After a year years away, Ken Loach — king of British social realism, though he’d probably resent the royal analogy — returned to the Berlin Film Festival last year to premiere his documentary “Spirit of ’45.” He’ll be back next year too, this time as an honoree: he will receive the festival’s Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime  achievement, while the programme will feature a retrospective of 10 of his films. Declaring him “one of Europe’s great directors,” Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick praised him showing “an extraordinary degree of continuity, while remaining innovative at all times. His profound interest in people and their individual fates, as well as his critical commitment to society have found expression in a variety of cinematic approaches.”  [Berlinale]  

The real-life Philomena Lee, who’s getting quite vocal this week, has issued a letter dismissing claims that “Philomena” is anti-Catholic. [The Guardian]

Michael Cieply on the most abrasive performance of Meryl Streep’s career, in “August: Osage County.” [New York Times] 

“The Grandmaster” leads the nominations for Asia Pacific Festival Awards. (Not to be confused with the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, which announced its nominees earlier this month.) [APFF]

Eddie Redmayne is among those involved in a push to expand BAFTA’s presence in Asia. [Hollywood Reporter]

Jeremy Kay calls “American Hustle” a “brilliant late arrival” to the Oscar party. [Screen Daily]

Eric Kohn believes “Frozen” and “Saving Mr. Banks” show Disney to be at war with its own image. [Indiewire]

The New York Film Academy offers a handy cut-out-and-keep infographic of gender inequality in the film industry. [NYFA] 

Glenn Dunks makes a plea for Xavier Dolan’s “Laurence Anyways” in the Best Costume Design category. [The Film Experience]

It may be the traditional Thanksgiving break, but awards season doesn’t take a holiday.  December is full of key events that will make or break the hopes of numerous contenders.  Along with key critics’ groups honors one of the most important indicators for Oscar’s acting races (and slightly for best picture) are the Screen Actors Guild Awards.  Nominations for January’s ceremony will be announced in less than two weeks on Dec. 11.  While reading SAG nominating committee members is arguably more difficult than any other guild, the HFPA or Academy members (SAG members seem to love almost everything) reactions do mean something. Oh, and history does too.  

With that in mind, lets review some major contenders and pretenders as we gear up for the 2014 SAG Awards nominations in the embedded gallery below.

Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Welcome to Best Sound Mixing. This Oscar category loves blockbusters and war films, particularly (albeit by no means necessarily) of the prestigious variety. Like many categories, being a Best Picture contender also helps here, and there is one particular sort of film – the musical – that does disproportionately well here, as the work done on a musical”s soundtrack is obviously incredibly important to the film”s success.

Most individuals recognized in this category tend to be previous nominees, and there are many sound artists who have received well in excess of five or 10 nominations over their careers. These talented individuals frequently anchor the list.

The one film this year that seemingly has everything this category goes for – blockbuster, Best Picture contender, an aural experience – is Alfonso Cuarón”s “Gravity.” Clearly headed for a whole host of Oscar nominations, this film boasts a sound crew led by Christopher Benstead, Niv Adiri, four-time nominee Skip Lievsay and past winner Chris Munro. They seem certain to be in the final five this year and may very well find themselves winners.

All of Lievsay”s previous nominations have been for Coen Bros. movies (two for “True Grit” and two for “No Country for Old Men”). He may well get another double nomination this year, albeit for two different titles as opposed to two different categories, as he is also mixing the Coens” “Inside Llewyn Davis.” This atypical musical produced a soundtrack that virtually everyone agrees is appropriately memorable, and it was an achievement of a particular stripe given the on-the-set capturing of the vocals and instrumentation. Lievsay, past winner Greg Orloff (“Ray”) and three-time nominee Peter Kurland (“Walk the Line,” “No Country for Old Men”, “True Grit”) are, in my view, in solid shape.

Then we get to our films that occurred at sea. I maintain that “All is Lost” contained some of the best sound work I have heard in recent years. Steve Boeddeker and Brandon Proctor made a soundtrack that was absolutely integral to the experience of the film. We”ll see how it does overall in awards season overall but I would find it ludicrous if J.C. Chandor’s team cannot find a home here. Sound legend Gary Rydstrom served as a consultant.

“Captain Phillips” perhaps did not have as distinguishing a mix as an edit. But an important mix it had. I also think it is likely heading to nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. If it does, one would expect below-the-line nominations to follow, with the sound categories (and Best Film Editing) being the most obvious places. Munro is on board here as well, with re-recording mixers Mark Taylor, Chris Burdon and Mike Priestwood.

“Rush” is a film that has all the makings of a contender, with its memorable and exciting car races. While not a big box office success, it has a following and so will not be ignored entirely this awards season. Again, the sound categories and film editing, alongside Best Makeup and Hairstyling, appear its best chances. Stefan Korte, Martin Steyer and Danny Hambrook would be first-time nominees.

By all accounts, “Lone Survivor” has superb sounds of the military variety that this category tends to relish. With a prime December release date, it will be fresh in the branch”s mind. We”ll see if David Brownlow and Andy Koyama can earn their first Oscar nominations.

All three “Lord of the Rings” films earned nominations here, with the last entry winning. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” earned a Cinema Audio Society nod last year. While this did not transfer to the Oscars, it shows that Peter Jackson”s seasoned sound crew remains respected by members of the sound community. So watch out for “The Desolation of Smaug.”

“Man of Steel” did not do for Superman what “The Dark Knight” did for “Batman.” But it was a visual and audio treat, in addition to earning a vocal fanbase. Frank A. Montaño and Chris Jenkins have nine nominations and two wins between them while Michael McGee would be a first-time nominee.

Straight-up sequels on the race include “Star Trek Into Darkness,” whose predecessor was nominated here, and “Iron Man 3,” whose predecessors have (somewhat surprisingly) not. Both sequels were fine but also somewhat underwhelming. “Iron Man 3” does have past nominees Peter J. Devlin and Jose Antonio Garcia on its crew (Mike Prestwood Smith and Michael Keller are searching for first nominations), but I doubt it will score where its predecessors came up short. “Star Trek Into Darkness””s sound crew is anchored by last year”s winner Andy Nelson. But again, I am doubtful.

Perhaps the best bet of the summer blockbusters is Guillermo Del Toro”s “Pacific Rim.” Exciting geeks and respected by audiences and critics, this perhaps has the most novelty of the mainstream blockbusters. That could lead to a nomination. The fact that Gregg Rudloff and John Reitz have 10 nominations and three statuettes between them doesn”t hurt the film”s chances. Tim LeBlanc would be a first-time nominee.

I would consider “12 Years a Slave” here as well. The film doesn”t necessarily jump to mind as an aural showcase but the sounds of the Deep South (including the ship) were impressive. And this category (more than Best Sound Editing) can welcome in a film that just starts to get nominated everywhere. Leslie Shatz was once nominated for “The Mummy” and while the crew appears to otherwise be made up of Oscar virgins, that doesn”t always matter when the film is a sweeper.

I”ll end by citing a film that may not naturally seem a contender. Disney”s “Frozen” has opened to very strong reviews. While animated films usually do better in Best Sound Editing than Best Sound Mixing (due to the need to create artificial sounds throughout), this is also a musical and the soundtrack as a whole sounds great. I”m not convinced it”s headed towards a nomination (the crew hasn”t had much Oscar success to date) but I certainly would not rule it out.

So there are the top baker”s dozen contenders as I see them. What say you?

I went into “Frozen” with tempered expectations — Disney’s last couple of attempts to revive the princess formula (“Tangled,” “The Princess and the Frog”) were, for me, pleasant but characterless, and this musical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” looked to be in the same mold. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised: after a rushed, muddled first act, it settles into a touching, visually textured work of authentic Disney classicism, with a welcome feminist twist on the original fairytale and a pleasing lack of the smarmy, adult-targeted irony that permeates so many kids’ films these days. I wouldn’t go quite as far as Drew McWeeny did in hisA-grade rave, but I might just call it my favourite Disney animated feature since the studio’s brief 1990s golden age.

But enough from me — what do you think? Is it on-form Disney? And is it Oscar-worthy? I’m sure many of you will be checking it out over the holiday weekend, so when you do, be sure to share your thoughts here, and vote in the poll below.

