Amid the geeky cascade of trivia, facts and figures that always follows they unveiling of the Oscar nominations, one stat — courtesy of our friend Chad Hartigan — stood out to me: the average age of this year’s Best Director nominees, at 61, is the highest it’s been in the history of the awards. Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick and Alexander Payne — a quartet of well-seasoned American auteurs who, by the time of the awards, will all be over the age of 50 — have all been to this particular dance before. The lone foreigner and first-time nominee, Michel Hazanavicius, may be the upstart of the pack, but at 44, he’s hardly wet behind the ears.

So, the movies the Academy liked most this year happened to be directed by a bunch of middle-to-three-quarter aged men. Big deal. That says more about industry hierarchy than the preferences of the Academy, right? In any case, last year saw a thirtysomething man win the prize; the year before, a woman. If “The King’s Speech” had been successfully helmed by Selena Gomez, they’d probably have handed her the Oscar too. 

Even allowing for a certain degree of coincidence, however, it’s hard to deny that this is a year when the Academy put age before beauty — or, to put it more politely, acknowledged that they’re not exactly separate qualities. Take a look at the acting categories, where only two under-30 actors, Rooney Mara and Jonah Hill, find themselves nominated — the same as the number of 82 year-olds in the Best Supporting Actor lineup, where Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow find themselves vying for the title of Oscar’s oldest ever winner, with that 70 year-old stripling Nick Nolte looking on from the sidelines.

Those who regularly complain that Hollywood pays no respect to women over 40 should be pleased with a Best Actress lineup that features two sexagenerians and 46 year-old Viola Davis. Over in Best Actor, faced with a choice between two dangerous British thesps, voters opted to pay their debt to 53 year-old Gary Oldman (for a film, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” that itself stoically mourns the passing of a generation), rather than consolidate the Next Big Thing buzz for 34 year-old Michael Fassbender; his day, yesterday’s omission rather pointedly stated, will come.  

A good year for the older guard, then, and nowt wrong with that. But as handy as it is to juggle such figures, the impression of a brandy-and-slippers year for the Academy has less to do with the collective age of the nominees than the movies they’ve made. If any theme can be gleaned from this year’s motley crew of Best Picture nominees, it’s that, after returning last year to the brand of period prestige winner that dominated the awards in the 1990s, they’re happy remaining in the past, in spirit if not in letter — but preferably both.

Much has been made of the fact that the two films leading the nomination tally by a sizeable margin, “The Artist” and “Hugo,” are both lushly gilded paeans to the history of their own medium, explicitly referencing past forms of cinema to raise our awareness of the distance we have travelled. One does so by denying itself modern conveniences such as color and sound; the other, conversely, does so by embracing the most cutting-edge tools of the present. To call either simply nostalgic would be to miss their celebration of artistic progress, but both films make a case for the kind of unjaded, open-hearted storytelling that has grown less fashionable of late; both point to a newer, gentler, irony-free strain of postmodernism that doesn’t make too many demands of the present.

“The Artist” and “Hugo” may be the most neatly retro of the nominees, but they’re hardly alone in fixing their gaze on the rear-view mirror. “Midnight in Paris” is a literal time-travel exercise in which several characters find success and self-realization in the past; one chooses to remain, another to return, but even the present day in Woody Allen’s City of Lights is a woozy, blinkered playland, a veteran director’s own cosseted, wistful adaptation of reality. “The Help” cosily aims for social currency by tackling history that has unimpeachably been put to bed, casting past sociological victories in a warm summer glow to congratulate its audience on the political progress they’ve made, tacitly ignoring still-burning fires. “War Horse” uses similarly sanitised styling to ennoble past atrocities and reinscribe safe, inarguable moral truths. War is hell, but windmills are pretty.

Even one of the contemporary contenders, the tellingly titled “The Descendants,” is in thrall to the physical, psychological and geographical inheritances of our past; if anything, it’s a more nostalgically stasis-bound ode to preservation than “Hugo.” And even the most avant-garde nominee of the lot, Terrence Malick’s brazen, beautiful “The Tree of Life,” is an ecstatic celebration of our origins, as well as a lament for the elusive wholeness of the past, real or imagined. It’s a film that opens by quoting the book of Job — “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” — as if childing humanity for its inexperience and impermanence.

None of these films entirely fails to look forward — even “The Artist,” as besotted as it is with the old, ultimately advocates growth and adaptation, both cultural and personal. Whether the French silent wonder is currently the toast of the town because of that message — or because industry types, insecure in a medium that’s currently in economic and technological flux, feel safe with its romantically retroactive trappings — is another question altogether.

From “Shame” to “We Need to Need to Talk About Kevin” to “Young Adult” to “Melancholia,” voters shied away this year from many films that address ugly, unsettlingly intangible social maladies of the world we live in right now. On a different but surely not unrelated tangent, they also punished certain films (even the comfortably old-fashioned whiz-bang charms of “The Adventures of Tintin,” rejected by the animators for its technical precociousness) for exposing the uncertainties of their own professional futures. Perhaps all the nominations teach us is that a lot of people really like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and old movies — what cinephile doesn’t? — but even some of the Academy’s most courageous decisions this year are reflective of a Hollywood running to stand still. 

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

One good sting deserves another. There has been a fair amount of discussion recently about “The Artist””s score. Guy addressed the “controversy” surrounding the film in his piece on that full page Variety ad that Kim Novak took out accusing Michel Hazanavicius of “rape” (referring to the director’s use of Bernard Herrmann’s love theme from “Vertigo”). But a story on NPR”s “All Things Considered” about the art of the modern movie trailer reminded me of just how common, and in many cases effective, re-purposing is.

The reporter points to the use of a particular section of the score from the (not so widely seen) 2003 drama “The Life of David Gale” in trailers for “The Iron Lady,” “Munich,” “Milk” and, interestingly enough, “The Artist.”

“It works every time,” John Long, co-founder of Buddha Jones, an LA-based trailer production house said in the interview. “Sometimes in the back of your mind you know, ‘I’m not going to use that cue. That cue’s been used to death,'” Lee Harry, Long’s partner added. “But I want to evoke a feeling. And this piece does it perfectly.”

I recall when the first “Super 8” trailer was released. I was watching it in a room full of people and when it was over said, “I don”t think this is going to be a ‘Cloverfield” monster, that music feels like a benevolent alien.” Right, because the music was from “Cocoon.” Was that an invasion of my subconscious memory of the earlier film, or a successful campaign?

A marketing team has a responsibility to quickly, and powerfully, provide a film with a sense of import; to convince a viewing audience that is inundated with stimulus and entertainment options that their offering will provide an intellectual and/or emotional response worthy of our 10-15 hard-earned dollars. As someone who used to make her living in entertainment advertising, I know that it is possible, and often times necessary, to make a poorly conceived project read as compelling. The NPR segment does a solid job of breaking down the basic elements of trailer creation and giving the listener a sense of the tactics that the teams responsible take. So, is advertising manipulative? Of course, inherently so.

At the same time, as the basics of Eisensteinian/Soviet montage theory attest, cinema itself is, in some respects, intrinsically manipulative. Or at the very least, there is no such thing as a “pure” cinematic experience sans any sort of point of view or intended result.

As film evolved, so did storytelling standards, beginning of course with the basic three act structure. Over the years there have been many approaches to dealing or playing with the perceived pitfalls and limitations of the traditional narrative: direct cinema, cinéma vérité, post-modernist story restructuring, re-modernist re-restructuring and so on. Of course hard-nosed purists would argue that once you decide to include one subject in a frame and disclude another, you have made a judgment.

Just as one shot and edit in a movie builds upon, informs and is informed by the last, films inform one another, as do movements, time periods, genres and auteurs. Very early on in cinema”s history films began referencing the ones that had come before them. Today, the words pastiche and homage are used in a continuous dance to describe the methods storytellers are employing to tell a present day tale via the lens of the past.

This awards season alone there are several contenders that are quite notably referential: “Rango,” “Hugo,” “The Artist” “The Adventures of Tintin” and in a far more direct manner, “My Week with Marilyn.” One could also include “War Horse” in that mix, which uses a visual palette that many have noted speaks of another era (particularly the “Gone with the Wind” shot at the film’s conclusion). Once we open the door it becomes clear that there are either intentional or subconscious allusions to previous films in the large majority of current releases.

So, where is the line between manipulative and evocative, referential and derivative, tributary and outright plagiaristic? The division is at times quite clear and at others open to debate. Most make the assessment based on their subjective response: Do I feel manipulated or do I feel that I was taken on a journey that I was pleased to be a part of?

Quentin Tarantino for some is the master of cinematic remixing, playing the role of adept DJ shifting through eras, graphics, scores and visual cues with remarkable dexterity. In 2010 we saw that Daft Punk”s “TRON: Legacy” score had a markedly similar tone to that of Hans Zimmer’s recent work. Indeed, one sting in particular felt like a mirror of the “Inception” score (though to be fair, it was a fairly standard sting). But the similarity did not decrease the popularity of what Daft Punk created. For many it felt in line with their musical aesthetic and was, as such, appropriate.

