Back in November, we reported that David O. Russell”s ill-fated, romantic satire “Nailed” would actually see the light of day, thanks to producers determined to reshoot, finish and release the picture in whatever marketable form they could. Now dubbed “Accidental Love,” the first trailer for the film plays like a goofy rom-com of the McConaughey-Hudson era, albeit with hints of Russell”s biting perspective. What was dead is now reborn… as something far more generic. Is this how Nicole Kidman felt in “Birth”?

“Accidental Love” follows Alice (Jessica Biel), the recent victim of a nailgun shot to the head, as she crusades to Washington D.C. in defense of all those afflicted by “weird conditions they can”t afford to fix.” Ditched by her fiancée (James Marsden), Alice hooks up with an eager, young politician (Jake Gyllenhaal) and antics ensue.  

Though he”s turned his attention to more traditional drama fare, Russell has a wicked, wacky side  (see “Spanking the Monkey,” “Flirting with Disaster,” and “I Heart Huckabees”). There are moments in the “Accidental Love” that can be traced to that sensibility – even Biel”s Jim Carrey-like spasms feel like the director's touch – but, boy, how bold white lettering and swooshing sound effects quickly turn what-could-be into an Adam Sandler vehicle. 'Accidental Love' is now credited to director Stephen Greene, who may be the man behind “Sexy Santa Poops Herself Prank” if IMDb is on point. That sounds about right.

Check out the trailer and the film”s poster below.

Accidental Love will be on VOD on Feb. 10, and in theaters on Feb. 20.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910543635001

If you had Damien Chazelle's “Whiplash” chalked up for a Best Original Screenplay nomination, hold your horses. Despite the demonstrable fact that Chazelle directed a short film of the same name that was merely a scene taken from the already-written feature in order to raise funds for said feature, the Academy has apparently deemed it an adapted screenplay.

The news comes from Grantland writer Mark Harris, who saw the film chalked up as an eligible contender in the adapted category on an e-ballot rather than original. “There are five slots,” Harris told me in a quick exchange. “You list them preferentially. In the blank next to each slot, there's a click-option to go to the 'reminder list' of eligible films for that category. And there was 'Whiplash' [in adapted].”

It's too late to reach out for any sort of comment from the Academy or WGA on this, alas. Though obviously the guild would simply tell me what we already know, that per their rubric, it's an original screenplay not “based on material previously published or produced.” Does AMPAS define “published or produced” differently? Does an original screenplay registered with the guild prior to production of a short not qualify as, well, original? Now that I think about it, was the script even registered prior to the production of the short? I don't have the answer right now. I'm literally thinking out loud.

It's interesting to see something like this rear its head this late in the game, but it's happened before. Nine years ago Stephen Gaghan's “Syriana” had been deemed an adaptation of Robert Baer's book “See No Evil.” It received a WGA nod in that category and was nominated for a USC Scripter Award (given to adapted screenplays and their source material). It also won the adapted screenplay prize from the National Society of Film Critics. But the Academy felt it deviated too much from the book and classified it as original. No one – not even Gaghan – had been made aware of the decision. Ultimately he was nominated in the original category after all, but there was a very real danger that voters would have voted for it in the adapted category, and every such vote would have been rendered null.

Harris reminds that that's not as much of a danger here, as with e-balloting at least, it's not possible to write in a nominee. Nevertheless, just like Gaghan nearly a decade ago, I'm told this all comes as news to Chazelle and company. But here's the good part of that news…

Best Adapted Screenplay is a desolate wasteland. The original category is far more competitive. So even if it probably won't sit well that Chazelle's original work has been dubiously categorized (and even if he would have likely been a sure thing in original anyway), it should be clear sailing to a nod in the adapted fold. That frees up some room in the other category (good news, Dan Gilroy), but the bummer on the adapted side is Paul Thomas Anderson might be the one who gets the scoot. Maybe.

Sony Pictures Classics did not immediately respond to request for a comment.

UPDATE: Deadline has added to the story with a few quotes from the “Whiplash” camp.

Members of the Vancouver Film Critics Circle have finished up their annual barroom vote and settled on Richard Linklater's “Boyhood” as the year's best film. They went out on a respectable limb in the Best Actress race, however, opting for Tilda Swinton's “Only Lovers Left Alive” performance. Meanwhile, Stéphane Lafleur's “Tu dors Nicole” cleaned up in the Canadian categories.

Check out the nominees here, the full list of winners below and the rest at The Circuit.

INTERNATIONAL

Best Film
“Boyhood”

Best Director
Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”

Best Actor
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”

Best Actress
Tilda Swinton, “Only Lovers Left Alive”

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”

Best Screenplay
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Force Majeure”

Best Documentary
“The Overnighters”

CANADIAN

Best Canadian Film
“Tu dors Nicole”

Best Director of a Canadian Film
Denis Villeneuve, “Enemy”

Best Actor in a Canadian Film
Antoine-Olivier Pilon, “Mommy”

Best Actress in a Canadian Film
Julianne Côté, “Tu dors Nicole”

Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Film
Marc-André Grondin, “Tu dors Nicole”

Best Supporting Actress in a Canadian Film
Suzanne Clément, “Mommy”

Best Screenplay for a Canadian Film
Xavier Dolan, “Mommy”

Best Canadian Documentary
“The Price We Pay”

Best First Film by a Canadian Director
“Violent”

Best British Columbia Film
“Violent”

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4911416534001

Just before the end of the year, we looked at the incredible accomplishments of Weta Digital on “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” This, however, was not the only 2014 film where the wizards of that New Zealand-based effects house had their talents on full display. “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” was the latest entry in the on-going rebooted franchise, where Weta topped itself yet again. And it began at a high time for the studio.

“We just finished 'Avatar' and got the call from Fox,” visual effects supervisor Dan Lemmon reminisces. “We were big fans of original 1960s movies and television shows so we were really excited.”

Adds fellow supervisor Joe Letteri, “Fox sent me the script [for ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes'] and I loved it. It was just a fantastic script and I loved the way they did the story. Essentially it was a story of growing up and we got to see Caesar in all the stages of his life.”

However, this approach to the progression of Caesar – the simian lead of the franchise played via performance capture technology by Andy Serkis – meant that new ground needed to be broken from a visual effects perspective. “The original movies used makeup and prosthetics and John Chambers won a special Academy Award before they gave out awards for makeup,” says Lemmon, super-familiar with the franchise's backstory. “Anybody who is a fan of creature/monster movies, that movie has a special place in their hearts. But because of the specific requirements of the story Fox wanted to tell, we knew those traditional approaches weren't going to work.”

Being an original story beginning with regular apes indistinguishable from what would be found in the wild, Weta needed to make Caesar indistinguishable from them. Performance capture was the obvious answer. “Even though proportions of humans and apes are so different, we could get humans to move like apes in a reasonably convincing way,” Lemmon says. “So we could use humans to drive the performances and get all the great things that go with working with talented actors.”

They needed one actor in motion capture for the various stages of Caesar's life, Letteri says, because “the actor needs to lead us as an audience along this journey, along this pathway.”

Having already spearheaded the creation of characters like Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings” franchise and 2005's King Kong, Letteri felt he knew exactly which actor was up for the task. But Fox felt Andy Serkis might not be interested given his extensive history in motion capture characters. Letteri took matters into his own hands. “I just sent him a script and he said, 'Yeah, this would be great.' No one ever says to an actor, 'Are you ever tired of playing humans?'”

The rest, as they say, is history, with both Lemmon and Letteri praising Serkis as being absolutely pivotal to the success of the series.  And Lemmon notes that his task was merely to make the story visually believable, because the actors had already done the hard work in making it emotionally believable. “There's a version of 'Rise' that exists that the editors put together where there are no apes, just grown men in pajamas pretending to be apes,” he says. “It's a little weird, but after a couple of minutes you forget that and you understand you're experiencing the story as though they were apes.”

Of course, everyone knew that Weta would eventually work their magic and the onus turned to the effects house to make it truly magical. They had the foresight to realize the groundwork for their work needed to be laid during filming. The approach of having all actors shoot at the same time on a live set had never been done before in precisely this way. “We came up with new technology to integrate motion capture with the other actors as part of the principal photography and it made everything just gel,” Letteri says. “Because everyone got so comfortable with that same process. Even with actors who'd never done it before, they were able to give fantastic performances.”