With “Frozen” opening today, the received wisdom that it’s the film to beat for the Best Animated Feature Oscar will be further concretized. And while a win for the film would be a first for Disney, it’d follow very much in the tradition of past champions in the 13-year-old category. Jen Chaney writes how the Academy’s choices for the award — however deserving — have reinforced the commonly held notion of animation as chiefly a kids’ medium, and how Miyazaki’s more adult-focused “The Wind Rises” presents an opportunity for the award to come of age. “An animated film that deals with complicated, non-child-friendly themes, or visuals that don”t match the playful picture-book aesthetic… [may be viewed] as a negative instead of a potentially refreshing, groundbreaking departure,” she writes, before going on to suggest that the Academy’s new, more inclusive voting system in the category means “that unintentional bias could become even more of an issue.” [The Dissolve]

Public voting is now open for the Empire Awards, in all categories from Best Film to Best Female Newcomer. Fly, my pretties. [Empire]

Like “Blue is the Warmest Color,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” is three hours long. Unlike “Blue is the Warmest Color,” it’s had sex scenes removed to dodge the NC-17 rating. [Hollywood Reporter] 

Historian Alex von Tunzelmann gives “Saving Mr. Banks” the once-over — and notes some significant omissions from its portrait of P.L. Travers. [The Guardian]

The real-life Philomena Lee talks about watching Judi Dench play her on screen. She calls it an unholy travesty. OK, she doesn’t, but wouldn’t that be more interesting? [LA Times]

Peter Berg explains how they “almost lost” Mark Wahlberg on the set of “Lone Survivor.” They found him again, presumably. [Variety]

The International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam has announced its nominations. [IDFA]

“The Selfish Giant” director Clio Barnard has been awarded the first screenwriting fellowship from the BFI and UK medical charity Wellcome Trust, to explore scientific and medical issues in a future film. [Screen Daily]

Winona Ryder is more keen to talk about “Homeland” than “Homefront,” and has a David Hare BBC thriller coming up. Yay, Winona! [Daily Beast]

The avalanche of advance speculation, live Twitterage and post-game analysis that surrounded yesterday’s announcement of the Independent Spirit Award nominees was indicative, perhaps, of the way the internet has amped up every stop on the ever-expanding awards trail — however minor its real-world presence — to event status. But it also proved that the Spirits are no longer as small, nor as off-the-beaten-track, as their calculatedly modest presentation would have you believe.They haven’t been for a while: for better or worse, they’re now considered as valuable (if, by their very nature, not as all-encompassing) an Oscar bellwether as any of the glitzier Globe or Guild events on the circuit.

Sasha Stone tweeted yesterday that she was struggling to keep calm ahead of the nominations, as if their unveiling carried the same Christmas-morning tingle as the Oscar nods themselves. That degree of excitement may still strike you as excessive, but even a decade ago, it was hard to imagine anyone but the actual nominees getting that worked up about the announcement. Times have changed; the Spirits now have to disguise their Hollywood clout behind a cover of hip, offhand quirk — imagine a heavily tattooed Harvey Weinstein squeezed into a pair of skinny jeans. Or perhaps you’d rather not, but you get the idea.  

The degree of scrutiny and industry lobbying that attends the awards these days would have been unimaginable when the first Spirits ceremony took place nearly 28 years ago. The four (yes, four — reflecting the Oscar format wasn’t such a priority in those days) nominees for Best Picture were the Coen Brothers’ debut feature “Blood Simple,” Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” Joyce Chopra’s “Smooth Talk” and Peter Masterson’s “The Trip to Bountiful” scored only two Oscar nominations between them. Both belonged to “Bountiful,” whose veteran leading lady Geraldine Page became the only Spirit winner that year to repeat at the Oscars. (The only other Spirit nominees even to cross the Academy’s radar were non-US entries “Ran” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”)

It wouldn’t take long for Oscar and Spirit voters to see a little more eye-to-eye — the very next year, they agreed that Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” was the best 1986 had to offer — but they remained in largely separate universes for a good long while. To some extent, that distance has been maintained: only “The Artist” has repeated Stone’s Spirit-Oscar double in the Best Picture category. But the boundaries between them have largely melted away: in the Spirits’ first 10 years, only two of their Best Picture nominees were recognized in the Academy’s top category, compared to 16 in their most recent decade. (Yes, the expansion of the Oscar field aids this inclusiveness.) Best Actor: four in the first decade, 17 in the last. The same figures, funnily enough, go for Best Actress.

Compared yesterday’s nominee slate to that inaugural 1985 crop and most things have changed, as some stay the same. 28 years and four Oscars later, the Coens are nominated again, this time for “Inside Llewyn Davis”; the difference is that their 16th feature, unlike their first, descends upon the Spirits with a luxurious trail of Oscar buzz and industry experience, like a former prom queen dropping in on her old high school for a visit. It’s not alone: of its fellow Best Feature nominees, “12 Years a Slave,” “Nebraska” and “All is Lost” are all assured some measure of Oscar attention. Only “Frances Ha” looks likely likely to be a Spirits-only deal, and even here, its status is that of a lovable long shot — the voters’ token nod to rough-hewn independent filmmaking that isn’t Academy-flavored. 

What’s changed? The Oscars, for starters — no longer as studio-bound as they used to be, they’ve lately attached a kind of preferred nobility to independently produced films that nonetheless bear the comforting varnish of familiar actors or auteurs. (Or, in the case of “The Artist,” the character of Hollywood itself.) Earlier this year, Warner Bros. and Ben Affleck’s “Argo” broke a five-year streak of notional “indies” winning the Best Picture award; ever since “American Beauty” (not itself an independent film, but one with a non-studio sensibility) became the first Toronto-reared Best Picture winner 14 years ago, independent spirit has become the Academy’s new normal.

But the Academy’s growing receptiveness to films from outside the big studios’ domain doesn’t entirely account for the relative “mainstreaming” of the Spirits’ choices — whether intentionally or otherwise, the two institutions seem more to have met each other halfway. The Spirits’ qualifying budget ceiling of $20 million, and the eligibility of starry in-house productions from outfits like Focus and The Weinstein Company, allows them to include a significant proportion of the year’s American prestige titles — particularly as franchise-fixated studios seem ever more reluctant to produce serious, adult-oriented middlebrow fare of the type that used to routinely win them Best Picture Oscars.

That makes the Oscars and the Spirits alike a refuge for tasteful, star-driven awards bait that the majors no longer want to make, which is why their tastes are increasingly indistinguishable. Scrappy but crowdpleasing thriller “Argo” took the Oscar last year, while the Weinsteins’ scrappy but crowdpleasing romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” ruled the Spirits; one’s technically a studio film while the other is not, but they’re both effectively cut from the same cloth. (The indie champion wasn’t even an underdog at the Oscars — “Playbook” actually secured more Oscar nominations than “Argo.”) David O. Russell’s film has ample offbeat charm, but as representatives of pioneering, against-the-grain Amerindie spirit go, it’s not exactly “My Own Private Idaho.”

Fox Searchlight and Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” looks set to dominate this year’s Spirits, and may well join “Platoon” and “The Artist” by nabbing the Oscar as well. On the one hand, that’d be fair enough — it’s a fearless work from a defiantly singular artist that no major studio would ever have touched with a 10-foot pole. Searchlight gambled on Steve McQueen two years ago to little financial or Oscar gain on “Shame” two years ago, and this is their reward; it’s inarguably an independent film, and the fact that it’s set to receive a bushel of Oscar nominations says more for the growth of the industry than it does against the integrity of the Spirit Awards.

And yet, as household-name stars like Robert Redford, Matthew McConaughey and Cate Blanchett — all duly recognized for taking a chance (and a pay cut) on more specialized projects — take their place at the table, it’s fair to wonder if the Spirits are beginning to outgrow their own purpose. They were established in order to give recognition to the outstanding independent films that were going largely unnoticed by the studio-centred Academy. Now that mid-range independent cinema has grown in profile and commercial viability to the extent that the Oscars embrace it on a near-annual basis, there are several lower tiers of outstanding indies that are now going unnoticed even by the Spirits.

The Spirits tacitly acknowledged this hypocrisy in 1999 by creating the John Cassavetes Award for films with a budget of $500,000 or less. This year, as usual, the five nominees (including former In Contention columnist Chad Hartigan’s “This Is Martin Bonner”) are wholly commendable works, worthy of recognition in multiple categories, that nonetheless boast only three extra nominations between them. Too modest to compete with the comparatively glossy likes of “Nebraska” or “All is Lost” in the top categories, these true independents end up ghettoized. (Same goes for four of the Best First Feature nominees — the excellent “Concussion” and “Blue Caprice” among them — all doomed to lose to the Weinsteins’ crossover contender “Fruitvale Station.”) 

Still, at least they aren’t frozen out of the event entirely, like any number of remarkable, critically championed indies that haven’t the muscle to contend here, let alone at the Oscars. I had hoped Andrew Dosunmu’s exquisite “Mother of George” might find some love here, but the competition for micro-indies is just too narrow; on the larger end of the scale, David Lowery’s “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” and Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” (recognized with a single cinematography nod) were also overlooked, leaving their many devotees disappointed.

It feels like we may have passed the point where independents as aggressively anti-mainstream as Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant,” John McNaughton’s “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” or Todd Haynes’ “[Safe]” could score Best Feature nods at the Spirits. One might advocate another, more exclusive indie ceremony, with a lower budget limit and more stringent requirements — but the line, I sense, has been forever blurred, and even if it’s come at the cost of the Spirits’ sense of danger, there’s much to celebrate in that fact. Independence, intangible and increasingly undefinable as it may be, must remain its own greatest reward.

The Broadcast Film Critics’ Association is hardly the first group or individual to note that this has been remarkable year for black filmmakers and black-themed films. Ever since “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” emerged as a surprise box-office sleeper in the summer, followed shortly afterward by the triumphant festival debut of “12 Years a Slave” — both films consolidating the Sundance success of Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” in January — the shorthand narrative of 2013 as “the year of black cinema” has been cemented in the media, and inevitably bled into the awards race.

If the label sounds a little pat to some — rather like the branding of 2009 as “the year of the woman,” as Kathryn Bigelow began her march to the Oscar podium — we can only hope that it’s not so much an isolated banner year as a breakthrough one, indicative of an industry sea change.