As to the use of the “Vertigo” score in “The Artist,” while many found it to be contrived, anachronistic and cheap, others (clearly a large portion of the awards circuit included) were charmed by the film’s loose but seemingly loving portrait of the evolution of cinema. The truth is that the more savvy we become, the less likely we are to “buy into” well-trod techniques, and as we become desensitized, fresh methods emerge.

As the NPR report points out, the trailer of today is a far different animal than the trailer of 1946. We happen to be in a moment where nostalgia plays a definitive role in our cinematic landscape, be it “high-brow” pastiche, or incessant comic-book, cartoon and board game reboots. Yet a master craftsman can hit the ball out of the park utilizing the standard tools and markers of the day, as much as he can by toying with and/or defying them.

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

(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.)

The art directors ended up with a slate packed with Best Picture-contending films this year, the one outlier being the closing installment of a franchise that has been a perennial fixture of the category. Nostalgia rules the field, reflective of the thematic undercurrent at play throughout the season.

Lavish productions like “Anonymous” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and more finely-tuned, thematically relevant work like that seen in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” and “Drive” were left off the final tally after scoring with the guild. What remains is an understandable quintet and a brawl between two films for the win that will be evident throughout a number of categories this season.

The nominees are…

“The Artist” (Laurence Bennet; Robert Gould)

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” (Stuart Craig; Stephenie McMillan)

“Hugo” (Dante Ferretti; Francesca Lo Schiavo)

“Midnight in Paris” (Anne Seibel; Hélène Dubreuil)

“War Horse” (Rick Carter; Lee Sandales)

It would have been nice to see the branch spring for more subtle work, like, say, “The Guard,” or if the stellar work on “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” and “Water for Elephants” could have found room to mix things up. Alas, the Academy boiled things down, as they always do.

When the Best Picture frontrunner is a period piece celebrating the dawn of talkie cinema and it gets in for Best Art Direction, watch out. “The Artist” is a fine example of difficult art direction, as it’s an entirely different exercise when it comes to black and white. Proscenium arches and celebrity abodes pop off the screen and the attention to detail does show. Perhaps the film, likely to take the big prize, will sweep a number of other areas with it, and this could easily be one of them. This is the first nod for production designer Laurence Bennet and the second for set decorator Robert Gould (“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”).

The Harry Potter franchise has done fairly well in the Best Art Direction category, wracking up three nominations along the way. The heads of the department are one of the few consistent elements of the series as other craftsmen and women have come and gone elsewhere. And this year the work on “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” was no less exceptional, a vibrant blend of real environments with CG elements, marking the ninth Oscar nomination for production designer Stuart Craig. He won three times previously for “Gandhi,” “Dangerous Liasons” and “The English Patient.” Set decorator Stephenie McMillan was first recognized with him for the latter.

The beast of the category, though, is Dante Ferretti‘s bold, lavish, expertly researched achievement on Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo.” There really isn’t a question, I don’t think. Whether it’s the jaw-dropping rendering of a 1930s bus station or the reconstruction of Georges Méliès’s all-glass film production studio (and all the set design elements of the films he made there), the design work on this film is simply astounding. Ferretti was snubbed here last year for equally brilliant though less extravagant work on “Shutter Island,” but extravagant is often what it takes to get recognized, so here he is for a ninth time in the category (and the eighth for his wife Francesca Lo Schiavo), gunning for Oscar #3.

The surprise nominee in the category was “Midnight in Paris,” which didn’t show up at the guild and was assumed mostly out of the running in the below-the-line categories. Still, for a Best Picture/Best Director/Best Screenplay nominee not to show up elsewhere would have been strange, so here it is. The design elements are particularly of note in the film’s 1920s Paris sequences (and if the designers were feeling this rewarding, they might have offered a leg up to costume designer Sonia Grande). Alas, the nomination is likely the extent of the recognition here, and that’s already more than most expected. This is the first Oscar nomination for production designer Anne Seibel and set decorator Hélène Dubreuil.

After a really poor guild showing, Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse” managed to pop up in a number of areas after all, including in the art direction field. This is Rick Carter‘s fourth Oscar nomination and, if you can believe it, his first for a Spielberg effort. (They have been consistent collaborators for some time.) The film is dominated by exterior scenes, but the set details are no less impressive, and they’re wide-ranging at that, from Dartmoor farmhouses to the trenches of World War I. It’s nice to see the film recognized for that. Carter previously won this award for “Avatar” in 2009 and you have to go back to 1994 and “Forrest Gump” for his last nomination prior to that. This is the first Oscar notice for set decorator Lee Sandales.

Will win: “Hugo”

Could win: “The Artist”

Should win: “Hugo”

Should have been here: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

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

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

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

Usually, post-nomination Oscar talk is dominated by the frontrunners. Yet the film on everyone’s lips yesterday wasn’t either of the nomination hogs, “The Artist” or “Hugo,” but one with no chance whatsoever of winning: “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” pulled off arguably the most surprising Best Picture nod of at least the last decade (even if Kris was one of the few pundits tuned into the possibility), and its buzz took a 180-degree turn. Tim Robey ruminates on how the film, in the space of a single minute, went from being this year’s “The Lovely Bones” — failed bait, both Academy-tailored and critically massacred — to this year’s, well, “The Reader,” and wonders how Stephen Daldry keeps pulling off this unlikely trick, where similar prestige filmmakers like Sam Mendes keep missing the mark. [The Telegraph]  

Meanwhile, the film lands at #5 on Vulture’s critics’ poll of the worst films of 2011. (Then again, it’s one place ahead of “Shame,” so make of that what you will.) [Vulture] 

A saddening chaser to yesterday’s comparatively trivial awards news: Palme d’Or-winning Greek auteur Theo Angelopoulos was killed in a car accident. Ronald Bergan reflects on a remarkable career. [The Guardian]

Mark Harris breaks down yesterday’s nominations, finding room for GOP presidential parallels in the race. (“The Artist” = Mitt Romney, apparently.) [Grantland]

Steven Zeitchik wonders which producers will wind up receiving the Best Picture nomination for “The Tree of Life?” Can Brad Pitt land his third nod in one year? [24 Frames]

Scott Feinberg has a typically exhaustive list of stats, facts and figures about this year’s nominations. [The Race]

Paul Sheehan wonders if “The Help” or “Midnight in Paris” can win Best Picture without an editing nod. Surely that’s not the only reason they can’t win. [Gold Derby]

Ryan Gilbey thinks yesterday’s nominations for “The Artist” and “Hugo” flatter the industry’s own sense of self-worth, but will be happy with the former winning. [New Statesman] 

From Sundance, Andrew O’Hehir says the Kirsten Dunst comedy “Bachelorette” will inevitably be compared to “Bridesmaids,” but finds it smarter and smuttier. [Salon]

Bejamin Wright summarizes some of the major acquisitions of the Sundance Film Festival so far. [The Playlist]

Now that the nominations have been announced, it seems like a good time to go ahead and point you to our interviews with various individuals who woke up to good news this morning. This list is on-going as we still have things in the pipeline, so it will inevitably be added to throughout the rest of the month. Check out the list below and we’ll update it as we go.

Bill Pohlad (Best Picture, “The Tree of Life”)

Michel Hazanavicius (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, “The Artist”)

Jean Dujardin (Best Actor, “The Artist”)

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

Glenn Close (Best Actress, “Albert Nobbs”)

Kenneth Branagh (Best Supporting Actor, “My Week with Marilyn”)

Bérénice Bejo (Best Supporting Actress, “The Artist”)

Stuart Craig and Stephenie McMillan (Best Art Direction, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”)

Janusz Kaminski (Best Cinematography, “War Horse”)

Emmanuel Lubezki (Best Cinematography, “The Tree of Life”)

Mark Bridges (Best Costume Design, “The Artist”)

Mark Coulier (Best Makeup, “The Iron Lady”)

Howard Shore (Best Original Score, “Hugo”)

Bret McKenzie (Best Original Song, “The Muppets”)

Joe Letteri (Best Visual Effects, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”)

Wim Wenders (Best Documentary Feature, “Pina”)

And also worth conveying is our interview with Sony Pictures Classics honcho Michael Barker, whose studio saw key nominations for “Midnight in Paris” and “A Separation,” among others.

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

I am no fan, to put it gently, of John Williams’s chintzily instructive and inevitably Oscar-nominated score for “War Horse,” but I’ll admit I’ve been feeling the need for it all day. Williams is a master in the art of telling you how to feel, and several hours after hearing this years Academy Award nominations, I could really use some plaintive strings or percussive rumbling to tell me what on earth I’m supposed to feel about them.

Am I happy they took a chance on some adventurous arthouse fare like “The Tree of Life” and “A Separation?” Am I dismayed they haven’t yet caught wise to Michael Fassbender? Am I perplexed that they seem to be actively sabotaging the admittedly inessential but once-entertaining Best Original Song category? Am I pleased that the animation branch showed some solid brass balls this year, even as I question the wisdom of their choices? Am I concerned that their barometer for the year’s best documentaries bears no relation to anyone else’s? Am I satisfied I predicted 73 out of 104 nominations, even if I hated myself for making some of those predictions in the first place? I’m certainly annoyed I have to see the wildly unalluring “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” now, after thinking I might just have dodged that bullet.