Lemmon similarly notes the changes in technology that were required to make sure Serkis and the other ape actors could be on the same set as everyone else – a set that would ultimately become the backdrop for the whole movie. “We could take performance capture tools we'd developed on 'Avatar' [mostly shot on a green screen] and take them onto a live set,” he says. “That required changes in technology to take traditional equipment and make it portable and flexible. That was how we got started.”

In Koba, “Dawn's” ape antagonist played by Toby Kebbell, the franchise brought another character whose development “as a character” was absolutely crucial. “When Tobyauditioned with Andy, we knew it would work great in the final characters,” Lemmon says, also explaining how, as with Serkis and Caesar, they made sure that Kebbell's characteristics became Koba's. “We took signature things from Toby's face like certain wrinkles his eyebrows make and Toby actually has a couple of veins that stick out in his neck that became part of Koba.”

Despite the new actors and characters, Letteri cites the maturity of the actors and familiarity with the techniques as being a principal change between “Rise” and “Dawn.” “We had all done this before as a crew, which was great, but more importantly, the actors led by Andy Serkis were just more comfortable in those roles,” he says.

“Dawn” also required changes in technology due to the change in scenery. “Rise” was primarily shot indoors, much of it in the same house. “Dawn” went out into the forest, with the rainforest of British Columbia subbing in for the natural area near San Francisco. (As for desolate San Francisco, desolate New Orleans did the trick, notably a parking lot of an abandoned Six Flags amusement park.) “When 'Dawn' came around, locations we were going to be in were a whole lot more challenging than for 'Rise,'” Letteri explains. “The script had us on the side of the mountain, raining a lot of time. It took a level of engineering to get our equipment to a new level to capture that.”

Lemmon explains that they were required to develop “another iteration of the same type of technology.” He recalls practical examples of what they needed to develop to shoot in Canada's national parks: “The trees were always wet and we couldn't attach anything to them. Getting equipment to stick to the trees was tough. The best thing we could use was the same adhesive to stick dentures inside your mouth!”

Between the characters and the locations, there is also the fact that “Dawn” is simply a bigger story, more sprawling and epic than “Rise.” Lemmon calls it “Shakespearean in the number of characters, the stroggle between species and the struggles within those species.”

Letteri similarly describes his biggest challenge as balancing the “scope” of “Dawn” with the survival story at its heart. “There are hundreds and hundreds of apes and the question of 'how do you do that?' comes up. But this tribe is in a hunt for its survival and we need to understand the physicality of their world and the danger of their world.”

He focuses on the apes' language as a specific example of building the characters and ensuring the story was not lost. “How do we bridge this gap of apes learning sign language at end of 'Rise' to speaking and using dialogue as it progresses,” he proposes. “Apes, when we first see them [in 'Dawn'], are using sign language because they don't need to speak. When humans come in, Caesar starts speaking with them and more and more the others speak. We wanted the apes to feel that it wasn't natural to speak, the sense of almost pushing the words out, not quite knowing how to perform each word. I thought that gave it a nice sense of realism and understanding.”

At the end of a big year, however, it will ultimately be the people more than the work itself that sticks with these Weta artists as they go forward. Letteri describes Serkis as now being a good friend, and Lemmon says when he looks back and sees the cover to a DVD jacket, he thinks of late nights in a conference room with a few individuals as an effects shot finally starts to click into place. “It's so cool and rewarding and exciting,” he says.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4910358163001

The Georgia Film Critics Association has more or less kept to the standard flow today with a list of nominations led by critical darlings “Birdman,” “Boyhood,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Selma.” Each film picked up seven nods, though “Selma” also figured into collective nods for two breakthrough nominees so you'd be on solid turf to say it was out in front.

Check out the full list of nominees below. Winners will be announced on Jan. 9. Check out the rest of the madness at The Circuit.

Best Picture
“Birdman”
“Boyhood”
“Gone Girl”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Ida”
“A Most Violent Year”
“Nightcrawler”
“Selma”
“Snowpiercer”
“Whiplash”

Best Director
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
David Fincher, “Gone Girl”
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Ava DuVernay, “Selma”
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash”

Best Actor
Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”
David Oyelowo, “Selma”
Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”

Best Actress
Marion Cotillard, “Two Days, One Night”
Scarlett Johansson, “Under the Skin”
Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
Lisa Loven Kongsli, “Force Majeure”
Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”

Best Supporting Actor
Riz Ahmed, “Nightcrawler”
Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
Edward Norton, “Birdman”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year”
Rene Russo, “Nightcrawler”
Emma Stone, “Birdman”
Tilda Swinton, “Snowpiercer”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“Gone Girl”
“The Imitation Game”
“Inherent Vice”
“Snowpiercer”
“The Theory of Everything”
“Wild”

Best Original Screenplay
“Boyhood”
“Calvary”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Nightcrawler”
“Selma”

Best Cinematography
“Birdman”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Ida”
“Inherent Vice”
“Interstellar”

Best Production Design
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Inherent Vice”
“Interstellar”
“Into the Woods”
“Snowpiercer”
“Under the Skin”

Best Original Score
“Birdman”
“Gone Girl”
“Interstellar”
“Life Itself”
“Under the Skin”

Best Original Song
“Everything is Awesome” from “The Lego Movie”
“Glory” from “Selma”
“I'm Not Gonna Miss You” from “Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me”
“Something so Right” from “Muppets Most Wanted”
“We Will Not Go” from “Virunga”

Best Ensemble
“Birdman”
“Boyhood”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Gone Girl”
“Selma”

Best Foreign Film
“Force Majeure”
“Ida”
“Sepideh”
“Two Days, One Night”
“We Are the Best!”

Best Animated Film
“Big Hero 6”
“The Book of Life”
“The Boxtrolls”
“How to Train Your Dragon 2”
“The Lego Movie”

Best Documentary
“CITIZENFOUR”
“Finding Vivian Maier”
“Keep On Keepin' On”
“Life Itself”
“Sepideh”

Breakthrough Award
Ellar Coltrane, “Boyhood”
Ava DuVernay, “Selma”
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, “Belle,” “Beyond the Lights”
David Oyelowo, “Default,” “Interstellar,” “A Most Violent Year,” “Nightingale,” “Selma”
Jenny Slate, “The Longest Week,” “Obvious Child”
Tessa Thompson, “Dear White People,” “Grantham & Rose,” “Selma”

So far, four industry groups have announced nominations this year: the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the American Cinema Editors (ACE), the Art Directors Guild (ADG) and the Producers Guild of America (PGA). And so far, only five films have been recognized by all four groups: “Birdman,” “Gone Girl,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Imitation Game” and “Nightcrawler.” (Nominations for the Annie Awards have also been announced, but none of these films received support there for obvious reasons.) That grouping is probably not what we were expecting.

Let's talk screeners, and specifically about “Selma” first. A lot will be made of its miss today with the PGA. What I think it reveals, as will a DGA snub of Ava DuVernay, is that voting bodies are far too dependent on screeners. Granted, this is a very late-breaking film. DVDs could not be made until mid-December and then, only a select number were sent: to the Academy. (Update: Just a note, Pathé is handling outreach in the UK and apparently screeners were sent to BAFTA.) It's hard to get out to the theater over the holiday. Etc. But we're seeing an interesting test case here, because at the end of the day, I'll still be shocked if the film doesn't land in a number of key Oscar categories.

Screeners for “Interstellar,” meanwhile, didn't hit doorsteps until just before the close of the year. But its fate appears more sealed than ever with the PGA miss. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying. It just didn't connect, or it needed more time to marinate. It has its fans (producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger, for instance, just hosted a screening last night). But a number of films are angling for that passion play this year and, well, there's only so much passion to go around.

“Nightcrawler,” meanwhile, is certainly the least likely suspect on that list of movies above. Part of it, as I've already written, has to do with the film catching hold at exactly the right time and playing like gangbusters on screener. People love it, as in number-one-votes-on-ballots love. At this point I don't think too many should be shocked if it does manage the trick and become Open Road's first Best Picture nominee to date.

Screeners for “American Sniper” went out super early, not long after the AFI Fest premiere and ahead of the Academy screening (which is rare). Warner Bros. was Johnny on the spot with it, helped along certainly by the fact that the film was ready to go sooner than “Selma” (whose AFI debut was a work in progress, not a completed product). Eastwood's film is strong, and again, timing is key here.

