. Also setting the mood and revealing enough story to keep us interested was Dino Jonsäter for “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” “The Tree of Life””s army of editors also navigated through the crazy world of Terrence Malick to produce his latest classic, while I do lament Michael Kahn”s absence, not for “War Horse,” but for his sharp, clever editing of “The Adventures of Tintin.”

Michel Hazanavicius has one of three chances to take home gold on Sunday evening with a win in this category. His editing, with Anne-Sophie Bion, of “The Artist” kept us engaged in the absence of dialogue. And even if it hardly stands out as an editor”s showcase, being the Best Picture frontrunner helps matters. While I would not place much weight on the ACE comedy victory (given the lack of competition from fellow Oscar nominees), “The Artist” is loved the way no other film is this year. In this extremely open category, I think that will be enough to make Oscar winners of Bion and Hazanavicius here.

After earning ACE nominations, but falling short at the Oscars, for “Election,” “About Schmidt” and “Sideways,” I assumed the same would happen again to Kevin Tent this year. I was wrong. I hardly think “The Descendants” exemplified the best editing of the year, but I am happy when the branch cites editing that doesn”t unnecessarily show off and I am pleased that Tent has finally made the final five. Not only that, but he has now won the ACE award to boot! But with the editing far from noticeable (since voters unfortunately tend to need to SEE the work in order to spring for it) and the film seemingly having peaked, I highly doubt he will win the Oscar.

Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall won this category last year for “The Social Network,” as the surge of “The King”s Speech” ended up being confined to four major categories. They return this year for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the sole non-Best Picture nominee among the final five. When Best Picture nominees falter in this category, suspense/action films from Oscar-nominated directors rise to take their place (“The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Black Hawk Down” being the last two examples), so with the BFCA behind them, I would not rule out the possibility of Baxter and Wall becoming back-to-back winners.

With her seventh career nomination this year, Thelma Schoonmaker has tied Michael Kahn among working editors for the best career Oscar record. She is a legend, no doubt. Could that lead to a fourth win for Martin Scorsese”s “Hugo?” The film doesn”t have the showy editing of “Raging Bull,” “The Departed” or even “The Aviator” that gave her previous statuettes. That said, it is a visually arresting and loved movie, one that was nominated across the board and will surely grab a few statues. She could yet take this.

There”s no doubt who I”d be voting for if I had a ballot. Christopher Tellefesen“s piecing together of Bennett Miller”s “Moneyball” was energetic, combining drama and humor, different media and filming styles, and was also visually arresting, even abstract at times. Could he win? It”s possible. But given that most voters may think “Dragon Tattoo” for “showy editing,” Schnoomaker for “classic editor” or “The Artist” for “let”s vote for it everywhere,” I wouldn”t bet on it.

Will Win: “The Artist”

Could Win: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”

Should Win: “Moneyball”

Should Have Been Here: “Drive”

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

What do you think deserves the Oscar for Best Film Editing? Who got robbed? Have your say in the comments section below.

(Read previous installments of the Oscar Guide here.)

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The big topic of Oscar conversation over the weekend wasn’t exactly a newsflash: anyone who didn’t previously know that the Academy membership is dominated by older white men is presumably still reeling from the shock of “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” not receiving a Best Picture nomination. Even so, the stats revealed in the LA Times’s investigation into the AMPAS makeup are pretty stunning: sadly, I’m perhaps less surprised that voters are 94% white than I am by the knowledge that they’re 77% male. Add in the fact that only 2% of them are under the age of 40, and you wonder why anyone even entertained the possibility of “Bridesmaids” cracking the top category. Members from Alexander Payne to Alfre Woodard (who’s a “Shame” fan, as it happens) weigh in on the matter. A must-read. [Los Angeles Times]

David Poland, self-appointed arbiter of journalistic value, thinks the LAT study is “a waste of time.” [Hot Blog] 

A back-and-forth between Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott on the relative merits of the Oscars as a cultural institution. Many good points raised, but… Madonna to host? Really, Manohla? [New York Times]

Tying in neatly with Friday’s Oscar Guide piece, Arianne Phillips talks us through her Oscar-nominated costume designs for Madonna’s “W.E.” [Vanity Fair]

“Cars 2” producer Lindsey Collins thinks anti-Pixar backlash explains the film’s absence from the Oscar lineup. Can I politely suggest that the film not being very good may have something to do with it? [Movieline]

