You need only look to “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” to observe how hard the fall festival circuit can be on certain prestige hopefuls: prime Oscar bait on paper, The Weinstein Company contender’s buzz plummeted after a first wave of reviews that deemed it (not inaccurately, I think) turgid biopic-by-numbers stuff, however well-acted. How to get people talking about it again? Well, the announcement of an official White House screening this week for President Obama, due to be attended by Mandela’s daughters and stars Idris Elba and Naomie Harris, will earn it a fresh batch of headlines and nifty photo opportunities. Will it help? Tim Gray considers the value of a political endorsement. [Variety]

Mike D’Angelo revisits the 1988 Best Supporting Actor race — declaring one time the Academy (gasp!) actually got it right. [The Dissolve]

R. Kurt Osenlund considers the Oscar prospects of “Nebraska,” and wonders whether arguments over the film’s misanthropy will reach the Academy. [Slant]

Ranging from Oscar-tipped Jared Leto to Belgium’s Veerle Baetens, Logan Hill rounds up some of the season’s most noteworthy acting breakthroughs. [New York Times]  

James Gray, Ryan Coogler, Oliver Hirschbiegel (still fuming over those “Diana” reviews), Atom Egoyan and Jonathan Teplitzky talk industry woes and indie advantages. [Hollywood Reporter]

Glenn Whipp on how “Dallas Buyers Club” and “The Book Thief” are angling for the “passion vote.” [LA Times]

Previewing the superb soundtrack to “Inside Llewyn Davis.” [NPR]

David Cronenberg talks about his new Toronto exhibition, and why Kubrick apparently didn’t get horror. [Toronto Star]

David Cox on how “Philomena” reveals both the sins and strengths of Catholicism. [The Guardian]

I love this piece: Justin Chang on the joys of time-travel romances — even ones as ropey as “About Time.” [Variety]

The Berlin Film Festival is generally seen as the least glamorous of the three major European fests: taking place in snowy February, it lands either too late or too early in the calendar to grab the sparkly awards-season hopefuls or the A-list international auteur titles. So landing the world premiere of Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” as their Opening Film on February 6, 2014 is obviously a great get for the Berlinale — one that may attract more international press than usual.

It’s not exactly surprising news, of course. Once the film’s release date was set for March 7 in the US (and a week earlier in the UK and other territories), Berlin seemed the obvious place for the premiere — after all, the film was shot on location in Germany. The director now makes a habit of premiering his films on the European circuit “Moonrise Kingdom” opened Cannes in 2011, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” opened London in 2009 and “The Darjeeling Limited” competed at Venice in 2007. 

This won’t be Anderson’s first trip to the Berlinale. Both “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Life Aquatic” played there in Competition, though not as world premieres. (Both left empty-handed.) The press release doesn’t specify whether or not “The Grand Budapest Hotel” will be competing for the Golden Lion.

Last year, Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster” opened Berlin out of competition — well, it couldn’t have been any other way, given that Wong was the jury president that year. That curtain-raiser was also viewed as something of a coup for the festival, even if the martial arts epic was met with a decidedly mixed critical response. Here’s hoping Anderson’s film lands a bit better. Either way, however, it’s a dream opener for any festival, given the sheer volume of star power it’ll bring to the red carpet: its ensemble includes Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Lea Seydoux, Saoirse Ronan, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, and so on.

Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick states, “We are very delighted that Wes Anderson will open the 64th Berlinale with his new film, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel.’ With unmistakeable Wes Anderson charm, this comedy promises to kick things off in a big way.”

Between “The Grandmaster” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” then, Berlin is stepping up its game in terms of opening films. (Must all its openers from now on begin with “Grand?”) The rest of the lineup, generally, only shows its strength with hindsight: recent editions have unearthed such previously unheralded titles as “A Separation” and “Tabu.” I’ll once more be in attendance next year; roll on February.

The European Film Awards are really spreading out their nominations announcement this year — a couple of weeks ago, we got the nominees for Best Animated Feature, last week brought the winners in the technical categories, and today we have the final three films in the running for Best Documentary Feature. On Saturday, nominees in all remaining categories will be revealed; I guess this is their way of shining an individual spotlight on less covered races.

The EFA nominees for Best Documentary are:

“The Act of Killing” (Joshua Oppenheimer)
“The Missing Picture” (Rithy Panh)
“Stop-Over” (Kaveh Baktiari)

It’s a short list, but an interesting one. Two of the three — “The Act of Killing” and “The Missing Picture” — are among the 151 films vying for Academy Award consideration in the same category. The former, of course, remains one of the year’s buzziest docs: Oppenheimer’s one-of-a-kind experiment, addressing Indonesia’s legacy of violence by way of horrifying re-enactment, has a grabby, auspicious aura about it. It’s a very fine film, but that isn’t the sole source of its fascination.

I’m guessing it will win here, and at many other ceremonies this season besides — but will the Academy respond? It may be quite strong medicine for them, and this branch has a mixed track record of recognizing formally adventurous docs. It’s one of several unique efforts in the race that critics will no doubt push hard, so this could go either way at this point.

You might remember that “The Act of Killing” was at one point shortlisted as Denmark’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar; it wasn’t selected, but one film currently stands a chance of being nominated in both the foreign-language and documentary categories. It’s Cambodia that submitted “The Missing Picture” for the former; as a French co-production it gets to compete for the EFAs. Like “The Act of Killing,” albeit in a very different way, Panh’s highly personal film uses stylized measures — in this case, roughly finished clay puppetry — to illustrate a country’s darkest political history, and the director’s own first-hand experience thereof. Winner of the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes, it’s moving and wholly distinctive; I’d be surprised to see it show up in either category when the Oscars roll around, though it’d certainly make the race more interesting.

The outsider of the group, “Stop Over,” is a study of Iranian illegal immigrants struggling to get by in Athens. Inspired by Swiss-Iranian director Kaveh Bakhtiari’s own experience with his cousin, it was well regarded at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in May.

The European Film Awards will be presented in Berlin on December 7.

The deadline for Golden Globe submissions was Friday and so studios had to declare whether their contenders would be aiming for comedy or drama consideration. Of course, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) can overturn these categorizations, as they have in the past with films like “True Grit.” Between now and the time ballots go out to members of the organization on Nov. 27, the group may do that with one or more of the films that straddle the line between comedy and drama, but it’s a rare occurrence.

