Forest Whitaker’s awards season prospects are very much in flux: his potential Oscar nomination for summer hit “The Butler” (which would be only the second of his career) is largely dependent on whether or not certain prestige films take hold in the months to come. One honor he’ll definitely be receiving, however, is the Actor Tribute at the indie-oriented Gotham Awards on December 2. “Breaking boundaries and challenging audiences with complex, multifaceted roles, Forest Whitaker is a significant independent voice whose performances have only been elevated by his visionary work as a producer, director and humanitarian,” says Gotham Award director Joana Vicente. Previous recipients of the tribute include Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon and Robert Duvall. [Hollywood Reporter]

How Iran’s selection of a non-Iranian production, “The Past,” as their foreign Oscar submission signals a “cultural thaw.” [New York Times]

R. Kurt Osenlund considers the Oscar prospects of the Coens’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” [The House Next Door]

Amanda Dobbins revels in the fact that “Gravity” is an Oscar movie that is only 91 minutes long. [Vulture]

Meanwhile, can the film reignite public interest in space stories? [Slate]

Palestinian Oscar hopeful “Omar” has been, well, adopted by Adopt Films in the US. [IndieWire] 

Nathaniel Rogers muses on the Oscar Bait Unknowns, the likely coronation of Cate Blanchett, the Original Song shortage, and other points of awards discussion. [The Film Experience]

Willem Dafoe, whom you may remember starred in 2002’s “Spider-Man,” comes down hard on the franchise’s “cynical” reboot. [Total Film]

A court has ruled that “Avatar” is James Cameron’s original creation. Well, legally, at any rate. [Variety]

For nationwide audiences, the wait is over. And hopefully we haven’t built it up too much around here but me, Greg, Guy, Drew — we’re pretty much over the moon for “Gravity,” an experience like none you’ve ever had in a theater. I caught it twice at Telluride and it seemed at the time that a tandem piece with “All is Lost” made sense, given thematic and narrative parallels. We’ve talked to the film’s director, Alfonso Cuarón, as well as producer David Heyman and star Sandra Bullock. It truly is one of the great movies of our era and I’m not personally concerned about overstating it. Now, however, it’s your turn. So when you get around to seeing it this weekend or whenever, please tell us what you thought in the comments section and feel free to vote in our poll. I know I’ll be heading out to see it in IMAX tonight and, at some point, Dolby Atmos. It warrants multiple trips to the multiplex, I think.

By now, you’ve surely heard — or seen for yourself — that Sandra Bullock is excellent in “Gravity.” Critics who never much cared for the star in her signature romantic comedies, or her Oscar-winning dramatic turn in “The Blind Side,” are now hailing her work as an imperiled astronaut adrift in space as a revelatory breakthrough. “Who knew?” they ask.

Well, hold up a minute. Some of us knew, and not just the Academy members who checked off her name in the 2009 Best Actress race. “Gravity” may be a better, more ambitious film than the vast majority of Sandra Bullock’s output, but that doesn’t mean it magically transformed her overnight into a gifted actress. She’s always been this good, it’s just that you’ve sometimes had to look past the films to see it. Even then, not always; for every shoddy B-movie of which she’s been the saving grace, there’s another exemplary genre piece in which she has equally excelled. Nobody was calling her immaculately timed comic turn in this summer’s delightful action-comedy “The Heat” a revelation, for example, but I’d argue that it’s every bit as strong a showcase for her abilities as “Gravity.”

It may seem a stretch to apply the “underrated” label to an Oscar-winning megastar with large and devoted fanbase, but at the same time, there’s a large portion of her filmography that isn’t remembered as fondly as it should be, whether it’s because the films themselves were too commercial or too poorly received, or her own estimable skills were being taken for granted.

With that in mind, we thought this was the right moment to shine a light on a handful of her less celebrated — but nonetheless notable — performances, to prove that she’s had the goods all along. Some are dramatic, some are comedic. Some are in high-profile films; others have definitely fallen by the wayside. Some of them registered with her fanbase, others didn’t. All of them, however, are better than most of you probably remember them being — if, indeed, you remember them at all. 

We’ve left out strong performances for which she received due credit: her superb Harper Lee in “Infamous,” for example, or her star-sealing sweetheart turn in “While You Were Sleeping.” A list of Sandra Bullock’s very best performances would look very different. (And, yes, would definitely include “Gravity.”) Consider this a tribute to the hard graft she puts in even when the chips — or the critics — are down. 

Check out the gallery below, and share your own favorite Sandra Bullock performances — underrated or otherwise — in the comments.

Cate Blanchett, as you may have heard, received a Gala Tribute at the New York Film Festival last night. On the one hand, such events are opportunities for actors to bask in the warm glow of others’ admiration, in return for doling out a few anecdotes and quotable (usually self-deprecating) reflections on their life and work. On the other, however, they can be key campaign stops for actors on the awards trail, and for Blanchett – the incumbent Best Actress frontrunner for her riveting comeback performance in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” – this was her first significant PR opportunity of the season, considering how unassumingly the art house hit opened in the summer.

And by all accounts – I certainly wish I could tell you this first-hand – she aced it. That’s no surprise, of course: 15 years on from her first Oscar season, the Australian star has been on the scene long enough for her intelligence, wit and passion for her craft to have registered as emphatically as her on-screen gifts.

Blanchett’s personal charm, meanwhile, is best exemplified by her televised reactions during the presentation of the 2007 Best Actress Oscar: the mortified grimace on her face after watching her own shouty performance clip from “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (not a favorite of hers, one suspects), followed immediately by her palpably sincere surprise and delight when Marion Cotillard is revealed as the winner. The Academy’s official YouTube clip of the moment, unfortunately, omits the former, but it remains one of my most treasured Oscarcast moments.

This will be – and I think it’s safe, even in early October, to use the words “will be” – the sixth Oscar nomination of Blanchett’s career, and could be her second win. It’s a formidable number: six will bring her level with the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Smith and Sissy Spacek, and in a shorter space of time to boot.

