As I said in my predictions piece yesterday, “Gravity” was always likely to find a strong core of support in the BAFTA membership, given the involvement of heavyweight British producer David Heyman, extensive below-the-line contributions from British artists and the fact that much of it was shot at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios. Still, I didn’t anticipate them embracing Alfonso Cuarón’s film this much. Not only does “Gravity” lead all contenders with 11 nominations, but BAFTA effectively claimed it as their own, handing it a Best British Film nomination that pushed it ahead of “American Hustle” and “12 Years a Slave” in the final tally.

Fair enough, one might say, though the nomination — along with one for another US studio film, “Saving Mr. Banks” — is already proving controversial. Pundits are questioning the criteria of what makes a film officially British. If “Gravity” and “Banks” qualify, why not “12 Years a Slave,” with its heavily British cast and crew, and development at the hands of UK independent powerhouse Film4? Production is what makes the difference, and while many may carp, the nominations stand: you might not have thought of it this way before, but for the purposes of these particular awards, “Gravity” is as British as Earl Grey tea.

That lends an interesting dynamic to a race one might have called early for “12 Years a Slave” — generally, when a major Oscar contender is of significantly British stock, that gives it the edge with local voters, and the presence of homegrown talents Steve McQueen, Chiwetel Ejiofor et al counts for a lot, even if the film isn’t “officially” British.

Do this morning’s nominations, however, suggest that BAFTA’s collective sympathies might lie more with a space spectacular than the sobering slice of American history? And if so, if that subtly reflective of how things may swing on the other side of the Atlantic? It’s worth noting that “Gravity” didn’t miss a beat on the BAFTA list: its 11 nods include one for its screenplay, largely overlooked in the season thus far, and every technical category save Costume Design and Makeup, for which it’s hardly a plausible contender.

“12 Years a Slave,” on the other hand, is strong up top, but suffered some semi-surprising technical misses: no Costume Design nod, for example, nor Makeup or Sound. Those omissions may not be as significant as it would have been when the entire BAFTA membership voted on nominees in all categories, but they have cost the film the leading tally most assumed it would get, allowing “Gravity” to hog the morning’s headlines.

What of “American Hustle,” though? David O. Russell’s ABSCAM romp may be an increasingly estimable threat in the Oscar race, but you could have been forgiven for thinking it might not register as strongly with the Brits — after all, “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook” were nominated only for acting and writing. Not so this time: “Hustle” equalled “Slave’s” tally of 10 nominations, including nods for all four of its chief players. Could Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and, particularly, Amy Adams — all overlooked by SAG — repeat on Oscar morning, making “Hustle” Russell’s second straight film to pull off the acting-category quartet? It’s entirely possible.

That Bale scored a nomination from his compatriots is especially notable, considering what a bloodbath the Best Actor category evidently was. Bruce Dern, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Ejiofor all made the cut too, meaning Robert Redford was once again frozen out — alongside Matthew McConaughey, a potential Oscar frontrunner. “Dallas Buyers Club” may have been lapped up by the Guilds, but BAFTA simply wasn’t feeling it: the omission of Jared Leto, hitherto viewed as a dead cert for the Oscar, from the Best Supporting Actor lineup was the most shocking news of the morning. (It wasn’t for lack of effort, either: both McConaughey and Leto did their BAFTA Q&A duties.)

Perhaps the most surprising Best Actor omission, however, is that of Michael Douglas. Eligible in the UK as a theatrical release, HBO’s “Behind the Candelabra” evidently had a lot of admirers in BAFTA, scoring five nominations — including Best Adapted Screenplay and a dubiously categorized Best Supporting Actor nod for co-lead Matt Damon. Douglas must have been awfully close.

As expected, “Captain Phillips” — another US film with heavy British involvement — performed robustly, scoring nine nominations. And BAFTA voters were predictably loyal to homegrown hit “Philomena,” which received a modest four nods, but got the two that count: Best Film and Best British Film, the latter of which it seems likely to take rather comfortably. (I sense BAFTA voters may balk at actually giving “Gravity” the win there.)

As I predicted, “Philomena’s” Stephen Frears made way for Martin Scorsese in the Best Director category; “The Wolf of Wall Street” landed four nods overall, but — like “Hugo” before it — missed out in the top race. “Her,” like “Dallas Buyers Club,” was left entirely on the sidelines, but “Nebraska” landing a smattering of major nods: Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay and, unexpectedly, Best Cinematography. June Squibb, however, was surprisingly nixed from the Best Supporting Actress lineup in favor of Julia Roberts and Oprah Winfrey, both nominated despite lack of overall support for their films. (Roberts, indeed, landed “August: Osage County” its only nomination, as Meryl Streep missed the Best Actress cut. Might the Academy also take a break from the 17-time nominee?)

Elsewhere, the list largely checks off the expected Oscar nominees, as the BAFTAs settle ever more comfortably into their US precursor status — once more, champions of independent British cinema were given little to cheer about. UK foreign Oscar submission “Metro Manila,” which took top honors at the British Independent Film Awards last month, was handed only a Best Foreign Language Film nod, failing even to make the Best British Film list. Clio Barnard’s “The Selfish Giant,” by some measure the year’s most acclaimed British art film, was luckier, but scored in no other category. When films directed by Alfonso Cuarón, John Lee Hancock and Ron Howard make up half of BAFTA’s prize British showcase, it’s fair to say the awards’ singular identity is — for better or worse — slowly slipping away.

Check out the full list of nominations here.

Things were close at the top, but thanks to a Best British Film nod that I didn’t see coming, “Gravity” leads this year’s BAFTA nominations with 11 bids. “12 Years a Slave” and “American Hustle” are close on its heels with 10, as is “Captain Phillips” with nine. Surprising omissions, however, include “Dallas Buyers Club” — absent from all categories. Full list below; more analysis to come shortly.