Either way, the BFCA believe it’s significant enough to merit a celebratory event, separate from the so-called Critics’ Choice Film Awards for which the group is best known — though it’s safe to assume that at least a few films will link the two. Their “Celebration of Black Cinema” evening will take place on January 7 (nine days before the CCFA ceremony) at Los Angeles’ House of Blues, and will be attended by a host of industry luminaries, including many of the filmmakers and stars of the 2013 films in question. 

BFCA president Joey Berlin explained the thinking behind the event: “After watching ’42,’ ‘Mandela,’ ’12 Years A Slave,’ ‘Lee Daniels” The Butler,’ ‘Fruitvale Station,’ ‘Best Man Holiday’ and so many more, we realized never has a single year featured such a wide range of movies with such memorable performances both in front of and behind the camera.” Among the films he doesn’t mention that I expect (or hope) will also be honored at the event are Andrew Dosunmu’s extraordinary Nigerian immigrant drama “Mother of George” and Alexandre Moors’ chilling “Blue Caprice” — both Sundance standouts — and, on the more commercial end of the spectrum, Kasi Lemmons’ upcoming Langston Hughes adaptation “Black Nativity.”

Pete Hammond points out that, neatly enough, this celebration arrives 50 years after Sidney Poitier made history as the first actor to win an Oscar for a leading role. Could this anniversary be marked a few months down the line by Steve McQueen becoming the first black director to take the gold? It’ll be interesting to see if the BFCA (who have never been shy to broadcast their Oscar-foreshadowing abilities) further assist this notion with their own awards the following week. 

There’s been a lot of speculation about the possibility of Scarlett Johansson scoring an acting Oscar nod for her acclaimed voice work in “Her.” It’d be a first, but the buzz is growing in volume. Still, if she pulls it off, it’ll be without any help from the Golden Globes — the HFPA has ruled her ineligible in their Best Supporting Actress category. It’s not exactly surprising, given that they’ve previously disqualified motion-capture performances by the likes of Andy Serkis. (The Globes are littered with arcane restrictions: animated and foreign-language films can’t compete for Best Picture, for example.) Warner Bros. appealed against the ruling, but to no avail; the good news is that she’s still eligible for Oscar and SAG consideration. [Variety]

Writer Brian Sibley on the unmade “Mary Poppins” sequel that he worked on with P.L. Travers, and how she’d have been “appalled” at her life becoming film fodder. [Evening Standard] 

A streaming movie playlist for a range of approaches to Thanksgiving weekend, from “Stagecoach” to “Young Adult.” [The Dissolve]

Sandra Bullock and Oprah Winfrey are among the nominees for the Women’s Image Network Awards. [WIN]

Jose Solis wants awards voters to give Cameron Diaz’s performance in “The Counselor” a second (or perhaps a first) look. [The Film Experience]

Five production designers, from films including “The Hobbit” and “The Butler,” reveal some trade secrets. [LA Times]

Randi Altman profiles “All is Lost” director J.C. Chandor, with particular focus on the film’s technical demands. [Below the Line]

Jacki Weaver talks about her late-career adventure, and carving her niche as the worst mother in movies. [The Telegraph]

Ben Stiller tells Scott Feinberg that he’d consider moving exclusively into directing. [Hollywood Reporter]

Unlike their award for narrative features, which tends to closely mirror the Academy’s Best Picture race, the Producers’ Guild of America Award for documentaries is far less predictable and more idiosyncratic. The PGA may have agreed with the Academy (as did pretty much every major awards body) on “Searching for Sugar Man” last year, but the year before, not a single one of their nominees wound up in the Oscar race.

It’s looking like this might be one of their more independent-minded years, and the PGA today unveiled a nominee lineup dominated by low-profile titles that have thus far generated little awards conversation –though all five selected films are among the 151 titles longlisted for the Oscar. (Voting for the Academy shortlist, incidentally, closed on Friday.) No “The Act of Killing,” “Stories We Tell,” “20 Feet From Stardom” or “The Square” to be found here, then.

Instead, the best-known film on the list is Alex Gibney’s “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks,” the first of his two absorbing fallen-idol studies this year. The second was “The Armstrong Lie”; both are up for the Oscar, but despite being a previous winner, Gibney isn’t seen as a significant threat this year. Perhaps he is not to be underestimated.

Second to “We Steal Secrets” in the publicity stakes is “Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington,” a portrait of the tragically slain photojournalist by his former collaborator Sebastian Junger — you may recall that they scored an Oscar nomination together two years ago for their visceral war doc “Restrepo,” so it’d be touching to see Junger score further accolades for his latest.

The remaining nominees include Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush’s “A Place at the Table” tackles the issue of hunger in contemporary America, boasts an appearance from Jeff Bridges, among others. “Far Out Isn’t Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story” isa debut feature from Brad Bernstein, and covers the life and work of the eponyous children’s book writer and editor. Finally, “Life According to Sam” tells the story of a couple’s fight for their son’s life after he’s diagnosed with a fatal illness, and has a strong awards pedigree: directors Andrea Nix and Sean Fine were recently Oscar-nominated in the doc feature category for “War/Dance,” and won this year’s short category with “Inocente.”

Nominees in the PGA’s remaining film categories will be announced on January 2, with the awards presented on January 19. Once again, the documentary nominees are:

“Far Out Isn’t Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story”

“Life According to Sam”

“A Place at the Table” 

“We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks”

 “Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington”

This morning’s 2014 Independent Spirit Awards nominations were, as expected, dominated by Steve McQueen’s “12 Years A Slave,” but the nominating committees did spread the love around more than most pundits would have expected. Many awards players earned one or two expected nominations only to be overlooked in key categories you would have expected a nod in. As HitFix’s own Kris Tapley noted in his Spirits analysis, there may just be too many fantastic movies to go around this season, independently or studio produced.

With that in mind, we’ve scoured the nominees and found more than a few snubs and surprises among this year’s crop. You can find out more in the embedded gallery story below.

What surprised you the most following this year’s Spirit Awards nominations? What was the biggest snub? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

The 2014 Independent Spirit Awards will handed out on Sat. March, 1, 2014.

CULVER CITY, Calif. – A few weeks ago we ran an interview with the Coen Bros. about their latest film, “Inside Llewyn Davis.” I put it up in a Q&A format rather than the usual prose kind of thing because the back and forth was so interesting to me. And for a pragmatic pair whose answers almost have more power in the context of the question, it made a lot of sense.

As I sat down to write up a lunch interview with star (and recent Spirit Award nominee) Oscar Isaac, it became apparent to me that it would benefit just as much from that treatment. The discussion has a natural flow and Isaac is so thoughtful in all of his responses that it would seem wrong to pick and choose the quotes that work best for a piece about the themes and character-building that went into the film.

Which brings me to another point about why a simple Q&A made a lot of sense. Just like the Coens, Isaac – as you'll plainly see in his answers – isn't too caught up in affectation and applying meaning to art. The existence of the thing is the thing. So the conversation, then, is the conversation. No fluffy piece built around choice excerpts. Just an hour-long chat about nostalgia, the life of a nomad, the impact of artists on community, music as an outlet, the inspiration of Buster Keaton and the danger of an actor's personality becoming bigger than the work itself.

Check it all out below, and be forewarned: it's LONG. But it'll make a great piece of reading during the holiday. So feel free to bookmark and dive in later this week.

*********

HitFix: So have you ever done this much press for a movie in your life?

Oscar Isaac: No, sir. Nope. No, I have not.

Well it's a fun one. You get to do all these concerts and stuff.

Yeah, that part's really cool. I just came from seeing the film, the concert film.

Oh, the New York thing. I really wanted to go to that but I couldn't make it, so I'm glad they made a film out of it.

Yeah, the movie's good, because everything they do is so – they just have really good taste so they just – they even make that a little bit of a story. They're just great storytellers. But a lot of it I was backstage, actually. I didn't get to see a lot of the performances. There were a few of them that I saw that were just amazing, man. That Marcus Mumford. He's a motherfucker. He is a motherfucker, man.

Speaking of New York, you live in Brooklyn. Are you going be bi-coastal, you think?

I basically am now. I've been living at The London for a month. But I'm gonna stay out there, as far as, like, living.

How long have you been there?

Almost 12 years now. I actually just bought an apartment. Because I moved around so much when I was a kid. I was like, “I'm gonna go for it. Some roots,” you know? A little apartment. But it's nice and I do like it out there a lot. I just feel a little calmer out there. I know it's strange because it's New York, but there's something about it.

Well, it's not, like, an industry town.

Yeah, so it's not overly saturated. People are kind of doing their own thing.

Why did you move around when you were a kid?

My dad was a doctor but he was just always, like, going from hospital to hospital for some reason. I lived in Baltimore and then Louisiana – a couple of different places in Louisiana and then Miami – a couple of different places in Miami, then up to the kind of Palm Beach area – a couple of different places there, and back down to Miami.

So you were bouncing around. I was kind of the same way. My dad was transferred a lot. It was always North Carolina or Virginia, but I was always on the move, always a different school. It makes it hard because you don't have a real sense of home.