Yet it’s not a haul that’s even fully representative of her remarkable career to date, just as that single supporting win for her flashily clever Katherine Hepburn impression in Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator” hardly feels like the pinnacle of her achievements. (I consider that reason enough to hope she maintains the lead for a far more intricate – and leading – performance in “Blue Jasmine,” whoever her eventual competition.)

Indeed, my two favorite Blanchett performances went right over the heads of Oscar voters, both of them in the oddly awards-fallow period that followed her auspicious 1998 breakthrough in “Elizabeth.”

I remember watching her dazzling turn as flighty, awkward extroverted society heiress Meredith Logue in “The Talented Mr. Ripley” a year later, thinking she had to be a cinch for an Oscar nomination, if not the award itself: it’s a character and performance so subtly attuned to the manners (and malice) of Patricia Highsmith’s writing that’s hard to believe Meredith is an original creation by Blanchett and Anthony Minghella.

Given the lingering hoopla surrounding Blanchett’s unpopular loss to her “Ripley” co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, she seemed primed for a rebound nod, but the film didn’t quite take hold with the Academy and the opportunity was lost. (She at least got a BAFTA nomination for her trouble.) The eventual Best Supporting Actress field was an unusually fine one – Angelina Jolie, if you’ve forgotten, beat Toni Collette, Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener and Chloe Sevigny – but I’d have voted for Blanchett, in a heartbeat, over the lot of ’em.

Three years later, I was never under any illusion that Blanchett would receive any Oscar attention for her transfixing performance as an improbable terrorist in Tom Tykwer’s vastly under-appreciated “Heaven,” though that had more to do with the cool, morally vacillating film – scripted by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski – than her own teasing, challenging, profoundly moving work in it.

Blanchett brooks no discussion of character motive in the film, yet her face – granted one glorious close-up after another – suggests endless possibilities. More, possibly, than the character knows herself. Kieslowski may not have directed the film, but her performance is plainly of a piece with Juliette Binoche’s in “Three Colors: Blue,” or Irene Jacob’s in “The Double Life of Veronique.” I wonder if it came up in the NYFF tribute. I hope it did.

Ditto her wonderfully broad turn as an adventure-seeking housewife in Barry Levinson’s largely forgotten “Bandits,” the best proof to date of her underutilized skills as an outright comedienne. Her introductory scene, performing culinary karaoke to Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero,” has been rewound and replayed many times in this household.

My favorite from Blanchett’s gallery of Oscar-nominated performances, meanwhile, remains her Bob Dylan – sorry, “Jude” – in Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There”: a wickedly funny stunt that reflects the political, social and sexual curiosities of an entire generation, but also a spiny, specific feat of individual characterization, not to mention a damn good Dylan impersonation. It’s a performance that could be a cold technical exercise and winds up warmly, playfully alive; as pleased as I am that Tilda Swinton won an Oscar for elevating and complicating “Michael Clayton,” in what seems likely to remain her only such window of opportunity, I maintain that Blanchett deserved it in a walk.

That Blanchett is returning to Haynes in the upcoming “Carol” is enough to get me fidgety with excitement; that the project also marks a return to the world of Patricia Highsmith seems almost too perfect to be true. It’s the most exciting of a host of projects Blanchett has lined up – including her directorial debut, “The Dinner” – now that her theater-oriented sabbatical in Sydney is over. It’s good to have her back in full swing. Here’s hoping last night’s NYFF celebration, and her imminent Oscar nod, are nothing but mid-career markers.

What’s your favorite Cate Blanchett performance? Tell us in the comments, and rank her Oscar-nominated performances in the poll below.

Producer David Heyman’s relationship with Alfonso Cuarón actually began well before he tapped the filmmaker for a new direction in the “Harry Potter” franchise back in 2004. They were thinking of collaborating on an adaptation of William Sutcliffe’s 1999 road trip novel “Are You Experienced?,” but the project fell through. Cuarón went on to make “Y Tu Mamá También” and Heyman went on to shepherd the “Harry Potter” books to the screen. When it came time for a stylistic detour in that series, Cuarón was the first artist Heyman had in mind.

“There were several reasons I thought he was the perfect choice [for ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’],” Heyman says. “One, I loved ‘A Little Princess’ and I also liked his first film a lot. I felt that he had a really keen understanding of teenagers. ‘Y Tu Mamá’ was about the last moments of being a teenager and this third ‘Harry Potter’ was about the first moments of being a teenager. He was good at bringing sort of the truthfulness to the relationships.”

For Heyman it was about cultivating a sense of modernity to an already wildly successful film franchise. The way to sustain the series was to reinvigorate it after director Chris Columbus had done such a definitive job of setting up the world. “Even though, funny enough, his film was the least successful of the eight financially, Alfonso sort of redirected the series in such a way that it allowed us to continue on to make eight films,” Heyman says. “He allowed us to grow up.”

Cut to five years later and Cuarón is out on a bit of a limb with a hugely challenging concept: “Gravity.” Heyman didn’t even need to read the script to know that he was in for whatever ride was in store. And as it would turn out, it would be quite the eventful ride indeed, both in front of and behind the camera.

“I would make the phone book with Alfonso Cuarón,” Heyman says. “When he asked me to get involved there was not a moment’s hesitation. And when I read the script, I really loved it.  It was an edge-of-your-seat script and I thought it would be great to work with him, but I had no idea how challenging and hard it would be to make because Alfonso’s vision was so specific with these long shots and sort of the way he wanted the film to look. You know, three shots take up 30 minutes of the film. At the end of it we had to develop methods with which to realize it.”

Cuarón is a filmmaker, Heyman notes, who is “quite rightly” challenging. He is always testing boundaries and that, Heyman says, brings out the best in his collaborators. “He never settles,” Heyman says. “He’s always pushing. So I knew I had a chance to be part of something special and extraordinary because that’s who he is.”