“Birdman” and “The Imitation Game” are thoroughbreds in the race, but “Gone Girl” is hanging on, too, despite the fact that the studio couldn't quite run the campaign it would have liked to thanks to director David Fincher's controlling ways on the marketing side. And that's not a huge deal to me, really, because the film – any film – should sink or swim on its own merit. But will this be akin to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” a movie celebrated for its parts that doesn't come together as anyone's true favorite – i.e., a Best Picture nominee – in the final analysis? I wonder.

Which brings me to “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Let the record show that Greg Ellwood keeps nudging me to chalk it up in the predictions. He's stuck by his favorite film of the year from the beginning. I need a little more, though. “Moonrise Kingdom” did alright in the lead-up, though admittedly missed a few beats “Grand Budapest” has unsurprisingly nailed. Nothing about this film's trajectory so far should be a surprise to anyone. A Directors Guild nomination, however, would get my attention.

Which brings me to the rest of the schedule. I covered this once, but to review, the writers, cinematographers and costume designers will announce nominees Wednesday. The makeup artists and hairstylists will speak up Thursday. Two days after the Golden Globes, the sound mixers and directors will announce next Tuesday, with the visual effects artists and the sound editors coming in the following day. The next 10 days will be the definitive statement from industry groups, which have crossover with Academy membership.

And even then, again, timing. None of these groups received “Selma” screeners, and it's clear people are nominating what they received. (Which is another reason to be heartbroken over the fate of “Beyond the Lights.” Sigh.) But Academy members have had the movie for three weeks now and could watch it over the holiday. So it's the long game, and it should work out. Also, voting timetables differ between the guilds and the Academy enough to sometimes reflect different spectrums. You just never know.

But you certainly have a fairly clear picture of who's on the track and who's not. “Unbroken,” for instance, got that Art Directors Guild mention this morning, but the PGA miss is a big blow. “Mr. Turner” is coming up dry, while “Foxcatcher” and “The Theory of Everything” are maintaining an even keel. “Whiplash” is serious. And “Boyhood” is “Boyhood,” the frontrunner to many.

I'll say this and only this, though. Look at that picture at the top of this post. Look how WHITE and MALE it is. That's all I'm saying…

What do you think of how the race is taking shape? Sound off in the comments.

One of the most exciting aspects of the prestige and festival seasons are the last minute surprises that often seem to come out of nowhere. Case in point, at this point last year notable favorites such as “Selma,” “Still Alice” and “A Most Violent Year” hadn't even begun filming yet.  There's no doubt that 2015 will bring a number of similar last minute additions, but we have to admit we're quite excited about many of the films already on the way.  Why you may ask? Oh, let us count the ways.

There will be at least three new films starring Michael Fassbender, two new leading roles for Cate Blanchett (not counting “Cinderella”) and three more transformations from Jake Gyllenhaal. Chris Hemsworth gets to battle cyber terror and a big giant whale (yes, and an Ultron too), Guillermo del Toro found a way to put Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston in a movie together (dreams do come true), Matthew McConaughey collaborates with Gus Van Sant and Cary Fukunaga (y'know, the guy who helmed “True Detective”) returns to the big screen.  Throw in new movies from Spielberg, Malick, Scorsese, Tarantino and Iñárritu, among others, and, well, you can see why we're so cautiously optimistic that next 12 months might be something close to heaven for cinephiles.

Keep all that in mind as you ponder our 25 most anticipated prestige films of the next 12 months in the embedded story gallery below.  

Did we get it right? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

Wait, are these official “Jane Got a Gun” stills or distant mirages hanging on the horizon of a long and winding road? It”s easy to believe the latter. After original director Lynne Ramsay (“We Need to Talk About Kevin”) bailed from the Natalie Portman-led Western on the first day of shooting, producers scrambled to find a replacement, recruiting “Warrior” director Gavin O”Connor to save the day.The switch turned “Jane Got a Gun” became a rotating door for high-profile actors, with Bradley Cooper and Michael Fassbender joining and departing the cast. Ewan McGregor eventually joined Portman and Joel Edgerton as the film”s villain and shooting began late in 2013, only to hit major delays during post-production. Relativity”s release date of August 29, 2014 came and went. A rescheduled February 2015 date found itself bumped again, with the picture now settled in an early September slot.

Now, we have photographic proof that “Jane Got a Gun” went before cameras. Unanimous Entertainment, one of the production companies behind the drama, unveiled a handful of photos grabbed from the movie. They look like stills from a Western. Portman wields a six-shooter. Edgerton dons a cowboy hat. Something wooden catches on fire. It's a Western. It”s real!

Though rewrites may have altered the original plot, “Jane Got a Gun” is believed to center on Jane (Portman), a frontier woman, her husband (Noah Emmerich), and Jane”s gunslinging ex-lover (Edgerton), as they defend themselves from a gnarly gang and its nefarious leader, John Bishop (McGregor). Bullets will fly.

Check out the photos below. “Jane Got a Gun” presumably arrives Sept. 4, 2015.

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) added to the industry mix Monday morning with a list of 10 nominees to keep the awards season grist mill churning.

“Gone Girl” popped up again, and it shouldn't be a surprise. It's one of the year's biggest hits. And speaking of hits, I had a hunch “Nightcrawler” would find a place after becoming such a well-liked, profitable success. There it sits. The question for both of these films is whether this on-going industry/guild love ends up translating to Oscar recognition. After the “Dragon Tattoo” rush a few years ago, I'm pretty much wait-and-see on stuff like this.

Absent from the list was anything out of the Marvel Studios comic book factory, notable as both “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” were both on the top tier of box office earners in 2014. The former currently maintains the throne, though it will likely be usurped by both “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” (neither of which was nominated).

Elsewhere it was more or less an expected assortment. The season's strongest Oscar contenders, “Birdman,” “Boyhood” and “The Imitation Game,” were in the mix. “Selma” was snubbed, however, and it should be noted that screeners were not made available to the guild (nor for “Interstellar”). And “American Sniper” kept chugging along, while “Foxcatcher” gets a serious boost by showing up here.

This particular announcement is notable, by the way, in that the Producers Guild utilizes the preferential balloting system, much like the Academy.

Check out the full list of nominees below. And you can play along as the announcements fly at The Circuit.

The 26th annual Producers Guild Awards will be held on Jan. 24.

FILM

Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures

“American Sniper” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Producers: Bradley Cooper, p.g.a., Clint Eastwood, p.g.a., Andrew Lazar, p.g.a., Robert Lorenz, p.g.a., Peter Morgan, p.g.a.
“Birdman” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Producers: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, John Lesher, James W. Skotchdopole
“Boyhood” (IFC Films)
Producers: Richard Linklater, p.g.a., Cathleen Sutherland, p.g.a.
“Foxcatcher” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Producers:  Megan Ellison, p.g.a., Jon Kilik, p.g.a., Bennett Miller, p.g.a.
“Gone Girl” (20th Century Fox)
Producer: Ceán Chaffin, p.g.a.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Producers: Wes Anderson & Scott Rudin, Jeremy Dawson, Steven Rales
“The Imitation Game” (The Weinstein Company)
Producers: Nora Grossman, p.g.a., Ido Ostrowsky, p.g.a., Teddy Schwarzman, p.g.a.
“Nightcrawler” (Open Road Films)
Producers: Jennifer Fox, Tony Gilroy
“The Theory of Everything” (Focus Features)
Producers: Tim Bevan & Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten
“Whiplash” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Producers: Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook, David Lancaster

Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures

“Big Hero 6” (Walt Disney Animation Studios)
Producer: Roy Conli, p.g.a.
“The Book of Life” (20th Century Fox)
Producers: Brad Booker, p.g.a., Guillermo del Toro, p.g.a.
“The Boxtrolls” (Focus Features)
Producers: David Bleiman Ichioka, p.g.a., Travis Knight, p.g.a.
“How To Train Your Dragon 2” (20th Century Fox)
Producer: Bonnie Arnold, p.g.a.
“The LEGO Movie” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Producer: Dan Lin

Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures (previously announced)