Yeah, exactly. Like home – I think that maybe – I don't know if you feel that way but – and not to be over dramatic about it but like having to deal with missing a place – because that's not usually an emotion that a kid feels until later. Having to be confronted with that, like, nostalgia already for, like, “Oh, that was that place. Oh, that city or that.” It probably does an interesting thing to you.

It's funny, I do a lot of my own original writing and I find that nostalgia is something I'm always invested in. I think you just cracked it!

Maybe that's what it is! It's like from moving around so much, you know? Yeah. And my mom would always talk about things in a nostalgic way, too, but I think, you know, she was in Guatemala and she left to follow my dad and she was always going from place to place as well. And they got divorced and everything, but, yeah. It's a frustrating feeling, actually.

Especially when you get later in life. You don't have that place you can come back to.

A rootless kind of thing, yeah, or the idea of like a hometown. Especially as you, you know, this industry and all that. The idea of like, “Alright, where am I from? Where are the roots?” And, you know, there is no place. My mom is back in Miami but it's like in a vastly different place as well. She keeps moving around all over the thing. And I guess that “grass is always greener” thing – because I know people that have always lived in a small town are like, “This sucks. I want to go out all over the place.” But, you know, I think by nature we are kind of a – you know, we weren't meant to trot the globe as an animal, you know? The circle of how far we go – although I guess fuckin' people decided to take off from China and cross a land bridge and, you know, that was kind of a long trek, too! That was extreme.

Yeah. I think community is something that's natural. It's why society happened, after all.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And there is, yeah, you always seek – we're like tribal by nature, so you seek your tribes. It's like your family, your town, your city, your state, you know? Your country. It's all kind of a little bit arbitrary as well.

That's interesting, too, because it kind of feeds into the character that you're playing in “Inside Llewyn Davis.” He's a bit of a nomad.

Right, completely isolated. Doesn't really have any roots anywhere. The house is Mom and Dad's house, and it's obviously not even – you know, she says, “It's not even our house; it's their house,” which is a strange thing to say but I guess she just means financially speaking.

But that lack of, like, a sense of ownership is interesting.

Yeah. And even all his stuff's in a box and he could give a shit about it.

Did you do much in the way of really nailing down a backstory and where this guy is coming from?

Not in an academic way, but of course I definitely thought about it. And I would say, like, you know, [Dave] Van Ronk's life – since it's so documented – it was an interesting thing to draw from. His point of view, you know? And obviously I have to think about, “Okay, well, where did this go in a different way?” Like, for instance, when did he start learning music? Clearly he started learning when he was 8 years old, so who in his family was the person that did that? And, you know, mom clearly is a nonentity. She isn't even talked about. So it feels like that maybe she died very young or, you know, it was aunts, and there was an aunt that played music and taught him how to play some piano and he'd always go and listen to her sing and, you know, “My father's sister played me all these old Welsh and Scottish and all these old songs and sing them.” So he cut a little record when he was, what, 9 years old.

Were you aware of him? Were you all that knowledgeable, I guess, about his life before you did this?

No. I'd just seen him in “No Direction Home.” That was my first introduction to him. But no, man, there was like a whole repertoire of music that I didn't know and really just the scene down there – reading about the scene and what it was like. I mean, I grew up listening to a lot of Dylan but never really – he was always just disembodied from a time, his music, you know? I think kind of in a good way. In a way that a kid that was, like, 12 in Miami in 1992 could be like, “Wow, this speaks to me.” But then actually investigating, “Oh, well, he didn't just come out of a vacuum.” There was a whole – talk about community, I mean, that's exactly what that was. It was actually really small. And nobody was really searching for fame. They just wanted their little area in the park, in Washington Square Park, you know? Like, the bluegrass guys and the folk guys and the drum circle guys and the jazz guys, and all of them hated each other and wanted their own little – you know, even within that they were tribal. And so it was like this cult, really. I mean in “Folksinger,” Dave Van Ronk talks about – everybody was coming down there at that time to see the poets and there would be lines out the door to see the poets, Allen Ginsberg and all those guys. And then in between sets, you know, they wanted turnover because the clubs were really small, so they would have a folk singer get up and clear the room. You know, they'd have two songs to do it and if after two songs you didn't clear the room you weren't hired again.

That's ironic. So if you were good enough to keep people sticking around you weren't brought back.

Exactly. They wouldn't hire you for that gig, at least. Maybe you could come back on the Wednesday when some people come to see folk songs. But, “We need someone that does crazier shit.”

Well, talk about nostalgia, I mean, “The Mayor of MacDougal Street” – you walk down MacDougal Street now and it's been so co-opted and the artifice of it all is kind of unfortunate.

I mean, it's like that in Williamsburg, too. That's where I got my place but it's a similar thing. There's still really great, interesting, cool stuff and the area is nice, but you could see the influx and the artists move out even further away. And then that place grows and the artists move to the next place.

It always starts with the artists, doesn't it? That's why I have hope for a place like Detroit because artists typically can't afford to live “well,” so they move into an area and grow it from within.

Yeah. As T Bone would say, you know, not to overstate it but, you know, we have gotten to a place where technology seems to lead ahead of the artist. And that's not usually a great set-up. You know, they should really push – technology should catch up. Tools should catch up. Particularly with the whole MP3 and…

Oh, I love hearing T Bone talk about that. He goes off.

He goes off! He does. He's something else. He's really – in this movie, you've got to watch the documentary when it comes out because I don't think he even really says anything but he's just floating around. I mean, literally, sometimes he just walks up behind someone that's playing and just stands there, feeds the mojo, and walks away. It's really…

Just being in the shot made it cooler!

Yeah, exactly! Exactly.

Let's talk about working with the Coens. I asked the question about backstory, but do they deal in that kind of depth at all with you or do they just work in the moment?

We sat beforehand and I went over to their place and we went pretty explicitly through every single scene. And I said, “Okay, is this what's happening – is this basically what's happening? The story of this scene. What's the story of this scene and how does that all come together?” But it was in a bit more practical terms. It wasn't in huge, overarching ones. It was just kind of like, “Okay, he's kind of coming from here, this is what's happened. The engine of this scene is this.” And then when it came time, you know – thinking about it that way I'd come in with ideas. I'd be like, “Oh, I'm getting inspired by this,” or, “What do you think of that?” And then, yeah, it was just about trying stuff out on set. But it never varied much, I've got to say. And that's a little bit different for me because I tend to, you know, just kind of try to really mix it up for myself, not feel too reverent about anything. But it was scary because any time I started to feel like, “Oh, maybe I should do something a little more dynamic,” you know, “Why don't I just grab the phone and start breaking it on the thing?” – there would be little impulses. But any time I would start to edge in that way it would feel like an affectation, you know? It wouldn't really feel – like, “No, this is not who this guy is.” If he did that he wouldn't need the songs, you know, for this guy.

He has a different outlet.

He has a different outlet, yeah. It's not that stuff. It's not that kind of stuff, you know, and even the – you know, you make choices and you see where they take you and sometimes you have to just run on instinct. And so there was an instinct of, for me – it wasn't something we talked about too much – but this guy just doesn't ever really use charm in any kind of way. Do you know what I mean? That wasn't overly explicit in the thing. I was watching a lot of Buster Keaton because I was thinking about someone that doesn't really use words much and seems impenetrable by his face. Yet such a rich inner life is in there. And also he's struggling and we think it's really funny. But why? Because a lot of horrible things are almost happening to him. But he keeps pushing forward and so that's why that guy was an inspiration. But that idea of, like, not doing that – because I don't think I did that in the audition – but it just developed in a kind of organic way. That's why T Bone is so perfect for them, too. It's the same with the music. These ideas, they just develop. Nothing is really imposed. That's how they direct.

I'm always curious about how they direct because they're two of the most pragmatic dudes I've ever met in my life. Even as a journalist, they won't let you get away with a bullshit question or be too heady with them. I was talking to them recently about how I felt they got the authenticity of the environment right, but I also picked up on just a sense of nostalgia and a bit of fantasy, even, for New York. And Ethan just laughed, “Okay. I guess I wouldn't disavow that.”

Yeah, I think what that's about is, in a way, just always undercutting their own seriousness, you know? I think that it makes them a little uncomfortable to talk thematically because it is such a just – it is in a way instinctual, at the same time a highly acute sense of rhythm, timing, meaning – “Oh, you want the symmetry of this joke if it starts here and ends there,” you know? Just a hyperawareness of that language. But in the way the best artists are, they don't want to impose an idea on people. So it's, yeah, you said fantasy. It was a romanticism to it. And yeah, they wouldn't admit to that. But that is something I thought about because that “Freewheelin'” cover…

Joel eventually did admit to it later in the interview, actually. He was like, “Well, now that I think about it, it gets back to what you said about romanticism,” and I was like, “See?”

[Laughs.] Yeah, it's true. But their initial instinct is not to impose too much meaning on it. Or opinion.

Yeah, I get that. I've even asked them about other movies in the past and Joel is like, “Yeah, it's great, but I don't want to really get into reviewing someone else's movie.” They don't want to impose that opinion. You're right.

Yeah, I mean, that's – I worked with a really great – I mean I guess he's a dialect coach but he's an acting coach, he's – coach is a weird word. It's very square. He's just this amazing guy, creative force. And really helpful to actors. I think he worked with Heath on The Joker a lot. He worked with Johnny Depp a lot. His name is Gerry Grennell. A really funny, Irish guy, plays beautiful classical guitar as well. And he focuses a lot on the Alexander technique, which is something that at Julliard we had to learn a lot. The really crude distillation of it is posture. But it's actually how you relate to space in the world, and dancers and classical musicians take it a lot.