Best Film
“American Hustle”
“Captain Phillips”
“Gravity”
“Philomena”
“12 Years a Slave”

Best Director
David O. Russell, “American Hustle”
Paul Greengrass, “Captain Phillips”
Alfonso Cuaron, “Gravity”
Steve McQueen, “12 Years a Slave”
Martin Scorsese, “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Best British Film
“Gravity”
“Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”
“Philomena”
“Rush”
“Saving Mr. Banks”
“The Selfish Giant”

Best Actor
Christian Bale, “American Hustle”
Bruce Dern, “Nebraska”
Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave”
Tom Hanks, “Captain Phillips”

Best Actress
Amy Adams, “American Hustle”
Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”
Sandra Bullock, “Gravity”
Judi Dench, “Philomena”
Emma Thompson, “Saving Mr. Banks”

Best Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi, “Captain Phillips”
Daniel Bruhl, “Rush”
Bradley Cooper, “American Hustle”
Matt Damon, “Behind the Candelabra”
Michael Fassbender, “12 Years a Slave”

Best Supporting Actress
Sally Hawkins, “Blue Jasmine”
Jennifer Lawrence, “American Hustle”
Lupita Nyong”o, “12 Years a Slave”
Julia Roberts, “August: Osage County”
Oprah Winfrey, “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”

Best Original Screenplay
“American Hustle”
“Blue Jasmine”
“Gravity”
“Inside Llewyn Davis”
“Nebraska”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“Behind the Candelabra”
“Captain Phillips”
“Philomena”
“12 Years a Slave”
“The Wolf of Wall Street”

Best Foreign Language Film
“The Act of Killing”
“Blue is the Warmest Color”
“The Great Beauty”
“Metro Manila”
“Wadjda”

Best Documentary
“The Act of Killing”
“The Armstrong Lie”
“Blackfish”
“Tim’s Vermeer”
“We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks”

Best Animated Film
“Despicable Me 2”
“Frozen”
“Monsters University”

 Best Cinematography
“Captain Phillips”
“Gravity”
“Inside Llewyn Davis”
“Nebraska”
“12 Years a Slave”

Best Production Design
“American Hustle”
“Behind the Candelabra”
“Gravity”
“The Great Gatsby”
“12 Years a Slave”

Best Costume Design
“American Hustle”
“Behind the Candelabra”
“The Great Gatsby”
“The Invisible Woman”
“Saving Mr. Banks”

Best Film Editing
“Captain Phillips”
“Gravity”
“Rush”
“12 Years a Slave”
“The Wolf of Wall Street”

Best Makeup and Hair
“American Hustle”
“Behind the Candelabra”
“The Great Gatsby”
“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
“Lee Daniels’ The Butler”

Best Music
“The Book Thief”
“Captain Phillips”
“Gravity”
“Saving Mr. Banks”
“12 Years a Slave”

Best Sound
“All is Lost”
“Captain Phillips”
“Gravity”
“Inside Llewyn Davis”
“Rush”

Best Visual Effects
“Gravity”
“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
“Iron Man 3”
“Pacific Rim”
“Stsar Trek Into Darkness”

Best Debut by British Writer, Director or Producer
Colin Caberry and Glenn Patterson (writers), “Good Vibrations”
Kelly Msarcel (writer), “Saving Mr. Banks”
Kieran Evasns (writer-director), “Kelly + Victor”
Scott Graham (writer-director), “Shell”
Paul Wright (writer-director) and Polly Stokes (producer), “For Those in Peril”

Best British Animated Short
“Everything I Can See from Her”
“I Am Tom Moody”
“Sleep With the Fishes”

Best British Short
“Island Queen”
“Keeping Up With the Joneses”
“Orbit Ever After”
“Room 8”
“Sea View”

Rising Star Award (previously announced)
Dane DeHaan
George Mackay
Lupita Nyong’o
Will Poulter
Lea Seydoux

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4911844438001

NEW YORK – I’m somewhat torn as to whether to communicate just how awkward my interview with Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams was for Spike Jonze’s masterful “Her” last month. Our video editing team did a wonderful job of making it seem less so, but let’s just say that Mr. Phoenix lived up to his well deserved reputation. It’s one reason you hear a lot more from the wonderfully charming Ms. Adams in the interview embedded at the top of the post than the movie’s leading man. Granted, we were able to discuss a bit about Jonze’s vision of a future Los Angeles and the changes to the project through production, but it certainly wasn’t what I’d hoped for when I walked in the interview room. Certainly not for a film that ended up at no. 9 on my top ten list of 2013.

Maybe you’ll see the seams of what we cut out or maybe you won’t, but the most important thing is that you take the time to see “Her.” The futuristic romance is expanding nationwide on Friday and it deserves to be seen on the big screen. It’s arguably the best film of Jonze’s impressive career and – fingers crossed – will make Oscar’s Best Picture cut a week from Thursday. Even if it doesn’t, you cannot miss out on Jonze’s singular creation and its remarkable ensemble including Phoenix, Adams, a somewhat unheralded Rooney Mara and, of course, the enchanting vocal talents of Scarlett Johansson

Like the best of cinema, and there’s been a few great examples of this over the past few months, “Her” sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater. So, whether you’re planning your weekend around NFL playoff games or not, grab your her or him and make time for “Her.” I can promise you Phoenix’s performance on screen is much more engaging than his behavior in the interview above. Trust me.

“Her” is now playing in limited release. It opens nationwide on Friday.

The Vancouver Film Critics Circle has hopped on the “12 Years a Slave”/Alfonso Cuarón bandwagon, but I’m mostly interested in that Best Actor win for Oscar Isaac. After the guy couldn’t get arrested on the circuit, he’s finally landed a couple of wins, first from the National Society of Film Critics over the weekend and today with the Vancouver crowd. “Inside Llewyn Davis” also won the group’s screenplay prize. Check out the nominees here, the full list of winners below, and remember to keep track of it all via The Circuit.

INTERNATIONAL AWARDS

Best Film: “12 Years a Slave”

Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón, “Gravity”

Best Actor: Oscar Isaac, “Inside Llewyn Davis”

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club”

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, “American Hustle”

Best Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen, “Inside Llewyn Davis”

Best Foreign Film: “The Hunt”

Best Documentary: “The Act of Killing”

CANADIAN AWARDS

Best Canadian Film: “The Dirties”

Best Director of a Canadian Film: Jeff Barnaby, “Rhymes for Young Ghouls”

Best Actor in a Canadian: Matt Johnson, “The Dirties”

Best Actress in a Canadian Film: Sophie Desmarais, “Sarah Prefers to Run”

Best Supporting Actor in a Canadian Film: Alexandre Landry, “Gabrielle”

Best Supporting Actress in a Canadian Film: Lise Roy, “Tom at the Farm”

Best Canadian Documentary: “My Prairie Home”

Best First Film by a Canadian Director: “The Dirties”

Best British Columbia Film: “Down River”

Ian Caddell Award for Achievement: Al Sens

Award for Achievement: Corinne Lea

How many more states do we have to go? Oklahoma is the latest to weigh in with their favorites, and they’ve picked Spike Jonze’s “Her” as their film of the year, also handing it Best Original Screenplay. “12 Years a Slave” took Best Actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor and Best Adapted Screenplay, but beyond that, the love was generously spread around, with “American Hustle,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Gravity,” “Blue Jasmine” and “The Hunt” among the other winners. Matthew McConaughey, meanwhile, received a Body of Work award for three performances, while “August: Osage County” received a Worst of 2013 “prize.” Full list after the jump, and everything else at The Circuit.