I am all of these things, and frankly, sustaining that many feelings is exhausting — just ask Glenn Close, who cleverly parcelled them out one at a time in “Albert Nobbs,” resulting in one of the most simultaneously hard-earned and undeserved Best Actress nominations of recent years. (Am I exasperated by that? Am I amused? Am I just resigned? I’ll stop now, but you get the idea.) Some might say the emotional average of all this is indifference, though it’d be disingenuous for me to claim that when I still woke up this morning with the same quiet tingle of excitement I feel on every Oscar nomination day.

Of course, when one’s own favorite films of the year sit so far outside the conversation — only four films nominated by the Academy today cracked my own 2011 top 20, one of them scraping in for Sound Editing, though at least another is poised to run the table — it’s easier to feel less invested in the whole red-carpet routine. If I don’t feel personally elated or affronted by today’s news, it’s because nothing personal is at stake: the films I treasure aren’t going away.

Nor is Oscar, for that matter, even if his identity seems somewhat in flux — rarer has it been clearer to me that “the Academy” is not a monolithic individual entity we conveniently paint it as for the purpose of analysis, but a hive of conflicting individual opinions and personalities. The new voting structure for the Best Picture race is a case in point: we know each of these nine nominees received at least 5% of the number-one votes cast, suggesting a diverse range of committed camps. The people responsible for “The Tree of Life” being on the list are not the same people who put “War Horse” there, who in turn are different from the sneaky contingent who came through for “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

There’s evidence of contrasting impulses within individual branches, too. Are the actors who rallied for Demián Bichir the same ones who are high on Rooney Mara? Are there Academy screenwriters who are equally jazzed about “Bridesmaids” and “A Separation?” I’m sure there are some — speaking as the person whose best-of-2011 list found room for “Margaret” and “Immortals” — but I’m sure you’d find plenty more who are befuddled by at least one of those nominations. Get angry with the Academy if you like, but wonder first what — or who — you’re even getting angry with.  

For better or worse, these nominations show ample evidence of a large group of voters who unafraid, indeed unashamed, of telling us what they like. With no precursor foundation for “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” it’s clearly there for no other reason than that enough voters were honestly affected by it, and couldn’t care less what the critical majority thought. I’m as disappointed as any of you that Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton didn’t make the cut — most of all because their thornily independent, little-seen films deserved the extra exposure even one nomination would bring — but if many voters didn’t sincerely respond to their work, there’s no reason why they should feel obliged to vote for them.

(Take heart in the probability that neither Fassbender nor Swinton are the type of talents to place any more stock in these contests than we critics do. Indeed, I’m sure Swinton is too busy orchestrating morris-dancing flashmobs and rock-painting in the Hebrides, or whatever it is she does in her spare time, to have heard today’s news. If nothing else, I’m sure they’re both pretty pleased for Gary Oldman. Who isn’t?)

There’s a certain resolve to be gleaned from even the Academy’s most shocking decisions today that’s maddeningly stubborn from some angles, and admirable from others. If the animation branch really doesn’t believe that “The Adventures of Tintin” is a true example of their craft — and I admit I, too, hesitate to classify it as animated — then it’s fair that they exclude it. At least the group can’t be accused of insularity: the inclusion of “Chico and Rita” and “A Cat in Paris” from the international arthouse fringes (when they could have lazily filled slots with misfires from Pixar and Aardman) shows a catholic playfulness that more branches could stand to acquire.

Of course, if industry definitions of animation become increasingly blurry, this particular award will need to adapt or die; for now, however, given that it’s already a ghetto category, I can’t blame the branch for protecting their identity. (And I say that as someone who thinks “Tintin” is rather better than “A Cat in Paris” — though at least the latter fits this year’s official Vive La France theme.)

Clearly, some tweaking is in order across the board. To the music branch, I say that no voting process that results in only two nominees can be said to be working: it wasn’t a great year for movie songs, sure, but at least try and sell us on the category. (Failing that, a least allow us a full Muppets production number on stage. First Springsteen, then Cher, now this?) And for all their eager adjustments, the newly flexible Best Picture format just isn’t working: their goal in expanding it beyond five nominees three years ago was to get more nominees like “Bridesmaids,” not more tepidly received prestige films.

Certainly, a high-end, wild-card nominee like “The Tree of Life” dignifies the category, but I’m not sure it’s worth the residual mess the extra slots cause. (Particularly when, in three years of this experiment, the Academy has yet to relent to a film made in any language other than English: does anyone who’s seen it really believe all nine Best Picture nominees are superior to “A Separation?”) The Academy is showing an encouraging willingness to acknowledge and correct error — but right now, their decisions lack authority even as they project personality. If I’m not sure right now how I feel about the Oscars, I don’t think they are either.

The Contenders pages, by the way, have been updated throughout. Plenty more analysis, contemplation and kvetching to come over the next month.  

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

This morning, many crafts artists in Hollywood (and elsewhere in the world) found out that they are heading to the Kodak Theatre for the 84th Annual Academy Awards. The thrill they are experiencing must be difficult to describe.

The reaction of many to the nominations has simply been “wow.” While I wasn”t as floored as some, I confess to being surprised by many of this morning”s events, and the crafts categories proved no exception.

Before embarking on analysis of the individual categories, two trends should be noted: first, in the vast majority of categories, previously nominated veterans were tapped over up-and-comers. Second, with a few exceptions – notably “The Artist,” “Hugo” and “War Horse” – films either tended to be embraced across the board or confined in their nominations to one or two branches.

So now, on to the individual categories…

Best Art Direction

Nominations for “Hugo,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” and “The Artist” should surprise no one, as I called them the three locks in this category. Nonetheless, the omission of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” does pain me. Not only had the guild and BAFTA recognized this superb accomplishment, but the LAFCA gave it a second place prize behind “Hugo.” Nominations for “Midnight in Paris” (I expected a fourth nomination somewhere) and especially “War Horse” could admittedly not be considered all that surprising. “The Help””s omission, though – just like its failure to score in screenplay or any crafts category – makes one question how deep support runs for it.

“Hugo””s massive nomination tally, and the extraordinary nature of the sets, will make it difficult to beat.

Best Cinematography

I was able to correctly predict that “Hugo,” “The Tree of Life,” “The Artist” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” would be able to translate their guild nominations into Oscar success. I also foresaw “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” being the one guild nominee not to transfer to Oscar. My no guts, no glory prediction of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” did not pay off, however, as the typical Oscar nominee “War Horse” scored. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose.

Now that it is nominated, I expect “War Horse” to battle it out with “The Tree of Life” for the win.  Steven Spielberg”s film is the most “typical” winner and the last time Emmanuel Lubezki was nominated in this category (for “Children of Men”) was the only time in the last 20 years when the Oscar winner (“Pan”s Labyrinth”) was not guild-nominated.?

Best Costume Design

This is the one category where I was most confident in my predictions: “The Artist,” “The Help,” “Hugo,” “Jane Eyre,” “My Week with Marilyn.” Oops! I”m thrilled Mark Bridges pulled off his first nomination for “The Artist” and that Michael O”Connor earned his second nomination for “Jane Eyre.” It is also delightful, if unsurprising, to see Sandy Powell back in the race for her rich threads on “Hugo.” However, “My Week with Marilyn” and “The Help” were omitted in favor of “Anonymous” and “W.E.”  Three films — “Anonymous,” “Jane Eyre” and “W.E.” — were not nominated in any other categories. I say good on this branch for looking past the quality of the films in coming to their nominations.?

As far as the race for the win is concerned, it seems to me as though the three solo nominees don”t have much of a shot against the two Best Picture frontrunners. Powell”s work is more obviously showy but Bridges”s intricate threads were cited by the BFCA and I think his film will ultimately triumph in the big category. So this could go either way.

Best Film Editing

The category that traditionally most corresponds with Best Picture did not disappoint, with Kevin Tent managing to make it in for his subtle work on “The Descendants.” Nominations for “The Artist” (Michel Hazanavicius and Anne-Sophie Bion), “Hugo” (Thelma Schoonmaker), “Moneyball” (Christopher Tellefsen”) and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall) were all expected as well.

The big story in this category, however, is who Tent knocked out: Steven Spielberg”s longtime collaborator Michael Kahn. It seems very surprising that the one place the film scored a guild nomination, for Oscar”s all-time leader in editing nominations (a stat now matched by Schnoomaker), would fail to translate to Oscar.

The race for the win is complicated and I could frankly see strong cases being made for any of the nominees except Tent.

Best Makeup

The weirdest, and often most independent category did not disappoint again this year with only “The Iron Lady” making it of my predicted nominees. The branch also overlooked great aging and prosthetics on “Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life” and Best Picture frontrunners “The Artist” and “Hugo” for “Albert Nobbs,” despite its small scale, and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” even though none of its seven predecessors were nominated in this category. Best Makeup joins Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score and Best Visual Effects as the sixth category to embrace the series.

It would be foolish to bet too much on predicting the winner in this category, though it is impossible to watch “The Iron Lady” and not immensely admire its makeup. Barring vast feelings of sentiment arising for “Harry Potter,” I expect it to take this category.