Jeff Bridges has talked to me about this, I think, when we were discussing his performance in “Starman” a few years back.

Yeah. It's about – in a way it's about stopping the initial impulse to move, waiting a second and then deciding to do it. And even that sounds weird. It's about – it's just a way that you relate to space. It's slightly different. It's a little bit solipsistic, which is, you know, “Nothing exists outside of me. And therefore I will always have compassion to everything because everything is me.” You know, it's all happening here. I'm taking you in but there's – you have no meaning until I put meaning onto what I'm seeing in this, that – so you relate to space a little bit different. And it's something as simple as next time you walk, imagine that you're walking backwards and what that does to your body. You know, next time you're driving, as opposed to when you press the gas, you move forward, imagine that when you press the gas, it releases the road towards you. And it's a way of thinking and it's actually – it's the same muscles that when you go into a dark room and your eyes start to adjust and they open to let light in – it's this process of taking things in in a different way. And it helps with tension and things like that from a practical standpoint. And relaxation. Anyway he – Gerry was helping me with that.

So what does that do for you as an actor, though? Does it help you to just be, as opposed to “acting.”

Well, so, for instance, Gerry would talk about “the camera sees.” That's all it does. It doesn't judge anything. It doesn't impose anything. It just sees what's happening. It sees everything that's happening. And what it wants to see – already I'm putting a position on it – but what's interesting is when you see a camera that sees someone that is seeing, not judging, not imposing anything. Because as soon as I try to tell the camera, and therefore you, what you should think about this thing, there's a layer of artifice that immediately goes on there. So it was a process of learning to see, I think. It wasn't a process of an idea. Even this not smiling thing, that wasn't because I didn't want to smile. It was about the way that you take in information and don't judge it. You know that I'm not – I don't even have – maybe it's just that he's slow, you know? It was about never being ahead of him. So he doesn't even have a chance to process what he's seeing and he's on to the next thing.

So kind of just reacting as opposed to acting.

Yeah, or not even – he doesn't even have a moment to react. It's just about a process of taking in the information. He looks at Akron, it's coming in. That's what was required. It needed to arrive. You just needed to see the information arrive and not what he thought about it. That's less interesting. You know, he sees Akron – you know that I know what Akron means and that's it. And you're like, “What's he gonna do? Is he gonna turn? Is he gonna not turn?” He doesn't know what the fuck he's gonna do until he's way past it. The same thing with when he's watching Jean and Jim and Troy Nelson sing and he's watching it happen and everybody else starts singing around him. He's not saying, “Oh, you guys are idiots. This music is bad.” It's – he's not even ahead. This is all ahead of him. Everybody's ahead of him. You know, “I don't even understand what this is that's happening. I don't know how I feel about this.” It's just a matter of receiving the information, and I think it's because the cameras were that close, you know? They don't shoot with very long lenses.

Oh yeah?

Yeah, it's like all 40 millimeters long is the ones they use so the cameras are always like [mimics a camera very close to my face]. So I knew that that and the way that they cut it and the way they put it together and the way they built everything, that would add the context to the receiving of information. Because in other movies that wouldn't be enough, you know? You do have to, to a certain extent, create the character more. But it was a weird thing because it's almost the opposite of what you think. You think, “Okay, well it's inside all the time so you really have to generate all this stuff because we're gonna be with you for such a long time you better keep entertaining us.” But in a way it was the opposite. It was thinking, “Oh, this is literally just about really seeing,” and that's half of the character. Usually you have to come up with the whole character within the plot of the story. But what I did was just do half of it. They actually – the movie is the character. That's why it's different from other movies. The movie is the character. So they actually have to create the other half of the character, which is the context and the meaning. Does that make sense at all or is it getting a little too…

Yeah, no, I'm taking it all in. I'm using the Alexander Technique and taking it all in!

[Laughs.] You know, that's something that, you know, I don't always succeed. I still see it now and I'm like, “Oh, you're ahead of it there. You're ahead of it there.” But I remember William Hurt had said that, too, in talking about, you know, when they asked Picasso, how does he make – “How do you do it? How do you do what you do?” And he said, “I just paint what I see,” which seems like such an almost Coen-like answer, right? It's like, “Come on, man.” But if you kind of think about it in that way that he receives the information, it's not – he wasn't painting his judgment of a face. He was just seeing the light and the negative space. I don't see a head. I don't see Kris. I just see a figure and light and these things reacting in a way and I just paint what I see – literally, just what I see. It's a very practical thing. And with the Coens, they work in a similar way. It's just practical. It's pragmatic. It's, “Don't get ahead of it. Don't impose a bunch of shit and meaning and all that kind of stuff.” It's just, “Do the thing that's before you and see it.”

And yet, they're one of the most vital voices in American art. So it leaves you to wonder how much extrapolating critics do to their work or what their response to that would be, even. Their movies can be very thematically potent. That's something people work at doing, especially writers, to develop theme and be concentrated on that.

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not saying it's accidental. Like, it's not – they're – Joel called it “tone management.” That's what directing is. So what they've been able to do is they've been able to really, for themselves, define tone. And for each specific project, really from its inception, they know how to craft it so it is this thing. It's this – this is the tone of it. It's very round. It's not… [Mimics the jagged line of, say, a heartbeat or, more to the point, a WAV file]. It's analog. And that's the tone of the thing. The way they view it is how to stay really aware of what that thing is through the entire process, up until even this whole thing with the press and the distribution and the release and all that stuff. But yes, of course, I think they understand the meaning. They know – but I think what their genius is – their genius is that they don't start with, “What is the most meaningful thing and how can we put that in?” They go off of instinct and their instinct happens to have all this meaning in it. You know, they say, “Well, we need a plot. Why don't we give him a cat he has to take care of because if not, nothing happens.” And yet the way they implement it, it's not just a plot device, clearly. It has so much more representation than just that. But it comes from a place of just seeing it for what it is.

Well, that's just that intangible thing, right? About genius. It's how you get Orson Welles making “Citizen Kane” when he's 25.

Right. By just doing the thing – doing your version of that thing, you know? T Bone talks about, like, these guys, they were doing their best version of what came before, you know? That's what Elvis was trying to do. That's what The Beatles were trying to do. Just like do their version of it. And yeah, man, they just – the relaxation of those guys [the Coens] is amazing.

I imagine that's a big help on the set, too, as an actor. To not feel like you've got a manic director.

Yeah. There's none of that. Some people need that, you know? A little chaos and stuff. That's less interesting to me. It seems just tiring to work that way.

You've probably been asked this a million times but what's your musical background?

I started playing guitar at, like, 12 or 13 and just rock bands mostly. I had a punk rock band and hard core bands and all that. Jumped around from the genres but it was mostly just rock and roll.

I imagine they needed someone who could take to that pretty quickly.

Yeah, but I've never been much of a guitarist. I mean, I've played forever, but I was always more of a rhythm kind of guy. I don't read music. I don't really know what the hell I'm playing. I just have a good ear and that's basically it. And I can get very obsessive about learning something, so I'm – I can remember, you know, where to put my fingers, what that sound's gonna be. So yeah, so I did have to learn a whole different style, this Travis picking thing.

Was that fun or hard work? I guess it was both.

It was all fun. Like the most fun version of work. I obsessed over learning it. I can't stop playing it either. It just feels really good.

I put the record on all the time, actually.

You have the vinyl? Oh, killer, man. Nothing like that sound of a record.

It's funny. People say that a lot, and I get what they mean, but it's not really that for me, as far as, like, preferring playing a vinyl over something else. To me it's the physicality of it. Like I'm putting something on a record player and there's this big thing…

There's an interaction.

Right.

But just because you're not overly conscious of the difference between an MP3 and the sound of a record doesn't mean that your brain doesn't know what's going on.

Yeah.

You know, sight, what is it – you take in – 90 percent of our senses is sight, right? I'm not sure that's exactly right but something like that. There's a lot – mostly it's sight but it's not necessarily the strongest of the senses, too. And that's why it's easier to be like, “Okay, I can see why this DVD is better than this VHS, I guess, as far as resolution,” but the information on an MP3 – I mean MP3 was made for dial-up modem. I mean that's the technology. It's so compressed you don't have any of the dynamism. It's just not there. The information isn't in there. So it's a quantifiably different experience.

Yeah, and the way it's recorded on there, too. When you put a record on it's like you're going back in time to when that was recorded because it's on the disc, the grooves of it, when the needle hits – it seems like a more sci-fi technology to me than even digital.

Yeah, like, “How does it get there??”

I was just thinking recently how much I love Dave Van Ronk's voice in “Green Green Rocky Road,” but I kind of like your guitar playing better. I'd love to kind of transpose and hear that mixture.

Thanks, man.

The voice is…

I mean the voice is just, like, awesome. [Mimics Van Rock] “Ooooh, aaaaahhh.”

You kind of channeled him a bit at the Santa Monica concert recently.

[Laughs.] I channeled a little bit. Yeah, yeah. That's one where T Bone's like, “It's good. It's good. Let's start finding your version of it now.” I'm like, “Alright. Okay.”