This year’s heavy-hitting comedy/musical crop includes “August: Osage County,” “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “Nebraska” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Maybe films like “Enough Said,” “Her” and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” can drum up some love, too. Meanwhile, “American Hustle” will go drama, despite having comedic elements, as will “Saving Mr. Banks” and, somehow, Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine.”

But even with those two films out of the mix, the comedy field is packed with top-tier players. There are, therefore, underdogs aplenty, great films that could use the exposure of a Best Picture race that recognizes comedies. Here is my list of a few that deserve consideration. Feel free to offer up your own in the comments section.

“Before Midnight”
Yes, this is being judged a comedy. And as mentioned, Sony Classics is pitting Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” as a drama. One imagines that is to keep Cate Blanchett away from Meryl Streep in the Best Actress race, but I digress. If we’re going to call “Before Midnight” a comedy full stop, then it needs to be way high on the list of considerations. Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater have given us a true gift with this film and it’s upsetting to think that it might not catch on in the awards race. It’s a bolt of sincerity and reality and the mundane majesty that lingers between the lines of life. Delpy delivers another amazing performance of a character we’ve seen her grow with for two decades.

“Frances Ha”
First revealed way back at the 2012 Telluride Film Festival, “Frances Ha” is still filmmaking of the highest order this year and it’s not even being given a fair shake in the indie awards circuit (witnessed by an outright snub in the Gotham Awards nominations). I’m not always on Noah Baumbach’s team, but when I am, I really am. This is a dissection of life in a holding pattern that really gets it when it could have been too thin or precious or solipsistic, even. And it’s brought to life by great work across the board, from Greta Gerwig’s magnetic performance to rich black and white photography to just the grace of Baumbach’s hand behind the camera.

“In a World”
Lake Bell’s directorial debut totally worked on me. It’s a difficult thing to qualify; it just found its way into my heart and on top of it all has such a vibrant, fresh sense of humor. I’ve laughed out loud at few movies this year the way I did here, and it’s a real pity that the HFPA isn’t likely to bother even giving it the time of day. We’d be so lucky to have more films like this, that find the truthful rhythms without sacrificing entertainment, that know exactly what they are and how to convey what it is they want to say with such confidence. Bell is a huge talent.

“Spring Breakers”
Chances are A24 didn’t even bother submitting Harmony Korine’s hypnotic bender for HFPA consideration, in which case it’s pointless to even put it on the list, but I will anyway. And it’s probably a stretch as a comedy but that’s where it likely would have gone. I’ve already talked about how I think there’s more going on with James Franco’s outrageous performance than mere stunt. But the film itself is “a rather potent study of ‘spring break’ as a state of mind,” I wrote at back in March, “the desperate race for greener pastures that grows like a fungus in small town America.” I’d wager it has more on its mind than a great many films in the comedy race this year.

“This is the End”
Still one of the year’s best films, even as we find ourselves deep into the prestige/awards season of the fall, “This is the End” is a movie that really deserves the boost of Globes recognition. Particularly if efforts like “The Devil Wears Prada,” “The Hangover” and, good lord, “The Tourist” have managed it in the past. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg found alchemy with this summer comedy, managing to say something vital about friendship and hypocrisy and this wacky industry while entertaining at every step.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been prepared to offer much of anything in this space, and really, it’s been good to let the dust settle, as plenty has happened. “The Monuments Men” got out of dodge. “The Wolf of Wall Street” committed to Christmas. “Her” found critical embrace and “The Book Thief” has emerged as Fox’s best bet for awards success. AFI Fest is on the horizon, and with it, the fates of “Out of the Furnace,” “Lone Survivor” and, in some ways, “Saving Mr. Banks.” The groundwork has mostly been laid otherwise and the circuit work is starting to click in.

Events have been set up for films like “All is Lost,” “The Croods,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Fruitvale Station” and “Gravity” as campaigns look to tease out as much as they can. And I guess if there was one benefit to the Hollywood Film Awards, it’s that talent was in town to work and put in face time with press. The campaigns for “Monsters University” and “Before Midnight,” among others (both working the DVD release of those films) seized that opportunity.

Meanwhile, only two films are left to be revealed to press – “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “American Hustle” – and both will wait until late November, perhaps even the weekend after Thanksgiving. What happens in the meantime?

“All is Lost” is playing a really long game now, rolling out slower across the country when the original aim was to be “nationwide” as of Oct. 25. But “Gravity” sucked a lot more air out of the room than most were anticipating, so the plan now is to go to over 400 theaters next week. The film hasn’t caught on in limited release to the extent that “12 Years a Slave” has in the same frame, but it’s more a competition over theaters with that film rather than audience. So now Roadside has the luxury to just take its time. The film is still a possible Best Picture play because it will have passionate champions and certainly critical support.

Speaking of “12 Years a Slave,” I imagine Fox Searchlight would like a very different spotlight than The New York Times and the LA Times shined on it in recent weeks. The two papers have respectively painted the film as a likely international box office bust and an uphill marketing battle (the latter angle leaning heavily on the overstated “brutality” of the film’s depictions). This, of course, months after the media painted a bull’s-eye on the film’s back by anointing it this year’s Oscar victor. Rival publicists and bored journalists are just finally taking aim at the target. The expansion continued to over 400 screens this weekend and maybe all this press gives it a boost in the end, but I imagine the studio would like the spotlight shined elsewhere for a beat.

A lot of that elsewhere scrutiny will be on “Saving Mr. Banks” this weekend, which hasn’t exactly put its best foot forward after Disney didn’t bother letting the Los Angeles press in on the film when it bowed softly at the London Film Festival a few weeks ago. Any momentum it may have kicked up at the time could be difficult to reacquire, and yeah, I realize how silly that sounds for a film that won’t open until Christmas. But that’s how fickle an Oscar race is. When the iron is the least bit hot, you should strike. And AFI Fest is packed this year with plenty of other curiosities to overshadow the film, whether it be Peter Berg and Scott Cooper’s world premieres or the LA bow of “Inside Llewyn Davis” or (another) David O. Russell tribute that will stir the “American Hustle” pot or a Bruce Dern tribute that Paramount will be eager to leverage for “Nebraska’s” benefit as it prepares for a Nov. 15 limited release.