“The Green Prince” (Music Box Films)
Producers: John Battsek, Simon Chinn, Nadav Schirman
“Life Itself” (Magnolia Pictures)
Producers: Garrett Basch, Steve James, Zak Piper
“Merchants of Doubt” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Producers: Robert Kenner, Melissa Robledo
“Particle Fever” (Abramorama/BOND 360)
Producers: David E. Kaplan, Mark A. Levinson, Andrea Miller, Carla Solomon
“Virunga” (Netflix)
Producers: Joanna Natasegara, Orlando von Einsiedel

TELEVISION

Outstanding Producer of Long-Form Television

“American Horror Story: Freak Show” (FX)
Producers: Brad Buecker, Dante Di Loreto, Brad Falchuk, Joseph Incaprera, Alexis Martin Woodall, Tim Minear, Ryan Murphy, Jennifer Salt, James Wong
“Fargo” (FX)
Producers: Adam Bernstein, John Cameron, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Michael Frislev, Noah Hawley, Warren Littlefield, Chad Oakes, Kim Todd
“The Normal Heart” (HBO)
Producers: Jason Blum, Dante Di Loreto, Scott Ferguson, Dede Gardner, Alexis Martin Woodall, Ryan Murphy, Brad Pitt, Mark Ruffalo
“The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” (PBS)
Producers:  To Be Determined
“Sherlock” (PBS)
Producers: Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Beryl Vertue, Sue Vertue

Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Drama

“Breaking Bad” (AMC)
Producers: Melissa Bernstein, Sam Catlin, Bryan Cranston, Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Mark Johnson, Stewart Lyons, Michelle MacLaren, George Mastras, Diane Mercer, Thomas Schnauz, Moira Walley-Beckett
“Downton Abbey” (PBS)
Producers: Julian Fellowes, Nigel Marchant, Gareth Neame, Liz Trubridge
“Game Of Thrones” (HBO)
Producers: David Benioff, Bernadette Caulfield, Frank Doelger, Chris Newman, Greg Spence, Carolyn Strauss, D.B. Weiss
“House Of Cards” (Netflix)
Producers: Dana Brunetti, Joshua Donen, David Fincher, David Manson, Iain Paterson, Eric Roth, Kevin Spacey, Beau Willimon
“True Detective” (HBO)
Producers: Richard Brown, Carol Cuddy, Steve Golin, Woody Harrelson, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Matthew McConaughey, Nic Pizzolatto, Scott Stephens

Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Comedy:

“The Big Bang Theory” (CBS)
Producers: Faye Oshima Belyeu, Chuck Lorre, Steve Molaro, Bill Prady
“Louie” (FX)
Producers: Pamela Adlon, Dave Becky, M. Blair Breard, Louis C.K., Vernon Chatman, Adam Escott, Steven Wright
“Modern Family” (ABC)
Producers: Paul Corrigan, Megan Ganz, Abraham Higginbotham, Ben Karlin, Elaine Ko, Steven Levitan, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Morton, Dan O”Shannon, Jeffrey Richman, Chris Smirnoff, Brad Walsh, Bill Wrubel, Sally Young, Danny Zuker
“Orange Is The New Black” (Netflix)
Producers: Mark A. Burley, Sara Hess, Jenji Kohan, Gary Lennon, Neri Tannenbaum, Michael Trim, Lisa I. Vinnecour
“Veep” (HBO)
Producers: Chris Addison, Simon Blackwell, Christopher Godsick, Armando Iannucci, Stephanie Laing, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Frank Rich, Tony Roche

Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television

“30 For 30” (ESPN)
Producers: Andy Billman, John Dahl, Erin Leyden, Connor Schell, Bill Simmons
“American Masters” (PBS)
Producers: Susan Lacy, Julie Sacks, Junko Tsunashima
“Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” (CNN)
Producers:  Anthony Bourdain, Christopher Collins, Lydia Tenaglia, Sandra Zweig
“COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey” (FOX/NatGeo)
Producers: Brannon Braga, Mitchell Cannold, Jason Clark, Ann Druyan, Livia Hanich, Steve Holtzman, Seth MacFarlane
“Shark Tank” (ABC)
Producers: Becky Blitz, Mark Burnett, Bill Gaudsmith, Phil Gurin, Yun Lingner, Clay Newbill, Jim Roush, Laura Roush, Max Swedlow

Outstanding Producer of Competition Television

“The Amazing Race” (CBS)
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Elise Doganieri, Jonathan Littman, Bertram van Munster, Mark Vertullo
“Dancing With The Stars” (ABC)
Producers: Ashley Edens Shaffer, Conrad Green, Joe Sungkur
“Project Runway” (Lifetime)
Producers: Jane Cha Cutler, Desiree Gruber, Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum, Jonathan Murray, Sara Rea, Teri Weideman
“Top Chef” (Bravo)
Producers: Doneen Arquines, Daniel Cutforth, Casey Kriley, Jane Lipsitz, Hillary Olsen, Erica Ross, Tara Siener, Shealan Spencer
“The Voice” (NBC)
Producers: Stijn Bakkers, Mark Burnett, John De Mol, Chad Hines, Lee Metzger, Audrey Morrissey, Jim Roush, Kyra Thompson, Mike Yurchuk, Amanda Zucker

Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment & Talk Television

“The Colbert Report” (Comedy Central)
Producers: Meredith Bennett, Tanya Michnevich Bracco, Stephen Colbert, Richard Dahm, Paul Dinello, Barry Julien, Matt Lappin, Emily Lazar, Tom Purcell, Jon Stewart
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC)
Producers: David Craig, Ken Crosby, Doug DeLuca, Gary Greenberg, Erin Irwin, Jimmy Kimmel, Jill Leiderman, Molly McNearney, Tony Romero, Jason Schrift, Jennifer Sharron, Seth Weidner, Josh Weintraub
“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (HBO)
Producers: Tim Carvell, John Oliver, Liz Stanton
“Real Time With Bill Maher” (HBO)
Producers: Scott Carter, Sheila Griffiths, Marc Gurvitz, Dean Johnsen, Bill Maher, Billy Martin, Matt Wood
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC)
Producers: Rob Crabbe, Jamie Granet Bederman, Katie Hockmeyer, Jim Juvonen, Josh Lieb, Brian McDonald, Lorne Michaels, Gavin Purcell

Outstanding Sports Program (previously announced)

“24/7” (HBO)
“Hard Knocks: Training Camp With The Atlanta Falcons” (HBO)
“Hard Knocks: Training Camp With The Cincinnati Bengals” (HBO)
“Inside: U.S. Soccer's March To Brazil” (ESPN)
“Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel” (HBO)

Outstanding Children”s Program

“Dora The Explorer” (Nickelodeon)
“Sesame Street” (PBS)
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (Nickelodeon)
“Toy Story OF TERROR!” (ABC)
“Wynton Marsalis: A YoungArts Masterclass” (HBO)

Outstanding Digital Series

“30 For 30 Shorts” (http://espn.go.com/30for30/shorts)
“Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee” (http://www.crackle.com/c/comedians-in-cars-getting-coffee)
“COSMOS: A National Geographic Deeper Dive” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkiFfAEB5M8)
“Epic Rap Battles Of History” (http://youtube.com/erb)
“Video Game High School Season 3” (https://www.youtube.com/user/freddiew)

The Art Directors Guild has announced nominees for the group's 19th annual awards, and films that have come on strong as of late like “American Sniper” and “Nightcrawler” were in the mix along notable extravagant displays in the period and fantasy categories. However, there were a few missing pieces.

In the fantasy arena, both “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” and “Maleficent” came up short, while “Exodus: Gods and Kings” missed in the period department. The most shocking snub might be “Mr. Turner's” in that field, however. (And it would have been great to see “Snowpiercer” get some love here, but, alas.)

As a reminder, the Guild implemented a new rule this season. Period films must now have the majority of sets and locations designed to portray a time period at least 20 years prior to the present awards year. Contemporary films, therefore, must have the majority of sets and locations designed to portray places of a realistic nature within 20 years either side of the present awards year. So: Dawn of time – 1994-ish = period. 1994-ish – 2034 = contemporary. Fantasy films, meanwhile, continue to qualify when the majority of sets and locations are designed to portray “places of imaginative and inventive nature.”

Check out the full list of nominees below. And remember to keep track of the season as it happens at The Circuit.

The 19th annual Art Directors Guild Awards will be held on Jan. 31.