Nevertheless, even when Cuarón asked Heyman to come on board, no one really knew how this the film would be realized. For a film that took nearly four years to achieve, only 60 days of it involved actual on-set production with actors Sandra Bullock and George Clooney at London’s Shepperton and Pinewood Studios with an excursion in Lake Mead for some outdoor photography. There was a long research and development process and even the day before filming commenced, the technology didn’t work. “That was a rather heart-stopping moment,” Heyman confides. But it worked out, and here “Gravity” sits, a technical marvel unlike anything the cinema has ever seen.

Such an experience is both thrilling and terrifying, Heyman admits. It’s scary in the sense that Cuarón is a filmmaker constantly evolving during production, constantly changing things, bending the process to the shape of his vision. Finding the right path to those ends can be a bit of an adventure. But that, too, is why it’s so thrilling.

“It’s hard but it’s also exciting because you know that every step of the way he’s making it better,” Heyman says. “And as I said, when you work with him you know you’re going to be part of something that’s extraordinary. It’s great to be with someone who is willing to push the envelope to such a degree that it might not work. It’s what a producer wants, you know?”

Heyman makes it a point to mention repeatedly that Cuarón is the kind of filmmaker who knows precisely the film he wants to make as he sets out to make it. Nothing is left for discovery after the fact, as in, Cuarón is not the sort of filmmaker to shoot a lot of material and “find” the film in the editing. More and more filmmakers seem to gravitate toward that approach, and for someone like Heyman, who’s early days in the film industry involved working with David Lean as a runner on “A Passage to India” — a filmmaker who left no room for error, he notes — it’s refreshing to be confronted with such a willful perspective.

“The films that I like are films that have a very distinct point of view,” Heyman says. “And those filmmakers become who there are because they have a real sense of what they are, how it’s all going to go together…Even with a big franchises when they’re in the hands of people who are filmmakers, whether it be Alfonso Cuarón or Chris Nolan or whoever, you can feel that point. It’s what gives it a vision.

“There are films that are made in the editing room. That may work for some films and inevitably the editing room is a place where a film is, you know, it’s the next stage in the creation of the film. And even on ‘Gravity,’ which was very carefully structured and defined, pre-visualized, there were changes. Alfonso made changes because he learned as he went what was working best and what wasn’t, how to tell the story in the way that he wanted. But the film he thought about at the beginning was the film we saw at the end. So, too, with “Potter.'”

“Gravity” hits theaters in IMAX and 3D tomorrow.

Welcome back. It”s hard for me to truly appreciate that this is the eighth season of Tech Support here at In Contention (third in our association with HitFix). I”m pleased to say that this column has come a long way during this time, as has media coverage of below-the-line Oscar races as a whole.*

What is Tech Support? Well, over the next 10 weeks in this space, we will analyze each of the crafts category Oscar races: Best Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects.

By the way, we’ve received some flak in the past for calling this column “Tech Support.” As Randy Thom famously noted when winning the sound editing Oscar for “The Incredibles,” these awards recognize artistic decisions. “Tech” has an unfortunately pejorative connotation in that regard (not that the work recognized annually by the Academy at the Scientific & Technical Awards should be somehow considered “lesser-than,” as taking such exception would unintentionally imply), but we all know why we’re here: to celebrate crafts, not to get hung up on catchy column titles.

It is undeniable that the individuals awarded in these 10 categories are artists in every sense of the word. There are certain films that are unimaginable without the accomplishments of their crafts artists. Imagine “2001: A Space Odyssey” without its breed of visual effects, “Cleopatra” without its landmark costumes, “JFK” without its immersive film editing, “Apocalypse Now” without its iconic cinematography and, well…the list is endless.

Exploring the characteristics of the Academy’s various branches – what they value, their independence from other branches” preferences and their openness to new nominees – is one of the great joys of writing this column. Hopefully we help people gain an appreciation of eight distinct groups of artists within the Academy, with the result being a better understanding of the Oscar race as a whole. That has been the stated goal from day one.

But equally important to us is looking at the individual contenders themselves, the artists who actually end up with the nominations. Several of them will take to the podium at the Dolby Theater in March as Oscar winners.

By starting in October, we have seen many of the contenders either in theaters or at any number of film festivals, from Sundance to Cannes to Venice to Toronto, Telluride and New York. Looking at the roll-out so far, one would suspect that films such as “12 Years a Slave” and “Gravity” have the makings of crafts category behemoths, both with release dates right around the corner. Other films that one would suspect might make an appearance range from “Rush” to “Pacific Rim” to “The Great Gatsby.”

Then there are the (mostly) unseen titles. “The Monuments Men,” “Saving Mr. Banks” and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” immediately jump to mind as films with great below-the-line potential.

Today, however, strikes me as primarily a day for anticipation of the race, and reflection on the achievements of our crafts artists as a whole. So what about these categories really excites you? A particular race? Phenomenon? Artist you”re rooting for? Achievement you”re especially anxious to see? Something that”s already really impressed you?

And do you have any particularly fond memories of craft races gone by? “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s” film editing win, and that whacky tie in Best Sound Editing last year, both jump to mind as events I”ll never forget – in a good way.

It”s good to be back. Next week we begin with the always-stacked category of Best Cinematography.

*This was perhaps best showcased by the International Cinematographers Guild recently recognizing Kris with a much-deserved award for shining light on cinematographers through journalism.