Best Picture: “Her”

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, “Gravity”

Best Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave”

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club”

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, “American Hustle”

Best Original Screenplay: “Her”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “12 Years a Slave”

Best Foreign Language Film: “The Hunt”

Best Documentary: “The Act of Killing”

Best Animated Film: “Frozen”

Best Debut Feature: Ryan Coogler, “Fruitvale Station”

Body of Work Award: Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Mud” and “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Best Guilty Pleasure: “Iron Man 3”

Not-So-Obviously Worst Film: “August: Osage County”

Obviously Worst Film: “Grown Ups 2”

10 Best Films
1. “Her”
2. “American Hustle”
3. “12 Years a Slave”
4. “Gravity”
5. “Inside Llewyn Davis”
6. “Captain Phillips”
7. “The Wolf of Wall Street”
8. “All is Lost”
9. “Dallas Buyers Club”
10. “Prisoners”

For Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, the goal of three unique films – 1995’s “Before Sunrise,” 2004’s “Before Sunset” and 2013’s “Before Midnight” – that have followed the lives of Celine and Jesse, a pair of love-struck individuals, has been to make viewers feel like they know them. These are people trying to be understood, and the idea is “to get in on their communication,” as Linklater puts it. The films have aimed to depict Celine and Jesse as fully as they can, and the result has been one of the most singular on-going cinematic experiences in the modern canon.

To that, Delpy adds that a desire for complexity has been at the forefront. “They’re not melodramatic,” she says. “It’s kind of real and a very small window in the life of these people. It’s very important not to make them flat characters.”

Celine is unusual in that the opportunities to convey such a complex female character are so few and far between, particularly in the Hollywood sphere.

“The problem, probably, is very insidious,” Hawke says, “which is that young women are told at a very young age that what’s most interesting about them is being pretty. It’s a kind of soul-gutting thing to do to our young women. Whereas men are never taught that. The man who overvalues his looks is really sneered at. If you just flip through the channels and how often you see a woman disrobing in some way or dead or in some state of violence being put upon her, it’s shocking. It’s rare to see a woman not in one of those positions. So that’s what’s so remarkable about Celine. And also she’s a flawed person. It’s not a glamorized portrait of a woman. It’s a dimensionalized portrait.”

It was obvious to everyone involved from the first film that Celine was heading in a direction that is not a simplified version of a human being. Linklater adds by way of caveat that it’s rare that you get this sort of latitude to express a full like, but nevertheless, says Hawke, “I think one of the things Rick and Julie and I are most proud of is Celine, just what a fascinating figure she is.”

The logic behind the first film certainly didn’t necessarily make specific room for sequels. It was just an independent venture with three creatively motivated artists painting a portrait with passion. When the trio came back together for Linklater’s animated feature “Waking Life” in 2001, which featured a brief interlude with Celine and Jesse, that got the gears turning on revisiting the story.

“That’s when we looked at each other and said, ‘Maybe we should do it,'” Linklater says. “That was the big leap, doing the second film. Committing to that in the vacuum of no one wanting it, except three people and maybe Martin Shafer at Castle Rock. It’s the moment we realized Jesse and Celine are still alive that we have something to express through them at a new phase or where they are in life. And it’s not that conscious. It just bubbles up amongst us and it’s when we realize we’re all on the same page, what the movie would be.”

What’s interesting is that each film has mirrored the film industry and where it has been with each release, Linklater says. “The first film, while only a $2.7 million film, was distributed by a major studio, Columbia Pictures, through Castle Rock,” he says. “They had a deal there. Small release, but studios would release a small film, it’s worth it to have in their library. The second film was Warner Independent, gone, but an indie release. And then this film, we had no industry financing whatsoever. It was like private equity money, then acquired by Sony Pictures Classics, thankfully. We’ve had similar results with the three films, but who financed it? Three very different things.”

The collaboration since “Before Sunset” has been one that credits Delpy and Hawke as writers on the projects as well. The three were nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for that film and have just received a WGA notice for “Midnight.”

Leading into the third film, Hawke sat down and watched the first two back-to-back. What it did for him, he says, is unlock the tone. “Those movies have a unique tone and they can withstand a certain kind of humor and not another kind, and a certain kind of cynicism but not another kind,” he explains. “There’s a unique world to those first two movies that the third one needed to fit into and then push beyond. So you can’t break the tone or the spell dies. And what’s funny is it changes who I thought Jesse was when I played him in 1995. It’s different than how I look at him now. What I thought was confidence I now read as arrogance and insecure. Lots of things change.”

On the writing recognition he and his partners have received over the years, he surmises that what people probably think is most unique is what they’ve done on the page. After all, “most of these movies would be kicked out of any decent screenwriting course in America,” he says. “They don’t follow any of the necessary rules. The idea of collaborating on a screenplay with your co-star would be rare, but to do it three times in 18 years, it’s particularly rare. And it’s become a great experience for us.”

It feels a lot like getting a band back together every time, he says, and the bar is raised whenever they step back up to the plate. The fantasy and romance of “Before Sunrise” gave way to the added complexity of the tête-à-tête in “Before Sunset,” and now, “Before Midnight” takes the stakes to a whole new level as a full-on battle of the sexes is waged.

With that in mind, it’s interesting that “Midnight” is the first of the three that features any form of nudity, as Delpy launches into the argument that takes up the film’s third act topless. She says it’s funny, because no one in France ever asks about that, but it’s nevertheless indicative of the spiked level of realistic intimacy the films have entered into.

“Here a lot of people ask me the question and say, ‘Oh, don’t you feel objectified,'” she says. “Little do they know I decided as much as those guys did! It’s also there’s a certain strength in a woman being naked starting an argument. I always remember that scene in ‘Short Cuts’ of Julianne Moore, the other way around, screaming at Matthew Modine. It’s kind of like, ‘Wait a minute. We’re starting an argument but this person is naked.’ It’s kind of distracting and at the same time real and I think it does something to your brain, like, ‘I’m in a real fight. This is not a Hollywood fight. This is not a movie. Those people are fighting.'”