Speaking of “Nebraska,” as reported this afternoon, the studio is trying a fun trick by booking the film in a double bill with “Paper Moon” at the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles followed by a Q&A with Will Forte. It’s smart to try and rub a bit of that 1973 black-and-white comedy from the studio’s catalog off onto the film. The Peter Bogdanovich film won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and was well-recognized by the HFPA in the comedy/musical fields.

And of course, there was Deadline’s big “Contenders” event this weekend, which the outlet (with characteristic self-importance) dubbed the awards season “kick-off.” Wait, I thought the Hollywood Film Awards were the kick-off? No, but wasn’t it Toronto? Wait, wasn’t it Telluride? Everyone wants a piece…

Circling back to AFI, which kicks off Thursday night, we’ll see Relativity and Universal try to fire up the respective campaigns for “Lone Survivor” (which unveiled to more press last week at a big TV Academy event) and “Out of the Furnace” (which has been screening in spurts while trying to maintain an element of mystery), neither of which is an easy awards sell. Both films, in their own way, are difficult sits, the former due to the punishment endured by its principals on the screen, the latter due to the dark patience of how it unfolds. But they could also be just what everyone is looking for: a fresh injection in the race.

At the moment, however, there is one film that is really resonating when you’re out on the beat, and that film is “Gravity.” It has caught a certain spirit, and unlike “Avatar,” which is a film “Gravity” is often compared to for awards purposes, it doesn’t have much baggage to negotiate (and will be the beneficiary of a far savvier campaign). It’s cruising at the box office and is on everyone’s lips at soirees and parties and functions. Of course, that’s largely because it’s dominating in the marketplace at the moment, but “Captain Phillips” and certainly “12 Years a Slave” really just aren’t registering in the same way. If you asked me to bet on a winner in November, I’d be inclined to place my chips on “Gravity.” It could even be a sweeper, Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects all within reach.

But we’ll see what the late-breaking comedic tomes on greed and corruption have to say about that.

With that, The Contenders section has been updated in full with fresh takes on every category and newly considered placements throughout.

Want to register your own predictions? Please check out HitFix Oscar Picks for your opportunity to do just that. We’ve had an awesome response to the feature so far and we’re excited to have you in on the fun!

Every once in a while a studio capitalizes on parallels between one of its awards hopefuls and a classic of the medium that also did pretty well on the circuit by booking a double bill. Fox Searchlight did it with “The Wrestler” and “On the Waterfront,” for instance. This year, Paramount is going that route with Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” and Peter Bogdanovich’s “Paper Moon.”

The screening will happen on Sunday, Nov. 10 at the New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles. Will Forte and Bob Odenkirk will be on hand for a Q&A after the screenings, to be moderated by actor Martin Starr. The event happens right in the middle of AFI Fest, where “Nebraska” will screen as part of the program and Bruce Dern will be the beneficiary of a career tribute.

Advance tickets for the double bill went on sale at noon today.

The two films share some tenuous thematic residue. Each is centered on a road trip with a surly father (well, Ryan O’Neil was more ne’er do well than surly, but you get it). Will Forte is Tatum O’Neal to Bruce Dern’s O’Neil, that kind of thing. “Paper Moon” is also a (black and white) Paramount film, so it’s a bit of a fun no brainer to book them together.

Bogdanovich’s 1973 comedy was nominated for four Oscars. It didn’t make the Best Picture mix, but it likely would have in the current paradigm. And Tatum O’Neal, of course, walked away with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She still holds the record for the youngest person to win an Academy Award. The film was also nominated for the Best Picture Musical or Comedy Golden Globe.

This is a trajectory similar to what Paramount would like to travel with “Nebraska.” Of course, they have “The Wolf of Wall Street” coming up, which will take a lot of scrounging to set up on the circuit as it was only recently “officially” slated for a Christmas release. Payne’s film, however, has had the benefit of nurturing throughout the year ever since a world premiere at Cannes. And love has taken hold throughout the Academy. This little program will just be a reminder of its old-fashioned charms.

“Nebraska” opens in limited release on Nov. 15.

From “12 Years a Slave” to “Captain Phillips” to even fictional contenders like “Gravity,” a number of Oscar hopefuls are being subjected to rigorous fact-checking in the blogosphere. The latest to go under examination is “Dallas Buyers Club.” In an interesting piece, Slate writer Aisha Harris explains that the film is in an unusual position relative to other biopics, in that protagonist Ron Woodroof’s life hadn’t really been documented in other media; screenwriter Craig Borten, who began the project after interviewing Woodroof in 1992, is his own most informed source, and admits to taking some artistic license in a “pretty accurate” portrayal. Harris separates the film’s facts from its fiction. [Slate]

Meanwhile, Noel Murray and Scott Tobias use the film as a springboard for a history of AIDS on film. [The Dissolve]

James Franco in “Spring Breakers” is better than Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver,” says Werner Herzog. James Franco doesn’t disagree. [Vanity Fair]

Netflix acquires exclusive rights to documentary Oscar hopeful “The Square.” [LA Times]

It seems we’re at that point in the year already: John Lee Hancock, Richard Curtis and others discuss their favorite holiday movies. [New York Times]

Alyssa Rosenberg on the sometimes tricky ethics of pop-culture consumption, from “Ender’s Game” to Polanski to Chris Brown. [Vulture]

Mark Harris on the strangeness of a potential Robert Redford victory, and his reservations about “12 Years a Slave.” [Grantland]

The location managers of “Behind the Candelabra” and “The Hangover Part III” were honored at the California On Location Awards. [Variety]

Scott Feinberg on the big-name filmmakers “presenting” smaller foreign or documentary titles in this year’s Oscar race. [THR]

“Saving Mr Banks” will open the cinematography-focused Camerimage festival in Poland later this month. [Screen Daily]

Lots of talk about Gavin Hood’s “Ender’s Game” this week — not all of it the kind a potential sci-fi franchise-starter might want. The controversial homophobic beliefs of Orson Scott Card, the film’s producer and author of the popular source novels, have prompted a widespread campaign to boycott the film, regardless of its own merits. That’s unfortunate since, as I wrote in my review, it’s rather impressive: smart, idea-driven mainstream entertainment that doesn’t patronize its young audience, and has a promising lead turn from star Asa Butterfield. But what do you think? The film’s been out in other territories for a week, so a number of you might have caught it by now — or are you joining the boycott? Share your thoughts in the comments, and vote in the poll below.