Tom Hanks’ two-pronged Oscar campaign this year seems to be going well enough on either side of the Atlantic, but the resurgent actor is really courting the British vote this year. He’s the unofficial mascot of the BFI London Film Festival, appearing on the red carpet next Wednesday for the fest opener “Captain Phillips,” and returning to close things out with the world premiere of “Saving Mr. Banks” on October 20. Before, then, meanwhile, he’ll be the subject of a BAFTA ‘Life in Pictures’ tribute evening, where he’ll discuss his career and his craft before a London audience. Previous luminaries to have been hosted in such a way include Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren. Hanks has never won a competitive BAFTA, though he accepted an honorary award at BAFTA Los Angeles’ Britannia Awards a few years back. [BAFTA]

Scott Tobias on how “Gravity” at once demonstrates the limitations and miraculous possibilities of CGI. [The Dissolve]

Scott Feinberg on how “Enough Said,” Nicole Holofcener’s lovely romcom for grownups, is building awards momentum. I hope he’s right. [The Race]

Amy Kaufman on the conflicted Hollywood presence of the late Tom Clancy. [LA Times]

Blake Lively in “Gravity?” Benicio Del Toro in “Star Trek Into Darkness?” Kyle Buchanan on the stars almost cast in some of 2013’s biggest films. [Vulture]

“Diana” director Oliver Hirschbiegel answers his (many) critics, and explains why his approach to the film was “un-British.” [Screen Daily]

Richard Kuipers is impressed by the Philippines’ Oscar submission, “Transit.” [Variety]

Xan Brooks on “Before Midnight” and its “unfashionably early” arrival in the awards race. [The Guardian]

Nathaniel Rogers revives a feature beloved by online Oscar nostalgists: the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Who shoulda won in 1980? [The Film Experience]

Based on the events of the past week you’d think Tinseltown was on the edge of having some sort of dramatic breakdown. Let us count the ways…

Harvey Weinstein says it’s the most competitive season he’s ever seen and the best film he’s seen so far this year isn’t his (“Prisoners,” which really isn’t a player). Sony Pictures Classics moves the intriguing Bennett Miller drama “Foxcatcher” to 2014 (much to the delight of every other Sony and SPC contender). Paramount Pictures lays off 100 people (including some publicists) and then Wednesday Universal announced James Schamus was leaving his post as CEO of Focus Features at the end of the year. Of course, that’s really not the case. Universal is booting him out to bring in FilmDistrict’s Peter Schlessel to transform Focus into, um, FilmDistrict 2.0? From all accounts Schlessel is a nice guy, but he’s done little outside of distributing “Drive” that is anywhere near Schamus’ record of modern classics (most of which have more than delivered for Focus’ parent company). “Brokeback Mountain,” “Atonement,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Coraline,” “Lost in Translation,” “Milk,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Milk,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “Far From Heaven,” “The Constant Gardener,” “In Bruges,” “Beginners,” “Eastern Promises” and “Moonrise Kingdom,” among others. And Schamus is also the man who made sure films like “Pariah,” “Sin Nombre” and “Brick” got major distribution

(Depression break. A moment please. This is even sadder than I first thought.)

(OK, we’re back. Be strong cinephiles! We’ve still got Fox Searchlight, SPC and A24 Films, etc., to wave the banner for great independent cinema!)

Of course, this season Focus has the moving drama “Dallas Buyers Club” opening in limited release on Nov. 1. Stars Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto are pretty much Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor locks. And, as for Best Picture? Well, this pundit still thinks it’s in. But, all in all, what a week! And then again, not so much for those at the top of the Best Picture race. “Gravity,” “12 Years A Slave” and “Captain Phillips” are all moving along at a steady pace. As someone I know always likes to say, “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” And all this distraction is just that. Distraction from the race at hand. Therefore, let’s move on, shall we? Here’s the latest edition of the contender countdown of where the Best Picture race stands today.

Thurs. Oct. 3

1. “Gravity”
This week’s critics’ raves…

2. “12 Years A Slave”
…all the critical raves in two weeks.

3. “Captain Phillips”
Moving right along, pt. 1. Tracking for a very solid box office debut. Positive LA screening at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. No pirates in sight.

4. “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”
The Weinstein Company needs to turn the campaign thrusters up in November and December (Oprah, anyone?) but in many ways this is the “Crash” Harvey hoped “Bobby” would be (at least in terms of a Best Picture nomination).

5. “Inside Llewyn Davis”
Moving right along, pt. 2. Grew the New York vote with a NYFF screening and a buzz-worthy charity concert. To say this will be the pick of the music-friendly members of AMPAS is an understatement.

6. “Blue Jasmine”
The producers of “Jasmine” are no doubt thrilled “Foxcatcher” moved out of their way. No disrespect to “The Past,” but Woody Allen’s drama is now 100% SPC’s premier player this year.

7. “Dallas Buyer’s Club”
Sad days for the indie outlet formerly known as Focus Features, but that shouldn’t stop the groundswell of support for “Dallas.” James Schamus should end his tenure with another Best Picture nominee.

8. “Nebraska”
This feels like a slot that either “Nebraska” or “All is Lost” will fill. Honestly, Bruce Dern may will this nomination all by himself.

9. “Saving Mr. Banks”
In many ways, the last great reveal.

10. “The Monuments Men”
Rumor is it’s back in the game. Could it be this year’s “Django Unchained”?

What do you think of the state of the Best Picture race? Has the reality that Focus Features is really no more sunk in yet? Share your thoughts below.

There’s a Fiona Apple lyric I tend to think of — and yes, I know it’s not the first I’ve quoted in relation to the Oscar race — at the outset of any awards season these days, a wistful description of a broken relationship that seems oddly applicable to the many films that are about to get tossed aside at various intervals over the next five months. “It ended bad,” she croons with pained acceptance, “but I love where it started.”

Well, “ended bad” may be a little strong. In six of the last seven years, the season has concluded with a film I actually like winning the Oscar for Best Picture. In a couple of cases, I’d even have voted the same way. But however just the outcome, the awards race is never more fun than it is at the very brink of autumn, when dozens of shiny prestige prospects loom enticingly in the middle distance — their potential still undented by the complicating process of actually being seen. At the same time, the critical darlings of summer are fresh in our memories, still warm with hope that they may be The One That Survives. Everyone’s a contender at the start of September; virtually every year, we marvel at how “crowded” the field is, wondering how we’ll ever winnow it down.

But we do, and we do so rather quickly. The shaping begins in the very first week of September, as the combined — only occasionally conflicting — forces of Venice, Telluride and Toronto convert the potential of some into authentic buzz, make instant also-rans of others, and introduce a few we didn’t even know were lurking there all along. Once autumn’s offerings have been opened, the summer set seem that much older; some beloved titles we stop mentioning altogether, without pausing to think why. The race snugly softens and molds around those that remain, rather than stiffly covering all of them; like expensive selvedge denim, only with slightly more shrinkage.

