We’ll be analyzing the incredibly lackluster Best Animated Feature Film field in due time. Pieces are still falling into place and the race for the win looks to be another Pixar vs. in-house Disney showdown. A press release landed today announcing what at first looked to be another potential player, but it turns out Academy rules will actually keep it from qualifying.

The French-Belgian film “Approved for Adoption,” directed by Jung Henin and Laurent Boileau, is already a prize winner, having scooped up the Audience Award and the Unicef Award at the 2012 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The film traces the unconventional upbringing of Jung, one of thousands of Korean children adopted by Western families after the end of the Korean War. It melds animation and live action (even featuring super 8 home movie footage) to form a bit of a hybrid.

It’s that last bit that will keep it out of contention. I’m told that it is just (literally just) shy of qualifying in the animated feature race because it is 73 percent animation. The AMPAS requirement is 75 percent. And nevertheless, Jung identifies the film as non-fiction first and foremost. You might recall the last time an animated documentary was in the mix for both categories was 2009’s “Waltz with Bashir,” which ultimately failed to qualify as animation due to the use of rotoscoping technology and failed to qualify as a doc because that was back when you had to book your theatrical run by Aug. 31. (Luckily it had three shots on goal: “Bashir” was ultimately a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.)

They’ve done away with that doc rule now, and so “Approved for Adoption” should be eligible for the documentary feature race, unless the branch decides to disqualify it for whatever reason. You never can tell. The film will be released in New York on Nov. 8 and in Los Angeles on Nov. 22.

It’s too bad it can’t figure in to the animated field, though, given how truly thin it is and how something like this would really invigorate it. GKIDS can never be underestimated in that category. Landing a nomination for “The Secret of Kells” in 2009 and a pair of them for “A Cat in Paris” and “Chico & Rita” in 2011 was no small feat against the tempest of marketing and dollars you find at the big studios. That’s why we’ve had the beloved “Ernest & Celestine,” a touching watercolor adaptation that bowed at Cannes in 2012, firmly in our predictions since the word go. The distributor also has “A Letter to Momo” in the mix this year.

“Approved for Adoption” is, according to the press release, “the story of a boy stranded between two cultures. Sepia-toned animated vignettes – some humorous and some poetic – track Jung from the day he first meets his new blond siblings, through elementary school, and into his teenage years, when his emerging sense of identity begins to create fissures at home and ignite the latent biases of his adoptive parents…The result is a memoir like no other: clear-eyed and unflinching, humorous and wry, and above all, inspiring in the capacity of the human heart.”

By this point, it’s common knowledge that the Academy’s voting system for Best Foreign Language Film — or Best Foreign Language Film Approved And Selected By A National Committee That Is Also Agreeable To The Widest Academy Demographic And Was Domestically Released Within The Eligibility Window — is, to put it gently, somewhat flawed. Everyone has different ideas about how to fix it (including, to their credit, the Academy itself), but Toronto Film Festival director Cameron Bailey’s are more sensible than most. I wholeheartedly echo his statement that the idea of this being a country-based competition in this era of global co-production is archaic. Also interesting: he argues that requiring contenders to have a US release date would encourage increased distribution of foreign fare. Good points all round. [Variety]

Cannes sidebar hits “The Congress” and “Jodorowsky’s Dune” were among the big prizewinners at Fantastic Fest. [Twitch]

Andrew Pulver examines the Oscar prospects for British crowdpleaser “Philomena.” [The Guardian]

Jon Weisman on what went wrong with this year”s In Memoriam tributes at the Emmys – all awards show producers should really take note. [Variety]

On why recent Emmy winner Michael Douglas has been “taken for granted” by film awards. Well, the man has two Oscars. I think others have it worse. [LA Times]

In this week”s Criticwire survey, participants name the movies that their fellow critics got wrong. Well, “wrong.” [IndieWire]

An excellent essay by Dan Schindel on a widespread misconception about documentaries: why do so many people demand that they be “objective?” [Movie Mezzanine]

Adopt Films has acquired US rights to Israeli thriller “Bethlehem,” which has a strong chance of being the country”s Oscar submission this year. [Screen Daily]

The long-awaited adaptation of Lois Lowry’s “The Giver,” starring Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep, will be released on August 15 next year. [Cinema Blend]

At least three American awards hopefuls will have the chance to compete for some European festival hardware, as Spike Jonze’s “Her,” Scott Cooper’s “Out of the Furnace” and Jean-Marc Vallee’s “Dallas Buyers Club” are among the first four Competition selections announced for November’s Rome Film Festival. They’ll be joined by the world premiere of Spanish director Isabel Coixet’s “Another Me,” along with several others yet to be announced.