Best Music (Original Score)

I was very curious to see how much the music branch had been missing John Williams. The answer was evidently “a lot” as he scored two nominations for “The Adventure of Tintin” and “War Horse.”  Also nominated, as I predicted, were “The Artist””s Ludovic Bource and “Hugo””s Howard Shore, finally earning a nomination outside the “Lord of the Rings” context. My primary alternate, Alberto Iglesias for “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” managed to get in over Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” This is just fine in my opinion, though given how well Reznor and Ross did in the precursors, it could be indication that they need a real nominations magnet (like “The Social Network”) to score with this fairly insular branch.?

I”ve long been of the opinion that John Williams would need both a score and film to be beloved before he”d win here again. I”m not sure “War Horse” is that score/film, though I”d nonetheless call it the biggest challenge to “The Artist” for the win.

Best Music (Original Song)

Oy. Best Original Song. My worst prediction record in eons, as I predicted (wait for it) zero of the eventual nominees. In all fairness, they only nominated two tunes. Moreover, I did think Bret McKenzie would be nominated for “The Muppets,” just not for “Man or Muppet.” And I certainly did not see “Rio””s “Real in Rio” coming. Major snubs include other “Muppets” songs “Life”s a Happy Song” and “Pictures in My Head,” Alan Menken”s song-and-dance number “Star Spangled Man” from “Captain America: The First Avenger,” Mary J. Blige”s “The Living Proof” from “The Help” and Glenn Close and Brian Byrne”s “Lay Your Head Down” from “Albert Nobbs.”

I assume McKenzie will take this as a tip of the hat to him and the film.

Best Sound Editing

Last week I referred to Best Sound Editing as “probably the category in which I have the least faith in my predictions.” It turns out I had good reason to be apprehensive. Every year, I bomb one category.  And this year, in addition to my atrocious record in Song, I only foresaw one of the eventual five nominees here: Steven Spielberg”s “War Horse.” Animated films “The Adventures of Tintin” and “Rango” both came up short, as did blockbusters “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (admittedly somewhat of a bold prediction) and “Super 8.” Speaking of which, the snubs of “Super 8” both here and in Best Sound Mixing are disgraceful.

Instead, we saw “Hugo” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (admittedly my two primary alternates) and “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” which I had thought was likelier in Best Sound Mixing, but dismissed there after it failed get a guild nod notwithstanding a very good record across the guilds. Lastly, “Drive” found its only nomination here. I”m kicking myself for not mentioning this last week, as this possibility had crossed my mind, and I mentioned it way back in October, but…argh.

After my abysmal luck in predicting the nominations, I”m going to refrain from opining on the race for the win for now.

Best Sound Mixing

I did do slightly better in Sound Mixing, foreseeing “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (Greg P. Russell again scores despite a guild snub), “War Horse” and “Hugo.” For reasons stated above, I missed “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” for “Super 8” and also predicted that “Hanna” and not “Moneyball” would survive the transition from guild to Oscar.

There”s no obvious frontrunner here in my opinion; only “Moneyball” strikes me as out of the running.

Best Visual Effects

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was a lock in this category since it opened, while “Harry Potter” managed to survive the snafu that occurred at the bakeoff.  I also correctly predicted that “Hugo””s overall success would carry the day and that “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” would benefit from its huge tally at the Visual Effects Society.

I was not all that confident in “The Tree of Life” here, though I am somewhat surprised that it failed to score when it made it into the Best Picture category. In any event, I never would have predicted “Real Steel” to make it instead. Though not shocking (Kris had a hunch this might happen), it is still somewhat surprising.

Well, there we have it. The craft nominees for the 84th Annual Academy Awards! Check back in on Thursday for my discussion with Stephanie McMillan and Stuart Craig about their experience on the “Harry Potter” series.

Check out the full list of nominees here.

Welcome to Oscar Talk.

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

Today Anne is still up in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival while I’m back home in Los Angeles. We’re joined today by Guy Lodge to discuss a little bit of business that dropped this morning, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, in case you’re a listener of this podcast and somehow didn’t know that. “Hugo” led the field with 11 nods and “The Artist” wasn’t far behind with 10. So it’s clearly a two-horse race for the win.

We discuss the various snubs, including Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Shailene Woodley and Albert Brooks, as well as the surprising inclusions, like “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

We run through the categories and offer up our first predictions for winners this year.

And finally, a note on Sundance and a goodbye to indie titan Bingham Ray.

Have a listen to the new podcast below with the lovely Jennifer Lawrence leading the way. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. And as always, remember to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

“Man or Muppet” courtesy of Bret McKenzie and Walt Disney Records.

With “The Adventures of Tintin” out of the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar race, Gore Verbinski”s “Rango” can breathe a bit as it feels like the field”s frontrunner. In any event, it”s the standout as far as I”m concerned.

In light of its nomination this morning, Paramount was quick to announce that the studio will re-release the film for a one-week limited engagement at the Arclight Hollywood beginning this Friday, January 27th.

A Spaghetti Western animated comedy about a chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp) who is unleashed from his enclosed glass terrarium only to find himself the (unqualified) leader and hero of the town of Dirt, it is one of the films that is markedly filled with homage this season. It feels like a film lovers’ film to some degree, though its charms have also reached into the hearts of the audience at large.

The unusual manner in which it was created (all of the actors working in the same space and moving freely in the scenes as if they were staging a play rather than individually in an enclosed sound booth) may have contributed to the film’s slightly more organic quality. You’ll also recall Kris chose “Rango” as one of his top 10 films of the year last month.

Tickets for the engagement will be available via Archlight Cinemas.

“Rango” has already earned $230 million worldwide, won the National Board of Review and Critics” Choice Movie Awards for Best Animated Feature and triumphed with a number of critics groups, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C. Other nominees in the animated feature Oscar film included “A Cat in Paris,” “Chico & Rita,” “Kung Fu Panda 2” and “Puss in Boots.” “Cars 2” marked Pixar’s first snub in the category to date.

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

It’s been a busy morning. The nominees are out. About a thousand different variations of “it’s humbling and exciting” are coming through from the various contenders. And all eyes are fixing on February 26. But as we transition into phase two of the 2011-2012 film awards season, it’s worth it to pause and consider what we might have learned today.

Each and every year, the eventual slate of Oscar nominations reflects a number of key things about the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Often they solidify already agreed-upon truths, but sometimes other things are illuminated. It’s silly, of course, to be overly reductive and chalk the Academy up as a singular entity. It’s a wide-ranging group with a bunch of different perspectives bouncing around within its ranks, but nevertheless, when they get together to tap the year’s excellence in this and that, it’s an eye-opening experience.

So it seemed a prime opportunity to dedicate this week’s edition of The Lists to just what we might have taken away from this morning’s announcement when it comes to better understanding this group.

Guy and I have sat down this morning and come up with 10 answers to that question. Have a look at what we settled on in our new gallery, and if you have anything you’d like to add, feel free to do so in the comments section below.

Once again, Guy will be back with his thoughts on the nominees later today, along with Gerard’s coverage of the crafts categories. Guy, Anne and I will be recording he podcast in a half hour, so that will hit in the early afternoon.

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

The nominees are in and the surprises are few and far between, in my opinion (though others seem to be picking their jaws up off the floor this morning). As I mentioned yesterday, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” caught fire with voters down the stretch and was very much on their lips. The film turned up in the nine-film Best Picture category today, despite being critically disassembled, and that was pretty much the only eyebrow-raiser of the major categories. The film only showed up in one other category: Best Supporting Actor for Max Von Sydow.

“Hugo” led the way with a whopping 11 nominations while “The Artist” wasn’t far behind with 10. But what’s interesting is that there is a big gap between those two films and the next tier, as “Moneyball” and “War Horse” (which made it into the Best Picture field and was clearly popular throughout, despite its paltry guild showing) landed six each. “The Descendants,” meanwhile, landed five (and Shailene Woodley was indeed snubbed, following suit with the indications of SAG last month), as did “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which was snubbed in the Best Picture field after a really strong guild showing.

Speaking of which: no Albert Brooks. The man worked the circuit. He was a huge favorite along the critics’ circuit. And after SAG clued us into the fact that the actors might not be all that hot on the performance (or, indeed, the film), he got smacked down today. “Drive” was only nominated in one category: Best Sound Editing.

I’m most happy about “The Tree of Life” showing up in both the Best Picture and Best Director fields. Since “Margaret” is (naturally) nowhere to be found, at least I have a passionate spot on which to place my chips. The film was, however, slighted in the Best Visual Effects category, which is bogus. I’m also over the friggin’ moon that Gary Oldman is finally an Oscar nominee, recognized for his subdued, brilliant work in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” The film itself didn’t do nearly as well as it did with BAFTA, of course, only showing up in Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score otherwise, but I’m just happy for Oldman. That feels like a massive wrong righted.

As I look out over the rest of the nominees, I have very little else to say. The Best Original Song category is an absolute joke. There’s no two ways about it. “The Help” is extremely weak, landing zero nominations below the line and coming in with just four total: three for acting, one for Best Picture. (Though did anyone else notice that the pic they chose when announcing Jessica Chastain as a nominee for the film was of “The Tree of Life?” Odd.)

As for predictions, I went 74/104 throughout the categories I predicted. I went a perfect 5/5 in the Best Supporting Actress, Best Film Editing and Best Original Score fields. I was massacred in the Best Animated Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature categories, only nailing two in the former (which featured snubs of “The Adventures of Tintin” and “Cars 2”) and a pathetic one in the latter.