It's fun to do the voice, man.

It's just fun to do it!

I asked when you sat down about the amount of press you're doing. How are you holding up? Especially to go all the way from Cannes to this?

I'm doing all right. You know, it's a lot, man. I'm grateful that it's this movie that I have – it's the first time I'm doing this and it's something that I love so very much and I always discover something new talking about it. Sometimes it's tiring and a little bit weird. It's like you did the thing and then it's like, “Alright.” You can talk about it so much, but…

And you did this one so long ago. It's been completed for so long. That's got to be kind of painful, like you're ready for more people to see it already.

It's two years ago, yeah. But it's coming up, man. It's just like a couple of weeks left and it'll be out.

I caught the film for the first time in Telluride.

Oh it was in Telluride you saw it for the first time? I love that festival. I really like that. That was my first time and I actually got to see other movies, you know? [You do a little bit of press] in between seeing some movies here and there and being in that beautiful area. I would say, definitely, that's the ideal version of it all. It's definitely not usually like that, in my experience, at least.

I'm sure you learned a lot on this movie but what did you learn from the Coens that you think you'll take with you into the next role?

[Long pause.] What did I learn from those dudes? [Another pause.] I really like the lack of vanity on their sets and how relaxed it is. But that, you know – how inclusive they are. They're just – nothing is secret. There's no power plays. Just the idea that everybody puts their ideas and thoughts on the table and no one has ownership over anything. And that's, I think – it's that impulse that like, “Hey, man, let's all just build this thing, all right? So throw all the stuff in here.” There's no time for, like, “Oh, thank you for that thing. That thing is great,” you know? It's just like, “We have to make this thing. Let's make it. Yeah, we shouldn't use that. Yeah, this is what we need to use.” And so it doesn't – I mean they create community. They create a community of artists making something together. That's what their movies are. That's why there aren't assholes around. Everybody's too busy making the thing to be patting each other on the back or playing mind games or doing any of that bullshit.

And you deal with that sometimes?

Well, yeah. I mean, you know, a movie set is like a petri dish for neuroses, you know? It's just like egos and weird personalities and, more than anything, fear. So they just know how to neutralize that. And a lot of that has to do with the people that they attract and the people that they decide to spend lots of time with.

Yeah, I always enjoy speaking to their crew. Like production designer Jess Gonchor. His work here is great.

Yeah. It's so detailed. It's so detailed.

And I keep seeing these shots on the net of you and like a green screen and I never stopped to think, “Oh, I guess there would have been an effects shot there.” I mean it makes sense…

New York. I mean it's like – it doesn't look anything like that anymore.

Yeah. Was there a lot of that?

Not a ton, but, you know – I mean that was around Christopher Street, so you had to. And the subway cars. That's all CG. Then when I come down into the train station or even up on the top train station.

It's seamless. And I love cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel's work, too. To step in for Roger Deakins must be a scary thing.

It's funny, man. A couple of things that you've already mentioned that you talked to them about, I think it stuck with them, because at some of the Q&A's – like, for instance, I feel like Joel says the fact that it is a romantic view a lot now. And also how frightening it probably is for, you know, these DPs that were stepping in for Roger Deakins. But I agree. He's a truly great man, Bruno. He's one of the kindest people I've ever met. Especially for someone that's that massively talented, too. He's just a kind person.

And costume designer Mary Zophres. I guess if you interacted with anyone the most below the line it might have been her.

Yeah, Mary – early on it was me and Mary figuring it out. You know, for sure, the Coens came in and gave their thoughts, but we found it pretty quickly.

How did the costumes help you get into character?

I took the costume with me a month before we started shooting.

Oh really? And started wearing it?

All the time. Particularly the shoes. The shoes are the saddest little shoes you've ever seen on a human body. They're just, like, basically a foot wrapped in leather with some rubber glued to the bottom. And I just walked around in the winter – well it was December, right? We started shooting in January, so end of December, all of January, I just wore these things all the time no matter where I went. And it completely – it just makes you so vulnerable but also like…

Hardened.

Yeah, it hardens you, because you have to. Because it hurts a little bit. I mean, it's cold, you know? And those lyrics, “Farewell,” that Dylan sings, if you listen – it's on the thing. I mean it describes so well what's happening to Llewyn, you know, “With my hands in my pocket and my coat collar high I go unnoticed and unknown.”

That's, like, countless shots in the movie of him walking down the street right there.

Right? Yeah.

Well, congratulations. I'm looking forward to seeing it again. What immediately popped for me was you, though, your performance. It was such a lived-in piece of work. No one else this year has just been the character as much as that. And then add to that the fact that you're playing guitar and the singing, it just makes for such a full-bodied, awesome performance.

Thanks, Kris.

Part of that, and not that I obviously wasn't aware of you in “Drive” and other movies, but you're a bit of an unknown. And so I'm not bringing a lot to it. For instance, Christian Bale is amazing in “Out of the Furnace.” It's his best performance. But in a way, it's like, I'm still watching the guy who played Batman play this character.

Yeah.

So you bring your own kind of memory of the actor.

Do you think that's inevitable? Just that when you do more stuff, more people know you so they know what to expect?

I don't know. I guess it depends on career choices.

I guess you did say Batman, because it's such a…

Yeah. But you look at a guy like John Goodman. Somehow I don't think people bring much baggage to him when they see him in a film, but he's had a huge career. I mean people grew up watching him on “Roseanne.”

Right.

You look at “Barton Fink” or something. That's my favorite Coen movie, actually.

And you know what Turturro says at the beginning of that, right? Well, not the beginning. He states their thesis. He states what the Coens have always done, which is, “I want to make the theater of the common man!” I remember I saw that and was like, “That's what they do!” I mean every single movie is exactly that.

Yeah, totally. Speaking of which, more recently, I also loved “A Serious Man.”

I was just thinking about it this morning. The Japanese student…

I love the teeth story. “Helping others…couldn't hurt.” Because his teeth said, “Help me!” It's like, really? That seems like them to a T. Just intensely pragmatic.

[Laughs] Yeah. Yeah, man. But it's funny, that thing. I do think it's tough when, like, the actor's personality becomes bigger than their work. It's a very – it's what I would never want to happen.

What kind of stuff are you interested in doing otherwise? Just stuff like this? Like if they offered you a part in “Avengers 2,” would you think hard about it or – do you think strategically?

I mean, not really. It's just about, like, interest, you know? I mean if there was an amazing role and the story was good, you know? I'm not like a genre snob or anything like that, you know? But I don't really think of a movie in strategic terms. I try not to be too careerist.

I bet you're getting some interesting offers now, though.

Yeah, there's been some good things here and there. But yeah, it's a difficult thing because as an actor I've always been like, “Work, work, let's do it. What's next? What's next?” And then also replenishing the well is important, too. It's like, there's not endless just inspiration. You know, sometimes you have to kind of settle back and say, “Okay, what is it that I do? Why am I doing it?” Check in again. Live life so you actually have something to say with your work.

There's a lot of that stripping away of affectation going on with some of the best work this year. Like I mentioned Bale but also Bruce Dern in “Nebraska,” which is an interesting story considering it's all he ever wanted to do with his career but he had to stand out in supporting roles his entire life.

Yeah, manufacture something. You've got like three scenes. You've got to make a life in those three scenes as opposed to a slight, more minimalist approach to certain things. But you're right. And also this idea of the man isolated, existential crisis. I mean, you could even, you know – obviously in “Nebraska” and “Llewyn Davis,” “All is Lost” and “Gravity.” And you could say even “Captain Phillips,” to a certain extent. A man that's been literally dislocated out to sea. And yeah, they all are minimal versions.

I hope movies like that can really take off again. I mean this is a market of “The Avengers” making $600 million and Disney buying up things and everyone really cranking out brand appeal. But it happened in the late-1960s/early-1970s. I guess it's just a matter of the audience's interest in coming out.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But what about you watching all these movies? This whole idea of like all the good movies, you've got to wait to put them all out at the same time because you want to get an award because then that's the way you get the movie noticed and more people come see it because otherwise maybe people wouldn't necessarily come see it because they'd rather go see the big ones. But if someone says, “No, this is worth checking out, so much so that we're going to give them shiny things,” then you should go see it. Do you feel like you're not able to watch movies like a movie? Like you're just watching like “American Idol” – Hollywood-style – movies? Are you watching them like a competition?

I think for my part I've been able to dictate how I'm going to cover the race. A certain breed of coverage isn't necessarily exacted upon me so I'm able to do what's natural to me, meaning I'm able to just watch them as movies.

Yeah. It's a funny system.

Is it off-putting to you?

I'm like Llewyn. I'm not really like throwing a judgment on it. It's just like, “Is that what I'm seeing? What am I seeing?” It's interesting how this has to happen because really it's about butts in seats.

Yeah, at the end of the day, that's a huge part of it. I asked my friend who's an Oscar-nominated director about this recently. I said, “Do awards really matter to you?” And he's like, “To me, awards just mean I get to keep making the movies that I want to make.” So if a movie is recognized with an Oscar, that means…

…it's okay that it didn't make billions of dollars.