“Dallas Buyers Club,” which is angling for Best Actor consideration for Matthew McConaughey’s performance as an HIV sufferer taking on the medical system, already had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. “Her,” in which Joaquin Phoenix stars as a writer who falls in love with a computer operating system, will be unveiled at the New York Film Festival. “Out of the Furnace,” meanwhile, will screen at the fest shortly after it opens theatrically in Norway (six weeks before its US release). The film, Cooper’s first since his Oscar-winning debut “Crazy Heart,” stars Christian Bale as a vigilante searching for his missing brother.

Coixet’s film — formerly dubbed “Panda Eyes” — features young “Game of Thrones” star Sophie Turner as a teen who believes she’s being haunted by her own double. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Rhys Ifans and Geraldine Chaplin co-star. Coixet’s a name whose previous films have competed at Berlin (“Elegy”) and Cannes (“Map of the Sounds of Tokyo”), so this is a reasonably big coup for the new-ish Italian fest — which, incidentally, boasts former Venice head Marco Mueller as its co-director.

With the festival still being relatively new, and their programming still growing, their awards don’t, at this point, carry a huge amount of weight — though, of course, any win is gratefully received by any film on the Oscar campaign circuit. The list of past Best Film winners from Rome is a diverse one. Many of the picks (including Larry Clark’s “Marfa Girl” last year) have yet to see the light of day in the US, though “Juno” took the prize in 2007. US filmmaker James Gray, whose excellent “The Immigrant” is still awaiting release, will head up this year’s Competition jury. Meanwhile, Clark himself is heading up the jury for a sidebar section, CinemaXXI, devoted to “new trends in filmmaking.”

The Rome fest is teasing out its big announcements somewhat. We learned a few days ago that “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” — now there’s a film you’d never have seen in Mueller’s time at Venice — will play out of competition at the festival, three days after its world premiere in London. Meanwhile, Rome has nabbed another big-name world premiere with Jonathan Demme’s new narrative feature “Fear of Falling” — an Ibsen adaptation starring Wallace Shawn. 

This year’s Rome Film Festival runs from November 7 to 18.

Well, Harvey Weinstein probably needed to thin things out a bit on this year’s slate and now, after being rumored for a little while now, “Grace of Monaco” has been moved to 2014.

The film had been set for a Nov. 27 release, around the same window as The Weinstein Company’s “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” (and a corridor that has proven a good luck charm for the studio’s recent Oscar players “The King’s Speech,” “The Artist” and “Silver Linings Playbook”). The plan now is to release it in Spring of next year, away from the Oscar race, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The film was part of Weinstein’s big teaser session at Canne back in May, where HitFix reported that it was the honcho’s personal highlight. “We’ve made so many movies together,” Kidman said at the time. “It’s almost two decades of working with Harvey and I haven’t been able to do it for awhile so I’m so glad that he decided that ‘Grace’ was for him.”

Also passingly noted in the THR report is that James Gray’s “The Immigrant” has been moved to next year. HitFix has confirmed with RADiUS-TWC that it will indeed be held for a quarter one release next year. The film will have its North American premiere at the upcoming New York Film Festival.

Elsewhere, of course, there is plenty for the distributor to work with. The aforementioned “Mandela” will be an acting hopeful for Idris Elba and Naomie Harris, among other things, while “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” — a box office success at the end of the summer — is poised to potentially be a big player if it isn’t muscled out by other (better) films.

Then there’s “August: Osage County,” which could be going back to the editing room to tweak its somewhat more uplifting ending. “Philomena,” meanwhile, was a huge Venice success, scooping up a screenplay award there and potentially more than just a writing and acting possibility.

For next year, “Grace” and “The Immigrant” will join the four films TWC just picked up out of the early fall festival circuit: “Can a Song Save Your Life?,” “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her,” “The Railway Man” and “Tracks.”

So cross Nicole Kidman and Marion Cotillard off your Best Actress early bets lists (if they were still there). The Best Actress category, and the Oscar race in general, just became a little less crowded.

I was all set to write something in this space last week, with Toronto having wrapped, etc. But then I just stopped. It seemed like it all needed a moment to sit, and what could I add to the conversation that hadn’t been hammered home for two weeks already by the time “12 Years a Slave” predictably won the festival’s audience award?

What I’m noticing this year is that the media is, more aggressively than ever, trying to dictate the conversation. From the call-off-all-bets aplomb of Best Picture proclamations at Telluride and Toronto to trying to force a supporting campaign on a very strong lead actor hopeful, the whiff of being authoritative is so much stronger than usual this time of year. But I’ve covered that. Let’s attempt to progress things a bit here; there is this and that to consider.

For instance, what’s going to happen to Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street?” Word is Paramount execs were getting their first look at the movie over the weekend, but almost no one has seen it yet as the director has been hard at work whittling down a typically massive first cut (with elements that would easily yield an NC-17 rating, by the way). At this point, a release date bump is looking very likely. But does it go to 2014 or to December?