And…that’s about all I have to say. I think the morning panned out in a very understandable way, for the most part. Now it’s on to the second phase, which will obviously be a knock-down, drag-out fight between “The Artist” (the likely winner) and “Hugo” (which will NOT go gently into that good night — just you watch). Check back later this morning for some thoughts from Guy on all of this, as well as special editions of Tech Support (featuring Gerard’s analysis of the below-the-line categories) and Oscar Talk (in which Anne and I will discuss the nominees and I will gloat about the fact that, indeed, Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton were weak in their fields — okay, I won’t gloat…too much).

Check out the full list of Oscar nominees below. And as always, keep up with the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

Best Picture

“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“The Help”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“Moneyball”
“The Tree of Life”
“War Horse”

Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Alexander Payne, “The Descendants”
Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”
Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”
Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”

Best Actor
Demián Bichir, “A Better Life”
George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”

Best Actress
Viola Davis, “The Help”
Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”
Rooney Mara, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, “My Week With Marilyn”
Jonah Hill, “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte, “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Max Von Sydow, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo, “The Artist”
Jessica Chastain, “The Help”
Melissa McCarthy, “Bridesmaids”
Janet McTeer, “Albert Nobbs”
Octavia Spencer, “The Help”

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
“The Descendants”
“Hugo”
“The Ides of March”
“Moneyball”
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
“The Artist”
“Bridesmaids”
“Margin Call”
“Midnight in Paris”
“A Separation”

Best Art Direction
“The Artist”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“War Horse”

Best Cinematography
“The Artist”
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“The Tree of Life”
“War Horse”

Best Costume Design
“Anonymous”
“The Artist”
“Hugo”
“Jane Eyre”
“W.E.”

Best Film Editing
“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“Moneyball”

Best Makeup
“Albert Nobbs”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”
“The Iron Lady”

Best Music (Original Score)
“The Adventures of Tintin”
“The Artist”
“Hugo”
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
“War Horse”

Best Music (Original Song)
“Man or Muppet” from “The Muppets”
“Real in Rio” from “Rio”

Best Sound Editing
“Drive”
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
“War Horse”

Best Sound Mixing
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“Moneyball”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
“War Horse”

Best Visual Effects
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2”
“Hugo”
“Real Steel”
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”

Best Animated Feature Film
“A Cat in Paris”
“Chico and Rita”
“Kung Fu Panda 2”
“Puss in Boots”
“Rango”

Best Documentary Feature
“Hell and Back Again”
“If a Tree Falls: The Story of the Earth Liberation Front”
“Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory”
“Pina”
“Undefeated”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Bullhead” – Belgium
“Monsieur Lazhar” – Canada
“A Separation” – Iran
“Footnote” – Israel
“In Darkness” – Poland

Best Documentary (Short Subject)
“The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement”
“God is the Bigger Elvis”
“Incident in New Baghdad”
“Saving Face”
“The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom”

Best Short Film (Animated)
“Dimanche/Sunday”
“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”
“La Luna”
“A Morning Stroll”
“Wild Life”

Best Short Film (Live Action)
“Pentecost”
“Raju”
“The Shore”
“Time Freak”
“Tuba Atlantic”

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

One last (I presume) set of critics’ award nominations before we head into the second stage of Oscar season: the International Conephile Society is made up of over 80 international journalists and film professionals, and that diversity is reflected in the nominations, with “A Separation” topping the list with 10 nominations (including four acting bids, none of them for the superb Sarina Farhadi). I participated in the voting, which probably won’t surprise you when you read the nomination tallies for “Weekend” and “Margaret.” Full list after the jump.

Best Picture 
“Certified Copy”
“Drive” 
“Hugo”
“Margaret” 
“Meek’s Cutoff” 
“Melancholia”
“Mysteries of Lisbon” 
“A Separation” 
“The Tree of Life” 
“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” 
“Weekend”

Best Director 
Abbas Kiarostami, “Certified Copy” 
Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive” 
Raoul Ruiz, “Mysteries of Lisbon” 
Asghar Farhadi, “A Separation”
Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”

Best Actor
Tom Cullen, “Weekend”
Michael Fassbender, “Shame”
Peyman Moaadi, “A Separation”
Chris New, “Weekend”
Michael Shannon, “Take Shelter”

Best Actress
Sareh Bayat, “A Separation”
Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy”
Elizabeth Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
Anna Paquin, “Margaret”
Yun Jung-hee, “Poetry”

Best Supporting Actor
Albert Brooks, “Drive”
Shahab Hosseini, “A Separation”
Michael Lonsdale, “Of Gods and Men”
Brad Pitt, “The Tree of Life”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”  

Best Supporting Actress
Jessica Chastain, “Take Shelter”
Jessica Chastain, “The Tree of Life”
Leila Hatami, “A Separation”
Carey Mulligan, “Shame”
J. Smith-Cameron, “Margaret”

Best Original Screenplay
“Certified Copy”
“Margaret”
“Midnight in Paris”
“A Separation”
“Weekend”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“Drive”
“Moneyball”
“Mysteries of Lisbon”
“The Skin I Live In”
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”

Best Cinematography
“Drive”
“Melancholia”
“The Mill and the Cross”
“Mysteries of Lisbon”
“The Tree of Life”

Best Film Editing
“Drive”
“Martha Marcy May Marlene”
“Mysteries of Lisbon”
“A Separation”
“The Tree of Life”

Best Production Design
“Hugo”
“The Mill and the Cross”
“Mysteries of Lisbon”
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
“The Tree of Life”

Best Original Score
“Drive”
“Hanna”
“Mysteries of Lisbon”
“The Skin I Live In”
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”

Best Ensemble
“Bridesmaids”
“Margaret”
“Midnight in Paris”
“Mysteries of Lisbon”
“A Separation”
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”

Best Film Not in the English Language 
“Certified Copy”
“House of Pleasures”
“Le Havre” 
“Le Quattro Volte”
“Mysteries of Lisbon” 
“Of Gods and Men” 
“Poetry”
“A Separation” 
“The Skin I Live In”
“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”

Best Animated Film
“The Adventures of Tintin”
“Rango”
“Winnie the Pooh”

Best Documentary
“The Arbor”
“The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu”
“Nostalgia for the Light”
“Pina”
“Senna”

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

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.

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

How many Best Picture nominees will there be? We don’t know. Which of the 10 or 11 films in clear contention for a nomination will get squeezed out? We don’t know. How will the tweaks to the Best Picture balloting procedure change the situation over all? We don’t know.

The Best Picture category is an odd bird this year. Most probably have the same seven or eight films predicted, but there are a lot of variables flying around in the math of it all that could shift things in an unexpected direction. The Academy got its wish: the mystery is back.

Then there are other elements, like how the final stretch has changed the landscape. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” for instance, is a film that ended up on the lips of numerous voters in the last days of balloting. The BAFTA nominees, which share some crossover membership with AMPAS, indicated strength for “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” that could carry over, which was expected, but then inserted the added interest of “Drive” being a contender in areas we might not have anticipated.

And the nose-dive of “War Horse” in the guild circuit leads most to believe its goose is all but cooked, but the Academy has resurrected titles in that situation before.

All of it kind of seems beside the point, since “The Artist” is poised to run the table. It’s all accoutrement to Harvey Weinsein’s second victory lap. But the fun is in the details. As I set out to assemble my final Oscar predictions, wiggling into the mindset of each branch with tangible clues (like guild nods) and valuable conversations to guide the way, I delighted in at least trying to suss out the unseen crevices of the season.

I don’t anticipate a top tier year of predicting, though. There are just so many weird elements on a category-by-category basis. I know a couple of things, like the fact that “Take Shelter” is a film that found its way to many members late enough for Michael Shannon’s performance to remain a standout with ballots in hand. I know that “Shame” is a film, as one might expect, that was a difficult sit for many, so much so that Michael Fassbender is in a more precarious position than most want to think. But then again, the committed passion base for it could be enough to not only get him in, but Carey Mulligan and the original screenplay as well.

I wonder if Albert Brooks is poised for an unfortunate snub, a la his SAG situation. I wonder if there will be enough animated features that rank high enough in the points system to register five nominees. (There could still be less if five don’t hit the appropriate number in balloting.) I wonder which friggin’ “Muppets” song is going to get the shaft.

Lots of things are just dancing around in my head, but I’m relieved to be at Sundance and to find my mind somewhat removed from it all. It made settling on the final list easier than in the past, actually — maybe because the desire to just be done with it was greater.

In any case, here are my guesses. Here are Guy’s. And here are Gerard’s. Each of us, you’ll note, have offered up alternatives in the Best Picture category breaking it out, in order, up to 10. That’s just to give an idea of how we’d see the race come down anywhere between five and 10 nominees.

Guy and I have updated our respective categories throughout the Contenders section, and the sidebar reflects that combination of choices. But check out our individual pages for our individual picks.

I’ve started a thread at HitFix’s new message boards section for assembling final predictions, so feel free to rattle off any comments on mine here, but use that space to offer up your picks. It’ll be a nicely contained thread for that.

Fingers crossed for my favorites and yours tomorrow.

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

The notion of man releasing his thinly held guise of civility to reveal the beast within has long been a theme in literature, the stage and screen. The limitations of our societal norms have been explored in stories ranging from “Tarzan” to “The Lord of the Flies” to “Heart of Darkness.” Or, as an example of a tale that illustrates the consequences of clinging too dearly to arbitrarily established rules: “The Age of Innocence.”