 At this point, I would love to tell you that “Diana” has been mistreated or even misunderstood, that there”s more to its apparent absurdities than meets the eye – if only because all the best quips about it have already been cracked, making the film pretty threadbare carrion as it limps into U.S. theaters this week. Alas, I can only confirm that “Diana” is every bit as risible as you”ve already heard, and not in the deludedly overambitious way that makes for fascinating folly – Madonna”s similarly inept “W.E.” handily trumps this for both ostentatious formal bloat and high-camp hilarity.

No, what”s particularly dismaying about Hirschbiegel”s film is that it fails so dully, and at such an achievably middlebrow target: lit and staged like daytime drama, “Diana” sets out to offer little more than a potted, soap-opera snapshot of the late Diana Spencer”s post-divorce romantic reawakening. In focusing principally on her brief affair with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, the film is arguably taking on one of the less intriguing stretches of the princess”s botched fairytale life, though it is at least one of the less-covered ones; die-hard royalists seeking salacious family details would be best advised to look elsewhere. (A brief glimpse of the young William and Harry aside, the Windsors are not in evidence.)

Perhaps writer Stephen Jeffreys elected to tell this particular story as a route to examining the woman behind the princess, removed from the angst and institutional formality of palace politics – much of the film plays as a kind of stiffly whimsical “Roman Holiday” riff, with Diana out to prove her realness in a variety of embarrassingly contrived setups: a disastrous attempt at cooking a romantic dinner (see, she”s just like Bridget Jones!), or donning a mangy dark wig for a paparazzi-free night on the town in London”s gay quarter. She”s a wild one, that Di. Still, the film”s separation of her supposedly private persona from her public one is as unconvincing as her Sydney Bristow-style disguise: how can the film profess to show us the complete woman while strenuously skirting her family life or past psychological torment?

In focusing specifically on Diana the lover – who, in her pushy seduction technique, pays nominal respect to her mythological namesake, the goddess of hunting – Hirschbiegel might have been better adopting the dispassionately domestic perspective of his remarkable Hitler biopic “Downfall,” which achieved genuinely fresh insight into a larger-than-life historical figure through patient scrutiny and mundane personal detail. Alternatively, playing the “last great love” angle for florid Sirkian melodrama might have rendered the woman more human through exaggeratedly expressive emotion.

Jeffreys” glib, magazine-profile script blandly takes the middle path, relentlessly flattering its subject without demonstrating any clear interest in examining her. Actual characterization, it seems, would be tantamount to disrespect. What we get is a lighter, flightier Diana than the image we”re accustomed to, but that doesn”t make her any more human – particularly when the core love story is played, beat for beat, as swoony romantic fantasy from the Richard Curtis playbook.

After a morbid intro in a claustrophobic hotel corridor that gauchely foreshadows the circumstances of her tunnel-set death hours later, Hirschbiegel jumps back two years to her sickly meet-cute with Khan (Naveen Andrews, performing as if under duress) in a hospital, as he walks her through the not-at-all-metaphorical process of mending human tickers. “Hearts can”t actually be broken?” she simpers incredulously. Suffice to say Jeffreys” barely Harlequin-level dialogue does little to counter the widespread perception that Diana was, for all her grace and glamor and goodness of spirit, a bit dim.

This sets the tone for the rest of their dippy courtship, with extra reserves of synthetic earnestness brought out for a stint of anti-landmine activism in Angola, dramatized with all the specificity and soul of a telethon plea. Jeffreys can”t even claim credit for the film”s single most ludicrous (and therefore best) line, a bit of pillow talk filched by Khan from the Persian poet Rumi: “If you can”t smell the fragrance, don”t come into the garden of love.” By that point, “Diana” could benefit from more of this unabashed kitsch.

Cornered by such unilluminating writing and uninvested direction, Naomi Watts has little option but to play the princess as a kind of mystically smiling cipher, a doll with supremely well-functioning eyelashes. As an impersonation, it”s adequate: she looks the part, which is to say she”s pretty enough, dressed in devotedly duplicated costumes and has the requisite swadge of yellow hair, though there”s little attention paid to vocal or gestural detail.

But there”s no heart here for her man to mend: if anything, the performance”s occasional surface accuracies only highlight how distant and disconnected from us the rest of this plastic princess feels. A number of my colleagues have inevitably revelled in dubiously tasteful car-crash metaphors to describe “Diana.” They”re forgivable, if only because the film itself is scarcely less crass, but they”re also off the mark: this drearily inert hagiography could only crash if it were in motion to begin with.

The more this year’s Oscar-contending crowd thins out a bit, the better “Dallas Buyers Club” is looking for a last hurrah Best Picture bid for Focus Features. Sure, Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto are strong in their races, but the passion vote could really help this one. I’m a big fan, particularly of how much the story of Ron Woodroof resonates in interesting ways with the zeitgeist. We’ve talked to McConaughey, Leto and director Jean-Marc Vallée and given you all the angles, but now the film hits theaters and you get to decide. Is McConaughey worthy of the Best Actor buzz? Can the film land more than acting nominations? Tell us in the comments section and feel free to vote in the poll below.