Adds Linklater, “That scene starts out a love scene. People call it the fight scene but it certainly doesn’t start that way. Like a lot of adult things, things swing kind of quickly. The moods, once you know someone, you can go from a great thing then one comment sends you down this alley and then it’s hard getting back out of it. When you’re falling in love with someone, it’s different – confirmation bias. You’re just looking for the connective tissue, what turns you on about someone, and everything’s great. But longterm you can go the other direction. It was satisfying when people liked this one as much as the ones before because it’s a less sexy era in your life. You’re not falling in love. You’re not breaking up. It’s less dramatic.”

But it’s all part of the reality they’re looking to forge. That’s also why Linklater prefers to shoot so many of the films’ scenes in long, extended takes, capturing all of the little nuances of performance and breaking the usual film language.

“It’s to make it not seem constructed,” he says. “Even though it couldn’t be more elaborately a construct, scripted to the gesture.”

“When I first saw ‘Dazed and Confused,’ I thought, ‘You know what? Anton Chekov would love this movie,'” Hawke says. “What Rick is going for is exactly what Stanislowsky was trying to teach 100 years ago. It’s getting rid of acting. Just getting rid of it. Why they would rehearse those plays for years was so they could stop performing.”

On that note, the actor remarks that Linklater – with whom he has now collaborated on eight films, including the upcoming “Boyhood” – is developing into one of the great filmmakers of our generation.

“It’s been one of the most rewarding aspects of my professional life, to watch that happen,” he says. “When he first burst onto the scene in ‘Slacker,’ he was a really interesting voice. But a lot of times a voice rings out like that and never deepens or matures. Watching Rick grow and his compassion and his wisdom, he’s evolving as a person and seeing things more deeply.

“And he’s such an unflashy director. He’s so simple and what he finds dramatic is so not in fashion today, you know? People want their movies to look like ads and they want everything to be glamorous, but he’s kind of allergic to glamor. He’s almost even allergic to drama. Whenever drama is highlighted and spruced up, it’s almost saying that life isn’t enough. It’s not enough to be alive and spinning on this Earth. You have to be a CIA agent or involved in a helicopter crash. And Rick is the opposite of that. He sees daily life as infinitely fascinating and full of mystery. That’s a wonderful viewpoint to be around. I love seeing life through his lens. It doesn’t need any magic on it. Life is magic enough.”

There are two upcoming opportunities to see the “Before” trilogy in all its glory. The series is currently screening at New York’s Lincoln Center along with “Waking Life” (right next door to the theater where Hawke is currently performing in a production of “Macbeth,” ironically enough). That series runs through Friday, Jan. 10. Additionally, the trilogy will be screening back-to-back on the closing day of the upcoming Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Feb. 9. Linklater, Hawke and Delpy will be on hand for a Q&A.

Bright and early tomorrow morning — or just as you’re about to go to bed, depending on where you are — the British Academy of Film & Television Arts will announce their annual film nominations. And predicting those has got slightly less easy in the last two years, since BAFTA brass revised their voting system and ditched those telltale pre-nomination longlists. 

The home favorite could, however, be crowded out by a gaggle of more quintessentially American contenders that may seem likelier Oscar plays than BAFTA favorites — but never underestimate the voters’ allegiance to Oscar buzz. (“The Help,” for example, made little impact commercially or critically in the UK, yet there it was on nomination morning.) From that group, “American Hustle” would appear to be the biggest threat — though BAFTA voters largely resisted Russell’s last two Oscar-favored efforts. “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook” were nominated only for acting and writing, though Russell surprised with a Best Adapted Screenplay win last year. “Hustle”‘s buzz should be loud enough this year to get one of his films into the top races for the first time.

Like Russell, Alexander Payne is less favored by BAFTA than he is by Oscar: “Sideways” scored a solitary writing nod in 2004 (though, again, he won), while “The Descendants” cracked a Best Film nod, but missed for Best Director. Something tells me “Nebraska” hasn’t registered enough in the UK to snag more than acting and writing recognition, but it could be a spoiler. And the position of “The Wolf of Wall Street” is hard to read. The film hasn’t been extensively screened, while the critical debate over the film that is currently raging in the US has yet to make its way over here — that may be a plus or a minus. “Hugo” scored a fat pile of BAFTA nods, including Best Director for Scorsese, but missed out in the top category; I wonder if “Wolf,” albeit with less below-the-line padding, might follow a similar path.

Anyway, my BAFTA nomination predictions in all categories are on the next page. Who do you think/hope will show up tomorrow? Share your thoughts in the comments. 

Last night’s New York Film Critics’ Circle awards dinner have already made industry headlines for the wrong reasons — Armond White’s regrettable outburst was already covered in this morning’s roundup — which has thus far obscured talk of the awards themselves. Which is doubly unfortunate, since it would appear that there were a number of valuable takeaways from that side of the evening — and none more so than Harry Belafonte’s eloquent address to Steve McQueen.

The veteran singer, actor and activist — who, incidentally, won the NYFCC’s Best Supporting Actor prize 17 years ago for “Kansas City” — was selected to present McQueen with his Best Director award for “12 Years a Slave.” Given Belafonte’s history with the Civil Rights Movement and ongoing political involvement, the NYFCC could hardly have chosen a more appropriate figure to do the honors. Belafonte, for his part, chose to make the most of the moment with a deeply personal speech, in which he articulated his previous struggles with racial identity and explained just how deeply McQueen’s slavery drama resonated with him.

Praising McQueen’s accomplishment as “redeeming” and “transformative” in contemporary Hollywood, Belafonte further described the British director as “a genius, an artist … of African descent, although he’s not from America, he is of America, and he is of that America which is part of his own heritage.” That tribute is indicative of just how deeply the film’s industry supporters do feel about it; Belafonte’s is not, of course, a voice in the wilderness. (It’s also nice, given the snide assumptions made in some quarters about older viewers’ response to the film, to hgear this vigorous endorsement coming from an 86-year-old.)

Anyway, a lovely moment, and one will surely stay with Steve McQueen for longer than one critic’s personal attacks.

The full transcript of Belafonte’s speech is below…

********

The power of cinema is an uncontainable thing and it’s truly remarkable, in its capacity for emotional evolution. When I was first watching the world of cinema, there was a film that stunned the world, with all its aspects and art form. They did a lot, at that time. The film was done by D.W. Griffith, and it was called The Birth of a Nation, and it talked about America’s story, its identity, and its place in the universe of nations. And that film depicted the struggles of this country with passion and power and great human abuse. Its depiction of black people was carried with great cruelty. And the power of cinema styled this nation, after the release of the film, to riot and to pillage and to burn and to murder black citizens. The power of film. 