To varying degrees all tales ask their protagonists to stretch beyond the boundaries of their self-imposed mental constructs, or the restrictions that have been created for them by the outside world. If they do so with noble intent, or for the sake of a purely held passion (one that is, at least metaphorically, divinely ordained) they become a hero: a Luke Skywalker, William Wallace or yes, even a Rudy. If they succumb to avarice and greed, however, they are tainted and perhaps irredeemably lost.

Fables that explore the repercussions of the loss of our cultured exterior are particularly revelatory in terms of the human sense of itself, in that they primarily presuppose that, stripped down to our essence, we are guided only by the tenants of “might makes right,” and “if it feels good do it.” Some interpret “honest” as “rude.” (Ricky Gervais”s “The Invention of Lying” is one of the clearest examples that tendency.)

Of course, in truth we all likely have thoughts throughout the day that we are more than a little bit pleased are not being broadcast via loudspeaker. But “telling the truth” does not necessarily translate to unleashing each venomous, irrelevant, inappropriate and/or mean-spirited thought that passes through our minds (despite some of the evidence available on the internet). And getting in touch with our primal selves ought not to be relegated to infusing ego-driven desires with bloodshed and petty differences with brutality.

Having said that, if survival were in play, I’m sure I would probably be willing to deep fry each and every one of you reading this (assuming you did not snack on me first…which you in all likelihood would). There is some truth to these explorations of the darker sides of our nature and often they simply heighten circumstances in order to illustrate the ugly dynamics and undercurrents of many social interactions.

In Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” the characters neither fully embrace their inner animal, nor find a transformative sense of what is “real” for them. They simply get drunk. And yet the film purports to be about the real face we each hide beneath our socially acceptable veil.

The inception and development of the story is a particularly fascinating example of art imitating life, which in turn imitates art. In a recent interview with The Guardian, playwright Yasmina Reza spoke about the genesis of the stage production “God of Carnage” from which the film was adapted. Reza was speaking to the mother of a child who had been involved in an altercation in which he lost a tooth, the mother complained that the parents of the boy responsible had never called her, and inspiration struck the scribe.

One imagines that the writer began to wonder what would happen if those parents had made contact. It would seem that Reza envisioned a series of false platitudes with nothing but disdain beneath the surface sheen of remorse and forgiveness. Aside from the fact that each character is more intolerably obnoxious than the next, “Carnage” presents a childishly cynical version of “reality,” one in which grown men and women are incapable of genuinely stepping beyond the confines of their own self-indulgent lives and into a broader perspective as each is one more self-centered and careless than the next.

“What motivates me most is writing about people who are well brought up and yet, underneath that veneer, they break down,” Reza said in the interview. “Their nerves break down. It’s when you hold yourself well until you just can’t anymore, until your instinct takes over. It’s physiological.” And yet, the psychological and certainly the sociological investigation feels fairly shallow. Tantrums become the barometer for authenticity and there is no sense of how these lives effect or reflect the whole.

Given the narcissistic and emotionally infantile nature of the characters in “Carnage,” I find Reza”s response to a query about any possible reservations she had in terms of working with Roman Polanski fascinating. She was reportedly “mystified” by the question, responding: “No, I had no scruples. It went very well writing with him… we are identical. We don’t discuss ‘the meaning’; we discuss the instinct.” There was no discussion of the “meaning” of the play with Polanski and no discussion of the “meaning” of having Polanski direct the film in the interview. That is somewhat amazing given that the work is one that, ostensibly, seeks to reveal the deeper realms of human nature. How can one do that when they are unwilling to address a fairly obvious question?

There is something inherently immature in Reza creating a white elephant by embracing the idea that Polanski”s history plays no role in his present, and the idea that the art is somehow divorced from the artist entirely. He is internationally famous in a culture that links the player directly to the play more often than not. Filmmakers and actors of note carry the weight of their history, as well as their body of work, into each new project they embark upon. Polanski (like it or not) carries his notoriety with him. By acting as if he doesn”t, Reza exemplifies the very destructive aspects of “civilized society” that she seems so interested in exposing: hypocrisy and puerile denial.

I have no interest in discussing whether Polanski should or should not be making films at this time. What is of interest to me is the playwright”s refusal to acknowledge a most glaring reality even as she discusses her work as an illuminator of the truth. Perhaps she finds the charges against Polanski irrelevant; perhaps she feels that it is his skill as a director which is the central issue, rather than his status as a fugitive. But to pretend that a question that pertains to her feelings about working with him (and in so doing, by default, supporting him as an artist) has no merit is odd at best, and reminiscent of the disingenuous behavior of her characters at worst.

The “truth” is the adult acknowledgment of what is real, even if your response is “I don”t choose to discuss his private life.” The “truth” is not pretending something isn”t so, nor is it (as is the case with her characters) throwing a fit.

The word “instinct,” as used by Reza in the interview, seems mean “action without thought” (the way a 2-year-old bites when they don”t get their way), rather than a primal knowing, which feels like a more apt interpretation of the term. Perhaps that is one reason that “Carnage” inspired a hollow sense of distaste, rather than a visceral sense of disquiet (which one would expect, or hope for, from an intimate look at what lurks beneath the costume of civility).

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

You want Oscar predictions? You got ’em. I posted mine last night, and Kris and Gerard’s will arrive today, but if that’s still not enough for you, Tom O’Neil has gathered the guesswork of 31 pundits (yours truly included) across 14 categories — more than enough to make you second-guess yourself many times over. With this vast chart of predictions, it’s most interesting to seek out the wild-card picks: I’m somewhat alarmed to see I’m the only one stumping for Brad Pitt in Supporting Actor, while you might be surprised to see a few mentions of Charlize Theron in the Best Actress rundown. As for Best Picture, I’m not alone in my “Tinker, Tailor” hunch, while others are plumping for “Bridesmaids” — and there’s no consensus whatsoever on how many nominees there even will be. Browse away. [Gold Derby]

Sasha Stone plays her annual “No Guts, No Glory” game — inviting off-the-wall predictions from her readers, and suggesting the possibility of a “War Horse” comeback. [Awards Daily]

Nathaniel Rogers offers his final predictions, and shares my Michael Shannon hunch. [The Film Experience]

Steve Pond senses time running out for any film to establish itself as a Best Picture challenger to “The Artist.” It all comes down to the DGA, he says. [The Odds]

In considering this year’s makeup Oscar finalists, Deborah Vankin wonders where to draw the line between digital work and good old-fashioned cosmetics. [Los Angeles Times] 

With his new film, “Red Hook Summer,” currently the talk of Sundance, Spike Lee uses the spotlight to protest that studios “known nothing” about black audiences. [24 Frames]

David Cox argues that the “overpoweringly pacifist sermon” of “War Horse” represents an about-face from Spielberg’s previous war films. (Wait, “Schindler’s List” portrayed war as “epic and just?”) [The Guardian]

Nicolas Winding Refn discusses the craft elements of “Drive” — could they land at least one Oscar nod tomorrow? Please? [Below the Line]

Tom Brueggemann evaluates the box office performance of several awards players in the weekend leading up to the Oscar nominations, with “The Artist” still not breaking out. [Thompson on Hollywood]

There are three reasons I’ve chosen the photo to your left to illustrate this post: 1) Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay nominations for “Take Shelter” are two of the fragile limbs I’ve climbed out on in compiling my final predictions for Tuesday’s Oscar nominations announcement (with Kris and Gerard’s to follow tomorrow); 2) Michael Shannon’s face, staring impassively but uncertainly into the ill-lit darkness, roughly represents where I am with said predictions; and 3) if you look closely, Jessica Chastain’s in the background, and since she’s in the background of approximately half the films I expect to be nominated by the Academy, it seemed appropriate.

This feels like a tenuous year for predictions, and not just because — for the first time in Oscar history — we have the added variable of not knowing how many films will be nominated for Best Picture. In most years, at least a couple of categories feel more or less locked in place ahead of this announcement: this time, we have several major categories where a pair or trio of frontrunners are so far ahead of the pack (Clooney-Dujardin-Pitt in Actor, Davis-Streep-Williams in Actress, Hazanavicius-Allen in Original Screenplay), that the remaining slots, having already acquired the status of mere formality, are vulnerable to surprises.

A watched pot never boils, after all, and with the conversation already having narrowed in many races to two or three names, there are a lot of unwatched pots at the soft end of the ballot. A lot of unwatched screeners too, we know, which is why it only takes a smallish band of voters to watch an unheralded film or performance and recommend it to their pals to buck both the odds and the precursors: that’s how a Tommy Lee Jones winds up nominated for “In the Valley of Elah.” Or a Laura Linney for “The Savages.” Or a Samantha Morton for “In America.”

Or indeed a Michael Shannon for “Revolutionary Road” — a handy segue, since I’m expecting that very actor to repeat the trick he performed three years ago, where he landed on Oscar’s list without one major precursor nomination to his name. His rivetingly agitated performance in “Take Shelter” is one of the year’s most glowingly reviewed, though few saw the film on its fall release. Still, as more heavily hyped contenders (DiCaprio, Gosling) have fallen away, the small but devoted fanbase for Shannon’s work has remained steadfast, and word has slowly, modestly spread. It helps that the film plays well on a screener.