The shaping seemed particularly zealous in Toronto this year — though maybe it was because I’d been in Venice, where the last mention of the O-word came about three days in, after “Philomena” premiered to what, only a month later, seems a weirdly rapturous response. (Or maybe not so weirdly: from the outside, no one seemed to be talking about the easygoing Britpic at Toronto, yet it snuck its way to second place in the Audience Award voting.) The biggest talking point on the Lido was a 12-minute take of Lee Kang-cheng tearfully mutilating a cabbage in “Stray Dogs,” yet his Oscar buzz has remained strangely flat.

Meanwhile, in Telluride and then Toronto, a frontrunner was anointed with even more aggressive certainty than is usual in this particular circus. A generally level-headed colleague emailed me to explain that, as annoying as the breathless hype sounded to those of us not on the ground, it wasn’t misplaced: “12 Years a Slave” really was a dead cert to win Best Picture, and all arguments to the contrary were mere formalities. “Would you have given any film a prayer of beating ‘Schindler’s List’ had it appeared at this point in the season back in 1993?” he asked? I had to admit I wouldn’t have done, though I’d have been equally impatient to see it first.

Not that I mind the early jockeying. As frustrating as authoritative-sounding, festival-based Oscar pronouncements are to the non-Toronto crowd, the righteous-sounding pushback to any form of early prediction is rather more annoying. Guessing at, or even betting on, the Oscars at any stage is mere sport; to deem it inappropriate or somehow unfair to the contenders in play is both to credit the awards with considerably more gravitas than they deserve, and those writing about said awards with considerably more influence than they realistically have. 

Still, it was awfully hard to keep track of those early shifts in the race, so frequently and vehemently were they noted. “12 Years a Slave” was in across the board. “August: Osage County” was out — except for its performances, where questions of who was in, and who was out, and in the correct or incorrect category, were thrashed out on Twitter in far greater detail, and with far more enthusiasm, than the more fundamental question of whether the film was any cop. Idris Elba was out. Matthew McConaughey was so in. Directors with the audacity not to go to Toronto at all — oh, those incorrigible Coens — were on hold.

Most, if not all, of these declarations may be proven correct by January, though it’s hard to absorb them as gospel when you’re still waiting to see the film with your own eyes. “12 Years a Slave” may well enter the backlash stage before I join the chorus of even the first wave of euphoria/skepticism; by October 18, the date of its UK premiere, the counter-backlash may even be under way. (The film will be glad of it; after being declared a Best Picture-in-waiting at Toronto last year, “Argo” did itself an enormous favor by dimming its lights for a couple of weeks while more restlessly declarative pundits imagined “Lincoln” a done deal.)

The fall festivals are nearly a month-old memory, the field already leaner and more steeply raked than it was in early September, and I’m only now offering my first nomination predictions. If I’ve been a little slower than usual to join the prognostication parade, it’s because I’ve been a little slower than usual to see the films — and I’d prefer to enjoy them as films first, before analyzing what factors — only one of which tends to be the film’s own merit — went right or wrong for its Oscar campaign. “12 Years a Slave,” “Captain Phillips,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “August: Osage County,” even summer releases like “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”: all titles whose variable awards potential I know more intimately than the films themselves.

Some films may even be out of the running altogether by the time some of us get round to them, and that’s no bad thing. There’s a noble fascination to fine, Oscar-tailored films that never found the awards momentum they were seeking: Ramin Bahrani’s “At Any Price” generated awards talk for all of a second on the festival circuit last year, and I’ll still tell my fellow Brits to see it when it crawls onto UK screens this winter. (Just the other day, I caught a segment of “The Soloist” on TV, and was surprised by how entirely-okay it seemed. Also, you know what’s a pretty good film that no one tells you is pretty good? “Won’t Back Down.” But I’m straying off course here.)

Good films needn’t even be great to avoid evaporating when Oscar season does. They’re in a different category to genuinely remarkable early releases that probably never had Oscar on the cards anyway — let’s say “Stoker” or, at a marginally more Oscar-friendly push, “Frances Ha.” (Lest we forget, Noah Baumbach’s lovely film skipped away from Toronto last year with a modicum of Oscar buzz for its leading lady, before selflessly scuppering its own momentum to give the springtime at least one great movie.) And those are in a different category still to recent festival premieres that we know, sight unseen, aren’t getting Oscars, but are looking forward to seeing away. (I’m pretty sure I know why nobody at Toronto was talking about, oh, “The Railway Man,”but I still want to see it.)

We’re already past that nice point of knowingly blind optimism where virtually everything and everyone, we like to say, has a shot. Still, there’s room in my mind for all these films, even if there’s no room in the race: have-nots that still have (or might have) something, out but not down.

Check out my updated predictions here.

Film is an art but it’s also a business and the writing may well have been on the wall for Focus Features. It hurts, but it seems the rule is you don’t get to crank out that kind of an art house run and live too long to tell the tale. Indie/dependent divisions have been shuttering left and right for years. We lost Paramount Vantage. We lost Warner Independent. Sony Classics is the success model, 20 years strong, having figured something out. Fox Searchlight continues to find pay dirt, too. But they’re the exceptions. We should be so lucky that we got Focus for as long as we did.

But by the way, Focus Features isn’t going away. It is simply, by necessity, shifting its reach and identity. Some are writing about it like the sky is falling, like folding in FilmDistrict product and putting Peter Schlessel in charge is an affront. But I think a mixture of specialty and wide releases is a smart approach and, at the end of the day, it might provide an even better opportunity for specialty product to find its way at Focus as some of the other product (in theory) proves more profitable. This is their path, and I’m personally more positive than some of my colleagues.

“The breadth and depth of Peter”s experience in the film business including production, acquisitions, distribution and most recently running FilmDistrict, will be a tremendous asset to Focus Features as the company broadens its portfolio beyond the production and distribution of specialty product,” Universal Chairman Donna Langley said via press release. “Peter is one of the most talented executives in the industry and I”m confident that under his leadership, Focus will become even more of a force as the specialty film business continues to evolve.”