The studio smartly moved Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” from Oct. 2009 to Feb. 2010 a few years ago, a decision that netted nearly $130 million in box office for the film and did wonders for Paramount’s first quarter that year. This year they have a pretty back-heavy 2013, including a pair of movies that should be commercial successes: “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” and “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.” Something ought to give, but it most likely won’t be “Wolf,” given the marketing dollars already allocated. I suppose it could still make the Nov. 15 release date (a date that, by the way, the studio recently earmarked for rolling out “Nebraska” — an increasingly viable Best Picture play). But more sensible would be a move to December for “Wolf” with Christmas-slotted “Jack Ryan” shuffled off to first quarter 2014. We’ll see how it all plays out.

Elsewhere, the first Academy screener of the year went out this weekend, and as mentioned in this morning’s roundup, it’s Jeff Nichols’ “Mud.” It’s crucial to be the first DVD in voters’ hands, particularly for a movie like this, because it means they can actually get to the film without having a pile of movies staring them in the face. Recent examples of films that hit first include Sony Classics’ “Frozen River” (Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress nominations), Summit Entertainment’s “A Better Life” (Best Actor) and The Weinstein Company’s “The Intouchables” (zilch).

At Telluride, a number of Academy members were talking up Nichols’ triumph. Going into this year’s awards season, it was a film dominating any sort of Oscar conversation, but the question is, how will the glut of prestige product at the end of the year overshadow it? A good way to keep that from happening is to get the screener to voters very early, so hopes for an original screenplay nomination or even a supporting actor nomination for Matthew McConaughey (to go along with his sure-fire lead nod for “Dallas Buyers Club”) remain high.

It’ll be interesting to see how this weekend’s big commercial debuts, “Prisoners” and “Rush,” will be received on the circuit. Both are well-liked with passionate supporters and that could go a long way, particularly if they make big box office splashes. But we’re about to transition to October, when the real onslaught begins. How long is “12 Years a Slave” going to stay on its frontrunner perch? Something is bound to come along and shove it off the steep cliff the media has set before it.

It might be “Gravity,” ready to open next week and dazzle everyone as a truly unique player in the season. It might be “Captain Phillips,” premiering at the Academy on Sept. 30 with Tom Hanks leading the way. Speaking of Hanks, it might just be “Saving Mr. Banks,” set for an AFI Fest bow and likely to play more comfortably to the Academy audience. And that’s just the next wave. There is a whole other batch waiting after that.

The last films to show this season look to be Sony’s “American Hustle” (David O. Russell always finds his movies in the editing) and “The Monuments Men” (which, despite whispers that it’s “just” commercial, could end up a major player). By the end of November, all of the pieces will be on the board. Then we’ll see just how locked up or wide open this thing really is.

The Contenders section has been updated.

Being the first screener to land in Academy voters’ mailboxes is a victory that sometimes brings more than just bragging rights — especially for smaller films that might get lost in the crush later in the season. The early bird strategy has paid off handsomely for such performance-driven indies as “A Better Life” and “Frozen River” in the past, though it doesn’t always get results: last year, TWC’s “The Intouchables” didn’t even wind up with a foreign-language nod. So, which screener was quickest on the draw this year? Jeff Nichols’ coming-of-age tale “Mud” — until recently, the year’s highest-grossing art house release. Roadside Attractions are simplifying Matthew McConaughey’s Best Actor drive for “Dallas Buyers Club” by running a supporting campaign for the star, who plays the title role. You can argue amongst yourselves about the rights or wrongs of that move, though the film’s best shot at a nod is probably for Best Original Screenplay. Will being first pay off this year? [Deadline] 

Inspired by Meritt Weaver, who won everyone’s heart last night with her brevity at the Emmys, Lucy Kinder considers other great short speeches in history, from Joe Pesci to Abe Lincoln. [The Telegraph]

Michael Cieply examines the tangle of real and re-interpreted narratives behind “12 Years a Slave.” [New York Times]

Nathaniel Rogers on why we need to stop griping over the foreign-language Oscar race, and let the movies be the chief reward. [The Film Experience]

Scott Feinberg looks at the films blurring the line between drama and comedy in the race for this year’s Golden Globes. [The Race]

“Rush” costume designer Julian Day talks about recreating the gaudy glamor of 1970s couture, with some help from Gucci. [Gilt]

R. Kurt Osenlund breaks down the Oscar prospects of summer critics’ favorite “Before Midnight,” calling the screenplay a “sure thing.” But can it go any further? [The House Next Door]

British films took top honors at this year’s Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival, the winners of which now qualify for Oscar nominations. [Screen Daily]

Why Christopher Nolan needed just 15 minutes to gain custody of Batman. [The Guardian]

It was a big night for prestige film personalities in front of and behind the camera at the Emmys tonight. Most notable was “House of Cards” and “Behind the Candelabra” directors David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh walking away with wins for TV Drama and TV Movie or Miniseries respectively.