If Shannon pulls it off, I fear it’ll be at the expense of another critically adored Michael: Fassbender may be the man of the hour, and “Shame” may be a buzzy conversation piece on the arthouse circuit, but do we know how the conservative actors’ branch is responding to this chilly film and highly contained performance? It’s finely detailed work, but not expansive thespian catnip for voters. Neither, for that matter, is fellow Brit Gary Oldman’s equally reserved, low-temperature performance in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” but he has more than a few years on Fassbender, and the fact that this modern master is still awaiting his first Oscar nomination has been repeated often enough on the publicity trail to make voters feel a little sheepish.

It helps that Oldman’s film is picking up some momentum, and not a moment too soon: after an alarming start to the season, which saw it blanked in one precursor list after another despite reasonable US box office, “Tinker, Tailor” rallied slightly with a pair of Guild nods (craft ones, but it’ll take what it can get), a USC Scripter mention and a whopping 11 BAFTA nominations. Yes, that’s home support that might well not translate to Oscar nominations at all, but you have to go back to “Billy Elliot” to find a British film that performed that well with BAFTA and didn’t net a Best Picture Oscar nomination. (And it still got into Best Director.) It may be unwise, but I’m predicting the Academy’s not-inconsiderable British voting bloc to come through for the cool spy drama, securing it a Best Picture nod by the skin of its tea-stained teeth.

In doing so, I’m predicting it to steal the classy-genre-piece thunder of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” which I’m probably underestimating rather severely with only two predicted nominations in the technical races, despite its rock-solid showing across the Guilds. I may regret that on Tuesday, but the Academy usually only responds to pulp if it’s attained phenomenon status — and with its respectable-not-ecstatic reviews and its respectable-not-stratospheric box office, I don’t know how hard “Dragon Tattoo” is selling itself to Academy voters.(I’d certainly like Rooney Mara’s chances of crashing the SAG-approved Best Actress lineup if she weren’t such a dour presence on the publicity circuit.)

The reasoning that voters feel they owe David Fincher after his loss last year to Tom Hooper only goes so far: if they felt that bad about it, they would have voted for him in the first place. As it stands, I expect him to be the one DGA nominee that, as is usually the case, doesn’t make the Academy’s five. In his place: Terrence Malick. Whether or not “The Tree of Life” has broad enough support to crack the Best Picture lineup is an increasingly distant question mark, but his high-risk, high-reach helming of the Palme d’Or winner is just the kind of brazen auteur statement the Academy’s smaller, more particular directors’ branch often sticks up for — which could result in our first ‘lone director’ nominee since Julian Schnabel four years ago. I’ve missed those.

I’m also counting on enough grudging respect for “The Tree of Life” — propped by by a wave of not-at-all grudging adoration for Brad Pitt — to see the locked-in Best Actor nominee score a surprise second nod for Best Supporting Actor. Again, there are few precursors to support that idea, but something about that category has looked ripe for a wild-card nominee for some time. I don’t know I don’t quite buy the Jonah Hill story, or indeed the Nick Nolte story, but if something gives, why wouldn’t they reward one of their favorite stars for venturing into the arthouse, and earning some of the best reviews of his career for it? It’s a nomination that would appear at once cosy and adventurous: everybody wins.

Other questions abound. Dare they nominate “The Artist” for sound awards? If Jonah Hill is this year’s Mila Kunis — sorry, Mila — is Shailene Woodley this year’s Andrew Garfield? (To remind you: fresh face giving a well-liked performance in a formidable Best Picture challenger, who nonetheless missed first with SAG and then with the Academy.) I think so, yes. If she is, is that a sign of weakness for “The Descendants” — or can it make good on its concerted push for an editing nomination?

Speaking of the techs, what to make of that eternally wacky Costume Design category — where, honestly, not one of the top 15 titles on our Contenders page would surprise me as a nominee? (Watch it be French royalty-porn extravaganza “The Princess of Montpensier.”)

Very nearly as scattered is the Original Screenplay race: my long-held prediction for “A Separation” seems to be gaining company among other pundits, but “50/50,” for all its precursor mentions, carries a strong whiff of the much-nominated but Academy-snubbed “(500) Days of Summer” to me — and not just because of the JGL-Five-O parallel. (Still, what’s up with that?) Any number of carefully written indies feel like plausible nominees there, which brings me full circle to my rash predictions for “Take Shelter” — and there I shall stop, because if I think about this any further, I may start sounding a little like a Michael Shannon character myself. Good luck, everyone.

With that, here are my final predictions. Kris and Gerard will weigh in with theirs tomorrow.

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention! 

Yesterday, I began my annual far-fetched wishlist of films and individual achievements that, in a perfect world, I’d like to see mentioned in Tuesday’s Academy Award nominations, beginning with the craft categories. Today, I move on to the major races, again picking freely from all films released Stateside in 2011 regardless of their presence on the AMPAS eligibility list, and ignoring the rigid qualifying rules in the documentary and foreign-language fields that keep so many of the year’s best films out of running. Once more, the results set me up for a world of resigned disappointment next week.

When I left you yesterday, “Drive” and “Jane Eyre” were leading the field, while my two favorite films of the year “Weekend” and “Margaret,” had yet to get on the scoreboard. How much will this change? What peaked only in the technicals? And is there time for a late surge from “W.E.?” Check out my picks after the jump, and weigh in with your own thoughts (and favorites) in the comments. 

Best Picture
“Bombay Beach”
“Certified Copy”
“Cold Weather”
“Drive”
“Margaret”
“Martha Marcy May Marlene”
“Meek’s Cutoff”
“Tomboy”
“Weekend”
“We Need to Talk About Kevin”

I’ve already explained these selections in ample detail here, and haven’t much more to add — though it’s been a couple of years since I faced the likelihood of a 0% match-up with the Academy’s choices. As my one selection with even a theoretical chance of cracking Tuesday’s lineup, my thoughts are with “Drive,” but I’m happy with my band of outsiders regardless. 

Best Director
Abbas Kiarostami, “Certified Copy” 
Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”
Kelly Reichardt, “Meek’s Cutoff”
Andrew Haigh, “Weekend” 
Lynne Ramsay, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Next tier: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”; Kenneth Lonergan, “Margaret”; Lars von Trier, “Melancholia”; Julia Leigh, “Sleeping Beauty”; Céline Sciamma, “Tomboy”

Choosing who to cut here was difficult: even within the arthouse realm, this lineup carries a strong scent of apples and oranges. Haigh’s directorial hold on his film isn’t as insistent or aggressive as, say, Refn’s, but the compositional and structural acuity of “Weekend” isn’t simply the work of a gifted writer; Kiarostami, meanwhile, counters his eggheady script with fluid visual language and surreptitiously incisive language. Reichardt expanded her canvas stunningly, matching the scope of her imagery to her usual human preoccupations, while Ramsay showed no signs of rust after a nine-year absence, turning pop-bestseller material on its head with structural abandon and a barrage of sensory innovations.

Best Actor
Tom Cullen, “Weekend”
Grigoriy Dobrygin, “How I Ended This Summer”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Michael Fassbender, “Jane Eyre”
Chris New, “Weekend”

Next tier: Joel Edgerton, “Warrior”; Michael Fassbender, “Shame”; Brendan Gleeson, “The Guard”; Tom Hardy, “Warrior”; Gary Oldman, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

I swear I have nothing against American actors — but the European guys really brought it this year. Dujardin has been primed for an Oscar nod ever since Cannes, and with good reason: his effortless star magnetism masks the performance’s tricky extremes of physical comedy and heightened melodrama. Dobrygin, meanwhile, won festival gold at Berlin nearly two years ago, but his bristly, cryptically disoriented performance hasn’t dulled in my memory. Fassbender could as easily have made my five for “Shame” — indeed, the two performances aren’t poles apart in their coolly sensual, watchful reserve. Finally, Cullen and New gave the year’s great pas de deux performance, each man answering the other’s absences with heartbreaking warmth and candid specificity.

Best Actress
Juliette Binoche, “Certified Copy”
Olivia Colman, “Tyrannosaur”
Zoé Héran, “Tomboy”
Elizabeth Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
Anna Paquin, “Margaret”

Next tier: Emily Browning, “Sleeping Beauty”; Viola Davis, “The Help”; Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”; Mia Wasikowska, “Jane Eyre”; Kristen Wiig, “Bridesmaids”

The Osar narrative in this category has settled into one of great actresses working against mediocre films, though the names listed above prove that it hasn’t been hard to find equally exciting talents rising to the demands of fittingly strong, searching material. Binoche turned a rich concept into a real character with matchless grace and humor, Colman brought piercing empathy and fragile intelligence to a woman many accomplished actresses would play merely as an open sore, and Paquin channelled all the exasperating push-pull emotional impulses of young adulthood into the performance of her career… six years ago. Meanwhile, two superb young debut actresses played characters perilously perched between identities: Héran and Olsen are at war with their own body and memory, respectively, and neither settles on an easy rationale or solution. 