Since the Academy created a casting directors’ branch earlier this year, there’s been a growing debate over whether or not a new Oscar category should be created for them. One person clearly in the “pro” camp is Woody Allen, who has written an open letter in praise of their work — and, in particular, that of his longtime collaborator Juliet Taylor, whom he credits with introducing him to the work of such actors as Dianne Wiest, Jeff Daniels and Patricia Clarkson. (Wait, he worked with Clarkson in 2009 – bit slow on the uptake there, Woody!)  “Because my films are not special effects films and are about human beings, proper casting is absolutely essential,” he writes. “I owe a big part of the success of my films to this scrupulous casting process which I must say if left to my own devices would never have happened.” [Hollywood Reporter]

David O. Russell will be honored with a special tribute at the AFI Fest next week. [AFI Fest]

Justin Chang senses the Academy is up for a braver, bolder Best Picture choice after three years of feelgood picks. [Variety]

Sam Adams wonders if critics are too undiscriminating when they review documentaries. [Indiewire]

James Lipton on the awards race, and how actors use physical transformation to gain attention. [Vanity Fair]

Academic and graphics expert Paul Debevec talks about his work on “Gravity” and a host of past blockbusters. [The Credits] 

Matt Patches gives a great overview of the tortuous path “Ender’s Game” has taken to the screen. [Grantland]

Zachary Wigan considers the implications of Netflix’s imminent move into filmmaking. [Tribeca Film]

Catherine Shoard examines the prevalence of reality-based films in the Oscar race, and the decision made by some of them to drop out. [The Guardian] 

Another week, another contender officially enters the fray for Best Picture. Last week, “Saving Mr. Banks” took its expected place among the top five contenders. This week, Martin Scorsese returns to the Oscar game for the fifth time this century with “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Think about that fact just one more time.  Are we really surprised Marty’s back in the game?

There’s been a lot of scuttlebutt about whether “Wall Street” would be released this year after Scorsese delivered a reported three-hour-plus long edit (or was it four hours?), but it would have been shocking if the film’s international financiers had let it push to 2014. Instead, “Wolf” gets “Jack Ryan’s” prime Christmas Day slot and will battle “American Hustle” for the same male and cinephile demo. The question was whether “Wall Street” was both an awards and commercial player or just the latter. Well, after the release of the film’s second trailer it’s clear Scorsese has more on his mind than just having fun with the crazy stock market schemes of the 1980s.

Obviously, the first thing that pops — fake teeth aside — is that Jonah Hill may steal another movie out from under a bigger star (DiCaprio this time, Pitt in “Moneyball”). It would be silly not to take him seriously as a potential nominee in the Best Supporting Actor race. The second thing is that for all this film’s comedic moments, there are more than enough “serious” scenes in the trailer (hello, Kyle Chandler) to signal DiCaprio’s scheming Jordan Belfort is in for a fall.

Welcome to the party, “Wall Street.”  Hope you survive the experience.

Keeping all that in mind, here’s this week’s rankings.

Friday, Nov. 1

1. “Gravity”
Taking no chances. Alfonso Cuarón and crew back in LA working it next week.

2. “12 Years A Slave”
Looking for another strong week as they jump to “almost” nationwide: 412 screens.

3. “Saving Mr. Banks”
America gets a taste when it opens AFI Film Fest on the 7th.

4. “Captain Phillips”
Domestic box office is above and beyond what anyone expected. Shows real sticking power in the AMPAS demo.

5. “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”
Buzz is the HFPA aren’t fans. Bet on only Oprah for a Globes nod.

6. “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Not sure why some are not as sold on this one. Not taking into account the music branch and the Coens’ fan base in the Academy.

7. “The Wolf of Wall Street”
If it’s semi-decent it may get in. And, at the moment, it looks better than semi-decent.

8. “Nebraska”
Bruce Dern’s little baby that can.

9. “American Hustle”
Sony is screening clips at a just-announced David O. Russell tribute at AFI Fest. Yep, it’s not done yet.

10. “Dallas Buyers Club”
Strong reviews. Don’t discount it among the contenders to land a nod.

For the second year of “Best Production Design” (the category previously known as Best Art Direction), we have a slightly different system of choosing the nominees. That’s because the costume designers have split off from the designers branch to form their own branch. It’ll be interesting to see how this long overdue development affects the race in both categories.

The production design field in the past has favored period pieces, though at least one fantasy title tends to find a home every year. It is rare for truly contemporary films to be nominated.

The category, despite its name, awards set decorators as well as production designers. Being a veteran certainly doesn’t hurt one’s chances. But this is far from the Academy’s most insular branch. Last year was, I believe, the first time since 1984 with no first-time nominees.

I don’t expect that to happen again this year because, among other reasons, Adam Stockhausen looks reasonably assured of a nomination for Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave.” Having done top-notch work last year on Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” his recreation of 1800s America in meticulous detail on this leading Best Picture contender seems exactly what this branch is likely to embrace, even if a lot of the setting is exterior. Set decorator Alice Baker would also be a first-time nominee.

Michael Corenblith was previously nominated for two Ron Howard films: “Apollo 13” and “Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” This year he gets to recreate both 1960s Hollywood and early 20th Century Australia on John Lee Hancock’s “Saving Mr. Banks.” The ability to show off two different historical periods on a likely Best Picture contender leads, in my view, to a likely nomination.

Another extremely likely nominee is Catherine Martin for Baz Lurhmann’s “The Great Gatsby.” Lurhmann’s longtime production (and costume) designer is also his wife. She has won this Oscar for “Moulin Rouge!” and been nominated for “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet.” (She has also won Best Costume Design for “Moulin Rouge!” and been nominated for “Australia.”) Even detractors of this film could not dispute its outstanding design work. I expect a strong push in the visual categories and would be quite surprised if this meticulously detailed work (featuring superb set decoration from Beverley Dunn) does not end up in the final five.

While Martin is a consistent nominee for her collaborations with Lurhmann, Dan Hennah is a consistent nominee for his collaborations with Peter Jackson, having earned five nominations and a win over the past dozen years, first as a set decorator and then as a production designer. He and set decorator Ra Vincent were nominated last year for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” This year’s sequel “The Desolation of Smaug” will add new parts of Middle Earth, notably the dragon’s lair. While I think the novelty will eventually wear off here, I still think that among the competition this year, they are likely in solid shape.

Space movies can be hit-or-miss here. But “Gravity” is clearly heading for a massive tally of nominations. And the branch has recently warmed up more and more to CGI-aided production design (“Avatar,” “Life of Pi”). But this film also meticulously recreates interiors of the International Space Station and Soyuz spacecraft. Given those factors, Andy Nicholson must be considered a leading contender for Alfonso Cuarón’s latest. But the built sets were not plentiful and it can’t score everywhere, can it?