David Cox wonders just what it is about “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” that has rubbed so many people the wrong way. [The Guardian]

After slapping them in their fuzzy faces with the Best Original Song fiasco, the Academy has decided it’d be nice to have the Muppets on the show after all. [The Odds]

Daniel Montgomery talks to three-time Oscar nominee Terry George about his nominated short “The Shore.” [Gold Derby]

It may have won the BAFTA, but Pedro Almodovar’s “The Skin I Live In” was the bridesmaid at Spain’s Goya Awards, losing the top prizes to police thriller “No Rest for the Wicked.” [Screen Daily]

Geoff Andrew on recurrent topic of critical conversation: the overuse of the word “masterpiece.” On the one hand, I agree. On the other, it’s just a word. [Sight & Sound] 

The Motion Picture Sound Editors’ (MPSE) 59th annual Golden Reel Awards were held this evening, celebrating excellence in sound editing. “Super 8,” you’ll recall, led the way with nominees (and was nominated by the Cinema Audio Society), yet failed to score an Oscar nod in either sound category.

Tonight, the film managed to take home an award, for dialogue and ADR in a feature film. So it gets to hold its head up high. However, it was “War Horse” that triumphed in the sound effects and foley department, which is the area that most corresponds to Oscar (at least in terms of how the category is largely viewed).

After last night’s CAS win for “Hugo,” I started to lean toward a split between that film (mixing) and “War Horse” (editing) in the sound categories. I’m feeling that even more after tonight, but both categories could just as easily end up going to one film or the other. Pick your splits carefully.

Speaking of “Hugo,” which is considered the favorite to win the Best Sound Editing Oscar by most pundits, it did win the only award it was nominated for tonight, for music editing. Elsewhere, “The Muppets” won in the musical category, while “The Adventures of Tintin” took the animated prize.

The other nominees up for Best Sound Editing along with “Hugo” and “War Horse” are “Drive,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” They were up for two awards each tonight but went home empty-handed.

Previously announced, eight-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner George Watters II, best known perhaps for his work on Jerry Bruckheimer films stretching back to “Top Gun,” was honored with the Career Achievement Award, while Gale Anne Hurd received the MPSE Filmmaker Award.

Check out the full list of winners below.

Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film: “War Horse”

Music in a Feature Film: “Hugo”

Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film: “Super 8”

Music in a Musical Feature Film: “The Muppets”

Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in an Animated Film: “The Adventures of Tintin”

Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue, ADR and Music in a Feature Documentary: “George Harrison: Living in the Material World”

Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Foreign Language Film: “The Flowers of War”

Career Achievement Award: George Watters II

Filmmaker Award: Gale Anne Hurd

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

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

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BERLIN – After having spent the bulk of my Berlinale awards report complaining about the jury’s curious choice of Golden Bear winner, I’m more pleased than ever that I waited until my final dispatch to dig into my three favorite films of the festival. For this year’s fest, despite what you may have heard from grumpier attendees, was not one that deserved to be sent off with a sneer.

Typically uneven, but inventively programmed and shrewdly paced, it seemed less than usual like a lineup feeding off Cannes and Venice’s scraps than one built to its own smaller, funkier agenda. (Yes, at least one Competition entry, Brillante Mendoza’s excitingly divisive “Captive,” was turned down by both Croisette and Lido selectors last year — but more fool them, I say.) When one smart UK critic tweeted yesterday that he clearly hadn’t missed anything by not attending the Berlinale this year, I couldn’t resist replying, “Well, except for a number of excellent films.” The success stories of Berlin this year may not have been audible from a distance, but the festival will quietly claim delayed credit as they slowly trickle through to international arthouses.

One critic felt sufficiently impelled to underline the value of his being there as to suggest those who weren’t had missed a seismic evolutionary shift: “There is cinema before ‘Tabu,'” he said of Miguel Gomes’s lavishly (and justly) acclaimed FIPRESCI prizewinner. “And there is cinema after.” On the one hand, that’s pretty undeniable: I can attest to the fact that “Tabu” certainly didn’t destroy cinema. As I live and breathe, “This Means War” is in theaters right now. On the other, suggesting that a black-and-white Portuguese puzzle picture — one that will no doubt be seen be fewer people than bought the last Russell Crowe album — is the film to shift our collective understanding of the entire medium is the kind of emptily tunnelled statement that makes many regular moviegoers wonder what critics are even for.

