(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.)

US audiences will once again get a chance to see the Oscar-nominated shorts this year as Shorts International (via ShortsHD) and Magnolia Pictures will be launching its popular program for the seventh-straight year. The nominees for animation, live action and documentaries (included for just the second year) will hit 200 theaters across the country for a limited time on February 10.

This year’s crop of contenders in the animated field is a bit thin compared to years past, I feel. There’s a great diversity of craft, which is always nice — and typical, as the branch generally does a good job of representing a solid cross-section. However, I just wasn’t as taken with as many of the nominees as I usually am. Nevertheless, personally speaking, one entry really stands out above the rest and could be the winner. Though, of course, we know what assuming can do for us in this category. It’s always a fresh race and this year might be no different.

The nominees are…

“Dimanche (Sunday)” (Patrick Doyon)

“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” (William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg)

“La Luna” (Enrico Casarosa)

“A Morning Stroll” (Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe)

“Wild Life” (Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby)

We have computer animation and traditional animation both well-represented, though nothing in the stop-motion vein this year. But I have a feeling a certain studio will finally grab this statue after a long drought in the category.

I liked the exaggerated traditional style of “Dimanche (Sunday),” directed by first-timer Patrick Doyon. And it ultimately has an unbridled imaginative visual streak that is tough to begrudge. But it didn’t really click for me. It has a single moment of nifty metaphor (equating a gaggle of chattering family members to crows cawing on a phone line), but it doesn’t really have the density to carry it much further than this or that neat beat. From a craft perspective, the crude animation is endearing and interesting, but it doesn’t feel entirely unique, either. The film is one of three nominees here, though, that was also nominated for an Annie Award.

There is a lot of playful creativity to be found in “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” which marks animation producer William Joyce‘s (“Robots,” “Rolie Polie Olie”) debut at the helm. He’s nominated alongside co-director Brandon Oldenburg. It could be something to watch for with its thematic color bursts, flip-book odes and concentrated dose of emotion. Joyce is an accomplished illustrator and animator who has published “New Yorker” covers and worked with Pixar in the early days. In addition, there is an interactive book app to go along with the film for the iPad, so as it pertains to progressing the medium, this one certainly stands out for that.

Pixar’s “La Luna” (also nominated for an Annie), from gifted director Enrico Casarosa, seems like it could be the one to be the one to beat here. Ever since I first saw it at Telluride, I’ve been enamored by its beauty, vibrant imagination and thematic virtue. It’s a fairytale of sorts, but it’s also about forging your own way. And it’s easily the best Pixar short in years (perhaps ever). It’s interesting that a film from the studio could be in a position to win in a category that has eluded its filmmakers for so long in the same year that the feature category saw its first snub to date. The short will appear in front of this summer’s “Brave” and could have a big feather in its cap by that time should it come out on top here, but a losing streak like the one Pixar has does make you wonder if there’s just a bit of bias going on.

Casper G. Clausen’s “The Chicken,” published in “The New York Literary Review” in 1986, provides the seed for “A Morning Stroll,” quite the unique entry with it’s brisk pace and and colorful personality. Clausen’s thing is really just a brief yarn (collected by Paul Auster in the volume “True Stories from American Life”) about a chicken walking down a New York street, hopping up a few stairs and rapping on a door with its beak before being let inside. Filmmakers Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe use that to spin in a very different direction, but ultimately it’s a bit slight compared to the others, so I’d say it’s the least likely to register. It was, however, the only nominee to also be chalked up for a BAFTA award, and it also just won a jury prize at Sundance last week.

Another one to watch for here might just be “Wild Life,” the third and final Annie contender of the lot, from former nominees Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby (“When the Day Breaks”). The film is quite striking with its rugged, painterly quality. That quality is meant to reflect the great wild frontier of the film’s setting as a young Englishman lights out for the Canadian territories. Interspersed throughout are factoids about comets, meant to parallel the main character’s journey and fate. It’s a bit abstract here and there but it tells a streamlined, thematically rich story with vivid animation and novel visual ideas, so I could see it getting some major support within the branch.

Will win: “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”

Could win: “La Luna”

Should win: “La Luna”

Should have been here: (abstain)

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I always find Sundance coverage rather difficult to follow from a distance — critics there seem to talk much more about what they’re seeing next than what they just saw, leaving me more aware of titles than actual movies. Still, two films generated enough buzz to permeate my consciousness, and as it happens they both emerged as prizewinners on the weekend: the rapturously reviewed “Beasts of the Southern Wild” took the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic features, while “The Surrogate,” an acclaimed performance vehicle for John Hawkes and Helen Hunt, took both an Audience Award and a Jury Prize for its cast. Both have been acquired by Fox Searchlight, and some are already whispering the O-word. I just can’t go there, but I’m glad we’re allowed to like Hunt again. Greg Ellwood has the full list of winners. [Awards Campaign]

Andrew O’Hehir picks out the titles to watch from this year’s festival. [Salon]

Surprise SAG winner Jean Dujardin celebrates his victory with a few bars of “La Marsellaise.” Because, you know, he wasn’t already charming enough. [YouTube]

Even if you’re not as thrilled as I am by Dujardin’s win, Jeffrey Wells’ prolonged sulk about this year’s Oscar race makes for highly enjoyable theater. [Hollywood Elsewhere] 

Struck by the obvious inspiration “The Descendants” takes from “Tokyo Story?” Me neither, but Oscar-nominated editor Kevin Tent explains. [Thompson on Hollywood]

Why “The Descendants” settles on resignation as man’s answer to living in a “post-macho world,” whatever that may be. [The Guardian]

George Clooney and Stephen Daldry join three of this year’s Best Director nominees for a round-table discussion. (You can guess which two are absent.) [LA Times]

Mark London Williams talk to FX man Erik Nash, something of a surprise Oscar nominee for “Real Steel.” [Below the Line]

Still stumped by that wild Best Picture nod for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” Michael C. suggests the film was actually helped by its bad reviews. [The Film Experience]

The 18th annual Screen Actors Guild went down tonight and added, well, nothing to the conversation. Okay, maybe a little something. But before getting to the Best Actor surprise of the evening…

I had thought maybe — just maybe — Melissa McCarthy and all that TV love (though not enough love to yield a separate nod for “Mike & Molly”) could provide an interesting Johnny Depp moment for her and her “Bridesmaids” performance. It wasn’t to be.

Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer kicked off the evening with largely expected wins in the supporting actor and supporting actress categories for “Beginners” and “The Help,” respectively. Most expect that they’ve sewn up their Oscar glory, but I think in the case of the former, the presence of Max Von Sydow in Best Picture nominee “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” makes things a bit more interesting than that, but for the most part, I do agree that the course is (and really has been) set.

The big surprise, though, came with Jean Dujardin winning the lead actor prize for “The Artist” (the film’s only award of the evening). Does this move the needle for him on Oscar? Perhaps a little, though the smart money still remains on George Clooney there (who, by the way, remains without a SAG Award to his credit, save for the four years in a row that “E.R.” won the ensemble prize for drama television). I don’t think Dujardin will turn the trick with the Oscars, but I’m certainly not certain of that. It’s an interesting development.

In the end, though, it was “The Help” that enjoyed a massive and a hell of a night. The film won three awards, with Viola Davis and the entire ensemble joining the aforementioned Spencer in lapping up the goodwill. I thought things might be spread out a bit more than that, but that’s a strong showing. If the film had a director and/or editing nomination at the Oscars, I’d expect it to be quite formidable. But this looks like it may be the height of the season for the film.

In addition, Mary Tyler Moore was honored with the guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented by Dick Van Dyke, and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” won the stunt ensemble prize on the red carpet prior to the ceremony.

Once again, check out the winners of the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild awards below. Onward.

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “The Help”

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Viola Davis, “The Help”

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Octavia Spencer, “The Help”

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”

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

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SANTA BARBARA – Tonight brought the second tribute of this year’s Santa Barbara film fest, a spotlight for “Beginners” star Christopher Plummer and the festival’s highest honor: the Modern Master Award.

The evening was moderated by Deadline columnist Pete Hammond, who is a perfect fit for this kind of honoree with his own personal obsessive classic film knowledge and considerations. Plummer told Hammond and the captivated audience a number of wonderful stories throughout the evening, starting at the beginning with his awakening to the arts.