Far more subtle would be Jess Gonchor’s recreation of early 1960s Greenwich Village on “Inside Llewyn Davis.” This longtime collaborator of the Coen brothers and Bennett Miller was finally nominated for “True Grit” in 2010. Has that alerted the branch to his serious talents? I hope so. And this is certainly a film we will see more of this awards season. Set decorator Susan Bode was nominated 19 years ago for “Bullets Over Broadway.”

A film that still needs to be seen is David O. Russell’s “American Hustle.” I’m not entirely sure what to make of this feature. The costume design is already a topic of great conversation and that may take all attention away from other design elements. But Judy Becker has been doing good work (much of it with set decorator Heather Loeffler) for years, frequently with Russell. If this late 1970s/early 1980s recreation tickles the Academy’s fancy, nominations could follow in many places.

“Oz the Great and Powerful” may be forgotten by many, but it was, objectively, a spectacle of epic proportions. Robert Stromberg won this category back-to-back for “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland” in 2009 and 2010, meaning his digitally-enhanced work clearly registers. Set decorator Nancy Haigh has six nominations, including one win, so her involvement cannot hurt the film’s chances.

Haigh also worked on “August: Osage County” this year. Though contemporary, this is the sort of claustrophobic film with detailed Americana sets that I wouldn’t rule out, especially as production designer David Gropman earned two previous nominations for films that didn’t necessarily appear obvious contenders from a distance (“The Cider House Rules” and “Life of Pi”).

In the realm of straight-up period work, Maria Djurkovic has designed 18th Century England (a favorite of this branch) on Ralph Fiennes’ “The Invisible Woman.” I am not sure whether this film will catch on to any real extent but if it scores anywhere, the design categories would seem its best chances. With a relatively weak group of contenders, I’d say those chances are not bad. Djurkovic is overdue for a first nomination.

Another production designer ludicrously overdue for a first nomination is Alex McDowell. I felt the vision of Krypton on “Man of Steel” was superb. The real question…will his fellow production designers notice?

Another film that I am not entirely sure how to read is “The Book Thief.” But a World War II era film about the Holocaust always must be at least considered. From this vantage point, the sets seem to be impressive so Simon Elliott and Mark Rosinski ought to be on peoples’ radars.

“Lee Daniels’ The Butler” is an interesting contender. It seems assured of a Best Supporting Actress nomination and it seems in good shape for a Best Picture nod, too. But beyond that, it’s not altogether clear where the film is destined. I wouldn’t discount Tim Galvin’s chances for his first nomination.

So those are the top dozen contenders as I see them. Though to be totally honest, I view this as a category with a few very strong contenders (“12 Years a Slave,” “Saving Mr. Banks,” “The Great Gatsby”), a few solid contenders (“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” “Gravity,” “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “American Hustle”) and then a very open race should anyone farther up falter. And while I may not have mentioned titles such as “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” (too forgotten?), “The Wolf of Wall Street” (too contemporary?), “Labor Day” (too subtle?) and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (too shaky?), I also wouldn’t totally rule them out.

Who do you think could prove to be a somewhat unexpected nominee? Who do you expect to see in the final five? Who are you rooting for? Tell us in the comments section and/or chalk up your own predictions via HitFix’s Oscar Picks section.

The reactions to Jason Reitman’s “Labor Day” ever since it dropped at Telluride have been interesting, stretching from adulation and tears to outright seething hatred. It’s a very different film for the director, representing a mature departure from his prior work. “The edge that has defined Reitman’s work has been set aside while a more refined, lived-in aesthetic has taken hold,” I wrote out of the Colorado festival.

I know the film has been playing well for women, but it doesn’t seem to be catching on as a viable awards play for Paramount, which also has “Nebraska” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” to work with this season. The studio seems to think there is a shot for Josh Brolin in the supporting actor category and Reitman for adapted screenplay, but not having Kate Winslet on hand to promote the film and campaign hurts her chances in the lead actress field.

Nevertheless, the film is good. People will react based on their own baggage, as with anything, but my biggest takeaway remains the richness of the craft. Particularly Eric Steelberg’s digital photography, which is lush and evocative and really just quite something. The film comes out this Christmas and you’ll decide for yourself, but in the meantime, here’s the first trailer to give you a taste of what to expect.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AhKaOgrQOs?list=PL3PXbVwwzRpvR4xB45OsiDUoUCsEy44jq&w=640&h=315]

James Bond franchise producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson already got a nod of respect from the Producers’ Guild of America last year, when “Skyfall” was one of the 10 films nominated for their top award. At the next PGA ceremony, on January 26, the duo will actually get to take something home: they’ve been named the winners of the PGA’s David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures, a prize previously presented to such named as Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Billy Wilder and Roger Corman. In their statement, PGA chairs Michael DeLuca and Lori McCreary commended them for “[bringing] thrilling exploits and cinematic masterpieces to audiences worldwide.” [PGA]

THR’s annual actors’ roundtable includes Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto and Forest Whitaker, among others. [Hollywood Reporter]

If you liked “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” but thought it needed more Richard Gere, here’s some great news. [Deadline]

“The Wire” writer David Simon is floored by the “hideous and essential story” of “12 Years a Slave.” [Audacity of Despair]

Matt Singer on why the running time of “The Wolf of Wall Street” is nothing to get fussed about. [The Dissolve]

Alexander Payne explains why he favors comedic actors for dramatic roles. (Still, aren’t his roles usually somewhat comedic?) [LA Times]

Marketing campaigns for “Frances Ha,” “Skyfall” and “No” were among the winners in the UK’s Screen Awards. [Screen Daily]

Yours truly talks to “Gloria” star Paulina Garcia about rediscovery and living the moment. [The Guardian]

Kathryn Bigelow and Bollywood star Aamir Khan were honored by America Abroad Media for “[educating] citizens about the critical social and public policy issues of our time.” [Variety]

Nathaniel Rogers and friends revisit the 1968 Best Supporting Actress race. Did Ruth Gordon deserve her win for “Rosemary’s Baby?” [The Film Experience]

In June of 2005, during a firefight with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan that would claim the lives of three of his fellow Navy SEALs, Petty Officer First Class Marcus Luttrell broke his back. He broke his pelvis. He tore out his shoulder, bit his tongue in half and crushed his hand. He sustained facial bone damage, he was shot “through and through” his quads and his calves, his body was riddled with shrapnel from his ankles to his eyes…and he lived to tell the tale.