In the case of Soderbergh, he joins rare air with names like Martin Scorsese, Bob Fosse and Michael Moore as one of only a handful of helmers to scoop up an Emmy, an Oscar (for 2000’s “Traffic”) and the Cannes Palme d’Or (for 1989’s “sex, lies and videotape”). In the case of Mr. Fincher, well, I’m sure he’ll get his fill of “He doesn’t have an Oscar but he has an Emmy!” headlines tomorrow morning.

RELATED: ‘House of Cards’ director David Fincher on making 13 hours for Netflix

Michael Douglas took home his first-ever Emmy, winning the Best Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries honor for “Candelabra.” He offered up a double-entendre-laden speech in the process. “This was a two-hander,” he said, leading his co-star Matt Damon to get the giggles in the aisles. “You’re only as good as your other hand,” and in sharing the honor with Damon: “You want the bottom or the top? The top. I figured that.”

Another veteran of the big screen, Jeff Daniels, won the Best Actor in a Drama award in a shocker for HBO’s “The Newsroom” as James Cromwell was recognized in the supporting actor in a TV movie or miniseries category for “American Horror Story: Aslyum.” Claire Danes kept her Best Actress in a Drama run going for Showtime’s “Homeland” and Ellen Burstyn picked up a win for supporting actress in a miniseries or movie for “Political Animals.”

RELATED: Review: Michael Douglas and Matt Damon dazzle in HBO’s ‘Behind the Candelabra’

And though they’re primarily television personalities, it’s worth mentioning Best Supporting Actor in a Drama winner Bobby Cannavale (“Boardwalk Empire”), who can currently be seen in theaters in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” as well as Best Actress in a Comedy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Veep”), who stars in Nicole Holofcener’s just-released “Enough Said.”

Oh, and if you’re keeping score at home, there were no EGOT winners this year.

What was your favorite Emmy win in this evening of surprises? Have your say in the comments section below.

I was late catching up with Ron Howard’s “Rush,” having missed various press screenings while I was in Venice. So maybe my expectations had been unduly raised by the numerous rave reviews — including our colleague Drew McWeeny’s — that came out of Toronto. But I found the racing biopic, which details the rivalry between 1970s Formula 1 titans Niki Lauda and James Hunt, rather flat and uninvolving, its two mostly unpleasant protagonists burdened with a blunt script from Peter Morgan that hammers home its ‘driving=life’ metaphors for all they’re worth. Howard directs proficiently in a latter-day Eastwood sort of way, without betraying much affinity for, or investment in, the source material. On the plus side, it’s a handsome production, lifted by the vivid cigarette-box palette of Anthony Dod Mantle’s sleek cinematography. And while’s it’s Daniel Brühl’s Lauda who gets the angst and the makeup and the Oscar buzz, I was particularly taken with Chris Hemsworth’s suave, switched-on performance as the more smooth-operating Hunt. Anyway, that’s enough from me — what did you think? Share your thoughts in the comments, and vote in the poll below.

A pair of movies are hitting theaters this weekend that mark a distinct transition from summer entertainments to fall adult drama programming. One is “Rush.” The other is Denis Villenueve’s “Prisoners,” a tense piece of work that I called a “tense bow of tension drawn impossibly tight” out of Telluride. I don’t see it as awards caliber material, though Hugh Jackman gives a terrific performance, it makes some brave choices for a studio thriller and I have respect for Villeneuve’s craft. This site seemed to find that piece bewildering in its vacillation, and really, that’s kind of this movie in a nutshell to me. So it fits. (And yes, Virginia, that’s a site dedicated to reviewing reviews.) So with that, let’s just turn it over to you. When and if you get around to “Prisoners” this weekend, tell us your thoughts in the comments section and feel free to vote in our poll below.

Oliver Stone’s “JFK” is a masterpiece. I say that unequivocally. It’s masterful filmmaking of a degree few could ever hope to reach, but it’s been consistently plagued and overshadowed by the whiff of conspiracy fatigue ever since its 1991 release.

This has always been strange to me. Nothing presented in the film is all that far-fetched, and depending on your opinion of Dallas journalist Jim Marrs, it was all perfectly well-reported before Stone and screenwriter Zachary Sklar came along. Meanwhile, there has been a curiously strong push lately, it seems, to ensure once-and-for-all acceptance of the lone gunman theory, which, I’m sorry, if you’ve ever stood in the book depository and seen that vantage point (relative, as the actual window itself is blocked off), then you know the shot was pretty tough to pull off. And “back and to the left” seems pretty significant to me.