He was encouraged at a young age in Montreal to seek out everything that would play the local cinemas, any kind of theater or ballet, etc. He gravitated toward it quickly and he remembered nursing many a cold beer at this or that club, seeing a young Judy Garland in his youth, a young Frank Sinatra and Edith Piaf, even. “I thought, ‘This is the greatest life,'” he recalled. And soon he made it his own.

Classic theater actress Eva Le Gallienne first spurred Plummer to try his hand at something on the stage, his first big Broadway production. He was giddy, delighted to finally be wading into the waters of drama. “The play closed in one night,” he said to laughter from the crowd. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s it. I guess that’s my career.”

Of course, it wasn’t the end of the road and he forged ahead, working with the likes of Judith Anderson and Katherine Cornell and eventually living it up. He recalled actresses the caliber of Cornell and Ethel Barrymore being the last to travel in such style as to have full trains dedicated to their needs. “It was like traveling with royalty,” he said.

Eventually he transitioned to television and noted the natural shifts that come for an actor making that transition. Recalling a live TV western featuring Lee Marvin, who couldn’t control his horse in one scene and careened into a papier-mâché mountain (after which the horse “crapped” — all on live television), Plummer observed, “You couldn’t get away with anything.”

Moving into feature filmmaking, the actor came into the medium at a time when massive, large-scale historical epics were en vogue. “Money was no object,” he said. “You’d have these three-hour lunches.” He recalled fancy lunch services brought right up into the mountains of one production, the kind of mobilization he couldn’t fathom for something like that. “How we made a movie, I don’t know,” he joked.

Hammond brought up working with Natalie Wood on 1965’s “Inside Daisy Clover,” the same year, by the way, that brought Plummer’s most recognizable work: “The Sound of Music.” Anyone who’s kept up with the actor, particularly via his memoir, “In Spite of Myself,” knows that he’s well over the spectacle that Best Picture-winning musical became. “Can we move on to something else,” he quipped after barely touching the subject.

But on “Inside Daisy Clover” Plummer found himself working with a young up-and-comer of the time, actor Robert Redford. “He was rather promising, I thought,” Plummer said with his matter-of-fact sense of humor. “And way too good looking, with that impudent red hair.”

He also touched on working with director John Huston on “The Man Who Would Be King” in 1975, which gave the audience a chance to observe Plummer’s pitch-perfect Huston impression. “We knew of him, of course,” he said, recalling when he received the role; he had not met Huston prior. “And everything was true. He’d hunt elephants, which I found it difficult to forgive him for. We’d be waiting forever on set for him to come back from hunting.”

Plummer, it turns out, was almost cut from the film as Huston was toying with doing away with the character of Rudyard Kipling (if you can even believe it). Co-star Sean Connery changed all that but fast by swinging his weight around at a time when he had, well, the biggest one in the room, shall we say. (You’re talking about post-Bond, a huge star of the time, etc.)

Then the discussion finally came around to one of my personal favorite performances ever: Plummer’s depiction of “60 Minutes” newsman Mike Wallace in Michael Mann’s “The Insider.” He was criminally snubbed by the Academy in a year (1999) when he probably should have walked away with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

“He was so vivid in my mind and my memory,” Plummer said of the TV titan. “He could make people cry. He was a cruel guy, but he was a marvelous TV journalist. I was terrified that he would loathe my performance.”

Those fears were assuaged when Wallace later gave Plummer the thumbs up for his portrayal and noted, “I always open my lecture tours by saying, ‘I am not Christopher Plummer.'”

Hammond made it a point of noting that Plummer was into his 80s when he finally received recognition from the Academy in the form of an Oscar nomination (for 2009’s “The Last Station”). When you look at the clip reel and all the curated moments from his career on that screen, you begin to side with the disbelief, but Plummer took it in stride and barely seemed to give it a second thought. “Charlie Chaplin didn’t get an award until he was 80,” he said. “He basically invented cinema. So I’m in good company.”

Regarding his work this year, Plummer said he was particularly moved by his character’s trajectory in “Beginners” (based in part on the father of writer/director Mike Mills, who came out as a gay man late in life). He noted the desire to live a loving and open life and to get the most out of it, no matter how late in the game it might be. “That’s a lesson we all could learn,” he said.

He also tipped his hat to Rooney Mara, who co-starred with him in David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and received an Oscar nomination last week for her performance. “For tackling that role, almost pornographic, in a way,” he said, “she’s so damn brave.”

Mills — a native Santa Barbaran — took to the stage at the end of the evening to present the Modern Master Award. He gave a lengthy, heart-felt speech expressing thanks to Plummer for finding ways to illuminate his own father in ways he hadn’t quite envisioned when he committed the story to the page and commended him, enviously, on his camaraderie with his fellow actors. And in accepting the honor, Plummer kept the mood light as he had throughout. “I’m sure I don’t deserve this,” he said. “But no one’s going to take it from me.”

And with that, the evening came to a close. Festival director Roger Durling noted before introducing Mills that he hasn’t wanted to honor someone as much as he has Plummer, because as a poor boy growing up in Panama, the first movie he went to see was “The Sound of Music.” Sure, it might be one that Plummer would rather not discuss at length these days, but it’s the one that sparked an interest in the heart of a man who would later inject a lot of energy into a festival built on honoring talents like Plummer, and so it was nicely full circle.

From here, Plummer goes on to the SAG Awards tomorrow night, where he’ll likely turn up a win for Best Supporting Actor in “Beginners.” But the presence of Max Von Sydow (also 82, also with two Oscar nods and no wins) in the same category at the Oscars makes things a little bit more interesting — especially with the presence of “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” in the Best Picture category. Is it a cakewalk for Plummer after all? Maybe not, but the work nevertheless speaks for itself, and for tonight at least, he’s recognized with Santa Barbara’s most significant prize: Modern Master.

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And with that, I think you can just about call this Oscar race — if you weren’t willing to do so already. Fabricate uncertainty if you like by remembering the last time the winner of the award didn’t take the Oscar (it was Rob Marshall, nine years ago), but in winning the Directors’ Guild of America Award last night, “The Artist” and Michel Hazanavicius have enjoyed their biggest and most telling victory yet on the circuit.

There was speculation in some quarters that immense peer affection for previous DGA honoree Martin Scorsese could see him pull off an upset, but I’m not sure how realistic a prospect that really was — when the industry embraces a frontrunner as warmly as they have “The Artist,” and it happens to be a film that hinges on its showy directorial conceits, there’s little reason to suspect they won’t reward the helmer as well.

The elegant Frenchman may have been the one first-time nominee in a field of heavyweights including Scorsese, Woody Allen, Alexander Payne and David Fincher, but that was ultimately of little consequence: as we saw last year when Tom Hooper similarly beat a field of more seasoned names, the Guild tends to vote on how they like the film you’ve made now, not the ones you’ve made before, and so they should.

Coming off last week’s Producers’ Guild win, “The Artist” now has history firmly on its side in the top Oscar race. In the 23 years both awards have been in existence, only three films have failed to win Best Picture after netting both the DGA and PGA prizes: “Apollo 13” in 1995 (which lost the Oscar to “Braveheart”), “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998 (“Shakespeare in Love”) and “Brokeback Mountain” in 2005 (“Crash”).

In the last two cases, the eventual spoiler made its presence felt at the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, though it’s hard to imagine the SAG ensemble award being similarly indicative tonight: “The Help” is favored by many to take the prize, but no longer seems a Best Picture threat after its poor showing with the Academy’s non-acting branches, while “Hugo” isn’t even SAG-nominated. Of course, should “The Artist” take down that award as well — a distinct possibility — it’ll be hard to see where any formidable opposition could come from.

Over in the documentary category, meanwhile, the DGA did nothing to clarify an intriguingly misty Oscar race, opting for the name that most were surprised not to see on the Academy’s list earlier this week: James Marsh for “Project Nim.” (Indeed, “Paradise Lost 3” turned out to be the only Oscar nominee also up for the Guild honor.) Marsh’s victory, the first of his career, meant Scorsese went 0-for-2 in last night’s ceremony: he had also been nominated for his music doc “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.” 

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 DGA Awards will be going down tonight, and the smart money remains on Michel Hazanavicius. But speaking of directors, I hadn’t quite taken note yet of the fact that two of the Academy’s nominees in the field are inevitable no-shows for the event. Stu VanAirsdale is way ahead of me, but let me add a few nuggets.

Woody Allen, of course, has only attended the Oscars once. It was a surprise appearance six months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when the writer/director came out to introduce a Nora Ephron-directed package of clips featuring New York cinema in a show of solidarity for the city.