At the age of five, in 1932, I had the great thrill of going to the cinema. It was a great relief for those of us who were born into poverty, a way we tried to get away from the misery. One of the films they made for us, the first film I saw, was Tarzan of the Apes. [Ed note: The movie is called Tarzan the Ape Man.] In that film, [we] looked to see the human beauty of Johnny Weissmuller swinging through the trees, jump off, and there spring to life, while the rest were depicted as grossly subhuman, who were ignorant, who did not know their way around the elements, living in forests with wild animals. Not until Johnny Weissmuller stepped into a scene did we know who we were, according to cinema. 

Throughout the rest of my life … on my birth certificate, it said “colored.” Not long after that, I became “Negro.” Not too long after that, I became “black.” Most recently, I am now “African-American.” I spent the better part of almost a century just in search of, seeking, “Who am I? What am I? What am I to be called? What do I say? Who do I appeal to? Who should I be cautious of?” In this life, when we walk into the world of cinema, we use the instrument that is our ability to try to give another impression of who and what we were as a people, and what we meant to this great nation called America. I’m glad that Sidney Poitier should step into this space right after the Second World War, and new images of what we are as people, certainly as men. 

A lot’s gone on with Hollywood. A lot could be said about it. But at this moment, I think what is redeeming, what is transformative, is the fact that a genius, an artist, is of African descent, although he’s not from America, he is of America, and he is of that America which is part of his own heritage; [he] made a film called 12 Years a Slave, which is stunning in the most emperial way. So it’s a stage that enters a charge made by The Birth of a Nation, that we were not a people, we were evil, rapists, abusers, absent of intelligence, absent of soul, heart, inside. In this film, 12 Years a Slave, Steve steps in and shows us, in an overt way, that the depth and power of cinema is there for now the world to see us in another way.

I was five when I saw Tarzan of the Apes, and the one thing I never wanted to be, after seeing that film, was an African. I didn’t want to be associated with anybody that could have been depicted as so useless and meaningless. And yet, life in New York led me to other horizons, other experiences. And now I can say, in my 87th year of life, that I am joyed, I am overjoyed, that I should have lived long enough to see Steve McQueen step into this space and for the first time in the history of cinema, give us a work, a film, that touches the depths of who we are as a people, touches the depths of what America is as a country, and gives us a sense of understanding more deeply what our past has been, how glorious our future will be, and could be. 

I think that the Circle Award made a wise decision picking you as the director of the year. I think we look forward in anticipation to what you do in the future. But even if you never do anything else, many in your tribe, many in the world, are deeply grateful of the time and genius it took to show us a way that it should be. Forever and eternally grateful to say that we are of African descent. Thank you.

The nominees for the 66th annual Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards were revealed today, narrowing the Oscar race considerably as the industry precursor has long been an indicator for which way the Academy might fall. So those who missed the cut this morning – the Coen brothers, Spike Jonze, Alexander Payne – will be facing a steep uphill climb after today.

But it’s worth it to remember that the DGA is a much, much broader group than the Academy’s directors branch. Indeed, that roughly 400-member group (compared to the DGA’s vast 14,000) can make eclectic choices, like just last year going for Michael Haneke, David O. Russell and Benh Zeitlin over DGA nominees Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Tom Hooper. So there’s hope yet for some of these folks, but a Best Picture win for a film not nominated by the DGA is virtually unheard of: the only films to do so are Bruce Beresford’s “Driving Miss Daisy” in 1989 and Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” in 1948.

Then again, these stats are increasingly meaningless. After all, just last year, a film that didn’t have a corresponding Best Director Oscar nomination winning Best Picture was virtually unheard of, and we all know how that panned out.

And now, yes, as previewed, “American Hustle” is the only film to get the major guild quartet.* Is it coming up the middle on the way to a Best Picture win? It very well may be.

Check out the full list of DGA nominees below, and as ever, remember to keep track of the season via The Circuit.

David O. Russell, “American Hustle”
Paul Greengrass, “Captain Phillips”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Gravity”
Steve McQueen, “12 Years a Slave”
Martin Scorsese, “The Wolf of Wall Street”

And on the documentary side (added 1/13):

Joshua Oppenheimer, “The Act of Killing”
Lucy Walker, “The Crash Reel”
Zachary Heinzerling, “Cutie and the Boxer”
Jehane Noujaim, “The Square”
Sarah Polley, “Stories We Tell”

The 66th annual DGA Awards will be held on Saturday, Jan. 25.

*Since apparently there are those who need the obvious stated, yes, “12 Years a Slave” was ineligible for WGA.

Another year, another Armond White controversy. The famously against-the-grain critic routinely gets people’s backs up with his reviews, but he’s also taken in recent years to making a nuisance of himself at the New York Film Critics’ Circle Awards, denigrating his colleagues’ choices in the presence of the winners themselves. Last night saw his ugliest display yet, as he disrupted Best Director winner Steve McQueen’s speech by calling him “an embarrassing doorman and garbage man.” McQueen classily ignored him; the NYFCC, of which White is a former chair, should not do the same. A critic’s opinions are his to freely express in print; personal public abuse is another matter. [Variety]

A tweet by A.O. Scott is used — against his wishes — as a campaign ad for “Inside Llewyn Davis.” This is a weird business. [New York Times]

Liza Minnelli promises Matthew McConaughey her Oscar if he doesn’t win one of his own for “Dallas Buyers Club.” He’d be a pretty good Sally Bowles. [Hollywood Reporter]

Mike D’Angelo turns the clock way back to an acting race he believes the Academy got right: Best Supporting Actor of 1950. [The Dissolve]

John Legend will perform at the Academy’s post-Oscar Governors’ Ball. [AMPAS]

Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Downey, Jr. are among the first wave of confirmed Golden Globe presenters. [Entertainment Weekly]

Tess Lynch on the battle between SeaWorld and the Oscar-shortlisted documentary “Blackfish.” [Grantland]

Tim Gray weights up the Golden Globe nominees on the BuzzFeed movie tracker. [Variety]

Historian Alex von Tunzelmann gives a resounding thumbs-up to “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.” [The Guardian]

Filmmaker Jane Campion has found herself in the Palme d’Or mix three times at Cannes: for 1989’s “Sweetie,” 1993’s “The Piano” (which one the prize in a tie with Kaige Chen’s “Farewell My Concubine”) and 2009’s “Bright Star.” She also won a prize for her short film “An Exercise in Discipline – Peel” in 1982. Suffice it to say, she has a rich history with the fest, and now she adds one more notch on her Croisette belt: she’ll be heading up the 2014 edition’s jury.