FILM

Contemporary Film
“American Sniper” (James J. Murakami, Charisse Cardenas)
“Birdman” (Kevin Thompson)
“Foxcatcher” (Jess Gonchor)
“Gone Girl” (Donald Graham Burt)
“Nightcrawler” (Kevin Kavanaugh)

Period Film
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Adam Stockhausen)
“The Imitation Game” (Maria Djurkovic)
“Inherent Vice” (David Crank)
“The Theory of Everything” (John Paul Kelly)
“Unbroken” (Jon Hutman)

Fantasy Film
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (Peter Wenham)
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (James Chinlund)
“Guardians of the Galaxy” (Charles Wood)
“Interstellar” (Nathan Crowley)
“Into the Woods” (Dennis Gassner)

TELEVISION

One-Hour Period or Fantasy Single-Camera Television Series
“Game of Thrones” – “The Laws of Gods and Men,” “The Mountain and the Viper” (Deborah Riley)
“Mad Men” – “Time Zones” (Dan Bishop)
“Gotham” – “Pilot,” “Selina Kyle,” “Arkham” (Doug Kraner)
“The Knick” – “Method and Madness,” “Working Late” (Howard Cummings)
“Boardwalk Empire” – “Golden Days for Boys and Girls” (Bill Groom)

One-Hour Contemporary Single-Camera Television Series
“Homeland” – “The Drone Queen” (John D. Kretschmer)
“House of Cards” – “Chapter 18” (Steve Arnold)
“Justified” – “Murder of Crowes,” “Wrong Roads,” “The Toll” (Dave Blass)
“The Newsroom” – “Boston,” “Main Justice,” “Contempt” (Karen Steward)
“True Detective” – “The Locked Room,” “Form and Void”

Television Movie or Miniseries
“American Horror Story: Freak Show” – “Massacres and Matinees” (Mark Worthington)
“Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey” – “Unafraid of the Dark” (Seth Reed)
“Fargo” – “The Crocodiles Dilemma” (John Blackie)
“Houdini” – “Part I,” “Part II” (Patrizia von Brandenstein)
“Sherlock” – “His Last Vow” (Arwel W. Jones)

Half-Hour Single-Camera Television Series
“Californication” – “Faith, Hope, Love,” “Like Father Like Son,” “Kickoff” (Ray Yamagata)
“House of Lies” – “Wreckage,” “Middlegame,” “Zha-Moreng” (Ray Yamagata)
“Modern Family” – “Halloween 3: Awesomeland,” “Marco Polo,” “Won't You Be Our Neighbor” (Claire Bennett)
“Silicon Valley” – “Articles of Incorporation,” “Signaling Risk,” “Optimal Tip-To-Tip Efficiency” (Richard Toyon)
“Veep” – “Clovis,” “Special Relationship,” “Debate” (James Gloster)

Multi-Camera Television Series
“How I Met Your Mother” – “How Your Mother Met Me” (Stephan Olson)
“Mike & Molly” – “Mike & Molly”s Excellent Adventure,” “The Dice Lady Cometh” (John Shaffner)
“The Big Bang Theory” – “The Locomotive Manipulation,” “The Convention Conundrum,” “The Status Quo Combustion” (John Shaffner)
“The Millers” – “You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings, Man,” “Con-Troversy,” “Papa Was a Rolling Bone” (Glenda Rovello)
“Undatable” – “Pilot” (Cabot McMullen)

Awards or Event Special
“86th Annual Academy Awards” (Derek McLane)
“Peter Pan Live!” (Derek McLane)
“Super Bowl CLVII Halftime Show: Starring Bruno Mars” (Bruce Rodgers)
“The American Music Awards 2014” (Joe Stewart)
“The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles” (Matthew Russell)
“The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards” (Keith Ian Raywood)

Short Format: WebSeries, Music Video or Commercial
Apple – “Perspective” (Sean Hargreaves)
Coldplay – “Magic” (Emma Fairley)
IKEA – “Carousel” (Richard Lassalle)
Katy Perry – “Dark Horse” (Jeremy Reed)
Simpson's Marathon (Zach Mathews)

Variety, Competition, Reality or Game Show Series
“Key & Peele” – “Halloween Episode,” “Alien Imposters” (Gary Kordan)
“Portlandia” – “Celery” (Tyler B. Robinson)
“Saturday Night Live” – “Louis C.K. with Sam Smith,” “Anna Kendrick with Pharrell Williams,” “Chris Rock with Prince” (Keith Ian Raywood, Eugene Lee, Akira Yoshimura, M. Joseph DeTullio)
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” – “1,” “45,” “56” (Eugene Lee, Peter Baran)
“The Voice” – “Blind Auditions Premiere” (James Pearse Connelly, Anton Goss)

Lifetime Achievement Awards
Camille Abbott
Jim Bissell
John P. Bruce
Will Ferrell

The North Texas Film Critics Association has joined the crowd and named “Boyhood” the year's best film. Richard Linklater won Best Director, while Jake Gyllenhaal and Rosamund pike took top acting honors for “Nightcrawler” and “Gone Girl” respectively. “Birdman” nearly came up empty-handed but for an ensemble cast prize.

Check out the full list of winners below and remember to follow along at The Circuit.

Best Picture
“Boyhood”

Best Director
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”

Best Actor
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”

Best Actress
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”

Best Supporting Actor
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”

Best Cinematography
Hoyte van Hoytema, “Interstellar”

Best Animated
“The LEGO Movie”

Best Documentary
“Life Itself”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Ida”

Best Ensemble Cast
“Birdman”

En route to Palm Springs yesterday afternoon, I saw the news that the National Society of Film Critics had gone against the flow, where most would have expected a “Boyhood” win, and named Jean-Luc Godard's “Goodbye to Language” the year's best film. What I wasn't fully aware of until this morning was the wave of displeasure it apparently spurred.

First, some thoughts on the organization's history. They often settle on something perfectly reasonable if not inspired, and sometimes that falls outside the sphere of major Best Picture contenders. “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “Amour,” “Melancholia,” “Waltz with Bashir,” “Pan's Labyrinth,” “American Splendor,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Yi Yi: A One and a Two” – that's just a brief, selective history. And I'm forever in love with their “Out of Sight” choice in 1998.

Only five films have won all three major critics group awards (NSFC, LAFCA and NYFCC): “The Social Network,” “The Hurt Locker,” “L.A. Confidential,” “Schindler's List” and “Goodfellas.” Maybe there's some annoyance that “Boyhood” didn't join that club this year, and apparently it would have had it not been for a silly rule stipulating that proxy votes don't count in the final round of voting (a vote should be a vote and this is a national organization, so what absurdity). That's a fair thing to criticize.

However…

I a?so think Goodbye to Language as Best Film is about as stupid & self-congratulatory a choice NSFC could make. But hooray for jerking off!

– David Poland (@DavidPoland) January 3, 2015

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Here's the thing. “Goodbye to Language” is a pretty critically acclaimed film. Not only is it solidly among the best of the year on Mr. Poland's own collective of top 10 lists, but it came in at #2 on Sight and Sound's annual list of the year's best. So it seems to me fair enough that if they weren't going to pick “Boyhood,” and they weren't going to breathe wind into the sails of some other awards season staple, “Goodbye to Language” is as good a choice as there is. It's not some completely esoteric, WTF choice.

Just when you thought the National Society of Film Critics couldn”t make themselves more irrelevant…

– Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) January 4, 2015

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What does that mean, “irrelevant?” To whom or what should they be “relevant?” Would an anointed Oscar contender have been more palatable?

@kristapley Oh, the passive aggression – no one said it had to be an Oscar player. Just saying don”t be so snobbish and elitist, that”s all.

– Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) January 4, 2015

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Who's being elitist here?

@Breznican There”s a middle ground between usual and unusual. This is off in Botswana. Godard could fart and they”d give it a prize.

– Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) January 4, 2015

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Except that last part, at least given the empirical data, is not exactly true: We'd like to congratulate Godard on his first-ever National Society of Film Critics award for Best Film. In the organization's 50-year history, he's made a lot of films (and farted a lot of times), but never won this prize until yesterday. (“Every Man for Himself” came in third place in 1980 and “Week End” came in second place in 1968. Those farts weren't apparently strong enough.) He's also never won a Best Film prize from the New York Film Critics Circle or the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, by the way.