That last bit is key, it seems. What is a “specialty film” in this day and age? Is it really marked by prestige and/or a higher brow? I’m not so sure.

Meanwhile — and not that the occasion necessarily calls for a remembrance of Focus’ best work, since this isn’t a eulogy — it’s worth remembering the kind of exemplary films James Schamus was able to shepherd in his time there. The whole company was the result of a series of mergers, from October Films to Good Machine to Gramercy Pictures, all staying afloat during the turbulent ownership shifts at Universal in the 1990s, a period I paid attention to as I came into my own appreciation of film. Everything leading up to the big coming out of “The Pianist” in 2002 was exceptional, men like Schamus and Ted Hope and Bingham Ray and David Linde building something that would become a platform for what Focus would be.

Roman Polanski’s Holocaust drama was a major success, debuting at Cannes, and those of us following the race, and aware of the company’s success through USA Films and previous incarnations, knew it would be formidable in the fall. It went on to win three Oscars for Best Director, Best Actor (Adrian Brody) and Best Adapted Screenplay. Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven” was also part of that first year as Focus proper.

Over time, it wasn’t as if the company stuck strictly with the high brow, but a culture was cultivated. The greatest of them: Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation,” Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Walter Salles’ “The Motorcycle Diaries,” Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” and “Lust, Caution,” Rian Johnson’s “Brick,” the Coens’ “A Serious Man,” Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” and, just this year, Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines.”

You can (and should) stretch it back to USA Films to include Spike Jonze’s “Being John Malkovich,” Mike Leigh’s “Topsy-Turvy,” Stephen Daldry’s “Billy Elliot,” Steven Soderbergh’s “Traffic,” Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood For Love” and Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park.” Over that span of time, 89 Oscar nominations, 22 of them winners. The Best Picture nominees were “The Pianist,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Atonement,” “Milk” and “A Serious Man,” but the company never pulled one of those in, losing most infamously in 2005 to “Crash.” They’ll try for another notch this year with Jean-Marc Vallée’s exceptional “Dallas Buyers Club.”

It’s a staggering run, but it’s not going away. The ax hasn’t dropped. The division is adapting, and it should be, I think, celebrated for that. Survival is the endgame, after all, and if you manage a slate like that over 10 or 15 years, then you’ve made a significant mark.

Focus Features is not dead, but nevertheless, long live Focus Features.

There has already been a lot written about race in these initial stages of the Oscar season, and there will be plenty more to come — even if early projections of an 80% black Best Actor field seem increasingly unlikely to pan out. Kia Makarechi writes that he’s glad the likes of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael B. Jordan, Idris Elba and Forest Whitaker are in the awards conversation, but believes the supposed diversity of this year’s race is merely an illusion: “These roles have to be played by black actors … we’ll know when Hollywood casting directors and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences view people of color as deserving of equal opportunities to shine when a black man in the role of a fictional caring father, son, teacher, student, doctor, author or otherwise non-racially coded character is nominated for and wins Best Actor.” [Huffington Post]

Darren Aronofsky gives it up for “Gravity.” This is the kind of peer respect that’ll get Alfonso Cuaron into the Best Director race. [Twitter]

Speaking of Aronofsky, this interview he’s done with the newly re-energized Scarlett Johansson is a great read. [Interview]

Paramount has laid off 110 employees. Grim times. [Hollywood Reporter]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “Don Jon” has been declared “racist” by the Italian American One Voice Coalition. [The Guardian]

A filmmaker believes that last year’s limp Clint Eastwood vehicle “Trouble With the Curve” stole his idea. If it’s any comfort, it wasn’t a great idea. [Variety]

Tim Brayton wonders if there’s any hope for an interesting Best Animated Feature race this year. [The Film Experience]

Is Oscar-buzzed hostage drama “Captain Phillips” this year’s Oscar-buzzed hostage drama “Argo?” [Gold Derby] 

David Gordon Green talks about getting a “very exposed performance” out of Nicolas Cage in “Joe.” [Screen Daily]

Finally, J.J. Abrams admits he may have been a little over-reliant on lens flares in the past. [Crave]

Hey, boys and girls, it’s time for another movie marketing lesson from your friends at HitFix.

What do you do when you have a film that mostly appeals to men, but you want to make sure you get the attention of younger women? It’s really important those women go with their boyfriends on Friday and Saturday night, because that means their boyfriends will definitely go. Well, when your cast is limited to just two, cough, older, cough, actors, there isn’t much you can do. Sure, rave reviews (97% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8 100 grades so far on Metacritic) and amazing footage are selling it pretty damn well, but it’s opening week. The pressure is on! Someone in the studio is no doubt saying, “How can we liven things up a bit down the homestretch? I mean, yeah, the movie stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, but how do we make some noise on, y’know, those gossip sites (Sandra can’t do this on her own!)?”*

*(How can we get my daughter’s 15-year-old friends interested?)

Why, you pull out one of the oldest tricks in the book. You get some paparazzi-friendly beautiful actresses to walk down your opening week premiere red carpet.

No disrespect to the always debonair Clooney and the still stunning (and possibly now Best Actress frontrunner) Bullock, but all eyes were on Ms. Emma Watson at the New York premiere of “Gravity” Tuesday night. And, on cue, Ms. Watson playfully posed on the red carpet. Who else showed up?  None other than Katie Holmes (who Clooney greeted with a hug, no less). Yep, flip on any Entertainment Tonight, Access, E! or OMGwhatever tomorrow and you’ll see Watson and Holmes along with George and Sandy.

Does this move the needle for “Gravity’s” opening on Friday? Probably not. But it certainly doesn’t hurt. Plus, pre-release tracking is looking pretty good for Warner Bros. as it is. But, hey, let’s not jinx them, OK?

For some pretty photos from the New York “Gravity” premiere, check out the gallery embedded below.

Are you seeing “Gravity” this weekend? (I can tell you Tapley and I are catching it again.)