Right. So I get that perspective. Sometimes you see people being really desperate about wanting an award. But if you couch it in those terms, well, that just means they want to keep doing what they love. And unfortunately this is a system by which they can keep doing what they love.

Yeah, at the same time, Ethan has a great phrase called “hyper-trophied.” He says, “Let's not get too hyper-trophied about the whole thing.” I think that's amazing. I love that. [Laughs.]

Frankly I sometimes wonder, if I were on the other side of this thing, in the midst of an awards race or whatever. I've so seen how that sausage is made that, I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't sit here and talk to someone like me!

[Laughs.] Yeah. It is, man, but, you know – at the same time you're just like, “Alright, I'm part of the team. What do you want me to do, Coach?”

Totally. You've got to support the movie.

And not be ungrateful and not be, you know…

And you definitely seem to have the right attitude about it. It's refreshing to see that this time of year.

It's also the process of like being, “Okay, this is what that is. We probably don't want to do that again. Okay, seeing what's going on here, okay. If I'm gonna do it, this is the way next time I would want to do it.” Sometimes you kind of have to throw yourself in.

“Inside Llewyn Davis” opens in limited release on Dec. 6. It expands wider on Dec. 20.

So, this year’s list of nominees for the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards have been announced. How did things shake out? Well, Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” led the way with seven nominations, but Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” wasn’t far behind with six.

The nominees for Best Feature were “All is Lost,” “Frances Ha,” “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “Nebraska” and “12 Years a Slave.” My first instinct was to cry foul that Richard Linklater’s glorious “Before Midnight” didn’t slip in and only managed nods for screenplay and female lead, but as someone put it to me on Twitter, perhaps that just goes to show the quality of work across the independent spectrum this year. There is only so much room.

As has been repeated constantly in this space this season, 2013 has been a spectacular year for movies. And when you look through the various nominees today, it’s nice to see that quality represented here as well. I look at that Best Actor list, for instance, and wonder if we could see five from that list at the Oscars. It wouldn’t be illegitimate in any way, that’s for sure.

I was worried for a moment that, as Film Independent live-tweeted the nominees, Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” would get the shaft much like it did with the Gotham Awards committee (whoever they may have been this year — though they DID give “Before Midnight” a Best Feature nod). But it popped up, thankfully, in the Best Feature category. That would have been its only mention if not for the added Best Editing category this year. So it goes without saying… poor Greta Gerwig. One of the great performances, lost on an awards season.

Paramount has to be feeling fantastic today. Their little movie that could, “Nebraska,” struck me as a sure-fire contender across the board as soon as I saw it late last summer, though many pundits were curiously low on its awards prospects coming out of Cannes. Here it sits, not only an obvious Best Picture contender with the Academy, but potentially a Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Will Forte) nominee there, too. It picked up all of those nominations today, as well as Best Actor for Bruce Dern, Best Supporting Actress for June Squibb and Best First Screenplay for Bob Nelson’s work on the page.

The Coen brothers’ latest was spotlighted in a couple of areas, though fewer than I would have expected. Best Feature, Best Actor (Oscar Isaac) and Best Cinematography are nothing to sneeze at, but nothing for the filmmakers themselves, in either Best Director or Best Screenplay. But, again, it’s a great year. And if titans like the Coens are squeezed out to make room for a few notices for brilliant films like “Short Term 12” (three nominations) and “Mud” (two nominations), then I guess you have to make due.

Speaking of “Mud,” I wish it could have received more love but I’m truly happy for Jeff Nichols, who picked up a Best Director nomination. I had wondered going into the announcement whether Matthew McConaughey could be a double nominee, but he was only recognized for “Dallas Buyers Club.” Still, the film did win the Robert Altman Award, which goes to the director, casting director and ensemble. That’s a great call.

And what can you say about “12 Years a Slave?” Of course it was going to dominate this morning. And so it did. Maybe this will go a long way toward convincing hold-out Academy members (and there are plenty still) to finally watch the film. It was actually a huge day for Fox Searchlight overall, given the nominations for “Enough Said.”

Anyway, I imagine I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it at that. A couple of our wish list hopefuls turned out, so of that, going into the holiday Thursday, we can certainly be thankful. Have a look at the full list of nominees here. We’ll have more coverage on the announcement later today, including a massive interview with “Inside Llewyn Davis” star Oscar Isaac.

Let’s see… Am I forgetting anything? Oh! WAIT! WAIT! What am I thinking? I can’t leave it at that. Let me close by offering another hearty congratulations to former In Contention contributor Chad Hartigan, whose “This is Martin Bonner” was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award (reserved for films made under the $500,000 price tag). This after the film won the audience prize in the NEXT competition at Sundance. He’s going places, folks.

The 29th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards will be held on Saturday, March 1, 2014.

The nominees for the 29th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards have been announced. Check out the full list below.

Winners will be revealed at the annual pre-Oscar Santa Monica ceremony on Saturday, March 1, 2014.

Best Feature
“All is Lost”
“Frances Ha”
“Inside Llewyn Davis”
“Nebraska”
“12 Years a Slave”

Best Director
J.C. Chandor, “All is Lost”
Jeff Nichols, “Mud”
Alexander Payne, “Nebraska”
Steve McQueen, “12 Years a Slave”
Shane Carruth, “Upstream Color”

Best First Feature
“Blue Caprice”
“Concussion”
“Fruitvale Station”
“Una Noche”
“Wadjda”

Best Screenplay
“Before Midnight”
“Blue Jasmine”
“Enough Said”
“The Spectacular Now”
“12 Years a Slave”

Best First Screenplay
“Afternoon Delight”
“Don Jon”
“In a World”
“The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete”
“Nebraska”

Best Female Lead
Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”
Julie Delpy, “Before Midnight”
Gaby Hoffman, “Crystal Fairy”
Brie Larson, “Short Term 12”
Shailene Woodley, “The Spectacular Now”

Best Male Lead
Bruce Dern, “Nebraska”
Oscar Isaac, “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Michael B. Jordan, “Fruitvale Station”
Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyers Club”
Robert Redford, “All is Lost”
Chiwetel Ejiofor, “12 Years a Slave”

Best Supporting Female
Melonie Diaz, “Fruitvale Station”
Sally Hawkins, “Blue Jasmine”
Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave”
Yolonda Ross, “Go For Sisters”
June Squibb, “Nebraska”

Best Supporting Male
Michael Fassbender, “12 Years a Slave”
Will Forte, “Nebraska”
James Gandolfini, “Enough Said”
Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club”
Keith Stanfield, “Short Term 12”

Best Cinematography
“All is Lost”
“Computer Chess”
“Inside Llewyn Davis”
“Spring Breakers”
“12 Years a Slave”

Best Editing
“Frances Ha”
“Museum Hours”
“Short Term 12”
“Una Noche”
“Upstream Color”

Best Documentary
“The Act of Killing”
“After Tiller”
“Gideon’s Army”
“The Square”
“20 Feet from Stardom”

Best International Film
“Blue is the Warmest Color”
“Gloria”
“The Great Beauty”
“The Hunt”
“A Touch of Sin”

Robert Altman Award
“Mud”

John Cassavetes Award
“Computer Chess”
“Crystal Fairy”
“Museum Hours”
“Pit Stop”
“This is Martin Bonner”

Piaget Producers Award
Toby Halbrooks & James M. Johnston
Jacob Jaffke
Andrea Roa
Frederick Thornton

Someone to Watch Award
Aaron Douglas Johnston, “My Sisters Quinceañera”
Shaka King, “Newlyweeds”
Madeline Olnek, “The Foxy Merkins”

Truer Than Fiction Award
Kalyanee Mam, “A River Changes Course”
Jason Osder, “Let the Fire Burn”
Stephanie Spray & Pacho Valez, “Manakamana”

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4911999632001

Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Inside Llewyn Davis” has held a steady course since a Cannes bow, and going into the awards season, it looks to be as strong as ever. One person who could be recognized for his work in the film is John Goodman as the actor gets a whole vignette of sorts to himself in the film. And he makes the most of it, as he always does.

Coming off a pair of great performances in Oscar players “Flight” and “Argo” last year, with a stint in George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” still to come, the actor – highly prolific as of late – is still looking for that elusive first Academy Award nomination. It would certainly be serendipitous for that notice to come for work in a Coen film given the actor’s history with the filmmaker siblings, which goes all the way back to “Raising Arizona.”

We’ve got an exclusive glimpse of Goodman’s work in their latest for you today, courtesy of CBS Films. You get a pretty good taste of what he has to offer as a grouchy, enigmatic, smack-addled jazz musician. Take a look for yourself in the clip embedded at the top of this post.

“Inside Llewyn Davis” opens in limited release on Dec. 6. It expands wider on Dec. 20.

Well, it’s not every award where you’ll find James Franco’s oddball S&M diversion “Interior. Leather Bar.” nominated alongside Mexican auteur Carlos Reygadas’ wildly experimental Cannes winner “Post Tenebras Lux.” To be more precise, it’s not any award but this one. The Cinema Eye Honors for documentary filmmaking — onre of the biggest precursors on the non-fiction circuit — announced their slate of nominees a couple of weeks ago, with “The Act of Killing” and “Cutie and the Boxer” leading the pack, but they added five nominees for their Heterodox Award yesterday.