“It’s a great honor for me to be chosen as the president of the jury,” Campion said in a statement. “To tell the truth I can’t wait. [Cannes] is a mythical place and surprising place where actors reveal themselves, films find their producers and careers are made.”

Added festival president Gilles Jacob (who will be stepping down next year), “Once upon a time there was an unknown young director from Down Under who was no doubt proud enough that the Festival de Cannes was going to present even one of the three short films she had just finished. But they were shot through with such courage and humanity and captured such a unique world that the Festival refused to choose and – in a masterstroke – screened all three, marking the advent of a true master. Jane Campion had arrived, and she brought a whole new style with her.”

To date, Campion is the only female director to have won the Palme d’Or at the festival. She is not, however, the first woman to head up the jury. Actresses Isabelle Huppert and Isabelle Adjani did so in 2009 and 1997 respectively, while Liv Ullmann headed it up in 2001, among others.

Campion’s most recent work, the mini-series “Top of the Lake,” played the Sundance Film Festival a year ago.

The 67th Cannes International Film Festival runs May 14 – 25.

It was a pretty good weekend for Harvey Weinstein and his crop of awards season hopefuls. On Saturday, “August: Osage County” – coming off a dominant showing at the Capri, Hollywood Film Festival in Italy – was recognized at the annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala with honors for stars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. The Weinstein Company honcho also held a private little after-soiree that was full of talent not just from his films but others as well.

Sunday night, it was a Kirk Douglas Award presentation for “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” star Forest Whitaker in advance of the 29th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival (which will feature another accolade in the form of the Montecito Award for, well, Montecito resident Oprah Winfrey). A big boost of visibility for the SAG nominee.

The legendary awards strategist – who recently placed number one on HitFix’s inaugural Oscar Power List with ease – has a typically loaded slate of films this year and he’s making all the right moves on their behalf. “August,” “The Butler,” “Fruitvale Station,” “Philomena” and “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” have all been represented on the circuit (though perhaps the best of them, in my opinion – “Mandela” – has received short shrift). Yet despite SAG and WGA attention, it seems more and more like Weinstein will have his first off year in the Best Picture ranks since finally cutting through with “The Reader” in 2008.

I’ve written about Weinstein’s success and my genuine awe at his having resurrected an awards season machine from the ashes of another. The new company started up in 2005 and needed some time to get the engine revved, but once “The Reader” lit the fuse, it was off to the races. That run included back-to-back Best Picture wins for “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist” (a feat not achieved by a studio since the one-two DreamWorks punch of “American Beauty” and “Gladiator” over a decade ago). But if the Academy’s Best Picture category is set to reflect a Weinstein-less line-up much like the PGA’s, well…what happened?

Most will tell you he spread himself too thin on this year’s slate. But it’s worth noting that his strategy has always been to throw a lot at the wall and see what sticks. The only problem is, nothing seems to be sticking this year on the same level as crowd-pleasers like the aforementioned Best Picture winners and others like “Inglourious Basterds” and “Silver Linings Playbook.” Each of the 2013 films consistently needed the kind of nourishment that is typically reserved for one declared thoroughbred, and Weinstein just didn’t have that this year.

It seemed early on like it might be “The Butler,” but while I concede that it’s the kind of film a group like the Academy would respond to…we anticipated this. Other, better films were coming down the pike to overshadow the August release (which, by the way, made a killing at the box office).

Later in the season, “August: Osage County” and “Fruitvale Station” found their champions, but it’s “Philomena” that remains a potential spoiler in the race. The Golden Globe Best Picture nominee really plays to the Academy, particularly on screener, and while the strategy with something like “August” is to bank on the support of the actors and writers branches, there is passion to be mined for Stephen Frears’ little effort.

I say all that because it’s most certainly not over. A Weinstein movie, or two, may well pop up on the list, and as ever, it’ll be a new phase two ballgame for Harvey once, if, that happens. But most signs are pointing to a miss this year, despite the quantity.

If so, well, so be it. He’ll certainly be back with a vengeance and his place at the top of our Oscar Power List will remain unquestioned. Because this is the guy who invented the game everyone else is playing. And don’t you forget it.

Switching gears a bit, the DGA nominees will be announced tomorrow. In all likelihood, “American Hustle” will then become the only film recognized with significant nominations from every major guild: SAG ensemble, PGA, WGA, DGA. That will set it up for a real solid angle on this race, one that we already covered at the end of the year. With titans like “12 Years a Slave” and “Gravity” duking it out, a lane is opening up in the middle, and the middle is where the preferential ballot matters.

But one other film has been so fortunate on the guild circuit as well: “Dallas Buyers Club.” And I have to say, it would be great to see Jean-Marc Vallée show up with a surprise mention from the directors tomorrow. Because for all of the talk of two central, amazing performances, for all of the talk of bringing this film in at a tiny $5 million budget and in an all-too-brief 28 days, who do you think was steering that ship? THE DIRECTOR.

Vallée is a super laid-back guy who likely isn’t getting in undies in a twist over any of this, but he’s been pretty stunningly ignored throughout the season. I don’t just mean in an awards capacity, I mean he’s just been this phantom figure behind the thing, who put a 20-year-languishing project together and made it look easy. Maybe that’s why he’s not getting his due; “Dallas Buyers Club” is so invisibly but impeccably crafted, after all. But if somehow his fellow helmers saw fit to tip their hat to him tomorrow morning, I’d be the first to cheer.

That campaign has moved along swimmingly throughout the season, perhaps getting a lot out of the “last hurrah” thing as the Focus Features we’ve known and loved for so long prepares to become something else entirely. Though I might reserve high marks for “campaign of the year” for Paramount’s “Nebraska” push, which has been classy and steady since Cannes and has never reached or gotten too sweaty. Either way, it’s nice to see these two indie movies finding their way on the circuit.

I have a number of other thoughts before getting to the Jan. 16 nominations announcement. Like the fact that, despite a lifeline tossed by the National Society of Film Critics over the weekend, “Inside Llewyn Davis” seems poised to be the great Academy embarrassment of the year. Or the idea that guild love for “The Wolf of Wall Street” could be indicative of youth influx in those groups (ditto “Her”), which may or may not translate to the Academy. But let’s let it sit for just one more week. We’ll get into final thoughts and predictions next Monday.

For now, the Contenders section has been tweaked. Also, don’t forget to sign up for HitFix Oscar Picks and make your own predictions before the big day.

Nearly four years since she took home an Oscar for her devastating performance in “Precious,” Mo’Nique is finally reemerging with a new film.