In the moment, however, it’s almost possible to see what about “Tabu” would induce such dazed, irrational rapture: a sweet, sustained swoon of a film that runs the gamut from deadpan social satire to guileless golden-age romance, it’s at once like nothing and everything you’ve seen before. The title isn’t coincidentally pinched from F.W. Murnau’s 1931 silent “Tabu: A Story of the South Seas,” a glistening, Polynesia-set slice of Hollywood exotica, detailing the corruption of native passion by Western cultural interference, from which Gomes’s film further borrows its post-colonial politics and two-chapter structure. 

Murnau’s film is split into two halves: “Paradise” and “Paradise Lost,” marking the blissful-then-broken union between two South Sea islanders who flee tribal oppression by sailing to a French colony. Gomes’s film is also bisected with those titles, but the order is reversed, even if the chronology isn’t. Tracing in delayed, concentrated flashback the dissolution of a heated affair between 1950s Portuguese colonialists in Africa, it’s less a formal pastiche of Murnau’s film than a deceptively contemporary essay on our own history of cultural appropriation.

Or perhaps not at all. Gomes’s cinema is an agreeably permeable one, inviting the viewer to make quite as much or as little sense of the proceedings as he wishes. It certainly doesn’t lead us on much in the spacily comic and tonally testing first half, a deliberately off-key stretch of wall-eyed absurdism set in present-day Lisbon, wherein lonely middle-aged spinster Pilar (Teresa Madruga) fusses over her elderly neighbor Aurora (Laura Soveral), a coldly imperious but dementia-afflicted dowager plagued with a gambling addiction, racist delusions that her black maid is practising voodoo against her and inscrutable memories of a pet crocodile. Gomes allows scenes to unfold with prickly, pause-laden stiltedness; any connection to a silvery, stylized prologue set in East Africa is all but impossible to discern as the film threatens to remain as maddeningly opaque as the director’s 2008 acquired-taste critical pet “Our Beloved Month of August.”

At the apparent point of no return, however, the old woman’s death ushers in “Paradise,” a woozy, poetically narrated but diegetically wordless vision of her salad days as a Moçambiquan farm wife told from the wistful perspective of a stranger at her funeral. (“She had a farm in Africa,” he explains, adding a certain Oscar-winning National Geographic shampoo commercial to its catholic list of cinematic winks.)  The film’s palette may be monochrome throughout, but in every other tonal respect, this shift is equivalent to switching from black-and-white to color: the characters’ motives and backstories slot neatly into place, emotions become nakedly readable, the rhythm of the piece sways in time as the filmmaking becomes progressively drunk on its own beauty.

From here on out, we’re in art-soap “White Mischief” territory, as the young Aurora (Ana Moreira) is easily lured from her marital bed by incandescently dashing Italian rogue Gianluca (Carloto Cotta, whose spiritual resemblance to Errol Flynn has been noted by more than one critic), and all expected anguish ensues. Heightened classicism lent quirk and feeling by the elegantly worded voiceover, “Paradise” puts the stiff chill of the film’s first half, with its flashes of lingering hurt and prejudice, into context — while remaining, on its own terms, the single most romantic thing I’ve seen in forever.

Somehow both densely academic and dumbly sensual in its charms, reflective of a cinematic diet that spans Murnau and Lucrecia Martel, “Tabu” is singularly beguiling, and beguilingly singular. All that, and it features a Portuguese-language version of The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” that will bring tears to your eyes. Distributors, please.

If the joy of “Tabu” lies in its structural skips and swirls, it’s the still, centered discipline of Christian Petzold’s “Barbara” that impresses most — at the risk of invoking bland cultural stereotypes, this gravely humorous, sourly affecting character-study-as-thriller is as quintessentially, well, German a film as you’ll see all year. Across such similarly stoic films as “Yella” and his “Postman Always Rings Twice” riff “Jerichow,” Petzold has established a subtly distinctive brand of deliberate containment, but “Barbara” is perhaps his most expansive, deeply etched film yet: a study of social and self-isolation across the fraught political borders of 1980 East Germany  that only incrementally reveals itself as a taciturn love story, it mines the same drably underlit history of crossover hit “The Lives of Others” with more teasingly ambiguous results.  