My colleague Steve Pond tells the story of being backstage and seeing “Nora Ephron” on the rundown, a placeholder for someone, but for whom, no one knew. It wasn’t until Allen walked by decked out in his tux that everyone suddenly went, “Oh, shit.”

Indeed; Allen’s harsh words about the ceremony from his earliest days are evergreen. “I have no regard for that kind of ceremony,” he said in 1978, after having won Best Picture and Best Director for “Annie Hall,” interestingly enough. “I just don’t think they know what they’re doing. When you see who wins those things — or who doesn’t win them — you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is.”

But it’s not just that Allen balks at the idea of competition in the arts. He has also consistently turned down the Academy’s invitation to him to join their ranks. It’s a bit of the old Groucho Marx, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member,” but Allen also just clearly doesn’t believe in the mission of the Academy, at least as it pertains to getting together and patting each other on the back.

So yes, his popping up on the March 2002 telecast was a pretty big deal. But it was a fleeting deal. In fact, he was already ripping his bow tie off as he walked off the stage, hence the backstage press photo above.

Malick, meanwhile, has never once attended the ceremony. He’s only been nominated one time prior to this year, of course, but his reclusive ways in the media department have naturally stretched to this and any other awards show. However, there’s an interesting history behind the year he almost did attend.

Prior to the release of “The Thin Red Line” in 1998, producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau allegedly violated a confidentiality clause they had signed by giving an interview to Vanity Fair about their tumultuous relationship with Malick during the making of the film.

This didn’t go over well with the director, nor with 20th Century Fox or Phoenix Pictures. In order to keep their credit on the film, Geisler and Roberdeau had to agree to not attend the Oscars in the event the film was nominated for anything.

Well, they decided to go anyway, and Malick stated that he wouldn’t attend if they were there. And the Academy appeared to take Malick’s side, as Geisler and Roberdeau were seated in the middle of a row, 16 rows back from the other nominees for the film.

The two producers opted out of attending in the end, as did Malick. It’s probably a good thing, since the film went home empty-handed. “Shakespeare in Love” and “Saving Private Ryan” were all but set to dominate the entire telecast as it was, and the one category in which “The Thin Red Line” had a shot — Best Adapted Screenplay — Bill Condon ended up winning for “Gods and Monsters,” a total surprise (and one for Condon, too, judging by his reaction upon hearing his name called).

As always, fingers are crossed that Allen and/or Malick decide to show up after all. Malick did attend the premiere of “The Tree of Life” at Cannes, even if he didn’t show up to accept the Palme d’Or. We can always hope. But you know what they say about old people being stuck in their ways.

Here is Allen’s one and only appearance on the Oscars from a decade (wow) ago:

Meanwhile, since this is interesting and relevant to the season as well as the topic at hand, here is “Beginners” star Christopher Plummer at a Newsweek round table being quite candid about working with Malick. I cracked up at how Clooney jumps in to pounce, too. Yes, George, we know you were in the movie. Barely:

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Typically blooper reels feature actors breaking out of their created roles. There may be some unforeseen accident on set, a stray boom falling into frame, performers losing their handle on the dialogue (or language in general), unexpected bouts of Tourette syndrome, uncontrolled laughing during the funeral scene or otherwise unusable, though amusing, takes. But it is always clear that, for that moment, Fred Friendly (or whoever the character is) has dropped away and George Clooney (or whichever actor) has reemerged.

What is striking about the blooper reel from Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist” that Coming Soon made available yesterday is that it is difficult to discern the moment where George Valentin/Peppy Miller disappear and Jean Dujardin/Bérénice Bejo emerge. Sure, when Uggie the dog fails to follow a command, it is obvious that the shot has not gone as planned (it is also more than a little bit adorable). When poor Bejo face plants in the midst of a sequence, we know it wasn”t an “I meant to do that.” But the distinction between actor and character is infinitesimal at best.

The featurette evokes the same sense of frothy warmth that the film itself does. It is charming, light and vivaciously stylized. The players carry with them a sweetness and charisma that makes the viewer want to watch and laugh with them. That inherently enchanting quality serves and supports the film’s appeal. But the blooper reel also provides a reminder of why I have been so perplexed by the overwhelmingly positive awards season response to the film. With 10 Oscar nominations and three Golden Globe wins, “The Artist” is (and has been throughout the duration of the precursor season) one of the unequivocal darlings of the year.

It is endearingly engaging, but fails to evoke a deeper visceral or emotional response. There is an airy, easy quality to it that makes it incredibly enjoyable to watch and communicates the director’s enthusiasm for cinema. But there is no real sense of sophistication or palpable, significant themes being plumbed.

The choice to pull out the performances has been particularly befuddling. Lively and winsome as they absolutely are, they are also, by nature of the script, story and manner of film, quite broad. With the vulnerable, nuanced and painfully raw performances available this season, the nominations for “The Artist” feel like another example of the remarkable power and scope of The Weinstein Company”s marketing arm. If there was an Academy Award for running Academy Award campaigns, they would be the Meryl Streep of that field.

In any event, I did find “The Artist” to be charismatic and pleasant, so for a glance at the outtakes of what was (for me) one of the feel-good, if not soul-affecting, films of the year, have a look at the video below.

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SANTA BARBARA – The tributes at this year’s Santa Barbara Film Festival kicked off with a bang tonight as Viola Davis took the stage at the Arlington Theatre to be fluffed up for her Outstanding Performer of the Year Award. And in my four or five years of attending the festival, it was one of the better productions I’ve seen.

After Davis’s “The Help” co-star Octavia Spencer introduced the actress, my Oscar Talk colleague Anne Thompson served as moderator for the evening — her first stint in this format, and she did a great job. But Davis also makes it very easy with her organic and incredibly thoughtful responses. Truly, she commands this kind of setting so well, offering up authentic, specific insights into her process as an actress, and not in a sound byte way, but with a kind of matter-of-fact poignancy that really is exceptional. She’s “on” in ways other stars only hope to be in such a scenario.

Davis first went back to the beginning of her crazy dream of being an actress, recalling the first time she saw Cicely Tyson in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” in the 1970s. “I saw a craftsperson,” she said of the seminal moment. “I saw magic.”

Some time was spent on her Julliard training, which she chose in a bout of “eenie, meenie, miny, moe” and candidly described as “bad-tasting medicine” that nevertheless worked. But then there were the questions that drove out her philosophy on the work.

Indeed, “job” was a word thrown around a lot by Davis this evening, as the importance of having a gig and sustaining a presence as an actress, staying in creative shape, if you will, was specifically highlighted. And for Davis, it has been a long line of co-starring and supporting roles that led to her first major part in 2011’s “The Help.” She’s grateful for the experience of paying those dues, however, and found it quite formative.

“Your job is to get material, good or bad, and make something of it,” she said. “If we all waited for ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ we’d be waiting a long time.”

She noted that, so often, her function as a character actor has been “to facilitate the emotional journey of the lead character, which is often caucasian. It’s about how you take a role that serves a function and humanize it.”

She spoke frequently along these lines, referring to roles as the “clay” for her to “mold” into something beyond what might be on the page. That commitment to digging something unexpected out of her various appearances in films like “Out of Sight,” “Antwone Fisher” and “Doubt,” to name but a few, is what has made her stand out.

And watching the various clip packages throughout the night, it became clear why Davis is bound to win an Oscar next month: she has worked with EVERYONE, and they’e all rooting for her. George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Oliver Stone, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, the list is long and substantial.

One of her early breaks came from director Steven Soderbergh, who cast her in “Out of Sight,” “Traffic” and “Solaris” and was a big champion of hers from the start. “What I learned from him is to relax and to just be,” she said, indicating that coming from the stage, where projecting character outwardly is so important, it can be difficult to dial things down and let the camera pick up the nuance. “It’s that seamlessness that happens in life,” she continued. “He’s always so calm that it makes you relax.”

And then, of course, there’s Meryl Streep. Davis got giddy when she recalled working with her 2011 Best Actress competition on 2008’s “Doubt,” which saw four months of preparation for eight minutes of screen time. “It was awesome,” she said of the centerpiece scene of the film, which pitted her in a one-on-one with Streep. “Just the highlight of my life.” She basically admitted to stalking the veteran actress on the set, gleaning what she could. “I know I was aggravating her,” she joked. “Every time she’d leave, I’d come up with a question to bring her back to me.”