If we’ve said it once we’ve said it a hundred times: the Best Actor Oscar race is crowded this year. And that’s really putting it lightly. The amount of contenders that would be shoo-ins in any other year is unfortunate, really, because someone is going to come up with the short straw, and it won’t be pretty.

The roles are as varied as ever, con artists and bandits, leaders and slaves, heroes and everymen. The actors behind the work represent a brilliant cross-section of the industry, ages ranging from 16 to 77, legends rubbing elbows with up-and-comers.

Also notable is the prevalence of minority hopefuls. There’s a real opportunity for the Academy to break down a few barriers, but even if those ideals aren’t met, the line-up is sure to be filled out with top-tier work because the good news is, many of these performances absolutely deserve to be in the conversation.

Have a look at the gallery story below to read up on the 26 names we think are in the pool, and feel free to give us your thoughts on this year’s Best Actor race in the comments section.

The use of 3D in “Gravity” was part of the equation from the beginning. As director Alfonso Cuarón told me in an interview last week, the original title of the script was “Gravity: A Space Suspense in 3D.” Stereoscopic supervisor Chris Parks was involved in the imagery before cameras even began rolling, way back during the pre-visualization phase. It was crucial for the immersive experience Cuarón was looking for.

“The 3D is a character in the film, or it contributes to the character,” producer David Heyman says in the featurette below. “Alfonso really created something…that helps augment the feeling and emotion.”

Indeed, you’ve never experienced a film like “Gravity” and it has all the more resonance because it isn’t just spectacle. The immersion of the 3D in this film, it puts you there, experiencing the emotional journey of the character. That only amplifies the impact of the technology, and that’s why “Gravity” is one of the great films of our time.

Check out more from Cuarón, Parks, Heyman, Sandra Bullock and executive producer Nikki Penny regarding the third dimension of “Gravity” in the clip below.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47k_txhitg&w=640&h=360]

When “Blue Jasmine” opened in the summer, its awards talk initially revolved around Cate Blanchett’s certain Best Actress nod — but as the glowing reviews and remarkable box office continued, the conversation has expanded. Speaking about their 2013 Oscar strategy to Scott Feinberg, Sony Classics bosses Michael Barker and Tom Bernard say they’re confident the film will receive Best Picture nominations, along with nods for Sally Hawkins, Woody Allen’s screenplay (of course) and even the costumes. They also explain their decision to play any festivals with the film, while the conversation extends to “Before Midnight,” “The Invisible Woman,” and their foreign and documentary hopefuls.  [The Race]

Barker and Bernard also pop up in Tim Gray’s piece on how the Academy’s changes to the Best Foreign Language Film voting system might impact the category. Will voters watch all the nominees? [Variety]

Oscar-winning documentary director Charles Ferguson explains why he’s cancelling his planned Hillary Clinton film. [Huffington Post]

An excellent long read by A.O. Scott on this year’s racially-themed prestige films, and how cultural consensus on this topic continues to elude us. [New York Times]

Hong Kong’s Oscar submission, Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster,” leads the nominees for the Golden Horse Awards for Chinese-speaking territories. [Golden Horse]

Natalie Portman calls for more realistic female role models on screen: kickass female characters, she argues, aren’t necessarily feminist. [Elle]

Alfonso Cuaron on why most 3D films are “crap,” among other subjects. [Screen]

Anne Billson on the bothersome anonymity of so many contemporary film titles. [The Telegraph]

Steve Pond catches up with the past week’s back-and-forth developments in the Oscar race, and wonders — like everyone else — what’s up with “The Wolf of Wall Street.” [The Wrap]

Mark Kermode asks what value film critics retain in the internet age. [The Observer]

Tom Hanks walked the red carpet with the man he plays in “Captain Phillips,” Richard Phillips, Friday at the opening night of the 51st New York Film Festival. Unfortunately, Phillips couldn’t make it to Los Angeles for the West Coast premiere of the film tonight, but that wasn’t going to stop director Paul Greengrass from giving Phillips his due. Even after his ordeal of being taken hostage by Somali pirates in 2009, Phillips has returned to the sea as a ship captain. And as Phillips is actually setting sail this week (according to Greengrass at least), he said hello to everyone at the film’s Los Angeles premiere via Skype. It was a fleeting moment, but one that will be remembered by the Academy, guild and industry attendees who will spread their enthusiasm for the Best Picture contender (i.e., it was a nice PR win).

Hanks didn’t appear to be mingling at the reception afterward, but his three co-stars, Barkhad Abdi, Mahat Ali and Faysal Ahmed, were clearly the life of the party. The trio found themselves receiving kudos from some of the famous names in attendance and taking photos with a long line of fans. Some of the notables on hand included Bill Paxton, Emile Hirsch, John Krasinski, Stephen Merchant, Jason Isaacs, Lou Diamond Phillips and Courtney B. Vance.

Earlier in the day, In Contention’s own Kris Tapley spoke in-depth with Barkhad Abdi about learning from Hanks and trying to find empathy for his character. It’s well worth the read.

Yes, Oscar voters are getting to see “Phillips” on the coasts, but you won’t have to wait much longer. “Captain Phillips” opens nationwide on Oct. 11.

Barkhad Abdi could easily have been a statistic. He might not have made it out of a harrowing childhood alive. He was born in Somalia and lived in the chaos of Mogadishu where he was surrounded by murder, rape, robbery and a lack of structure and government. He was lucky enough to have parents who got him out of there, to Yemen for Middle School and, eventually, a lottery to the United States.

He moved to Minneapolis, but he hated the snow. Every year he would ask himself, ‘Why am I here?’ He drove a limousine. He was just a mild-mannered immigrant living his life when he was at a friend’s house one day and a commercial flashed on the screen: “Casting call. Tom Hanks. Local Somali actors.” Well, why not, Abdi figured.

“I went there and there were 700 people or more auditioning,” Abdi recalls. “The first day, with a little camera, they say, ‘What’s your name? Where are you from? How old are you?’ Then they gave me a little piece of paper saying to study the part of Muse and come back.”