The prize is rather a unique one, honouring narrative films that nonetheless “imaginatively incorporate non-fiction strategies, content and/or modes of production.” At a time when an increasing amount of hybrid works blur the lines between narrative and documentary, it’s nice to have at least one award that acknowledges that reality. Introduced by Cinema Eye three years ago, it has since been won by Matt Porterfield’s “Putty Hill,” Mike Mills’ “Beginners” (which, of course, won Christopher Plummer an Oscar) and Jem Cohen’s “Museum Hours.” 

Looking at this year’s nominees, two films could break the award’s run of US indies. The aforementioned “Post Tenebras Lux” is something of an expressionistically autobiographical work for Reygadas, made with his usual preference for non-pro actors — including his own family. Brazilian debut director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s “Neighboring Sounds” is more classifiably a narrative piece, but it’s exploration of suburban community is rooted in documentary tradition; Filho filmed it in his own apartment block, for starters. It’s a remarkable film, and Brazil’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar — it wouldn’t surprise me to see the executive committee single it out.

Besides “Interior. Leather Bar.,” Franco’s and Travis Matthews’ playful but aimless riff on excised footage from William Friedkin’s infamous “Cruising,” the American nominees are Andrew Bujalski’s lo-fi mockumentary  “Computer Chess” and Randy Moore’s daring black comedy “Escape from Tomorrow,” which was stealthily shot in secret at Disney theme parks, breaking any number of rules in the process. All three films premiered at Sundance this year.

This year’s Cinema Eye Honors will be presented in New York on December 8. To recap, the Heterodox nominees are:

Andrew Bujalski, “Computer Chess”
Randy Moore, “Escape From Tomorrow”
James Franco and Travis Matthews, “Interior. Leather Bar.”
Kleber Mendonca Filho, “Neighboring Sounds”
Carlos Reygadas, “Post Tenebras Lux”

By far the coolest thing on the internet was the New York Times’ Making a Scene project, in which 11 of the year’s most celebrated actors — ranging from Cate Blanchett to Oprah Winfrey, Adele Exarchopoulos to Robert Redford — perform in individual short films directed by Oscar-winning cinematographer (and Steven Spielberg’s right-hand man) Janusz Kaminski. “Short” is the operative word: advertisement-like in length and style, they’re not exactly deep, but they’re a lot of fun, whether it’s Oprah channelling her inner torch diva or Bradley Cooper doing some rain ballet, all to stray strands of dialogue from the likes of Seth Rogen and Spike Jonze. Have fun. [New York Times]

Emma Thompson, Amy Adams, Oprah Winfrey, Lupita Nyong’o, Octavia Spencer and Julia Roberts are the guests at this year’s THR Actress Roundtable. [Hollywood Reporter]

Thompson, meanwhile, looks back on her career at her BAFTA Life in Pictures tribute. [Thompson on Hollywood]

Ever felt reassured by a “no animals were harmed” disclaimer in a film’s closing credits? You shouldn’t be, writes Lindsay Abrams. [Salon]

“Out of the Furnace” director Scott Cooper says he owes his career to Robert Duvall. [Variety]

Stephen Frears is participating in the restoration of “Night Will Fall,” a Holocaust doc in which Alfred Hitchcock played an advisory role. [Screen Daily]

Following a report on the financial success of recent female-directed (or written) British films, Catherine Shoard looks at the industry’s persistent gender imbalance. [The Guardian]

Steve McQueen on why Michael Fassbender’s “12 Years a Slave” character is not just a monster, but “one of us.”. [Vanity Fair]

Such a fun list, this: the 50 greatest musical numbers in film history. (Warning: this link may upset “Les Mis” fans.) [Film.com]

Almost miraculously given its troubled production history, Natalie Portman’s “Jane Got a Gun” has been given a release date.

The Gavin O’Connor-directed western, which also stars Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor and Noah Emmericah, has been slated to hit theaters on August 29, 2014, it was announced today. O’Connor (“Warrior”) came aboard the project at the last minute after original director Lynne Ramsay (“We Need to Talk About Kevin”) declined to show up for the first day of filming back in March.

Early this month the film’s producers (a group that includes Portman) filed a lawsuit against Ramsay which alleges, among other things, that the writer/director failed to do work on the script after being paid for the rewrite and exhibited abusive behavior on set during pre-production. The suit asks that Ramsay pay back her salary, in addition to ponying up for punitive damages.

“Jane Got a Gun” centers on the title character (Portman), a frontier woman who enlists the help of her former lover (Edgerton) when she and her husband (Emmerich) are targeted by a violent gang. McGregor plays the gang’s leader John Bishop, a role that at various times was set to be filled by Edgerton, Jude Law and Bradley Cooper.

Will you be seeing “Jane Got a Gun” when it hits theaters? Let us know in the comments.

More serious than People’s Sexiest Man Alive, less prestigious than Time’s Person of the Year, Entertainment Weekly’s annual selection for Entertainer of the Year is one of those oddly intangible magazine-cover accolades — not quite an award, not quite a personal tribute — that may not mean much individually, but is usually indicative of a larger wave of audience and industry appreciation. On the one hand, it congratulates the recipient on a very good year; on the other, it anticipates still better things to come.

EW’s Entertainer of the Year 2013, then? Sandra Bullock. Well, of course.

As it so often is, the choice seemed something of a no-brainer this year. At an age (49, unbelievable as that sounds) when all too many of her female contemporaries are sent packing either too television or marginal mom roles by the industry, Bullock has headlined two of the year’s top 13 highest grossers; between them, “Gravity” and “The Heat” have raked in over $405 million (and counting, of course) Stateside. More impressively still, she connected with the public in two films that couldn’t be more opposed in terms of style and genre — knockabout star comedy and auteur-driven space thriller — and has essentially secured herself an Oscar nomination for one of them. Bam.

If that’s pretty much a textbook formula for Entertainer of the Year status, it’s not the first time Bullock has followed it. The actress is now the first person ever to be tapped twice for the honor by EW in its 24-year history. The first time, of course, was in 2009, when a mid-career resurgence in a high-grossing comedy (“The Proposal”) and even higher-grossing drama (“The Blind Side”) made her the obvious choice. It was an auspicious selection: three months later, Bullock held up her first Best Actress Oscar.

Could history repeat itself? As far as EW’s honor goes, Bullock is an even stronger candidate than she was in 2009. If that was a year in which she pluckily reinforced her star stature by rising above two rather mediocre vehicles, 2013 delivered a one-two of better films and better performances. Buoyed by its snappy screenplay and her lightning chemistry with Melissa McCarthy, “The Heat” is exemplary studio comedy; her delightful work in it has inevitably been dwarfed by “Gravity,” a risky blockbuster art film, unlike anything else on its star’s CV, that has grown into a bona fide phenomenon.

In doing so, it’s converted a lot of skeptics to Bullock’s fan club. Her 2009 Oscar win was wholly a gesture of industry affection, a rare case of the Academy acting without the backing of even middlebrow critical approval. This time, the critics’ backing of “Gravity” gives her extra clout: unlike “The Blind Side” (a rare case of a film that scored a Best Picture nod on its star’s coattails, rather than vice versa), it’s set to be a major presence in the awards season.

With all that in mind, should the presumptive Best Actress frontrunner, Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine,” be looking over her shoulder at Bullock? Probably. Both actresses, of course, are previous Oscar winners, though Blanchett’s case for a second is more compelling than Bullock’s. The five-time nominee is a greater technician and a more adventurous artist, whose supporting win for a deft Katharine Hepburn impression in “The Aviator” doesn’t seem particularly representative of her career; whatever your feelings about “The Blind Side” and her work in it, Bullock won for a charismatic star turn that marked a genuine high point (if not an artistic pinnacle) in her career. 

But Oscar voters don’t always break things down that way: they vote impulsively for the people they like in the films they like, with posterity often a secondary consideration. Many Academy members would probably agree than Blanchett deserves two Oscars before Bullock does; then again, many Academy members would have agreed in 2004 that Annette Bening and Kate Winslet were more urgent candidates for a first Oscar than Hilary Swank was for a second. Word is that “Gravity” really resonates with many voters; coupled with Bullock’s fine, physically demanding work in it, and her vast popularity in the industry, that could do the trick. Then again, it’s not as if “Blue Jasmine” wants for peer admiration; nor does Blanchett. This is a compelling race.

If Bullock pulls it off, she’ll be the seventh of EW’s Entertainer of the Year picks to win an Oscar immediately afterward: Jodie Foster did it in 1991 for “The Silence of the Lambs,” Steven Spielberg in 1993 for “Schindler’s List,” Tom Hanks in 1994 for “Forrest Gump,” Russell Crowe in 2000 for “Gladiator,” Bullock in 2009 for “The Blind Side” and, last year, Ben Affleck for “Argo.” (Some might count Nicole Kidman, whom EW tapped for her breakout “Moulin Rouge!”/”The Others” year in 2001, to which her 2002 Oscar win for “The Hours” was effectively a delayed reaction.)

The critics’ award deluge in December will surely be more generous to Blanchett than it will be to her; of course, Bullock only started her winning streak for “The Blind Side” when the Golden Globes and SAG weighed in later. That second Oscar is a long way off still. But by cementing the narrative of her remarkable, career-crowning 2013, EW has set the tone for Bullock’s campaign.