I had a 45-minute conversation with Bill Paxton about all of this once upon a time. It’s one of the weirdest conversations I’ve ever had in this business. He was, at the time, planning a mini-series with Tom Hanks built around Vincent Bugliosi’s “Reclaiming History,” which, even as someone who scoffs at the lone gunman thing, I would have loved to see.

Anyway, this all relates to one bit of news: Stone recently announced that “JFK” would be re-released in theaters by Warner Bros. in New York, Los Angeles  and Washington, DC on Nov. 6 in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. And lest you think this is just for the big cities, it’ll hit 250 more theaters on Nov. 11. Just in time for my birthday!

All of this has made the op-ed pages ripe for the taking, so Cory Franklin took to the Chicago Tribune for a bunch of empty bullet points on Sept. 6. Stone and Sklar struck back earlier this week, with the director also taking to Twitter to be perfectly clear: “The editorial was by the typical kind of moron who writes these type of things ridiculing complexity, but failing to cite any evidence.”

Fightin’ words. Though Stone is certainly used to it all by now.

I just think it’s fascinating how this film riles people so. I’m reminded of a college professor who erroneously said the film “inserted frames into the Zapruder film.” Of course, it didn’t, though it did feature editing and cinematography and sound in some sequences that might have made you think that’s what you saw. (Speaking of which, Telluride Film Festival Guest Director Don DeLillo was on hand at the recently wrapped 40th anniversary fest to analyze the Abraham Zapruder’s footage to mark the anniversary.)

That’s why “JFK” is so masterful. It is the most expertly manipulative piece of filmmaking I think I’ve ever seen. And that’s not to say “manipulative” as in disingenuous, it just knows exactly the reaction it wants and exactly how to achieve it. Pietro Scalia and Joe Hutshing’s assemblage of the film in the editing room is, to me, the best film editing the form has ever seen. So yeah, I’ll be at this re-release with bells on.

“JFK” picked up eight Oscar nominations back in 1992, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, all of which it should have won, in addition to Best Original Score, Best Sound and Best Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones). It won two Oscars, for film editing and cinematography, and probably should have been recognized for production design and, yeah, Kevin Costner’s leading performance (which is a bit unsung, I feel). So, if you’re a fan like me, mark your calendars.

(By the way, I recommend The Dallas Morning News’ year-long study JFK50 for those interested.)

“JFK” makes its way back to theaters on Nov. 6.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJP-R8rd2og&w=640&h=360]

National submissions continue to trickle in for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race, with the tally currently sitting at 37 entries. That’s a competitive number already, though when you consider that last year’s longlist contained nearly double that number of films, you realize just how much more crowded things are going to get before the deadline for entries — only 10 days away. Among the countries we’re waiting to hear from are such previous nominees (some of them with heavyweight possibilities this year) as Denmark, Israel, Italy, Canada, Iran and China. So the list of predicted nominees to your right, strong as it is, could change a lot in the coming weeks.

This week’s highest-profile new entry to the race comes from Mexico — a country that, last nominated three years ago for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful,” has been making commendably bold submissions of late. 2011’s drug-running thriller “Miss Bala” and 2012’s devastating school-bullying drama “After Lucia” were both several shades too bleak for Academy sensibilities. I don’t expect that to change with this year’s choice: Amat Escalante’s brutal underworld study “Heli,” which was one of the most controversial (and critically contentious) titles in Competition at Cannes this year.

Steven Spielberg’s jury handed Escalante the Best Director award for this structurally fragmented story of police corruption and cocaine trafficking, wherein one working-class family rather severely gets the brunt of both. It was one of the less popular wins of the festival, though there’s little denying the youngish provocateur’s formal flair. Exquisitely composed and and sensually vivid as “Heli” is, I personally thought it self-regarding and insubstantial, dressing up a rather unchallenging moral stance in imagery smugly calculated to shock. One particularly nightmarish sequence, combining full-frontal nudity with graphic torture, was a Cannes talking point — it’ll send many members of this largely genteel Academy branch scrambling for the doors.

So the film’s chances of surviving the general branch vote are approximately nil. Will the executive committee come to the rescue? I suspect not. “Miss Bala” and “After Lucia” were both richer, less emptily sensationalistic films that attracted a more unified critical following at Cannes; if they couldn’t make the cut, I find it hard to imagine “Heli” getting the green light. They’d probably have given themselves a better shot by selecting one of this year’s Un Certain Regard titles, the engrossing youth immigration tale “The Golden Cage,” but kudos to Mexico for throwing caution to the wind.

A safer bet might be Poland’s entry, which comes from 87-year-old Andrzej Wajda — a veteran both of his own industry and of this particular category. Arguably the most prominent and politically vital filmmaker in Polish history, Wajda has been entered in this category on seven previous occasions. Four of those films wound up with a nomination: 1975’s “The Promised Land,” 1979’s “The Maids of Wilko,” 1981’s “Man of Iron” (which also won him the Palme d’Or) and, most recently, 2007’s “Katyn.” All of them lost, though Wajda received an Honorary Oscar at the 1999 ceremony “in recognition of five decades of extraordinary film direction.”