Best Supporting Actor
Peter Carroll, “Sleeping Beauty”
Colin Firth, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
Tom Hardy, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
Ezra Miller, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”
Chris O’Dowd, “Bridesmaids”

Next tier: Raúl Castillo, “Cold Weather”; Matt Damon, “Margaret”; Viggo Mortensen, “A Dangerous Method”; Mark Ruffalo, “Margaret”; Christoph Waltz, “Carnage”

The season’s dullest category thus far needn’t have been so: a disparate array of breakthrough roles and well-seasoned ensembles present several spiky alternatives to the Oscar field-fillers. Would that O’Dowd, so generously eccentric and wounded when the script could lure him into schtick, had caught even a fraction of his film’s buzz, or that more Tilda Swinton acolytes had noticed how fiercely Miller reflects her, only to craftily warp that reflection, in every scene they share. Hardy and Firth, compellingly agitated and coldly careworn respectively, might have received more attention in a film less crammed with marvelous actors. Finally, I have no idea who Carroll is or where he came from, but his quietly, creepily despairing “all my bones are broken” monologue hasn’t found its way out from under my skin in eight months.  

Best Supporting Actress
Nicole Beharie, “Shame”
Jeannie Berlin, “Margaret”
Malonn Lévana, “Tomboy”
Vanessa Redgrave, “Coriolanus” 
J. Smith-Cameron, “Margaret”

Next tier: Carey Mulligan, “Shame”; Jessica Chastain, “The Help”; Jessica Chastain, “Take Shelter”; Sarina Farhadi, “A Separation”; Juno Temple, “Kaboom”

Oh, Vanessa Redgrave, what happened? I can only imagine that BAFTA, Globe and SAG awards voters ejected their “Coriolanus” screeners (if indeed they ever played them) before they got to her monumental reading of Volumnia’s key monologue, pleading her son for a political about-face, and thereby missed 2011’s best few minutes of screen acting. Their loss… and hers, sadly. Similarly unseen by far too many: the magnificently brittle, conflicted veterans of “Margaret,” in stark contrast to 6 year-old Lévana’s utterly guileless, unaffected emotional intelligence. Finally, though the similarly striking Mulligan has scored some deserved notices for “Shame,” I wish Beharie’s knockout performance, alternately flinty and playful in its sexual queries and projections, weren’t being overlooked entirely.

Best Original Screenplay
Abbas Kiarostami, “Certified Copy”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Margaret”
Sean Durkin, “Martha Marcy May May Marlene”
Julia Leigh, “Sleeping Beauty”
Andrew Haigh, “Weekend” 

Next tier: “The Artist,” “Cold Weather,” “The Myth of the American Sleepover,” “A Separation,” “Tomboy”

Five exciting writer-directors, five poetic, provocative voices, five exquisitely styled investigations of difficult human truths, five works that are certain to tickle the Academy less than Woody Allen reminding us that the past is a foreign country, or a joke about a fat woman shitting into a sink. (I like “Bridesmaids,” but… )  

Best Adapted Screenplay
Hossein Amini, “Drive”
Moira Buffini, “Jane Eyre”
François Ozon, “Potiche”
Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
Lynne Ramsay and Rory Kinnear, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Next tier: “The Arbor,” “Moneyball,” “Mysteries of Lisbon,” “The Skin I Live In,” “Tyrannosaur”

I already made a case for Buffini’s dextrous reshuffle of Charlotte Brontë and Ozon’s witty ironizing of a drawing-room chestnut in my First-Half FYC column, and did the same or Straughan and the late O’Connor’s academic, even algebraic, distillation of John Le Carré’s dense espionage thriller in our recent ‘bubble contenders’ list. Ramsay and Kinnear deserve the prize for radically redesigning the voice and perspective of an epistolary novel, turning a wordy source into something nearly as terse as Amini’s elegant pulp-fiction sleekening.

Best Foreign Language Film
“How I Ended This Summer”
“Johnny Mad Dog”
“Pina”
“A Separation”
“Tomboy”

Next tier: “Mysteries of Lisbon,” “Poetry,” “Potiche,” “Le Quattro Volte,” “13 Assassins”

Usually, there would be far more overlap between this lineup and my Best Picture picks — but for whatever reason, I gravitated far more heavily toward English-language fare than in most years. Maybe I’m getting parochial in my old age. You’ll have got the idea from other nominations that I’m high on the mall and perfectly formed childhood study “Tomboy” and “How I Ended This Summer,” a teasing, landscape-as-character anti-thriller from Russia , and you hardly need to be told again how wonderful “Pina” and “A Separation” are. So can I encourage you to seek out “Johnny Mad Dog,” a storming gut-punch of a war film about child soldiers in Francophone Africa? Made in 2008, the US was seemingly the last country to latch onto lit, but better late than never.

Best Animated Feature
“The Adventures of Tintin”
“Chico and Rita”
“Rango”
“Rio”
“Winnie the Pooh” 

It felt like enough of a stretch to draw up just five nominees in what is a disappointingly thin category this year, so please don’t ask for a second tier. “The Adventures of Tintin” and “Rango,” both visually luscious appropriations of past live-action genre forms — one with its heart in its mouth, the other with its tongue irretrievably lodged in its cheek — are rightfully leading this race, and feel like the only truly complete options, though I do have time for the good-natured throwaway jokery and iridescent color of “Rio” and the sweet-sleepy nostalgia of “Pooh.” I wish I loved the funky, stylized romance of “Chico and Rita” as much in practice as I do in theory, but exciting theory is enough this year.

Best Documentary Feature
“Bombay Beach”
“The Interrupters”
“Pina”
“Le Quattro Volte”
“Senna”

Next tier: “The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975,” “Hell and Back Again,” “Page One: Inside the New York Times,” “Tabloid,” “We Were Here”

Okay, so “Le Quattro Volte,” with its dramatic interludes cutting into its hands-off rural monitoring, isn’t a documentary in the strictest sense, but with the list of 2011 documentaries I found as stimulating cinematically as intellectually not running too deep, I’m willing to bend the rules for something that asks interesting questions of the form. Happily, the films that did take risks took big ones: the complete reliance of jaw-dropping found material in “Senna,” the reckless fusion of observation and performance in “Bombay Beach,” the reckless performance, period, of “Pina,” all caught in unparalleled 3D.  

And there you have it: 21 categories, 46 films and presumably little overlap with whatever list of names the Academy gives us. For those who like numbers, “Drive” and “We Need to Talk About Kevin” lead my ballot with seven mentions apiece, “Jane Eyre” follows with six, and “Margaret,” “Weekend” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” are just behind with five each. Would that they had similar tallies awaiting them on Tuesday.

What films and individuals do you want to show up? Tell us below. 

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

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

Let’s just say that if you were expecting any film besides “The Artist” to triumph at the Producers’ Guild of America Awards, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. After dominating the critics’ awards and taking three Golden Globes, the French phenomenon had its first taste of Guild glory last night — solidly confirming its status as the film to beat (if indeed it can be beaten) for the Oscar.

As with “The Hurt Locker” two years ago, the PGA rewarded by far the lowest-grossing of the 10 films nominated: many pundits speak of them as a commercially-minded voting group, but their choices don’t really bear this idea out. Consensus has simply landed on Harvey Weinstein’s black-and-white pony as the most loveable in the race, and if it has the money men in its corner, it’s good to go.  

We’ll know next weekend just how comfortable the film is in the race as the Directors’ and Screen Actors’ Guilds announce their winners — a DGA win for Michel Hazanavicius (which is probable) would just about lock things in place, but if it manages to beat “The Help” to the SAG ensemble award (which is more of a question mark), Oscar pundits may as well take up another hobby until February 27.

The more eyebrow-raising result is over in the animation category, where “The Adventures of Tintin” pulled off its second big win over precursor leader “Rango” in the space of a week. We put the Spielberg film’s Golden Globe victory down to name appeal with voters, and it’s tempting to wonder if something similar was behind the PGA victory. When a film is steered by three super-producers as powerful as Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Peter Jackson, it’s hardly surprising that their peers are going to pay respect — even if the film is, like “The Artist,” the lowest-grossing in its field.

What this means for the Oscar race, where I suspect the quirkier charms of “Rango” will still carry the day, is less clear. Indeed, Kris is still predicting “Tintin” won’t be nominated at all by the Academy’s mocap-wary animation branch. If it clears that hurdle, however, might residual admiration and/or sympathy for Spielberg’s failed Best Picture bid “War Horse” boost his chances in the lesser category? Or will voters feel he’s been amply rewarded as it is? We’ll see, but in a perennially suspense-free category that hasn’t had an actual race to the finish since 2006, it’d be nice to have two strong contenders.

Over in the documentary category, meanwhile, the Guild did little to affect the overall race, surprisingly selecting Michael Rapaport’s Oscar-ineligible hip-hop doc “Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest” over Academy-shortlisted titles “Project Nim” and “Bill Cunningham New York,” as well as British favorite “Senna.” I haven’t seen the film myself, but I’m glad Rapaport, the bloke-ish New York character actor here making his directorial debut, finally has something to show for 20 years in the game.  

To recap, the list of film winners:

Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures

“The Artist” – Producer: Thomas Langmann The Producers Guild of America

Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures 

“The Adventures of Tintin” – Producers: Peter Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg

Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures 

“Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest” – Producers: Michael Rapaport, Edward Parks  

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.

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!