The actress has signed on to star in “Blackbird,” an adaptation of the 2006 coming-of-age novel by Larry Duplechan that she will also executive-produce through her and husband Sidney Hicks’ Hicks Media production banner. Also onboard for the film, which is set to be directed by Patrik-Ian Polk (“Noah’s Arc,” “The Skinny”), are Isaiah Washington (“Blue Caprice”), Terrell Tilford, Gary L. Gray, Kevin Allesee, Torrey Lamaar, Nikki Jane, D. Woods and newcomer Julian Walker.

“Blackbird” tells the story of Randy Rousseau (Walker), a 17-year-old choir boy living with his family in a tight-knit Mississippi town who not only struggles with his “misfit” status in the religiously-conservative community but is consistently plagued by a series of disturbing premonitions. Randy’s world becomes even more complicated when the sudden disappearance of his younger sister results in the breakup of his parents (Mo’Nique and Washington) – an event his grief-stricken mother blames him for after discovering a shocking secret he’s been hiding.

“‘Blackbird’ is a film about the choices people are forced to make as they struggle to figure out how to be themselves. And why should just being who you are be a struggle?” said Hicks in a statement. “Since Mo’Nique won the Oscar, we have received numerous scripts, but nothing captured our attention until Isaiah, who we have a high level of respect for, sent us ‘Blackbird.’ We became instant fans of Patrik-Ian Polk and knew we had to get behind this important film.”

Best known for her comedic work in such films and TV shows as “The Parkers” and “Phat Girlz” early in her career, Mo’Nique stunned critics and audiences with her heart-wrenching portrayal of a child-abusing welfare mother in “Precious,” a performance that netted her a slew of awards including an Oscar, a Golden Globe and an Independent Spirit Award. Directed by Lee Daniels, the film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival – incidentally a venue that seems well-suited for this latest venture.

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4911814374001

We have exactly one month to go before Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is unveiled on the opening night of the Berlin Film Festival. We recently featured the film in our Most Anticipated Prestige Films list, but if your appetite still needs whetting, Fox Searchlight have unveiled another two clips from the all-star comedy, both focused principally on the dashing manager of the titular hotel, played by Ralph Fiennes, and his wide-eyed new lobby boy Zero, played by Tony Revolori.

If you hadn’t already guessed (or seen the trailer) the clips promise a typical Anderson affair: dry, droll humor, airily heightened performances, generally jazzy energy and all the art direction the screen can bear. Fiennes looks to be on particularly playful form, and the introductory stroll through the hotel is shot with zippy panache. I run hot and cold with Anderson, but the amount of fun he’s evidently having here will hopeful prove infectious. Meanwhile, is an Anderson film finally going to net some awards recognition for production design? Adam Stockhausen should net his first nod for “12 Years a Slave” next week, but everything we’ve been shown of his work here is wonkily dazzling.

The Georgia Film Critics’ Association is a young and fairly small group: they’ve been going three years and have 10 members, which means their nominee list is a bit less groupthink-influenced than most. “12 Years a Slave” might lead the field with 11 nods, but there are unusual choices elsewhere: while “American Hustle” and “Inside Llewyn Davis” share second place with seven mentions, so does Shane Carruth’s “Upstream Color,” which landed Carruth nods for directing, writing, cinematography and score. Meanwhile, “Mud” found some Southern comfort with a Best Picture nod. Full list below; everything else at The Circuit.

Best Picture
“American Hustle”
“Gravity”
“Her”
“Inside Llewyn Davis”
“Mud”
“Short Term 12”
“The Spectacular Now”
“12 Years a Slave”
“Upstream Color”
“The Wolf of Wall Street”

Best Director
Shane Carruth, “Upstream Color”
Joel and Ethan Coen, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Gravity”
Steve McQueen, “12 Years a Slave”
Martin Scorsese, “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave”
Oscar Isaac, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyers Club”
Joaquin Phoenix, “Her”

Best Actress
Amy Adams, “American Hustle”
Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”
Sandra Bullock, “Gravity”
Judi Dench, “Philomena”
Brie Larson, “Short Term 12”
Amy Seimetz, “Upstream Color”

Best Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi, “Captain Phillips”
Bradley Cooper, “American Hustle”
Michael Fassbender, “12 Years a Slave”
John Goodman, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Jonah Hill, “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club”

Best Supporting Actress
Sally Hawkins, “Blue Jasmine”
Jennifer Lawrence, “American Hustle”
Lupita Nyong”o, “12 Years a Slave”
Margot Robbie, “The Wolf of Wall Street”
June Squibb, “Nebraska”

Best Original Screenplay
David O. Russell and Eric Singer, “American Hustle”
Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, “Frances Ha”
Spike Jonze, “Her”
Jeff Nichols, “Mud”
Shane Carruth, “Upstream Color”

Best Adapted Screenplay
Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, “Philomena”
David Gordon Green, “Prince Avalanche”
Destin Cretton, “Short Term 12”
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, “The Spectacular Now”
John Ridley, “12 Years a Slave”

Best Animated Film
“The Croods”
“Despicable Me 2”
“Epic”
“Frozen”
“The Wind Rises”

Best Documentary Film
“Cutie and the Boxer”
“Muscle Shoals”
“Stories We Tell”
“20 Feet from Stardom”
“Vivan Las Antipodas!”

Best Foreign Language Film
 “Expedition to the End of the World”
“The Great Beauty”
“Lore”
“No”
“The Past”

Best Ensemble
“American Hustle”
“Short Term 12”
“The Spectacular Now”
“12 Years a Slave”
“The Wolf of Wall Street”

Best Cinematography
Emmanuel Lubezki, “Gravity”
Bruno Delbonnel, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Emmanuel Lubezki, “To the Wonder”
Sean Bobbitt, “12 Years a Slave”
Shane Carruth, “Upstream Color”

Best Production Design
Judy Becker, “American Hustle”
Andy Nicholson, “Gravity”
Jess Gonchor, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Alex McDowell, “Man of Steel”
Adam Stockhausen, “12 Years a Slave”

Best Original Score
Steven Price, “Gravity”
Arcade Fire, “Her”
Hans Zimmer, “Man of Steel”
Hans Zimmer, “12 Years a Slave”
Shane Carruth, “Upstream Color”

Best Original Song
“Let It Go” from “Frozen”
“Young and Beautiful” from “The Great Gatsby”
“Please Mr. President” from “Inside Llewyn Davis”
“Almost Home” from “Oz the Great and Powerful”
“Stay Alive” from “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”
“So You Know What It’s Like” from “Short Term 12”

Breakthrough Award
Sophie Kennedy Clark (“Philomena”)
Brie Larson (“Don Jon,” “Short Term 12,” “The Spectacular Now”)
Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years of Slave”)
Amy Seimetz (“Lucky Them,” “9 Full Moons,” “Pit Stop,” “The Sacrament,” “Sun Don’t Shine,” “Upstream Color”)
Tye Sheridan (“Joe,” “Mud”)
Miles Teller (“The Spectacular Now,” “21 & Over”)

I had a busy weekend, and in the rush of it, somehow missed the news that producer Saul Zaentz passed away at the age of 92. As well as being an accomplished producer and industry figure, Zaentz is a name familiar to seasoned Oscar-watchers, having won the Best Picture award on three occasions: for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), “Amadeus” (1984) and “The English Patient” (1996).