The roles the production of “Captain Phillips” was looking for were four Somali pirates in the real-life account of an American commercial tanker ship captain taken hostage in 2009. Abdi showed up with three friends, making the experience a bit easier. The first day, they were all called on to split up into groups of four and act through the scenes. But initially, Abdi recalls, he and his friends didn’t quite have it.

“We didn’t do so good,” Abdi says. “So we went home and we practiced and came back to perform. And then we had two weeks of silence. But I put it out of my head; I was just living my life at the same time, working my job.”

A week later, he got into a car accident. Was it some weird harbinger telling him that his life was about to drastically change direction? Perhaps. Because a few days later he and his friends were called to come out to Los Angeles and meet director Paul Greengrass.

Abdi remembers the story of Richard Phillips and his Somali captors. He paid attention to it as it unfolded. But these were criminals. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to connect and really find the proper empathy to play this role, but eventually, he got there, recalling how his parents got him out of a terrible situation and how many aren’t so fortunate.

“What if I didn’t have such parents,” Abdi asks. “What if I was just another guy? I would be just like the pirates. The situation would give me no other choice. I’m at the stage in my life where I want to be somebody now, be married, but what if I was just stuck there? There’s no government for years, no jobs, no hope. So I think with people like that who were there and they grew up seeing all of this, it’s just normal to them. This is the way of life and you will only get out of it if you make money — enough money, not any money. Enough money to be somebody.”

Some are fortunate enough to have family who live elsewhere and send money, but what of those without relatives? Who is there for them? Piracy is a big deal to a lot of Somalis, Abdi says. It’s an internationally organized crime that represents an opportunity for many to break free of their situation. “For them, it’s just a way out,” Abdi says. “And I’m sure it takes them a long time to get a chance to be pirates.”

That was key for the film, for Billy Ray’s screenplay and for Greengrass’ depiction of these events. “Captain Phillips” isn’t interested in judgment of villainy, or of labeling villainy, even. It’s empathetic to its antagonists’ plight. And on set, Greengrass equated that experience for Abdi.

“I would get stuck in some scenes,” Abdi recalls. “Like in the lifeboat, I would get stuck, and he would take me aside and say, ‘You know the similarities between you and the real Muse?’ And I was shocked, thinking, ‘That guy’s a criminal.’ And he said, ‘That guy took a big risk on this piracy thing and he failed. And now you are taking a big risk in this big industry, and if you don’t do it right, you’ll fail.’ That motivated me.”

What also motivated Abdi was observing his co-star Tom Hanks on set. He wasn’t intimidated by this big movie star standing opposite him. He studied the man, driven by the choices Hanks was making.

“Tom would laugh with us and we’d joke around, and the second it’s, ‘action,’ he is the character,” Abdi says. “He doesn’t have to try. I would be thinking hard, trying to be the character, trying to get in my zone, but he doesn’t have to do that. Just, instantly, he’s the character. So when I see that, that would motivate me and just give me a reason to become the character even more.”

Abdi never saw himself as an actor. He probably never would have expected he’d get away from the chaos of Mogadishu or that he’d see that commercial on a television. He wouldn’t have imagined he’d be auditioning for a part in a Tom Hanks film, let alone landing it and learning from the legend on set. Yet here he is, an unlikely player in an Oscar race, an unlikely star in a Hollywood movie.

“I want to give it a chance,” Abdi says of this new bend in his life’s road. “People seem to love it, so I don’t see a reason to stop. I’m going to give it a chance.”

“Captain Phillips” arrives in theaters on Oct. 11.

It’s nice to see more and more of the year’s awards season players being evenly spread throughout the fall festival circuit. Venice got “Gravity” and “Philomena.” Telluride got “12 Years a Slave” and “Prisoners.” Toronto landed films like “August: Osage County,” “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.” New York, meanwhile, landed the trio of “Captain Phillips,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and “Her.” Even the London film fest got a nice first look at “Saving Mr. Banks” this year.

AFI Fest, as always, is utilized smartly by studios every year. In the middle of Oscar season, it’s a great opportunity to make a big splash with a cheap Los Angeles premiere, and films like “Saving Mr. Banks” has already been announced for a US premiere there, though a scheduled world premiere of “Foxcatcher” was nixed last week when that film was moved off its Dec. 20 release date and scheduled for 2014.

Three more films have been set as centerpiece screenings for this year’s AFI Fest. The first is a world premiere: Scott Cooper’s “Out of the Furnace,” which has mostly avoided the fall festival circuit save for a Dec. 6 Rome Film Festival berth (the day it releases domestically). The second is Ben Stiller’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” which will segue to the festival for its Los Angeles premiere after world premiering at NYFF on Oct. 5. And the third is Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” which will bring with it a tribute to actor Bruce Dern.

Cooper’s “Crazy Heart” follow-up features a stellar ensemble including Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker and Sam Shepard. So that promises some nice red carpet glitz, even if the film is anything but a glitzy affair. Relativity Media (with Paramount Pictures) also premiered “The Fighter” at AFI Fest in 2010.

It’ll be interesting to see how the studio can insinuate this one into the awards conversation with its keep-it-a-mystery strategy. The early December wide release will be right in the middle of a prestige glut, but I think we could see Christian Bale turn up in the lead actor conversation and a lot made of two completely different performances in this and David O. Russell’s “American Hustle,” while Casey Affleck and particularly Woody Harrelson could register in the supporting ranks. But we’ll see how it pans out.

“Walter Mitty,” meanwhile, will receive its big coming out next weekend in New York. Fox has played this one akin to its “Life of Pi” strategy last year, moving from CinemaCon to NYFF. Ben Stiller will likely find trouble breaking through in a tight Best Actor category, if the film ends up being an awards play at all (the studio also has “The Book Thief” on deck, though it may be too soft even for the Academy). Kristin Wiig is a supporting actress possibility and the film’s unique vision could bring it notice for film editing and visual effects, among other things.

“Nebraska,” well, I’m on the record.

The 2013 AFI Fest runs Nov. 7-14.