In a performance of tremendous gravity and wit that would likely have earned her Best Actress honors if she hadn’t won just four years ago for equally compelling work in “Yella,” Petzold’s muse of sorts, Nina Hoss, plays the the title character: a reserved Berlin doctor demoted to a lesser position at a country hospital in the German Democratic Republic after an unspecified professional infraction. As she steadfastly refuses to bond with her co-workers — “Berlin,” they sneer, as if that one word encapsulates her entire character — it’s left to head doctor Andre (an excellent Ronald Zehrfeld) to chip away at her defenses, as she secretly plots a cross-border escape.

The film grows unexpectedly plotty as a pair of troubled patients crucially propel the drama in the later stages, but Petzold never overplays his hand stylistically, daring to keep the pace unnervingly moderate even as incidents pile up, patiently allowing the camera to drink in each yellowed corner of the musty period production design as Hoss’s brilliant, breakable stare meets it head-on. When Petzold unexpectedly signs off proceedings with the creamy disco surge of Chic’s “At Last I Am Free” in the closing credits, you can practically hear the cast and crew’s exhalations. 

Compared to these two exactingly crafted arthouse statements, Ursula Meier’s “Sister“ — an ill-fitting English title for a film principally carried by a 12-year-old boy — feels like a fleeter, more on-the-fly achievement until a mild mid-film twist announces a turn into delicate emotional territory. Even when the narrative bruises more easily, however, there’s a jazzy restlessness to Meier’s direction that keeps both austerity and sentimentality at bay. Many might cry heresy, but this briskly funny, softly moving study of near-feral youth is, for me, the film so many critics see in the Dardennes’ “The Kid With a Bike.” 

Keen-eyed youngster Kacey Mottet Klein plays Simon, a resourceful young punk with elastic moral standards who, in the alleged absence of his parents, supports himself by stealing and reselling wealthy tourists’ equipment at the Swiss ski resort near the grim valley tower block he calls home. He lives with his apparent older sister and guardian Louise (Lea Seydoux), a workshy boyfriend-hopper who may have an even hazier sense of self-accountability than the boy; the film cleverly keeps the shape and proximity of their relationship in flux from beginning to end, questioning standard notions of family and necessity as the full limitations of their domestic situation become apparent.

It’s a playful but quietly aching everyday survival drama, beautifully played by the two leads. Seydoux, visibly delighted to be given a slightly grubby, threadbare character after a run of porcelain perfection, hits an early-career peak, while Klein (who starred in Meier’s previous feature, the rewarding but comparatively unpolished “Home”) is a genuine find: quick, intuitive, unafraid to play up to either the character’s stroppiness or intelligence. (There are sharp supporting turns, too, from Gillian Anderson and Martin Compston as initially sympathetic foreigners Simon encounters at the resort.)

Rather like the performances, there’s more finesse in Meier’s freestyle than initially meets the eye: it helps, of course, to hire Claire Denis’s favorite DP, the masterfully offhand Agnes Godard, to play her deft tricks of light on this sunbleached stretch of the Alps. Long may this partnership continue.

And it’s on that happy note that I conclude this year’s Berlinale coverage; I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have. Some extra festival reviews can also be found under my Variety byline, including Matthias Glasner’s Competition entry “Mercy,” an overworked but effectively acted family melodrama with more than a touch of Susanne Bier about it, and “Calm at Sea,” a handsome if slightly stolid French Resistance drama that represents a respectable comeback effort for German veteran Volker Schlondorff.    

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

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Well, were you honestly expecting anything else? Thanks to a slew of WGA ineligibilities — notably that of Best Picture Oscar frontrunner “The Artist” — the competition for these particular Guild awards had already been considerably narrowed, and true enough, the winners were precisely the two films that been set up to triumph here all season long. Only in one of the two screenplay categories can tonight’s result be seriously considered as a bellwether for Oscar night; the other remains a virtual toss-up.

In a season heavy on veteran nominees, the Guild played along by adding to the laurels to two multiple previous honorees: Woody Allen took his fifth WGA award in the Best Original Screenplay category for “Midnight in Paris,” while Alexander Payne took his third Best Adapted Screenplay gong for “The Descendants,” sharing the prize with fellow writers (if not collaborators) Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

Interestingly, both men have higher strike rates with this group than with the Academy. Aside from “Annie Hall” and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” for which he won both awards, Allen was rewarded by the Guild for “Broadway Danny Rose” and “Crimes and Misdemeanors” — but lost the Oscar to “Places in the Heart” and “Dead Poets Society,” respectively. Payne, meanwhile, won here in 1999 for “Election” — preceding his WGA and Oscar wins for “Sideways” by five years — but sadly fell to “The Cider House Rules” on Oscar night. (Advantage: Guild.)