She talked briefly about Tyler Perry, who she worked with on “Madea Goes to Jail.” Thompson asked a bit of a prodding question — “Do you approve of Tyler Perry?” — to which Davis expertly shifted to the point of his employment practices, putting a number of African Americans to work both above and below the line, which is important to Davis.

Then it was on to the presentation of the award, which was a special moment unto itself as Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain activist Medgar Evers, was on hand to dedicate it. The death of Medgar Evers is what sends the characters of “The Help” on the journey of conveying their story, so the synergy was wonderful.

“Abilene and the characters of ‘The Help’ remind us that when we speak, if only in a whisper, momentous things can happen,” Evers-Williams said. And when Davis accepted the award, she noted again her time as a character actor, and offered up her gratitude that, through it all, she stuck out enough to be where she finds herself today.

I spoke to Davis briefly at a Montecito after party, particularly to ask her what it feels like to be in two Best Picture nominees this year (the other being “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” which wasn’t even referenced during the evening outside of a clip). Like many, Davis was stunned to hear the film’s title called on Tuesday and thought the time had come and gone.

Spencer, Evers-Williams, Samuel L. Jackson and “The Help” writer/director Tate Taylor were all on hand to toast the actress’s big evening at the soiree. And it’s sure to be just one of many as the season pushes forward. Next up is the SAG Awards on Sunday, which could easily see Davis take the lead actress prize. And, soon enough, the Oscars.

Davis, by the way, is only the third performer to be honored a second time by the festival after Annette Bening and Kate Winslet.

Tomorrow night the tributes continue as “Beginners” star Christopher Plummer will be handed the festival’s highest honor: the Modern Master Award.

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

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http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4913920947001

One of the documentary features nominated by the Academy Tuesday was Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Matin’s “Undefeated.” No, not the Sarah Palin thing. This is a chronicle of an inner-city North Memphis, Tennessee high school football team’s journey through one defining season, with all the petty and profound drama that comes with it, and it’s an outstanding portrait.

If you’re a fan of football, you’re sure to take to it and no-nonsense coach Bill Courtney immediately. If you’re not a football fan, you might just find yourself surprised by the film and the universal elements it folds in. “You think football builds character,” Courtney says in the film. “It does not. Football reveals character.”

Of course, the film is about more than just the high school gridiron. It uses this one season to tell a rousing underdog tale, one that makes you thankful the cameras were there to capture it. The Weinstein Company picked the film up out of South by Southwest in March and has already spun it into an Oscar success story. How far can it go in a documentary feature category that appears ripe for the taking?

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.)

After seeming an excitingly scattered race for much of the season, Best Supporting Actress solidified with curious rapidity in the weeks leading up to the nominations. By the time ballots were in, only six names were seriously in contention for a slot — and as we predicted, a strong Best Picture vehicle wasn’t enough to get SAG-snubbed 20 year-old Shailene Woodley across the line.

What we have is a respectable if not terribly enterprising selection of performances, with one broad turn in a summer comedy smash crashing the polite prestige party, one seasoned British stage vet preventing a complete slate of first-time nominees, one pair of twin turns from the same film (for a fourth year running) and — strangely — two unrelated performances that both hinge on a scatalogical plot point. Shit happens.  

The nominees are…

Bérénice Bejo (“The Artist”)

Jessica Chastain (“The Help”)

Melissa McCarthy (“Bridesmaids”)

Janet McTeer (“Albert Nobbs”)

Octavia Spencer (“The Help”)

The list of worthy outsiders is a long one. Since last February, Vanessa Redgrave had been rightfully tipped for a nomination for her stonily brilliant work in “Coriolanus,” but somehow The Weinstein Company couldn’t draw eyeballs to the film. There was hope for Carey Mulligan to ride Michael Fassbender’s buzz to a nomination for a career-best turn in “Shame”; both were ignored. And we can only wonder what might have happened for the superb Jeannie Berlin if Team “Margaret” had got mobilized a month or two earlier. Spilt milk, and all that.

Unless you’re a particularly thorough student of recent French cinema — or just happen to be a rabid fan of “A Knight’s Tale” — chances are Bérénice Bejo is a new face to you. That works rather neatly in her favor in Best Picture frontrunner “The Artist,” where she plays overnight sensation Peppy Miller, a bubbly movie fan plucked from obscurity and groomed for stardom by leading man George Valentin, only for her celebrity to swiftly surpass his. Bejo, the wife of director Michel Hazanavicius, handles the silent film’s trickily stylized physical comedy and melodramatic with gangly appeal and aplomb. It’s really a leading role (and nominated as such by BAFTA), but the extra screen time bolsters her chances, as does the film’s general momentum. She’s the spoiler to watch in the race.

If Bejo is merely playing a suddenly ubiquitous It girl, Jessica Chastain really is one: it seems almost unthinkable that this time last year, I had yet to encounter the striking redhead on screen. 12 months and seven films later, Chastain has arrived in a way few American actresses have since Meryl Streep in the late 1970s. She’s reaped highbrow critical plaudits for arresting indie work in “Take Shelter” and Best Picture nominee “The Tree of Life,” but the Academy did the right thing in nominating her for “The Help,” her best role of 2011: as the dim but unexpectedly liberal bimbo Celia Foote, she’s the film’s sparky moral lynchpin, smartly locating tender personal and political nuances in the script’s rather simple-minded characterization. There’s a chance fans of her collected body of work last year will concentrate enough votes here to cause an upset, but the presence of a more favored co-star in the lineup is a setback.

Melissa McCarthy‘s is an unusual case: when zesty fem-com hit “Bridesmaids” was released back in May, there was much audience affection for her spirited sidekick turn as the bawdiest, horniest member of the wedding party, but no one suggested her as a possible Oscar contender. As the year progressed, however, things slotted neatly into place for the TV-rooted comic: the film became a pop phenomenon, she won a surprise Emmy for her sitcom “Mike & Molly,” her public profile skyrocketed and her place in the awards conversation cemented. It’s hard not to be happy for her, though I wish I was higher on the performance: McCarthy’s ribald comic schtick is often inspired, but doesn’t gel with the ensemble as smartly as some of her co-stars. The nomination is her reward — but it’s no minor one, given the career boost she’s already enjoyed.

12 years ago, Janet McTeer bucked the odds to earn an unlikely Best Actress nod for microscopic indie “Tumbleweeds”: Hollywood didn’t really come calling for the tall, RADA-trained British thesp, and she’s been mostly working in theater and television ever since. “Albert Nobbs,” in which she plays brusque, bolshy, cross-dressing house painter Hubert Page, represents a rare opportunity for the actress to let loose on the big screen, and she seizes it with both hands — and one of the most jaw-dropping bosom unveilings in the history of cinema. Where co-star Glenn Close’s Oscar chances nosedived with the Irish period piece’s tepid reception, McTeer has actively benefited from the film being the teensiest bit awful: being the earthy life force of an otherwise inert vehicle is often a sound route to Oscar attention, and so it is here. She won’t win, but here’s hoping a second nom nets her better opportunities to strut her stuff.

For playing the stroppiest character with the tangiest individual narrative in the generous female ensemble of “The Help” — there are dramatic opportunities aplenty for her co-stars, but only she gets to say, “Eat my shit,” and mean it — Octavia Spencer has been the default favorite in this category since August. While I kept expecting someone to overtake her in the intervening months, the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe Awards proved that no one is tiring of the long-toiling character actress’s onscreen ‘tude and offscreen charm, and I see little reason why SAG and the Academy won’t follow suit. A second viewing of the film revealed nervy dramatic subtleties to her work beyond the irresistible shit-pie punchline, and she benefits from having fellow nominees Viola Davis and Jessica Chastain as scene partners throughout. If the year’s highest-grossing Best Picture nominee is rewarded in only one place, it’ll be here.

Will win: Octavia Spencer (“The Help”)

Could win: Bérénice Bejo (“The Artist”)

Should win: Jessica Chastain (“The Help”)

Should have been here: Vanessa Redgrave (“Coriolanus”)

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

Who do you think deserves the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress? Have your say in the comments section below. 