No surprise, then, that his political biopic “Walesa: Man of Hope,” which premiered this month at the Venice Film Festival, has been chosen as this year’s Polish submission. As the title implies, it’s a companion piece to his landmark works of anti-Communist protest cinema, “Man of Marble” and the aforementioned, Tony Stark-free “Man of Iron.” The film, which follows the trajectory of Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa from dockyard laborer to Nobel Prize-winning people’s hero, was respectfully if not ecstatically received by critics at Venice (where it played out of competition) and subsequently Toronto. I missed it myself, but was informed by colleagues that it’s straightforward, impassioned storytelling, very much of a piece with Wajda’s previous work. That could well be enough for another nomination.

Two films with significant Filipino elements joined the race this week. One, obviously enough, is from the Philippines, though it comes with a twist of Hebrew. Hannah Espia’s debut feature “Transit” tells the story of single Filipino father working in Israel, forced to hide his children from the authorities after the Israeli government announces plans to deport the children of foreign workers. Winner of both Best Film and the Audience Award at the Filipino-focused Cinemalaya Film Festival in July, it was selected from a nine-film shortlist that also included Brillante Mendoza’s Venice 2012 entry “Thy Womb.”

The second Flipino entry in the race, somewhat less obviously, comes from the United Kingdom: British director Sean Ellis’s crime drama “Metro Manila” premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award in the World Cinema division. (Eagle-eyed Oscar buffs may recall that Ellis was a Best Live Action Short nominee a few years ago for “Cashback.”) It tells the story of an impoverished farmer who moves his family to the country’s capital in search of a better life, only to become involved with an corrupt armored truck company. It opens in the UK today, in fact, so I’ll check it out in the coming week and see if we have a contender on our hands. It’s worth noting, though, that the UK has only scored nominations in this category with British-set, Welsh-language features.

Finally, Switzerland has entered the race with “More Than Honey,” Markus Imhoof’s polished documentary on the growing endangerment of the world’s bee population. It’s travelled the festival circuit extensively (it played Toronto last year) and has played well with audiences and critics alike, but it’s hard to see it generating much, uh, buzz in this category.

Check out the updated submissions list here.

Welcome to Oscar Talk.

In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is broadcast in special installments throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

On the docket today…

– VENICE/TELLURIDE/TORONTO WRAP: The early fall festival circuit has laid the groundwork for the season. Who are our frontrunners?

– “12 YEARS” MEDIA MADNESS: Have desperate headlines painted a bull’s-eye on the early frontrunner’s back?

– HONORARY OSCARS: Angelina Jolie, Angela Lansbury, Steve Martin and Piero Tosi will all be recognized.

– NYFF ON THE HORIZON: The New York Film Festival launches next week with “Captain Phillips.” How will new entries figure into the season?

Have a listen to the new podcast below. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. You to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here. And as always, if you have a question you’d like us to address on a future podcast, send it to OscarTalk@HitFix.com.

“Here I Come” courtesy of Stuart Park.

“Can a white director make a great black movie?” It’s the kind of question that bothers me — you can extend it to asking whether a male director can make a great film about women, or whether a straight director can make a great film about homosexuality. (This year, Abdellatif Kechiche answered both those questions in the affirmative.) Great storytelling requires more empathy than first-hand experience. Still, John Singleton (the first black filmmaker ever nominated for a Best Director Oscar) looks at such recent films as “Fruitvale Station,” “The Butler” and “12 Years a Slave” — all by black directors, though not all by African-Americans — argues that  “there is a noticeable difference between pictures that have significant contributions from African-Americans behind the scenes and those that don’t.” He adds “what Hollywood execs need to realize is that black-themed stories appeal to the mainstream because they are uniquely American” — which, well, let’s just say I can’t see everyone agreeing on that point. [Hollywood Reporter]    

The International Cinematographers’ Guild announced four special award winners, and one of them is… hey, Kris Tapley and In Contention. Well, thank you very much. [Variety]

Jeff Bridges admits he was “a little underwhelmed” by “R.I.P.D.” Well, it takes a Dude to admit it. [GQ]

Should we be asking more questions about the 3D-and-IMAX makeover being given to “The Wizard of Oz” than we currently are? [Slant]

“Fast & Furious 6” and Emma Watson were the biggest social-media champions of the summer movie season. [LA Times]

Matt Bomer is set to play Montgomery Clift in a biopic of the troubled, Oscar-nominated actor. [The Guardian]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt talks about going behind the camera for the first time in “Don Jon.” [New York Times]

J.J. Abrams says he wants his upcoming “Star Wars” film to “feel real.” Well, relatively real. [EW]

Joe Eszterhas will be the headline speaker at this year’s London Screenwriters’ Festival, where guests also include Jim Sheridan and David Hare. [London Screenwriters’ Festival]

The longstanding cliche about Hollywood screenwriters is they’re really dying to tell anyone who will listen, “but I really want to direct.” Turns out some of the actors in front of the camera wouldn’t mind ruling the roost either.