On all three of these divergences, the WGA winner was hampered by the lack of a Best Picture nod — not a problem either man faces this year. That said, I’m thinking Allen may once more have to settle for Guild gold: though he also won the Golden Globe, Michel Hazanavicius recently beat him to the BAFTA for “The Artist,” and the French phenomenon’s momentum is such that I expect many voters to check it off in this category without too much thought.

It’s been seven years since a Best Picture nominee failed to take a writing Oscar. While conventional logic would have “The Artist” at a disadvantage in this category due to its lack of words — screenwriting may not be dialogue, but it’s the easiest way for a lot of non-experts to define and evaluate the craft — there’s just as much chance that voters will be tickled by the novelty of awarding a mostly silent work here. There may be lingering sentiment in the Academy for Allen to win another Oscar — even if the man himself couldn’t give a damn — but given the minimal presence of “Midnight in Paris” in the Best Picture conversation, how does it stack up against their overall love for Hazanavicius’s film?   

Over in Best Adapted Screenplay, however, things are looking a little less complicated. A couple of weeks ago, there seemed to be a brief window here for “Moneyball,” or even “Hugo,” as momentum for “The Descendants” slowed. But Alexander Payne’s film has come roaring back this weekend. While another writing win at the USC Scripter Awards doesn’t mean much in the scheme of things, the family dramedy’s surprise win with the American Cinema Editors last night is a show of strength to any observers who thought it might be headed for an “Up in the Air”-style slump.

Finally, the documentary screenplay prize went to a film not nominated by the Academy: terrorist study “Better This World” beat a high-profile field including Oscar nominees “Pina” (not exactly a writing achievement) and “If a Tree Falls,” as well as critical favorites “Senna” and “Nostalgia for the Light.” That means the three biggest Guilds have awarded for docs not on the Oscar list. (The DGA went for “Project Nim,” the PGA for “Beats, Rhymes and Life.”) That category is just out to trip us up this year.

Anyway, another one down. The full list of honorees:

Best Original Screenplay: Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, “The Descendants”

Best Documentary Screenplay: Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega, “Better This World”

Paul Selvin Award: Tate Taylor, “The Help” 

Laurel Award: Eric Roth

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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The Cinema Audio Society has made some interesting calls over the years. “True Grit” last season, in the face of blockbuster and eventual Oscar winner “Inception.” “No Country for Old Men” in 2007 rather than the skillfully layered “Transformers” (and, again, eventual Oscar winner “The Bourne Ultimatum”). “Road to Perdition” over musical heavyweight “Chicago” and feast for the ears “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.”

I applaud that. Very much. And indeed, when you look over their history, they often eschew the big, “loud” stuff that tends to have an easier time at the Oscars. In addition to the above-mentioned “Inception” and “The Two Towers,” they ignored all the “Spider-Man” films, all the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, “King Kong,” “The Dark Knight,” etc., etc. Well, tonight they did something they have done a few times in the past — they went with a serious Best Picture contender that doesn’t really have showcase sound qualities. They went with “Hugo.”

In the past the CAS has awarded films like “Forrest Gump,” “The English Patient,” “The Aviator,” “Dreamgirls,” the above-mentioned “No Country for Old Men” and “Slumdog Millionaire” when there were more deserving entries in the field, and I think that’s the case this year. I’d have gone with “Hanna” or “Moneyball,” the two surprise nominees of the bunch, before Martin Scorsese’s big opus, personally.

The question now is whether “Hugo” is indeed the one to watch for Oscar. Most think so. But I don’t quite get it. “War Horse” was not among the CAS nominees, which is a knock against its Oscar chances. Ditto “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” probably the best sound job of the year.

I’ve been leaning on “War Horse” to take both sound categories since the nominations were announced, but I’m starting to lean toward a split. My rule of thumb generally is pick one film for both, as far as hedging on predictions is concerned, but perhaps “Hugo” wins sound mixing and “War Horse” takes sound editing? There are some who think the big phase two push on behalf of “Transformers” could land it one of the prizes, but I still think that’s doubtful.

Anyway, we still have a week before we need to settle on final calls. I intend to take all of it making up my mind.

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

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

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