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

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Year after year, the Academy’s music branch finds new and inventive ways to dismay fans and pundits alike, and they were on rare form this year: from disqualifying Cliff Martinez’s acclaimed original score for “Drive” on a vague technicality to somehow finding only two nominees for Best Original Song (a record low), they made it clear to all observers that both their qualifying and voting rules are in sore need of tuning. Joe Reid offers a pointed but cool-headed diagnosis of just what’s gone wrong in the music races, criticizing the grading process that allows branch members to effectively vote against songs, while allowing that movie songs are no longer “part of the fabric of American pop music.” And I heartily co-sign his Best Adapted Score suggestion. [NPR]

Roger Ebert talks to Asghar Farhadi, and celebrates the thorny questions posed in his Oscar-nominated screenplay for “A Separation.” [Chicago Sun-Times]

Detractors beware: adorable video footage of the “Artist” team receiving the news of their Oscar nominations. Seems Bérénice Bejo is a Terrence Malick fan. [The Film Experience]

Proof of why the Oscars matter to the little guys, Jeremy Kay examines the international box office potential for “Margin Call” following its surprise writing nom. [Screen Daily] 

Oscar nominees Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy, plus the four other ladies of “Bridesmaids,” will present together at the Oscars. Should be fun. [THR]

For Tim Gray, many of this year’s Oscar nominees are linked by a common theme of identity crisis. [Variety]

John Hiscock talks to George Clooney about playing schlubby and ageing with dignity on screen. [The Telegraph]

The International 3D Society (no, me neither) is to honor documentary Oscar nominee “Pina” with a special jury prize. [Business Wire]

Finally, Vulture maps the geography of past Oscar nominees. Turns out being set in New York City is a distinct advantage… unless, of course, we’re talking about “Shame.” [Vulture]

It may be the first French frontrunner in the history of the Academy Awards, but on home turf, “The Artist” had to settle for third place in the César Award nominations. Michel Hazanavicius’s awards-guzzler landed a robust 10 nominations in the so-called French Oscars, but the top tally went to another Cannes prizewinner, actress-turned-filmmaker Maïwenn’s sprawling law-enforcement drama “Polisse,” with 13. “The Minister,” a complex political drama that won acclaim in Un Certain Regard at Cannes but doesn’t seem to have much travel potential, took 11 nods.

Of course, it’s not an entirely fair fight. With its vast ensemble cast, Maïwenn’s film was always going to have a numerical advantage: seven of its nominations are in the acting categories. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to see “Polisse” trip up the “Artist” juggernaut at home: more envious César voters may feel inclined to take the international phenomenon down a peg or two, and they’d in turn feel noble rewarding the tough topicality of “Polisse,” a study of personal and professional tensions in the Paris police department’s Child Protection Unit. 

I saw and reviewed the film at Cannes, finding it by turn riveting and overcooked, like an entire season of an unruly procedural TV drama — “Hill Street Bleu,” I cracked — crammed into one feature. (If Maïwenn’s name sounds familiar, you may remember her as the former wife and protégée of Luc Besson, or as the blue-tentacled opera diva in “The Fifth Element.”)

I was actually rather surprised the French didn’t select “Polisse” as their Oscar submission, though the one they did — “Declaration of War,” an autobiographical cancer drama from another actress-director, Valérie Donzelli — is also nominated for Best Film. As is another Cannes hit rejected by the Academy’s foreign-language branch, Aki Kaurismäki’s French-Finnish co-production “Le Havre.” Morocco’s Oscar entry “Omar Killed Me,” which bested them all by cracking the Academy’s shortlist, is also nominated for acting and writing — a handy illustration of just how bogus the Academy’s notion of a film’s national identity is.   

“The Artist” isn’t the only English-language film nominated in a major category: longstanding César favorite (and last year’s Best Director winner) Roman Polanski is nominated with Yasmina Reza for the screenplay of “Carnage.” (Polanski, meanwhile, will present one of the film’s stars, Kate Winslet, with an honorary César at the ceremony. Because, well, why not?)  And as always, the Best Foreign Film lineup is an amusingly eclectic one: where else would you find “Drive” and “Black Swan” pitted against “Incendies?”

The awards will be presented in Paris on February 24, giving the “Artist” team just enough time to fly back over for the Oscars. Full list of nominees below.

Best Film

“The Artist”
“Declaration of War”
“Le Havre” 
“The Minister”
“Pater”
“Polisse”
“Untouchable”

Best Foreign Film
“Black Swan”
“Drive”
“Incendies”
“The Kid with a Bike”
“The King’s Speech”
“Melancholia”
“A Separation”

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Valérie Donzelli, “Declaration of War”
Aki Kaurismäki, “Le Havre” 
Pierre Schoeller, “The Minister” 
Alain Cavalier, “Pater”
Maïwenn, “Polisse”
Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, “Untouchable”

Best Actor
Sami Bouajila, “Omar Killed Me”
François Cluzet, “Untouchable”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Olivier Gourmet, “The Minister ”
Denis Podalydès, “The Conquest”
Omar Sy, “Untouchable”
Philippe Torreton, “Guilty”

Best Actress
Ariane Ascaride, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”
Bérénice Bejo, “The Artist”
Leïla Bekhti, “The Source”
Valérie Donzelli, “Declaration of War”
Marina Foïs, “Polisse”
Marie Gillain, “All Our Desires”
Karin Viard, “Polisse”

Best Supporting Actor
Michel Blanc, “The Minister”
Nicolas Duvauchelle, “Polisse”
Joeystarr, “Polisse”
Bernard Le Coq, “The Conquest”
Frédéric Pierrot, “Polisse”

Best Supporting Actress 
Zabou Breitman, “The Minister”  
Anne Le Ny, “Untouchable”
Noémie Lvovsky, “House of Pleasures”
Carmen Maura, “The Women of the Sixth Floor”
Karole Rocher, “Polisse”

Best Original Screenplay
“The Artist”
“Declaration of War”
“The Minister”   
“Polisse”
“Untouchable”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“Carnage”
“La délicatesse” 
“Guilty”
“Omar Killed Me”
“Pater” 

Most Promising Actor
Nicolas Bridet, “Tu seras mon fils”
Grégory Gadebois, “Angèle and Tony”
Guillaume Gouix, “Jimmy Rivière”
Pierre Niney, “J”aime regarder les filles”
Dimitri Storoge, “A Gang Story”

Most Promising Actress
Naidra Ayadi, “Polisse”
Adèle Haenel, “House of Pleasures”
Clotilde Hesme, “Angèle and Tony”
Céline Sallette, “House of Pleasures”
Christa Théret, “La brindille”

Best Cinematography
“The Artist”
“House of Pleasures”
“The Minister”    
“Polisse”
“Untouchable”

Best Art Direction
“The Artist”
“House of Pleasures”
“Le Havre”
“The Minister”    
“The Women of the Sixth Floor”

Best Costume Design
“The Artist”
“House of Pleasures”
“My Little Princess”
“The Source”
“The Women of the Sixth Floor”

Best Film Editing
“The Artist”
“Declaration of War”
“The Minister”   
“Polisse”
“Untouchable”

Best Original Score
“The Artist”
“Beloved”
“House of Pleasures”
“The Minister”   
“A Monster in Paris”

Best Sound
“Declaration of War”
“House of Pleasures”
“The Minister”    
“Polisse”
“Untouchable”

Best First Film
“Angèle and Tony”
“La délicatesse”
“My Little Princess”    
“17 Girls”
“When Pigs Have Wings”

Best Animated Film
“The Circus”
“A Monster in Paris”
“A Mouse’s Tale”
“The Rabbi’s Cat”
“Le tableau”

Best Documentary
“Le bal des menteurs”
“Crazy Horse”
“Ici on noie les Algériens”
“Larzac”
“Michel Petrucciani” 

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

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SANTA BARBARA – The 27th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival kicked off tonight with the world premiere of Lawrence Kasdan’s “Darling Companion,” starring Diane Keaton and Kevin Kline. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it down in time to catch it, but I’m here now and ready for a few days of awards season awareness.

The Santa Barbara fest smartly positioned itself a number of years back as a destination for Oscar contenders. Being the biggest phase two exposure of that sort, the festival’s profile has sky-rocketed since Roger Durling took over executive director duties some time ago, adding lengthy tributes scattered throughout the fest as well as the Kirk Douglas Award (which is handed out every October at a private dinner — this year’s recipient was Michael Douglas). This year, a number of Oscar nominees will be appearing at the fest to have a little love thrown their way.

Viola Davis’s Outstanding Performer of the Year celebration will kick all of that off tomorrow night, while Christopher Plummer, Martin Scorsese, Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, Melissa McCarthy, Demián Bichir and Rooney Mara will all be on hand throughout (in addition to close-but-no-cigar Oscar hopefuls Shailene Woodley, Andy Serkis and Patton Oswalt as part of the big Virtuosos Event next weekend).