This year alone we’ve seen a bumper crop of relatively new actors turned directors bring new works to the screen. James Franco has debuted two films within five months (granted, an anomaly), Fox Searchlight had a hit comedy from familiar faces Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the second effort from Ralph Fiennes hit Telluride and Toronto, Seth Rogen’s “This is the End” was a smash, Lake Bell brought us “In a World…,” Jason Bateman made some noise with “Bad Words” at Toronto and next week Joseph Gordon Levitt’s Sundance smash “Don Jon” finally hits theaters.  Granted, it would be nice if that list of actors was a tad more female and perhaps ethnically diverse, but there certainly seem to be a lot of actors looking to spread their wings.

With that in mind, HitFix’s editorial team, including In Contention’s Kristopher Tapley and Guy Lodge, ranked their all-time top 10 actors turned directors.  Some of them you’ll recognize, a few you may not and it will likely stir some debate on who is missing. You can view the entire top 10 in the embedded story gallery in this post.  Afterward, make sure to rank your own top 10 in the poll below.

[Yes, we’re aware we couldn’t fit in every option in the poll, but it should be diverse enough – we hope.]

Cate Blanchett’s superb, sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated performance in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” this summer marked a return of sorts to the big screen. She never went away, exactly, but her recent, sparse run of secondary and supporting roles (in the likes of “Hanna” and “Robin Hood”) was a clear indication that the bulk of her attention was elsewhere — at the Sydney Theater Company, to be precise, where she has acted as an artistic director for the last five years.  

Happily, at least for those of us without easy access to Blanchett’s stage work, her film comeback is set to continue and expand. Having announced that her current season at the Sydney Theater Company will be her last, she revealed today that the directorial experience she gained there will now be put to cinematic use. Blanchett’s first feature as a director will be “The Dinner,” a second big-screen adaptation of the 2009 novel by Dutch writer Herman Koch.

A New York Times bestseller in its English translation earlier this year, “The Dinner” has been variously likened by critics to Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” (currently being filmed by David Fincher), Christos Tsiolkas’ “The Slap” and Yasmine Reza’s Polanski-filmed play “God of Carnage.” The premise remotely recalls “Carnage”: two brothers and their wives meet in a restaurant to discuss a horrific act of violence perpetrated by the couples’ teenage sons. Over the course (or, rather, several courses) of their meal, they acrimoniously negotiate the hows and whys of the situation, and reveal alarming extremes of parental protectiveness. 

A Dutch-language adaptation of the novel has already been made. Directed by Menno Meyjes (the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “The Color Purple,” incidentally), it had its world premiere in Toronto this month to generally positive reviews. Hollywood Reporter critic Boyd van Hoeij described it as “captivating in large part thanks to its edgy humor,” citing its crossover potential. The film has yet to open in its home country, though given the international profile of its source material, it could feasibly be the Netherlands’ foreign-language Oscar submission this time next year. 

A cast for Blanchett’s version has yet to be announced; it’s not known at this point whether or not she will star in the film herself. Either way, it’s the kind of actor-focused chamber piece that should make good on her stage directing experience. The star has at least one substantial collaborator backing her up: writer-director Oren Moverman, who received a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nod four years ago for “The Messenger,” is handling script duties. This isn’tt be the first project to connect Moverman and Blanchett: he also wrote Todd Haynes’ 2007 Bob Dylan meditation “I’m Not There,” which earned the actress an Oscar nod.

Producer Caldecot Chubb, whose diverse list of credits includes “Eve’s Bayou,” “Hoffa” and “To Sleep With Anger,” will produce the film through his own ChubbCo company — he’s also credited as an executive producer on the Dutch version. Eva Maria Daniels (“What Maisie Knew”) and Olga Segura (“The Truth About Emanuel”) are executive producers.

Are you looking forward to seeing Blanchett go behind the camera? Tell us in the comments. 

It’s been four months since I saw Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Blue is the Warmest Color” at Cannes — whereupon it became, as it did for an awful lot of people, my favorite film of the festival. (Steven Spielberg’s jury, of course, agreed.) The film’s been burning pretty brightly in my mind ever since, but this expertly constructed US trailer brought that much more of it flooding back. Sundance Selects are taking a smart approach here, selling the film on evocative fragments of sound and image, and allowing viewers to find its raw emotional and physicals details for themselves.