That tale was captured on the page in his 2007 memoir “Lone Survivor” and it has now been captured on the big screen by director Peter Berg with Mark Wahlberg in the starring role as Luttrell. A riveting depiction of the mission, called Operation Red Wings, the film eschews traditional structure and launches its players into the heart of darkness quickly before tearing through a 33-minute recreation of the firefight itself that recalls such nail-biting sequences as those captured by Steven Spielberg in “Saving Private Ryan” or Ridley Scott in “Black Hawk Down.”

At a post-screening Q&A tonight moderated by journalist Tina Brown, Luttrell, of course, received a standing ovation, his loyal golden retriever at his side. He told the audience matter-of-factly, completely unmoved by the Hollywood machine, about his ordeal and the toll it took. “I died up on that mountain,” Wahlberg says in voiceover as the film’s final moments flicker on the screen, and indeed, it was clear hearing Luttrell speak that he lost a bit of himself that day.

“The hardest part wasn’t getting back on the horse, so to speak, and going back into combat,” Luttrell, who after recuperating from his Afghanistan tour turned right around and re-deployed for Iraq, said. “That’s what we’re trained for. I didn’t have any mental problems. The only problem I had was when they released me, when I couldn’t do the job anymore. I think it was more along the lines of I was just bored. I missed the adrenaline and missed my buddies. That was the hardest hurdle to overcome. But my wife, I’m blessed to have her. She keeps me out of the shadows.”

During the mission, Luttrell and four of his comrades (played by Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch in the film) were discovered during a reconnaissance mission by local Taliban-loyal goat herders. With a compromised mission and a moral conundrum, the decision was made to free the locals and fall back while trying to re-establish communications with their base at Bagram Airfield. And Luttrell has plainly said that if he had the whole thing to do over again, he would have made a different decision.

“He’d much rather have been Leavenworth [prison], with his brothers alive,” Wahlberg said during the Q&A. That’s in fact part of the moral territory the film is attempting to navigate. “‘SEALs kill kids,’ that’s the CNN headline,” Wahlberg’s Luttrell pleads in the film. But war changes all the rules.

Brown attempted to dig in on the training the actors went through to prepare for their roles, but Wahlberg instantly doused it. “Anybody that sits up here and talks about how hard they worked, it’s bullshit compared to what they do for us and what they continue to do,” the actor said. And as someone who has played his share of real-life characters, whether boxer Micky Ward in “The Fighter” or football player Vince Papale in “Invincible,” the pressure to make the inspiration for the character proud was all the more apparent here.

Kitsch, who plays Medal of Honor recipient Mike Murphy in the film, echoed the sentiment, noting that it was more about capturing something intangible. “It’s really just the spirit of this guy and who he was and the legacy he’s left, who he was with these guys, these relationships,” he said.

Berg was first given the book when he was shooting the film “Hancock.” He said it’s difficult to get him to sit down and read a book under the best of circumstances, let alone while working, but he went into his trailer during his lunch break and started flipping through it. Soon enough he had locked the trailer door and read it cover to cover. Naturally, he was eager to meet Luttrell, but he needed to get in line.

Meanwhile, the director was finishing up post-production on the 2007 war film “The Kingdom.” After setting up a meeting with Luttrell he asked the soldier, whose career was finally brought to an end after blowing out both knees during his Iraq tour, to take a look at a rough assemblage to see if Berg was right for the job. “He told me at the end that he was going to give it to me and that I better not fuck it up,” Berg said.

For Luttrell, it was the “The Kingdom’s” attention to detail that sold him on Berg. “Normally when you watch a film, you get sucked into it,” he said. “You forget. ‘That’s not Mark Wahlberg. That’s not Taylor Kitsch. That’s so and so.’ If they’re good actors, they bring you into that. But when I watched ‘The Kingdom,’ I wasn’t paying attention to the actors. All I was watching was the attention to detail and how he portrayed the enemy. Attention to detail is such a big part of our community and our lives. That’s how he won it.”

Speaking of community, much of the discussion revolved around a sentiment you often hear from weathered war veterans, that it’s about forming a bond. It’s about the person standing right next to you as you go through hell together. “The only people who knows exactly what you are and what you’re capable of is the guy to the right and left of you,” Luttrell said. “I tried to explain that to one of the wives one time. She was sitting there crying – and I didn’t say this to her, obviously – but she was talking and saying, ‘You just didn’t know my husband like I did.’ And in the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘I know your husband better than you. I know everything about him. I know what he smells like after day one as opposed to day two without a shower. I know how he moves in the dark. I know what he’s going to do, and not only do I know everything about him, I know everything about you.'”

You don’t really know who your friends are until you’re in a tight spot with them, Luttrell said. And the SEALs’ training, he said, is geared toward that very concept from day one. All of that is imparted in the film between this tight ensemble, that sense of intense loyalty.

The question for “Lone Survivor,” as it pertains to the business of this outlet, is whether it’s an awards movie or not. Universal Pictures announced in June that the film would be platformed beginning in late December before going wide in January in order to qualify for the Oscar race, but it seems a curious play. The film is a technical marvel in many ways, particularly aurally: the sound branch will certainly be considering it heavily. And the makeup, as well, depicting the gruesome effects of SEALs’ tribulations during the aforementioned firefight sequence is quite worthy. Berg deftly handles the material, too, though it’s hard to pin-point a stand-out in the ensemble. Foster was a personal favorite (also great this year in “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”).

But while it hits some emotional beats at the end that could go a long way for some voters, “Lone Survivor” is not the sort of film to normally register with AMPAS. It’s a sterling monument to modern warfare, perhaps the most definitive big screen account of the war in Afghanistan to date (not that there is a huge crop to pull from), but it may have been a mistake to toss it into the race, where the bar of expectation is sometimes too high and the fight for attention at the box office can be even worse. Nevertheless, Universal will give it a shot and the first stop will be the film’s world premiere at AFI Fest on Nov. 12.