Then, of course, there are the panels. My Oscar Talk colleague Anne Thompson will again be moderating the “It Starts with the Script” panel with screenwriters from some of the year’s high profile films, including Mike Mills (“Beginners”), Tate Taylor (“The Help”), Will Reiser (“50/50”), Jim Rash (“The Descendants”) and surprising nominee J.C. Chandor (“Margin Call”).

Also, the novel “Women in the Biz” panel this year will feature the producers of “Cars 2” (Denise Ream), “Beginners” (Leslie Urdang), “The Tree of Life” (Dede Gardner) and “Kung Fu Panda 2” (Melissa Cobb), as well as Julia Louis-Dreyfus, star and producer of the short film “Picture Paris.” Next weekend will bring the directors and producers panels, line-ups still to be announced.

I’ve got a little more on my plate this year as I’m on the festival’s International Films Competition jury with filmmaker Glenn Jordan. Films on that slate include “Alois Nebel,” “Another Silence,” “Free Men,” “Generation P,” “Here, There,” “Horses,” “Lucky,” “Romeo Eleven,” “Sleepless Night” and “Sons of Norway.” I look forward to that.

Elsewhere, the restoration of Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” is screening here, a must see for me, as well as the U.S. premiere of “Samsara” from director Ron Fricke. (I’m a huge “Baraka” fan and I’ve been dying to see this one.) Another U.S. premiere of note is “Barrymore,” which stirred some Best Actor buzz for Christopher Plummer in Toronto but wasn’t acquired. “West of Memphis,” which I missed last week in Sundance, will also be here.

Lots to do, lots to cover. So keep it here for more as it happens from Santa Barbara.

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

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Positioned almost a month away from the Academy Awards ceremony, the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards are frequently something of a buzzkill in the Oscar race — not because they don’t make for a perfectly entertaining evening in themselves, but because they have a nasty habit of sealing up the competition in a number of categories, making life rather dull for attentive awards-watchers.

A certain degree of overlap with the Academy membership makes their routine foreshadowing of the acting Oscar winners — in the 17-year history of the awards, nearly 70% of the performances honored by SAG went on to take the big prize — inevitable, though since the awards calendar was reshuffled a few years ago, they tend to answer some questions in the race a bit too early. With this year’s acting races already showing little wiggle room, don’t count on the Guild to open things up.

Last year, for the first time ever, the SAG results were duplicated entirely by the Academy, with even Best Performance by a Cast, the group’s top prize, going the way of the eventual Best Picture winner, “The King’s Speech.” The year before, those two awards were split between “Inglourious Basterds” and “The Hurt Locker,” but the Guild and the Academy nonetheless agreed on all four performance winners; the level of convergence between the awards is as high as ever.

Let’s take a look at each category individually, bearing in mind that by predicting these, we may as well be predicting the Oscars too.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Four of the actors nominated by SAG — Christopher Plummer, Kenneth Branagh, Nick Nolte and Jonah Hill — found their way into the Academy lineup; “J. Edgar” star Armie Hammer always looked a bit odd in this field, and not just because the makeup team were informed that Clyde Tolson suffered late-breaking progeria. On paper, you’d expect a tight contest between three esteemed veteran actors with no SAG Awards or Oscars between them (no, not you, Jonah), but in reality, Plummer has had this race licked since “Beginners” opened in the summer. And rightly so: Branagh’s amusing but thin-crust impression of Laurence Olivier in “My Week With Marilyn” and Nolte’s affecting but underdrawn grizzly-dad act in the little-seen “Warrior” can’t match Plummer’s late-blooming gay widower for nuance and grace, while neither is owed quite as big a debt by the industry as the 82 year-old Canadian.

Will and should win: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”  

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Remember how last year’s Best Supporting Actress race seemed so open and malleable until Melissa Leo duly picked up the BFCA, Golden Globe and SAG Award in swift succession — and not even her own iffy PR could make it look like a contest again? That, I feel, is where we are this year: I sensed opportunities at one point for 2011’s it-girl Jessica Chastain or 1927’s it-girl Bérénice Bejo to stake a claim on the Oscar, but BFCA and Globe winner Octavia Spencer is proving mighty difficult to get around: she has the tangiest storyline in a film a lot of people love, and there’s palpable affection in the industry for a hard-working character actress finally enjoying her moment in the sun. You can try making a case for Bejo winning on a tide of goodwill for “The Artist,” or “Bridesmaids” breakout and sitcom star Melissa McCarthy — the second nominee in this category, oddly enough, for whom shit is an integral plot point — picking up votes from SAG’s vast TV contingent, but I think we know how this is going.

Will win: Octavia Spencer, “The Help”

Should win: Jessica Chastain, “The Help”

BEST ACTOR

Whether it’s a sign of genuine affection for “The Descendants,” or simply for an industry-leading star who’s had a big year before and behind the camera, George Clooney has comfortably worn a frontrunner’s groove into this race — despite his performance not being visibly more spectacular than those of his competitors, his tally of critics’ awards being lower than some of them, and hardly anyone in the industry deeming him under-rewarded. He has an Oscar, after all, which is one more than Brad Pitt, doing some of the warmest, most textured work of his career in “Moneyball,” can claim. What Clooney doesn’t have, as it happens, is a SAG Award, and his fellow actors are unlikely to resist the opportunity to furnish his mantel with one of those. If Pitt is to activate an Oscar narrative that superficially makes more sense than Clooney’s this year, now’s the time, but I sense Jean Dujardin, irresistible in “The Artist” and a natural on the publicity trail, is the likelier spoiler. Demián Bichir and Leonardo DiCaprio, meanwhile, should enjoy the canapés.  

Will win: George Clooney, “The Descendants” 

Should win: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”

BEST ACTRESS

This is the acting race that currently feels most like just that: a race. After winning the BFCA Award, Viola Davis seemed to make good on her long-presumed frontrunner status, only for Meryl Streep to nab the Golden Globe, giving the actress at least the appearance of having caught up — though the HFPA are such avowed Streepoholics that it’s hard to say what that win means in the wider scheme of things. There will no doubt be much peer admiration for Streep’s impressive Maggie mimicry in “The Iron Lady” — but Davis, the kind of well-liked, long-serving character actress SAG loves rewarding, giving a heart-tugging performance in a film they clearly adore, would appear to have the edge here. Michelle Williams looked more of a threat a month ago, when she was racking up the critics’ awards; Glenn Close looked less of a threat many months ago, when people saw her film. What a shame the finest, most fragile turn here is the only one not up for an Oscar.  

Will win: Viola Davis, “The Help”

Should win: Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

BEST CAST

Accepted wisdom is that this is SAG’s Best Picture award is disguise, though it’s worth noting that they don’t always use it in a cravenly predictive capacity: though overwhelming frontrunner momentum can sometimes hand the win to a film like “Slumdog Millionaire,” despite it not being especially actor-focused, they’ll often spring for an Oscar outlier just because they really do like the cast: “Inglourious Bastards,” “Sideways,” “Gosford Park” and “The Full Monty” all won the prize, and didn’t look any more like Best Picture threats because of it. 

This is looking like one of those years to me: though it’s possible that the general sense of goodwill for the film, plus the presence of several familiar American faces alongside the less widely recognizable French leads, could swing it the way of “The Artist,” I think this will be the night top nominee “The Help” — no longer a serious Best Picture contender after a surprisingly poor Academy showing — gets to shine, particularly with a group that leans more commercial and more middlebrow than most. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t be entirely stunned to see the TV contingent pull out a wild-card win for the frisky female ensemble of “Bridesmaids”; an ensemble win for either “Midnight in Paris” or “The Descendants,” despite their higher status in the race, would be more of an upset, for my money.

Will win: “The Help”

Should win: “Bridesmaids” 

What are your predictions and/or wishes for Sunday’s awards? Share them in the comments. 

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.)

As is often the case, the cinematographers’ branch didn’t exactly search far and wide for contenders in this category, settling instead on a quartet of high-profile Best Picture nominees, plus one major December release (and guild nomination hog) that surely came close to cracking the top race. Four of the men selected, moreover, are previous nominees, in keeping with this year’s unofficial theme of sticking with the familiar.