No one has produced more winners of the Academy’s top honor. Zaentz shares the record with Golden Age legends Darryl F. Zanuck (“How Green Was My Valley,” “Gentleman’s Agreement,” “All About Eve”) and Sam Spiegel (“On the Waterfront,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Lawrence of Arabia”) — individual, autonomous mainstream producers of the type that, as avenues of production and finance splinter ever more in the modern era, are less likely to be industry (or indeed Academy) fixtures.

Like Zanuck and Spiegel, Zaentz was also further honored by the Academy with their honorary Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award — presented to him, in what one might term a case of gilding the lily, on the very night “The English Patient” won nine Oscars in March 1997. The non-annual award (it’s only been presented five times since) is, in the Academy’s words, reserved for “creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.”

Zaentz certainly fits the bill on the basis of his Best Picture wins alone, all of which hold up reasonably well to the cruel glare of 20/20 Oscar hindsight. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (which he co-produced with Michael Douglas) remains a beloved generational touchstone — and, I would argue, only the least adventurous option in the greatest Best Picture roster of all time. (It beat “Barry Lyndon,” “Nashville,” “Jaws” and “Dog Day Afternoon.”) “Amadeus” is widely regarded as a literate and artistic bright spot in the category’s most vanilla decade. “The English Patient” may still be the butt of Elaine Benes-originated jokes, but it’s a far more darkly poetic, structurally daring take on “classic” Hollywood romanticism than many choose to remember. (People forget, too, its significance as the flagbearer in what was dubbed the Oscars’ groundbreaking “Year of the Independents.”)

But the “consistent” part of the equation only really registered for me when I read the various Zaentz obituaries, and discovered that his filmography was even smaller and more selective than I had somehow believed. I knew Zaentz had a reputation for discernment, and that he had come to film production in middle age — having initially made his name in the music industry as the head of record label Fantasy Records. (Yes, the man who produced “Amadeus” was also responsible for signing Creedence Clearwater Revival.) Yet the economy and focus of his film career still surprises.

As it is, Zaentz has just 10 films to his name, beginning with the low-key country music drama “Payday” in 1972, and finishing with the 2005 quasi-biopic “Goya’s Ghosts” — his third film with director Milos Forman, who of course helmed those first two Best Picture winners. It’s not an unblemished CV, if we’re being honest: “Goya’s Ghosts,” for starters, was a turgid Europudding of a sign-off; 1991’s “At Play in the Fields of the Lord” an artsy all-star flop. Both, however, fall squarely into the “noble misfire” column, the former an attempt at tangling with ornate biographical fantasy — as “Amadeus” so successfully did — and the latter a three-hour adaptation of a dense theological novel that had widely been assigned the dread word “unfilmable.”

It’s clearly not a word Zaentz — an avid reader himself — believed in. People said much the same about “The English Patient,” but the producer pursued it purposefully — fending off studio suggestions to make it more palatably mainstream. (If they’d had their way, Demi Moore would have played Kristin Scott Thomas’s role, for starters.) And he dipped into the ‘difficult novel’ well twice in the 1980s, assisting (as executive producer) Peter Weir’s still-undervalued version of Paul Theroux’s “The Mosquito Coast,” and spearheading an entirely stunning (and suitably acclaimed) realization of Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” two years later. (Philip Kaufman’s opalescent erotic drama may not have scored Zaentz on Oscar — nor even a nomination — but it might stand as the best film on his résumé.)

Meanwhile, years before Peter Jackson’s team gave it the bells-and-whistles treatment, Zaentz was the first producer to take on the beast that is J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”: Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated adaptation was a vast, incomplete undertaking that may have met with mixed success (and was never followed with a sequel), but could hardly be challenged on grounds of ambition or sheer gumption.

Zaentz produced these films for the best reason one might create or enable anything: because he believed in them. Not one of his projects was churned out carelessly or disingenuously, targeting audiences or awards voters undiscriminating enough to fall for that. Outward commercial potential isn’t a distinguishing characteristic of his films, yet some of them — those Best Picture winners, for starters — made improbably large sums of money anyway. Zaentz didn’t work, in other words, on a “one for them, one for me” basis; when he was lucky, his passion projects pleased him and them alike.

“It makes no sense to me that Hollywood distributors mark off particular times of year as no-go zones for major theatrical releases. That practice serves only to tell our audiences to stop paying attention at certain times of the year — and that benefits nobody.” So writes National Association of Theater Owners president John Fithian, in a piece where he looks over the 2013 release calendar, and calls for distributors to be more creative with their scheduling, citing “Blue Jasmine” and “Gravity” as examples of films that bucked conventional programming wisdom to great effect, and the summer animation glut as an example of tentpole excess. [Hollywood Reporter]

Meanwhile, Joe Reid reminds us that good films do sometimes emerge in the so-called January wasteland, from “The Grey” to “Before Sunrise,” . [The Wire]

“12 Years a Slave” costume designer Patricia Norris — whom I hadn’t realized is 82 years old — talks through the film’s spare but specific wardrobe. [Vanity Fair]

Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto talks about the look he and Martin Scorsese settled upon for “The Wolf of Wall Street.” [American Cinematographer]

Stephen Frears on strong female characters amnd what he still doesn’t quite understand about “Philomena.” [LA Times]

John Patterson feels “oppressed” by “12 Years a Slave.” Perhaps he might have chosen another word? [The Guardian]

Michael Cieply on the legacy of the short-lived but noble film distribution company ThinkFilm. [New York Times]

Andreas Wiseman speaks to BAFTA CEO Amanda Berry about the challenges of maintaining an international profile while retaining a British identity. [Screen Daily]

In the first official interview for “Nymphomaniac,” Charlotte Gaionsbourg reveals thaty she thought it was a joke at first. [The Playlist]