And re: “Botswana,” see above. This is a critically acclaimed film that has already won hardware. Moreover, the win is actually perfectly in keeping with the NSFC's identity to anyone who pays close enough attention to this stuff. This fellow, who some of you may know, gets it:

ADIEU AU LANGAGE may be the most National Society of Film Critics choice in the history of the National Society of Film Critics. Love them.

– Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) January 3, 2015

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I was going to troll through Twitter and dig up further examples but these were the first ones that popped up and I could pretty much guess at what the rest would be. I have no dog in this hunt. I haven't actually seen “Goodbye to Language,” but I have been enthusiastically planning to catch the film next week ahead of its one-week engagement at Santa Monica's Aero Theatre. Even more so now. But more importantly, in that quick glance through Twitter, it was heartening to see the amount of people who were seeking the film out, looking into where and when it was playing.

Isn't that supposed to be the gig?

Any day-and year-in which a movie by Godard once again provokes such gusts of indignation is a good one.

– Richard Brody (@tnyfrontrow) January 4, 2015

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In nominations announcements from those critics groups who bother with them, “Birdman” is far and away the leader, even if “Boyhood” remains the overall victor on the winning side. That played out again with the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, which handed Alejandro González Iñárritu's film 10 nominations Sunday morning. One wonders whether the film could lead with the Oscar nods, too, when they are announced in just 11 days.

Check out the full list of winners below. Winners will be announced Jan. 8. And catch the rest at The Circuit.

Best Film
“Birdman”
“Boyhood”
“Gone Girl”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“The Imitation Game”
“A Most Violent Year”
“Nightcrawler”
“Selma”
“Snowpiercer”
“Whiplash”

Best Director
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash”
Ava DuVernay, “Selma”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”

Best Actor
Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”
David Oyelowo, “Selma”
Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”

Best Actress
Essie Davis, “The Babadook”
Scarlett Johansson, “Under the Skin”
Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”
Reese Witherspoon, “Wild”

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin, “Inherent Vice”
Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
Edward Norton, “Birdman”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year”
Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”
Emma Stone, “Birdman”
Tilda Swinton, “Snowpiercer”

Best Adapted Screenplay
Paul Thomas Anderson, “Inherent Vice”
Bong Joonho and Kelly Masterson, “Snowpiercer”
Gillian Flynn, “Gone Girl”
Nick Hornby, “Wild”
Graham Moore, “The Imitation Game”

Best Original Screenplay
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
J.C. Chandor, “A Most Violent Year”
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and
Armando Bo, “Birdman”
Paul Webb, “Selma”

Best Cinematography
Benoît Delhomme, “The Theory of Everything”
Hoyte Van Hoytema, “Interstellar”
Daniel Landin, “Under the Skin”
Emmanuel Lubezki, ”  Birdman”
Robert Yeoman, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Best Film Editing
Sandra Adair, “Boyhood”
Spencer Averick, “Selma”
Kirk Baxter, “Gone Girl”
Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione, “Birdman”
Tom Cross, “Whiplash”

Best Score
Alexandre Desplat, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Jóhann Jóhannsson, “The Theory of Everything”
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Gone Girl”
Antonio Sanchez, “Birdman”
Hans Zimmer, “Interstellar”

Best Animated Film
“Big Hero 6”
“The Book of Life”
“The Boxtrolls”
“How to Train Your Dragon 2”
“The LEGO Movie”

Best Documentary
“CITIZENFOUR”
“Dinosaur 13”
“Finding Vivian Maier”
“Jodorowsky”s Dune”
“Life Itself”

Best Foreign Language Film
“Force Majeure”
“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”
“Ida”
“Two Days, “One Night”
“We Are the Best!”

Best Ensemble
“Birdman”
“Foxcatcher”
“Gone Girl”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Guardians of the Galaxy”

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)
Jessica Chastain (“The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” “Interstellar,” “Miss Julie” and “A Most Violent Year”)
Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” and “The Imitation Game”)
Jake Gyllenhaal (“Enemy” and “Nightcrawler”)
Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The LEGO Movie”)
Tilda Swinton (“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Only Lovers Left Alive,” “Snowpiercer” and “The Zero Theorem”)

Breakthrough Film Artist
Damien Chazelle, “Whiplash” (for directing and screenwriting)
Ava DuVernay, “Selma” (for directing)
Jennifer Kent, “The Babadook” (for directing and screenwriting)
Gugu MbathaRaw, “Belle” and “Beyond the Lights” (for acting)
Justin Simien, “Dear White People” (for directing and screenwriting)

Best Overlooked Film
“The Babadook”
“Blue Ruin”
“Edge of Tomorrow”
“Enemy”
“Locke”

PALM SPRINGS – The 26th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival lit up the desert night sky Saturday night with an awards gala recognizing top prospects in this year's Oscar race. Talent from films like “Gone Girl,” “Birdman,” “The Theory of Everything,” “Still Alice” and “Wild,” among others, was on hand to ring in the new year with towering statues dished out on a massive stage that seemed to scream out, “This is a serious awards season stop!”

Early honors went to breakthrough performances from Rosamund Pike (“Gone Girl”) and David Oyleowo (“Selma”). The latter was introduced by “Selma” producer Brad Pitt, who said he wanted to broach a subject that everyone was thinking about. No, it wasn't recent criticism of the film's historical accuracy, but rather, how to pronounce Oyelowo's last name. “You're going to be referencing this name for years to come,” he exclaimed. “You have to learn this!”

Pitt then led the audience on a singalong to help nail the pronunciation in the key of Spanish football anthem “Olé, Olé, Olé.” He also praised Oyelowo's work as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as “a masterclass performance that transcends imitation.” Taking the stage, Oyelowo was all smiles. “You know you've broken through when Brad Pitt sings your name,” he said.

Pike, meanwhile -who gave birth barely a month ago and was introduced by “Gone Girl” co-stars Carrie Coon and Kim Dickens – was reminded of a sentiment from her character Amy Dunne in David Fincher's dark film: “I've forgotten how to behave.” On the “rare occasions” when she's been at a podium such as this, Pike offered, “I have no idea how to behave.”

She remembered adoring Fincher's 1995 film “Se7en” and, around the time of her work on the 2002 James Bond extravaganza “Die Another Day,” expressed an interest in working for the filmmaker. “David Fincher never casts Bond girls,” she was told. So she set off on a series of “calculated career decisions,” she joked, roles in “Doom,” “Wrath of the Titans” and “Johnny English Reborn.” After 12 years, “Bingo. He called,” she jested.

Director Jason Reitman captured the essence of “Whiplash” honoree J.K. Simmons by describing how fun it was to be in public with him and see who recognizes the character actor and for what role. With such a versatile portfolio, it's little surprise that Simmons once upon a time was shooting scenes as an incarcerated skinhead in HBO's “Oz” while taking the stage at night to belt out “I've got your horse right here, the name is Paul Revere” in “Guys and Dolls.”

And talk about capturing an essence. Shirley MacLaine gave one of the great awards season introductory speeches (if that's a thing) for “Boyhood” director and Sonny Bono Visionary Award recipient Richard Linklater. After thinking back on the processes of such legendary helmers as Alfred Hitchcock (“He hated actors”) and Billy Wilder (he would often ask you to do the same thing but take out “12 and a half seconds”), she noted Linklater's propensity to greet certain creative questions on set with a blasé, “I don't know,” often leaving performers to find their way into their roles without overt directorial intrusion. When it's all said and done, “You don't care about pleasing the director, you care about pleasing the character,” she said of how working with him impacted her. “Because of him, I discovered my inner bitch.” (She played a bit of a “b” word in Linklater's “Bernie,” you see.)

Julianne Moore (who also won an award for her “Still Alice” performance) beamed with pride as Eddie Redmayne, who owes plenty to her fighting for his cause when it came to casting 2007's “Savage Grace,” accepted his prize for “The Theory of Everything.” Icon Award recipient Robert Duvall pushed back against the notion that the spirit of 1970s filmmaking is dead by noting the symbiotic relationship between alive-and-well independent cinema and studio product in the business, and how he secured a part in “The Judge” due to his work in “Get Low.” “Birdman” star Michael Keaton told of how none other than the late, great Mike Nichols told directing award recipient Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Don't do this [movie]. You're heading for disaster,” but couldn't deter the filmmaker from his bold vision. And while we were at it, the cast of “The Imitation Game” and “Wild” star Reese Witherspoon also picked up hardware.