The scramble for the fifth slot on the ballot was, presumably, a tight one: moodily lensed by Hoyte van Hoytema, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” was a surprise ASC nominee that seemed to be building late momentum in the final stages of voting, but wound up ceding its spot to more postcard-pretty work from a two-time Oscar champ who had been frozen out of the guild list. Oh, well. 

The nominees are…

“The Artist” (Guillaume Schiffman)

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Jeff Cronenweth)

“Hugo” (Robert Richardson)

“The Tree of Life” (Emmanuel Lubezki)

“War Horse” (Janusz Kaminski)

On balance, it’s a sightly enough group of films, though I can’t help wishing the branch had shown a little more ingenuity in their choices: this would have been a lovely place to recognize some visually astonishing arthouse items too modest or too tricky to get a foothold in major categories: “Jane Eyre,” “Melancholia,” “Meek’s Cutoff”… take your pick. Meanwhile, “Drive” would have been a more arresting contemporary pick than they one they went with. But no matter — we still have an exciting race.

No predominantly black-and-white film has won this award since “Schindler’s List” in 1993, despite “The Man Who Wasn’t There” and “The White Ribbon” both taking top honors with the ASC since then. So even if Frenchman and lone first-time nominee Guillaume Schiffman (who shot both Michel Hazanavicius’s “OSS 117” pastiche comedies) winds up taking that peer-voted precursor for “The Artist,” there’s still no guarantee the general Academy will favor the beloved retro exercise over its more colorful competition. In his favor, of course, is that the film is a Best Picture frontrunner, and an attractive one at that: Schiffman’s silky, silver-toned lensing deftly replicates not just the palette of vintage silent cinema, but the soft textures of its stock too.

After 20-odd years of collaborating with director David Fincher on both films and music videos, Jeff Cronenweth was rewarded last year with his first Oscar nomination for “The Social Network.” Their partnership has now yielded a second consecutive nod for the icy Nordic atmospherics of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” and while it’s certainly a handsome film, I can’t help thinking there’s an idle sense of afterglow voting at work here. The film’s crisp, stately compositions at least make it a refreshingly neoteric choice from the branch, though it’s probably a couple of unnecessary, incongruously vertiginous trick shots that netted the nomination — which will have to remain Cronenweth’s reward this year.

The most established name in the field, Robert Richardson netted his seventh career nomination — and his second for a Martin Scorsese picture — for venturing into the realm of 3D on “Hugo.” His on-off collaboration with the master brought the DP his second Oscar for “The Aviator” seven years ago, and the Paris-set children’s adventure is a similarly flashy period showcase for his ever-conspicuous artistry, as well as another opportunity to play with the antique finishes of past cinematic eras. Richardson hasn’t won much on the circuit so far this year, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see respect for his limber adaptation to new technology — coupled with the urge to convert at least some of the film’s 11 nominations — net him a third statuette.  

The precursor monolith in the field this year has been Emmanuel Lubezki. There’s scarcely an award the prodigious Mexican DP hasn’t won so far for his rapturous visual poetry in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” and rightly so: at once intimately disciplined and wildly expansive, his camera reflects both individual character perspective and a more intangible, ethereal worldview, catching the subtlest shifts of woozy afternoon light like butterflies in a net. It seems unthinkable that he could lose, and yet five-time bridesmaid Lubezki has been here before: his 2006 loss for dazzling work on “Children of Men,” after winning the ASC prize, still smarts, and I fear the polarizing nature of “The Tree of Life” could count against him in the general Academy vote.   

The most divisive work in the field come from another five-time nominee, this one with two previous wins under his belt: Janusz Kaminski may have been Steven Spielberg’s go-to DP for almost 20 years, but he hasn’t been nominated for a Spielberg film since “Saving Private Ryan.” Many will wish that stretch hadn’t been been broken: his unashamedly old-fashioned pictorial lensing of “War Horse,” with its saturated orange sunsets and inconsistent evocations of vintage studio lighting styles, crosses the line more than once into kitsch — and was rather pointedly snubbed by the ASC. General Academy members, however, are suckers for lush landscapes, so don’t write this one off — as it happens, the last time the Oscar went for a film unnominated by the guild (“Pan’s Labyrinth”), it was also at Emmanuel Lubezki’s expense. 

Will win: “Hugo”

Could win: “The Tree of Life”

Should win: “The Tree of Life”

Should have been here: “Meek’s Cutoff”

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

What do you think deserves the Oscar for Best Cinematography? Have your say in the comments section below.

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

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On Tuesday, Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan respectively earned the ninth and fifth Oscar nominations of their careers for serving as the production designer and set decorator of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.” They shared a win for “The English Patient” in 1996 and this year’s mention is the fourth they have earned for the Harry Potter series, making the Best Art Direction category the place where the franchise (which wrapped itself up in 2011) has seen its greatest Oscar success.

The world of the boy wizard has been the duo’s driving professional task for quite a while. Indeed, Craig (who also won Oscars for “Gandhi” and “Dangerous Liaisons”) is one of the few consistent department heads on the series going back to 2001. He interviewed with “The Sorcerer’s Stone” and “The Chamber of Secrets” director Chris Columbus about the first movie over a decade ago. When he was offered the job, he says he jumped at it and never looked back. McMillan was shortly thereafter called by Craig and agreed to hop on board.

Both noted that they underestimated the popularity of the books when they began work on the series. Craig notes that while two books had been published when he was hired, and they were perceived as hits, the extent of their popularity was not nearly what it is today. “It would have been very intimidating if it already had the worldwide acclaim then as it does now,” he says.

As the films wore on, with subsequent releases of new installments at bookstores, the popularity really took off. Says McMillan, “We knew there were such devoted fans and we had to honor the books as closely as we possibly could.” She did not find that difficult, however, as they provided such rich descriptions and became a constant reference point.

Craig also notes that the books were so descriptive on the looks of places such as Hogwarts and Diagon Alley. “Our responsibility was to place it together,” he says.

At times, the developing story meant they needed to work in particularly new and creative ways. McMillan found the most exciting transformation was turning the Great Hall into the setting of the Yule Ball in “The Goblet of Fire,” for which they were nominated in 2005. “How do we make it into an ice palace,” she reminisces. “Originally we thought silver curtains, silver table cloths and an ice dance floor, but it just went on and on. The drapes man eventually said, ‘Why not just stick the fabrics on the wall?” While an enormous amount of work, the degree of pleasure and pride is palatable in McMillan”s voice. It therefore shouldn”t be surprising that “The Goblet of Fire” earned the duo a trip back to the Kodak after missing for “The Chamber of Secrets” and “The Prisoner of Azkaban.”

For Craig, the final battle of Hogwarts in the latest film was a change he found particularly interesting and challenging. Much more physical space was needed to accommodate all the actors and to create the scope of the battle. In order to realize this, he could not be too faithful to what had gone before. In this vein, he acknowledges that lack of continuity was a concern, but insists that in some sense it was inevitable, because when they started, there were only two books. A set such as the astronomy tower wasn”t needed until (SPOILERS) Dumbledore needed to fall and die from it. “Everybody seemed to accept that each movie had its own integrity,” he says.

McMillan largely agrees with her colleague”s assessment, appealing to an artistic license most moviegoers accept. Considering the fact that the house where Harry”s parents were killed in the first film had to become part of a whole village in the seventh, she says that “if the scene is convincing enough, people accept.”

And for all the changes, they find that much more stayed the same, with McMillan noting that even just in the reusing of sets and props, there was much pleasure. While she was grateful for her large budget, that budget still was not limitless, and integrating places such as a college at Oxford into the world they were designing and building at the studio was a challenge.

Along with the changing story and expanding sets, the duo also had to contend with changing directors. Criag, for one, relished the changes that came with different men at the helm. “Each one of them managed to find a different take,” he says. “It kept the whole thing vital and alive.”

Both comment on the fact that Chris Columbus” strengths lay in working with the child actors, while, Alfonso Cuarón (who directed “The Prizoner of Azkaban,” which signaled the change in aesthetic signature for the series) had a very visual sense. “He wanted to make films much more magical and he really pushed all of us,” McMillan says. They also add that Mike Newell”s film (“The Goblet of Fire”) was really about teenage angst and fun. McMillan says he “liked the boarding school aspect of it” while Craig says the director wanted to inject more humor into the proceedings.

David Yates came on board as the plot of the movies got more serious. “His forte was in emotional, moving drama anyway,” Craig says. But having a single directorial vision on the last four films made the art department’s job, as surely any other department’s, that much easier. Nevertheless, “each film always had plenty of new stuff and new challenges,” McMillan says.