And awards film or not, none of that, of course, is to take away from Luttrell’s story, his valor or the cast and crew’s handling of it in the film. To say nothing of the bravery shown by a local village in ensuring Luttrell’s rescue due to their 2,000-year-old code of Pashtunwali, which I haven’t even touched on here. Those kinds of things register in far deeper and lasting ways than the tiny world we cover here on a day-to-day basis.

“Lone Survivor” opens in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 27. It opens wide on Jan. 10.

Here’s a fact of which not all awards-watchers are entirely aware: Michael Haneke hasn’t won an Oscar. Neither has Francois Truffaut, nor Luis Bunuel. Pedro Almodovar has one for writing, but that’s it. Ang Lee has two for directing, but nothing for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” And Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa each won honorary Oscars, but no competitive ones between them.

At this point, some of you might be crying foul. You expressly remember Haneke accepting his Oscar only a few months ago. You’ve definitely seen Almodovar give two acceptance speeches. And you know your Oscar history: Fellini has four of the damn things. What gives?

The connecting factor, of course, is that all these filmmakers have directed winners of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; in most cases, they took the stage, gladly accepted the golden statuette and promptly took it home with them for keeps. The award is, to all intents and purposes, theirs: unlike the producer-oriented Best Picture category, the Academy recognizes the director as the chief creative force behind a foreign-language winner, so they get to claim the credit.

Officially, however, the director is merely a proxy recipient. That Oscar isn’t in their name, but that of the country they represent – or, at least, the one they represented in that particular race. Austria was an Oscar winner this year, but Michael Haneke was not. Italy has been one many times over; directors from Fellini to Benigni were only accepting on her behalf. In an institution otherwise dedicated to rewarding individual artistry, it may sound ungainly to hand an award to an entire country, but that’s the reality: the director gets to hold the award because, well, someone has to. We attribute it to them for reasons of both convenience and fairness – it’s simply easier to say “Oscar-winning director Susanne Bier” than “Denmark’s Oscar enabler Susanne Bier” – but official Academy records won’t reflect that reasonable deduction.

At best, this can be viewed as a minor, quirky technicality of a faintly communist persuasion, an anti-auteurist stance that dates back to a time when films were scene less as the creations of individual imaginations than as the team-built products of national industries. It’s an opportunity for some innocuous flag-waving, and the director still gets to keep the gold at the end of the day; why not let the semantic issue lie?

On the one hand, the existing notion of the foreign-language Oscar race as a kind of cinematic Olympic Games is cute enough: as a South African who well remembers the eight-year-old win for Gavin Hood’s “Tsotsi,” I know there’s much to be said for the surge of national goodwill that such a victory prompts. (Hell, even more patriotic mania surrounded Charlize Theron’s Best Actress win two years before, and the country couldn’t take any credit for that at all.) But it’s a dated and dishonest conception that’s frankly out of step with the growing realities of global film production, where an ever-dwindling number of films can legitimately claim to be the product of a single nation.

It’s an incongruity that has already resulted in some technically wonky wins. Michael Haneke may have richly deserved the Oscar for “Amour,” but whether Austria was equally deserving of an undivided award for a French-set, significantly French-financed co-production that most viewers would casually identify as “French” is open to question – it’s a peculiar irony that their claim to the Oscar lies principally in the director, yet the director doesn’t win the award himself.

The fragile system will look especially farcical if Iranian auteur Asghar Farhadi, director of 2011’s winner “A Separation,” accepts this year’s award for his acclaimed domestic melodrama “The Past” – as many think he might. The French-set film’s producing countries are France and Italy, yet it’s Iran that would officially receive the award for a film in which they had no production input, beyond being the motherland of its gifted, globe-trotting creator. Farhadi’s personal Oscar count, meanwhile, would remain stuck at zero. This is hardly ideal.

A nomination for Iran and “The Past” is a possibility that would have been barred by the Academy only a few years ago, when rules dictated that films had to be in the official language of the submitting country to be eligible. Changing the rule was a good move, allowing a wider range of notable films to be considered, and at least acknowledging the existence of co-productions in the first place. (As it happens, it was the disqualification in 2005 of another Franco-Austrian Haneke film, “Cache” that proved the final straw.) But it’s left the category with the ill-fitting exoskeleton of a submissions system that is no longer fit for purpose: contender identities are being confusingly fudged, while outstanding co-productions too splintered to be claimed by any one country aren’t getting in on the race at all.

Meanwhile, even the Academy has started vocally doubting the unreliable national submissions process: following controversially counter-intuitive selections this year from such countries as India and Japan, and the date-dictated ineligibility for France’s “Blue is the Warmest Color,” committee chairman Mark Johnson admitted the time may have come to “radically look at” allowing wild-card entrants into the race. That’s all well and good, but we get to the stage where a film can compete without being submitted by any country, who or what will officially claim its award? Won’t it then be time to drop the silly pretense of a national competition altogether, and have the Best Foreign Language Film longlist compiled from within the Academy?

Alternatively, just bring the Best Picture competition in line with the foreign-language category, and have producers accept on behalf of the winner’s country of origin. Perhaps it’d take Britain and the United States coming bitterly to blows over “12 Years a Slave” for the Academy to see that something here’s not working.

Check out my updated predictions here.

Nick Kroll, the comedian and “Kroll Show” star, will host  IFP’s Gotham Independent Film Awards on Monday, Dec. 2 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Among the films up for the top award are “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” “Before Midnight,” “Inside Llewyn Davis” “12 Years a Slave” and “Upstream Color.” See the full list of nominees here.

“We are so thrilled that Nick Kroll will be hosting the Gotham Awards this year,” said IFP’s Joana Vicente in a press release. “Coming off an exciting year with a new Comedy Central series, and winning the Just for Laugh”s Breakout Comedy Star of the Year award, his humor and talent are sure to make the Gotham”s one of the most entertaining awards shows of the season.”

Kroll can also be seen on FXX”s “The League,” and he recently took part in the Comedy Central Roast of James Franco.

“I cannot wait to host the Gotham Awards as I’ve always wanted to meet Batman in person,” added Kroll. “This is just one example of the soon-to-be classic jokes I will bring to this celebrated event. Seriously, it’s an honor to be asked by IFP.