The film’s just a month away from its US release, and a little over a fortnight from its French date — a refreshing turn of events, considering how often we have to wait until the following year for international festival sensations to cross over. It’ll be interesting to see how well the film does, taking into account the restrictions of an NC-17 rating. It’s heartening to see that the marketing isn’t playing any kind of sensationalist angle: sensual and sexually explicit as the film is, it’s also as pure a love story as any we’ve seen in recent years.

Is there any possibility of Academy recognition here, given the film’s ineligibility in the Best Foreign Language Film category? I’m not overly optimistic, though if critics rally forcefully behind the remarkable Adele Exarchopoulos, I won’t rule anything out. Oscar nominations are a secondary target, however: this is a film that an entire generation could take to their hearts. Check out the trailer and tell us what you think. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stnq8tMiNDs?rel=0&w=640&h=480]

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4912087573001

Proving that positive reviews continue to have relevance in art house and limited releases, “Enough Said” debuted on four screens Wednesday to a strong $27,734 and $6,934 average. That midweek opening has to be very encouraging news for Fox Searchlight. The studio pushed up the release of the dramedy to September in hopes of taking advantage of a dearth in new prestige fare before a slew of awards season contenders hit theaters in October.  While director Nicole Holofcener certainly has her fans, it’s the rave reviews from outlets such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Village Voice that will help drive a higher than expected five-day take. And, sadly, interest in seeing one of the last performances of the late, great James Gandolfini.

One thing critics have been focused on is Holofcener’s unlikely pairing of Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus.  The veteran actors have great chemistry and Ganfolfini’s “almost” quiet performance helps drive the film’s believable romantic arc. Louis-Dreyfus, on the other hand, demonstrates why her absence from the big screen (she hasn’t appeared in a live action movie since 1997’s “Deconstructing Harry”) is something of a Hollywood crime.

The three-time Emmy Award winner, who is in the middle of shooting the third season of HBO’s “Veep,” has had shoulder promoting “Enough Said” almost completely on her own and she’s done it with professional aplomb. HitFix sat down with the former “Seinfeld” star in Toronto earlier this month and asked her about the collaboration both actors had with Holofcener. For her own character, Louis-Dreyfus wanted a moment “where we see Eva do the right thing. It’s very minor, but it was important for me to see that.”

As for Gandolfini, Louis-Dreyfus recalls, “I think that scene we have in the kitchen when I am trying to keep him from going away? He improvised a lot of that and he was very much thinking about how — not to get to nitty gritty — it was very much on his mind that [his character] been humiliated in front of his daughter and that was particular painful and he wanted to talk about that and that made sense.”

To hear more of Louis-Dreyfus’ thoughts on working with Holofcener and Gandolfini watch the video embedded at the top of this post.

“Enough Said” is now playing in New York and Los Angeles.

One more tease of our upcoming interview with “Gravity” director Alfonso Cuarón before we dive deep on the four-year journey of making that film. We’ve asked about his friend Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” and the lessons he learned on the embattled production of 1998’s “Great Expectations,” but today, I was curious about his collaboration with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, or “Chivo,” as he’s known to his friends and colleagues.

Cuarón and Lubezki have collaborated at nearly every step of the way, from 1995’s “A Little Princess” to “Great Expectations,” the break-out film “Y Tu Mamá También” to the gritty “Children of Men.” And now, the space spectacle “Gravity.” It’s a fruitful professional relationship that keeps finding new highs.

However, beyond his work with Cuarón, Lubezki has quickly become one of the most respected and accomplished cinematographers in the business. He has collaborated with filmmakers like Michael Mann, Tim Burton and the Coen brothers in recent years, and made a major splash with his work capturing Terrence Malick’s visions on “The New World,” “The Tree of Life,” “To the Wonder” and the upcoming “Knight of Cups.”

“Chivo’s not only my friend, I’m a big fan of him,” Cuarón told me of Lubezki. “I think that he’s one of the most interesting filmmakers working around, and when I say ‘filmmakers’ I’m talking in every single field: directing, actors, producers, cinematographers, sound. I think he’s at the very, very top, one of the great geniuses of our day. And also he’s always pushing the envelope, which is so refreshing. I just think he’s spectacular.”

In my opinion, Lubezki should already have at least two Oscars, for “Children of Men” (which, like “Gravity,” demanded the invention of technology to achieve Cuarón’s vision) and “The Tree of Life” (which…what else is there to say about that one?). But I think those wrongs will finally be righted this year. Of course it’s too early to talk seriously about Oscar wins but I’d be truly surprised if Lubezki didn’t finally win for “Gravity.” Just as films like “Avatar,” “Hugo” and “Life of Pi” have dazzled the Academy with their 3D innovations, I expect this film will land similarly.

You’ll want to see what Cuarón and Lubezki have conjured this time on the biggest screen possible. Catch “Gravity” when it arrives in 3D and IMAX on Oct. 4.