Throughout these changes, however, it should be no surprise that the duo get along fantastically well, as both of them admire each others” tastes. “I haven”t worked with another set decorator in 15 years,” Craig says of McMillan. “I”d be devastated if I had to work without her.” He particularly praises how her very detailed interiors could underline the characters of Professors Dumbledore and Snape on the Harry Potter series.

McMillan, meanwhile agrees that she and Craig rarely fail to see eye-to-eye and that Craig is able to see the big picture and minute details at the same time. “He has the most amazing vision,” she says. “You could ask him about the smallest detail and he”d apply himself to what you want to talk about.”

Other below-the-line personnel were integral in Craig and McMillan’s work, but they changed throughout the series. Craig notes how it is particularly important to have a strong relationship with the cinematographer and the costume designer. “There are obviously color issues to talk about with the costume designer,” he says. “The cameraman tends to start much later,” which can pose a problem as the placement of windows and chandeliers is very important to the cinematographer, and this resulted in sets being redesigned on occasion.

McMillan singles out their relationship with Bruno Delbonnel on “The Half-Blood Prince,” calling it “marvelous” and noting that he had a “very good look.” Indeed, the Academy’s cinematographers branch agreed with her, handing Delbonnel the series’ only cinematography nomination.

Finally, in designing the vault in Gringotts for the final film, there also had to be coordination with the visual effects department. “The physical effects of the floor going down meant we had to work closely together,” McMillan says.

Having spent more than a decade on these films, McMillan most values that she was able to have a 10-year period in which she did not have to “build a reputation” at the beginning of every single film. “It”s different when you don”t know the director and need to build up their confidence in you,” she says. “If you”re the set decorator on Harry Potter, you knew what to do.”

Craig”s views are related in that he was able to build on his work and didn’t have to return to square one every time he started a new film. “Normally things are a one-off affair and 20 years later, you”ll regret a decision,” he says. “On ‘Harry Potter,” we got the chance to hone things and affect things; I”ll certainly take that as a unique experience.”

Craig and McMillan will be contending with four other accomplished design feats this year: Laurence Bennett and Robert Gould”s black-and-white take on Old Hollywood in “The Artist,” Anne Seibel and Hélène Dubreuil”s creation of multiple eras of the City of Lights in “Midnight in Paris,” Rick Carter and Lee Sandales”s WWI-era Europe from “War Horse” and, most notably, Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo”s extraordinary and intricate work on “Hugo.” But even if they go home empty-handed, their work is going down in cinematic history and respect will surely be paid.

Indeed, the Art Directors Guild announced earlier in the season that the Harry Potter series will receive an honorary award for Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery. Craig and McMillan will be joined by Yates, producer David Heyman and screenwriter Steve Kloves in receiving the honor, which recognizes a truly unique feat, Oscars or not. It’s the first time the award will be given to an entire series of films, and Craig and McMillan’s work is vital key to that consistency of quality.

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Director Joe Carnahan emerged as an up-and-comer with the release of 2002″s “Narc,” (the follow-up to his directorial debut “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane”). The director began his career at the tail end of the “indie heyday” of the 1990s when driven artists really could carve a path to the studios out of the festival circuit with a no-budget film featuring actors with light resumes and zero notoriety.

After a notoriously rocky start in the world of big budget event films (having quit before being fired from “Mission: Impossible III”), Carnahan began to create a name for himself as a helmer of B-to-B+ level light-hearted actioners such as “Smokin” Aces” and “The A-Team.” With tomorrow”s release of “The Grey,” however, the director will introduce audiences to a new dimension of both his psyche and work, one that might have made an impact on the current Oscar season had it hit theaters when originally anticipated.

The trailer for the film reads as a wolf-punching excursion into the wilderness with cinema”s most treasured ass-kicker: Liam Neeson. But it is, in fact, a mythical and metaphysical exploration of nothing less than death itself. It has the unrelenting raw edge of Carnahan”s sophomore offering coupled with the wisdom and contemplative nature that age and experience brings.

Perhaps in part due to the surprise the film offered (one which will please some, and piss others off), critics have begun to buzz about the shame of “The Grey””s late-in-the-game “January dumping ground” release. Perhaps Open Road was less inclined to give Carnahan”s first return to his grittier roots a qualifying run for 2011 awards consideration. But the director explained in a recent interview with The Playlist that it was all just a matter of poor timing. If they”d been able to launch in Toronto as originally planned there may have been a qualifying run.

“We wound up six weeks behind because of effects,” Carnahan explained. “Combining that with the fact that Liam was doing ‘Taken 2” and wouldn”t be available for all the events you have to go to. It”s like an election. You”re running for office. So since we didn”t have those things set, we said let”s just release it when it”s all ready. Honestly, it”s nice to even be mentioned, the idea that people even think it”s awards-worthy. That”s flattering. “

There”s a lot to be said for the choices that Carnahan made as a director, and “The Grey” was in fact born of his passion and psycho-spiritual struggle, but the truth is that the most likely contender for the hunt would have been Neeson for his portrayal of Ottway (the living embodiment of the Alpha male). Frank Grillo delivers a fine performance as Diaz, the film’s (human) antagonist (though this is not a simple protagonist/antagonist affair). But Neeson has the good will needed to forge ahead to the front of the field.

Carnahan is unlikely to go directly from being the man behind “The A-Team” to an Oscar contender, but the space of a year may help rather than hurt the film in this case. Both the director and the production were already blessed with one of the clearest examples of a “happy accident” when Neeson expressed interest in the film after his “A-Team” co-star, Bradley Cooper, had to drop out. There is no “The Grey” without a leader we can believe is capable of guiding these men into and beyond the hidden depths of their will, then past that point into the release of said will to something so much wilder, less controlled and larger than they are.

If the film continues to do relatively well critically, and makes a strong showing at the box-office we may see a campaign for “The Grey” unfold at the close of this year. “Open Road has said flat out and sort of scrawled it in blood that they”re going to release the film in October 2012 for a qualifying run,” Carnahan told The Playlist, though it’s less about “qualifying” than “reminding.” Curtis Hanson’s “Wonder Boys” tried a similar tack in 2000 to build on great early word from the film’s February release that year, but wasn’t able to secure a nomination for Michael Douglas after all (even with the added exposure of the actor’s performance in Steven Spderbergh’s “Traffic” thrown in).

This weekend”s box office returns will be a good first indication of whether that blood will, in fact, stick to the wall.

“The Grey” opens this Friday, January 27th.

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

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Judging from the reactions of readers and colleagues alike, it seems a lot of people have trouble untangling the proudly knotty, restlessly non-linear espionage narrative of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” — “It’s my favorite film of the year that I didn’t understand at all,” one friend quite sincerely admitted to me. Some have even speculated that the film might have done better in the Oscar race if voters had found it easier to follow. Being acquainted with both John Le Carré’s novel and the previous TV adaptation thereof, it’s with no great sense of superiority that I say I found the film clear enough, but I was still fascinated by the estimable David Bordwell’s thorough breakdown of just what’s going on in the film, decoding both its structure and imagery. [David Bordwell] 

Mary J. Blige, pointedly not nominated by the music branch for her closing credits dirge from “The Help,” thinks the Academy is “being mean.” [Billboard] 

Enjoy his final month of red-carpet tricks: Uggie is retiring, apparently. Of course, that’s what Steven Soderbergh said too. [The Guardian]

What can we learn about this year’s Oscar hopefuls from their title typography? A lot, it seems. [Ultraculture]

Jack Egan talks to the year’s most laurelled cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki. Is it finally his year? (Look out for our Oscar Guide on the category later today.) [Below the Line]

Eva Fogelman, founding director of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, profiles Agnieszka Holland’s Oscar-nominated Holocaust drama “In Darkness.” [Forward]

Ali Gray tweaks the posters of several Oscar nominees to reflect what they’re actually about. [The Shiznit]

Nathaniel Rogers is certain of at least one of next year’s Oscar nominees for Art Direction, Costume Design… and Best Supporting Actress? Don’t stop believing, my friend. [The Film Experience] 

Finally, Sundance has announced its prizewinners in the short film category. Could we see any of them in the Oscar race next year? [Sundance]

Finally, Viola Davis may be best friends with Meryl Streep, but reckons she “can whoop [Meryl’s] behind in a good old-fashioned street fight.” I’d pay to see that. [The Huffington Street]