It was just one of a slew of dress rehearsals this season, as everything from the Governors Awards to Santa Barbara Film Festival tributes to the Critics' Choice Movie Awards have staked out territory on the awards calendar, making the long, purposeful march to Oscar night a busy one. Palm Springs board chairman Harold Matzner boasted of this particular gala's near-perfect track record of foreshadowing Oscar nominations last year (poor Tom Hanks). How will their prognostication – er, pure show of adulation no matter what the Oscar landscape (right?) – pan out this year?

We'll find out on Jan. 15.

Saturday afternoon, the National Society of Film Critics, “made up of many of the country”s most distinguished movie critics,” announced the winners of its annual “Best of” vote. Critical darlings came out on top, with Jean-Luc Godard”s 3-D film “Goodbye to Language” prevailing in the Best Picture category.

The NSFC”s picks offer a selection of Oscar sure-things and outsider alternatives. After debuting at Cannes, “Goodbye to Language” trickled in to a few American theaters. Without any Best Foreign Language Film representation (France went with “Saint Laurent”), the film was destined for place on the fringes of the season. Leave it to NSFC to come through for art. On top of Best Picture, Godard”s film earned love in the Director and Cinematography categories. With Patricia Arquette and J.K. Simmons picking up their 18,000th Supporting Actor wins, Timothy Spall, under-lauded for his work in “Mr. Turner,” won Best Actor. A favorite of critics groups, Marion Cotillard took home Best Actress.

See the full list of winners and runner-ups below:

Best Picture
1. “Goodbye to Language”
2. “Boyhood”
3. “Birdman”
4. “Mr. Turner”

Best Director
1. Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
2. Jean-Luc Godard, “Goodbye to Language”
3. Mike Leigh, “Mr. Turner”

Best Non-fiction Film
1. “CITIZENFOUR”
2. “National Gallery”
3. “The Overnighters”

Best Screenplay
1. “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
2. “Inherent Vice”
3. “Birdman”

Best Cinematography
1. “Mr. Turner”
2. “The Immigrant”
3. “Goodbye to Language”

Best Actor
1. Timothy Spall, “Mr. Turner”
2. Tom Hardy, “Locke”
3. Joaquin Phoenix, “Inherent Vice”
4. Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Best Actress
1. Marion Cotillard, “Two Days, One Night,” “The Immigrant”
2. Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
3. Scarlett Johansson, “Under the Skin,” “Lucy”

Best Supporting Actor
1. J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”
2. Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
3. Edward Norton, “Birdman”

Best Supporting Actress
1. Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
2. Agata Kulesza, “Ida”
3. Rene Russo, “Nightcrawler”

Film Heritage Awards
1. To Ron Magliozzi, associate curator, and Peter Williamson, film conservation manager, of the Museum of Modern Art, for identifying and assembling the earliest surviving footage of what would have been the feature film to star a black cast, the 1913 “Lime Kiln Field Day” starring Bert Williams.

2. To Ron Hutchinson, co-founder and director of The Vitaphone Project, which since 1991 has collected and restored countless original soundtrack discs for early sound short films and features, including the recent Warner Bros. restoration of William A. Seiter”s 1929 “Why Be Good?”

Clearly drunk on Netflix”s mass uploading of all 10 “Friends” seasons, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival announced Friday evening that Jennifer Aniston would earn its Montecito Award. The fest”s prestigious accolade reconigzes a performer who has “given a series of classic and standout performances throughout his or her and whose style has made a major contribution to film.” Previous winners include Oprah Winfrey, Daniel Day-Lewis, Geoffrey Rush, Julianne Moore, Kate Winslet, Javier Bradem, Naomi Watts, and Annette Bening. SBIFF honors Aniston for her “inspirational performance” in “Cake.” 

“Once in a while a performer who we thought we knew gets outside of his or her comfort zone and shows us the unexpected,” said SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling in a statement. “When that happens it is cause for celebration – and this is why the 2015 Montecito Award is bestowed upon Ms. Aniston.”

Aniston”s career is worthy of praise, though whether or not “Cake” is the snowballing of her talent, deserving of season recognition, is up for debate. For every “We”re the Millers” and “Horrible Bosses,” Aniston has managed off-beat alternatives like “The Object of My Affection,” Nicole Holofcener”s “Friends with Money,” and 2002″s “The Good Girl,” which earned the actress an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Voicing the mother character in “The Iron Giant” gives her a free pass for life. The overlooked “Wanderlust” is icing on top.

Tabloid obsessions turned Aniston into an underrated comedic performer. She deserves this respect, and dressing down for “Cake” is thrusting the spotlight on that fact. That said, it feels forced – an aggressive campaign put Aniston among the SAG and Golden Globe Best Actress nominees. Replicating it come Oscar time may depend on reactions to “Cake,” which played mixed-to-negative out of TIFF earlier this year. 

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival runs Jan. 27 to Feb. 7, 2015. The Montecito Award will be presented at the historic Arlington Theatre on Friday, Jan. 30, 2015

The on-going film vs. digital debate seemed to reach a bit of a fever pitch in 2014. A lot of that had to do with the fight by filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan to maintain Kodak's production of film stock. It was a fight they won in August, while the industry at large would surely prefer to march headlong into the (more affordable) future of ones and zeroes. But this “debate” has remained a somewhat nuanced one, even as the separate passionate sides have presented it as cut and dried.

Archivally, with the expanded shelf life of celluloid and in the face of file type obsolescence, maintaining the production of film stock is absolutely crucial. Aesthetically, it will always come down to preference, of course. But beyond even that, digital encroachment has meant more opportunity for young artists to break into the form, and that's the position “Mr. Turner” director Mike Leigh presented when asked about it in a recent interview with The Toronto Star.

Responding to Tarantino's qualification of digital filmmaking as “TV in public” and “the death of cinema,” the notoriously prickly helmer did not mince words. “That's bollocks, in a word,” he said. “It”s a ludicrous statement, because apart from anything else, it”s a backward-looking statement that is irresponsible. I remember a time in the late '70s when people said, 'Cinema is over.' There are young filmmakers doing all sorts of fantastic things and part of the reason that's possible is the democratization of the medium because of a new technology, so [Tarantino”s fight] is twaddle.”

Those sentiments about the forward-looking prospect of the medium were echoed by Leigh's “Turner” director of photography, Dick Pope, when I interviewed him earlier this year. “You could say that in the film Turner is looking forward,” he told me at the time. “He's no Luddite. He doesn't look back. He's always moving forward, and in his art, as well, he moved forward, didn't he?”

I spoke to more cinematographers last year than any other year, it seems, and every time, the discussion eventually came down to this debate. It's interesting, of course, because a number of these guys are working on one or the other this year, so there's inevitable bias and diplomacy at play, just by human nature. But then there are others like Robert Elswit and Greig Fraser who had a hand in both sides of the medium with multiple projects in 2014.

So I thought I'd collect all of their responses to that particular query. I find that DPs always tend to have the more practical, level-headed assessment. The passion of filmmakers tends to drive a wedge between the two forms, idealism and romance spear-heading heated debate, whereas the folks who actually deal in the nuts and bolts simply view these two tools as separate means for separate ends.

Read through what they had to say below.

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Bradford Young (“Selma,” digital; “A Most Violent Year,” digital)
For me [digital is] a lot more comfortable, which actually just helps me go a little bit further. Some of the stuff I was doing with shadows in “A Most Violent Year” are things that I wanted to do in “Ain't Them Bodies Saints” but just was a little timid to do, because we were exposing film. It just gives you that little confidence to go a little darker because you're seeing what you're getting. And obviously the approach is different, the sort of ethos and how you approach it, but the result is kind of the same. I just feel like with digital you can be a bit more radical with it. That's just my feeling. I think it's changing the way we work, you know? I feel like it's given me a lot more confidence to go further, and that's nice. It's nice to have your head in the game for other things and not have to worry about, “Is it going to come out” and “Will there be no image at all?”

Greig Fraser (“Foxcatcher,” film; “The Gambler,” digital)
It's such a personal thing and it's not just personal between humans because obviously you speak to Nolan or Pfister, they're going to go film all the way. Roger Deakins I believe is about to shoot the new Coen brothers film on film. So here he is going back to film from the Alexa. Now I'm positive that he's not doing that because he thinks the Alexa's subpar. I'm positive it's because of the Coens. And it's obviously going to be interesting seeing Roger Deakins shoot film after having been on the Alexa for a while. I worship the ground that guy walks on. Everything he does is fucking gold. So as an exercise I'm really excited to talk to him before, during and after him having shot on film again. But I don't think there's any one correct answer. Because “Episode VII” of “Star Wars” is shooting on film now, you know? Who knows what “Episode VIII” is going to shoot on.

I've had debates with filmmakers about this before about how you might believe that film is the only way, and I've maybe shot something on digital and had this discussion and said, “Well, on that project digital was a better solution because of this and this and this reason.” And they may not have agreed. I've sat at the end of a line when I received a phone call from a lab saying, “Hey, we've just fucked up a roll of your film.” And I've also sat on the end of a phone call when I've, you know – “This shot is corrupt so we can't use it.” So both film and digital have their issues. They're not always 100% foolproof. The issue that people like Nolan have, which I understand and agree with – he's got this issue with archiving. And it's a good point. Because if we go watch a film as early as “Ben-Hur,” they could go back to that film and they could rescan it at 4K and they could re-project it in the cinema at 4K brand new looking. You know, you go back to a film that was shot on 1080p or 720p, I mean, what are you going to do? Are you going to re-release that?

Roger Deakins (“Unbroken,” digital)
I mean I like doing digital I must say. The media advantages now outweigh the disadvantages. I mean, [the Coen brothers] eventually turn around and say, 'No, we're analog guys.' And I said, 'Yeah, OK. I'll shoot on a cell phone if you want!” But [“Hail, Caesar!” is] also set in Hollywood in 1952, so I mean it feels like if anything should be shot on film it should be this film.

The Alexa camera, there's just more resolution, frankly, than you would get on film. It's much easier to separate the backgrounds. We shot the four sides mock-up of the plane [in “Unbroken”] and we just lit with this big white cyc [cyclorama] and blew out the windows, but it was the practical way to do it for the CG artists, to be able to take that window and extract it. If we had been shooting on film, we would have had to use blue screen to allow them that much flexibility. So there are so many advantages. And I think I might have said to you before, there was no lab in Australia by then. All the labs had closed down. So we would have been shipping film across the world and that was just not going to be – you know, it's stressful. It takes two or three days to get a report. That's stressful.

Robert Elswit (“Nightcrawler,” digital/film; “Inherent Vice,” film)
I think they're very different and I don't think they're really interchangeable. And there's some people I really have enormous respect for who have come to embrace [digital] and do extraordinary work with it. It just depends on the movie. I think there's some things that really lend themselves to shooting on film. It's very sad; I don't think it's going to last all that much longer because it's just such a complicated process and the workflow is somewhat difficult. And, you know, you need your actors to really see that there's a difference and are willing to commit to it. I'm doing “Mission: Impossible” on film, all of it, everything. And it's kind of wonderful. It's because Tom Cruise has a kind of visceral hate of the electronic image on a motion picture. It's a matter of taste. But for certain things, it's absolutely – you know, nobody does digital the way David Fincher does or the way Michael Mann does. It looks absolutely extraordinary. But their film work looked extraordinary. So it isn't any wonder that they found the best way to do it. They were always good digital stylists and, you know, some day Paul [Thomas Anderson] may have to – there may not be anything left. I mean there's only really one lab left in LA. So I don't know what the future holds. I don't know what he's going to do next. It seems like the kind of thing that he would either run at or not run at. But as long as he wants to do film, more power to him.

Jeff Cronenweth (“Gone Girl,” digital)
It's interesting that as the digital age has immersed us all, the fear always was that [cinematographers] would be insignificant, and ironically we've become more significant and it's more imperative. And yes, true, there's certainly things that it's not as – the latitude and the choices and things can happen, color correction and visual effects and all these things water down what used to be ours alone. But also there are so many more things you can do and the contributions and you still have to have the light come from the right direction and you still have to put the camera in the right place and you still have to have continuity and creativity in scenes to make something seamless.

There's some digital aspect to everything now. And, you know, I look at it like, yeah, film was magical. There's things that can happen that you can't predict. I loved the idea that you were the mad professor and you owned everything on the set. But I also like not waking up at four in the morning, calling a lab to find out if I should show up on the set that day or not. I like the ability to take a risk. I like the continuity that you walk into a theater and it looks the same in most of the theaters now as opposed to, with 1,000 prints or 3,000 prints, you could go to a multiplex and walk from one room to the next and they all look different. And then, you know, not to be sanctimonious, but environmentally, we don't have prints to deal with. And then the biggest one is piracy. Now you can control a lot and eliminate a lot through digital cinema and digital projectors and knowing every time it's screened, where it was screened and the watermarks that no one knows about, they can find stuff. It's funny, on “Social Network” I was with Scott Rudin and we were [at the] New York Film Festival. We were doing a pre-run that morning of the premiere and the projectionist was 20 minutes late, and so the film stopped 20 minutes before it finished. And, of course, he called back to Sony, Sony sent a new passcode and we watched the rest of the movie. But that's very empowering. That's fantastic.

I mean, I love film. I loved being the guy. I loved when you watched “Fight Club” or something, other DPs would come up and go, “Dude, your balls are so big. How did you do that?” And it's terrifying to be that bold and take those risks, because there is no return, you know? Now there's so much more forgiveness. Yet I think in some ways it's harder now, to still make it interesting and push boundaries that other people won't do. So I don't know. I think that the industry has always been evolving. They've always embraced technology. And it's going to be the answer. It's going to continually evolve. I think the magic is that we're all just now trying to figure out how best to use it, and that's why these movies look so amazing now. Everybody's on board. It's not scary and brand new and no one's running from it. And I had this whole dilemma on “Hitchcock” about, “Well, it's sacrilegious to shoot a Hitchcock movie digitally.” And eventually the choice was nullified by cost constraints and the director realizing that he could have a couple more sets and another two days of shooting if we went digital. But my argument back to that was that Hitchcock, of all people, would have been the first person to embrace the newest thing. He always took risks and was always making changes and if there was a digital camera and he was directing, he'd be using it.

Hoyte van Hoytema (“Interstellar,” film/IMAX)
The debate itself is just stupid, you know? One of the worst things has been the debate, because it assumes there is a “better” and a “worse,” that there is a “winner” and a “loser.” That's not the way I look at it at all. That polarization and presentation that there is something better and something worse is just ridiculous. Anybody can give a reason why something is good or bad in a technical sense. But the reason filmmakers like Christopher Nolan are shooting on film, it has nothing to do with “better” or “worse.” It just has to do with very personal taste. Everybody wants a different kind of canvas. Some people like painting with oil paint and other people like painting with acrylic paint and other people like painting with cow shit, you know? [Laughs.] That whole discussion is useless, and the only thing that discussion has provoked is that people who don't know anything about it start lobbying for a format. One format is just slowly becoming obsolete and keeping a lot of people from that choice in the future, which is very sad, because I think that choice should be available for people like Chris or Quentin Tarantino or Scorsese or Spielberg, whoever, or Paul Thomas Anderson. Their choices in why they take film is not always a technical choice.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4911475752001

The future of director commentaries is grim. Without physical DVD releases to bulk up with extras, digital downloads arrive bare boned. The new-fangled iTunes Extras could pave the way for a new era, or independently produced accompaniments could emerge – who wouldn”t pay $1.99 for a podcast commentary, new or old? – but for now, rambling explanations from our favorite filmmakers is a dying art.

While David Fincher remains a pillar of DVD commentaries (the “Gone Girl” Blu-ray will include one), rabid behind-the-scenes junkies look for alternatives. Enter: The New York Times, who lures big names to its “Anatomy of a Scene” series. Produced by Mekado Murphy, the videos offer a much-needed dose of insight into films that will likely end up commentary-less in their home video existence. This season, the Times spoke to Christopher Nolan for “Interstellar,” Alejandro Iñárritu for “Birdman,” Paul Thomas Anderson for “Inherent Vice,” and Dan Gilroy for “Nightcrawler,” among others.

Check out the “Anatomy of a Scene” grab bag below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj9Ahkwk5Eg]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVmaJAmQ3yQ]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMO0cA_B1GE]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt54tpjWII0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6Nbt25gtGw]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzYAQTMhdOI]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV4kPh7fKb0]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7I3XNZne0Q]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoluY1zTWZ0]