The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced this year’s Honorary Oscar recipients, to be presented at the fifth annual Governors Awards in November.

Actress Angela Lansbury, a perennial possibility for this honor each year, will finally get an Oscar, alongside comedian Steve Martin and, in keeping with a recent dedication to the crafts branches, costume designer Piero Tosi. Actress Angelina Jolie will receive the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Of immediate note is that not one but two women are being honored this year. The Academy received criticism last year for handing all four awards to men, but with the recent influx of diversity within the membership’s ranks, as well as the hire of Cheryl Boone Isaacs as Academy president, today’s announcement is indicative of an organization looking to change the way it has been perceived.

“The Governors Awards pay tribute to individuals who”ve made indelible contributions in their respective fields,” Isaacs said via press release. “We couldn”t be more excited for this year”s honorees and look forward to bringing their peers and colleagues together to celebrate their extraordinary achievements.”

Lansbury has received three Academy Award nominations throughout her career, each for Best Supporting Actress: 1944’s “Gaslight” (her debut), 1945’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and 1962’s “The Manchurian Candidate.” Martin, who has hosted the Oscars on a number of occasions, has never been nominated for his feature work, but he starred in 1977 Best Live Action Short nominee “The Absent-Minded Waiter.” Piero Tosi, meanwhile, is a five-time nominee, for 1963’s “The Leopard,” 1971’s “Death in Venice,” 1972’s “Ludwig,” 1978’s “La Cage aux Folles” and 1982’s “La traviata.”

I’m proud to win an honorary Oscar this year. A salute to comedy and all the great people I’ve worked with. http://t.co/0XDAZd5pWs

– Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) September 5, 2013

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Jolie won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in 1999’s “Girl, Interrupted” and has been a passionate advocate for humanitarian causes throughout her career. She has traveled widely to promote organizations and social justice efforts such as the Prevent Sexual Violence Initiative and has worked for global advocacy groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her dedication to these causes has bubbled up into her work as an actress and filmmaker in movies such as “A Mighty Heart” and “In the Land of Blood and Honey”

The fifth annual Governors Awards will be held on Nov. 16, 2013.

And we’re back! Yes, it’s your favorite weekly rundown of Best Picture contenders. A snapshot of who’s up, who’s down, who’s got it in the bag and who’s a big whiny pretender.

With Venice almost completed, Telluride in the books and Toronto opening her red carpets to the world, the 2013-2014 awards season is in full swing. Last year, “Silver Linings Playbook” was the surprise at Toronto as “Argo” kept its Telluride momentum going. “Lincoln’s” debut was over a month away and many pundits were getting smoke signals that “Zero Dark Thirty” might not even make its expected end-of-year release. So, yep, a lot can happen between now and Dec. 1st. Telluride, however, was quite, um, telling this year (as it increasingly steals Venice and Toronto’s thunder). A number of films proved their worthiness (or not) there. With that in mind, let’s review the countdown as it stands today, Sept. 5, 2013.

1. “Gravity“
Not only do we have critical raves, notable Academy members James Cameron, Michael Moore, Guillermo Del Toro and producer Frank Marshall have all publicly gushed over the pic. And it hasn’t even hit Toronto yet.

2. “12 Years A Slave“
Could dominate the year-end critics awards. Will have many passionate backers, but can it win?

3. “Captain Phillips“
Public won’t see it until opening night of the New York Film Festival, but word is it delivers and then some.

4. “Nebraska“
The slam-dunk winner of the “we knew they’d like it, but we didn’t know they they’d like it this much” award at Telluride. After the so-so reception at Cannes, Paramount is likely shocked they don’t just have a Best Actor nominee contender on their hands, but a Best Picture player.

5. “Inside Llewyn Davis“
In for the long haul and will easily be the New York and musicians choice.

6. “Lee Daniels’ The Butler”
Hitting that $100 million will help.

7. “August: Osage County“
Lots of voters with lots of Academy friends in that cast. Pass the phone when you’re done, Julia?

8. “American Hustle“
It could be just amazingly commercial. Or, it could be even better than “Silver Linings Playbook.”

9. “Blue Jasmine“
Is it seen as just a showcase for Cate Blanchett or something more? Good question.

10. “Saving Mr. Banks“
Opening night at AFI Fest is a nice platform to launch from. Everyone loves the script, but the clips and trailer have been a bit one note. If there is something special here Disney can’t wait much longer in showing us what it is.

On the outside looking in:

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty“
Big fan of Stiller’s direction. Still not sure this is Oscar fare.

“The Book Thief“
Hear 20th Century Fox loves it, but lord that trailer.

“Foxcatcher“
Will arrive late to the party. Could it crack the Best Picture race or is it all about Steve Carell’s performance?

“Mud“
Heard this movie come up as a favorite from a number of Academy members at Telluride. It might just be too competitive this year or, it’s a Jan. 16 surprise.

“Dallas Buyers Club“
We’ll find out at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend.

“Her“
Spike Jonze’s latest looks like it’s more of a player in the screenplay and Best Actor categories.

“Lone Survivor“
Peter Berg’s redemption? Another late entry hoping to make waves,

“Rush“
Everyone who has seen it thinks it’s the best thing Ron Howard has directed in a long time. Does that make it a Best Picture player, though?

It’s oh so early, but who do you think is in and who do you think is out? Share your thoughts below.

VENICE – I didn’t intend to wait four days to review “Night Moves” — not least because, in the wake of her last three features, a toothpaste commercial directed by Kelly Reichardt would be high on the year’s most-anticipated list — but the combination of cumulative screenings and the slackening effects of illness kept pushing it unintentionally down the to-do list.

Yet if any film on the Lido this year belongs on the back burner, it’s this one. That may be the lousiest compliment I’ve given a good film all year, but it’s a compliment nonetheless; for the more time Reichardt’s latest has to let its calculatedly flat terrors work on the brain, the more imposing and guileful an achievement it seems. “Night Moves” is a pretty slow burner while it’s on the screen; off it, it’s stubbornly inextinguishable, the trick birthday candle of this year’s Venice fest.

That’s already three fire metaphors too many for a film that itself never feels quite up to body temperature. Even its three highly recognizable leads look unfamiliarly sallow and freeze-dried — a real-world “Twilight” ensemble without all that fussy eyeliner. And if none of this sounds like poster-ready praise, so be it: “Night Moves” is a film that lives or dies by its chilliness, its reticence, its small but nut-hard surfaces, dealing as it does with individuals who have no inclination to explain or excuse their most questionable decisions. It’s a moral film, but not a moralistic one; unfailingly human, but not always humane.

Certainly, even amid the soured, toughened ensemble of “Meek’s Cutoff,” Reichardt has never presented us with characters quite as hard to like as this central trio. Josh (Jesse Eisenberg) and Deana (Dakota Fanning) are a pair of environmental activists seeking more heroic fulfilment than the granola virtuousness offered by their positions at, respectively, a farming commune and a hippy-crystal spa. You can hardly blame them for wanting to get away from this talk-over-action world, wickedly satirized by Reichardt and regular co-writer Jon Raymond in early scenes of excruciating student enviro-conferences.

At no point does their alternative plan — to blow up a local Oregon dam, as a tough-love demonstration to their fellow man of his excessive consumption of natural resources — sound like a sensible or admirable idea. We certainly don’t warm to the scheme with the addition to their outfit of opaque, ex-military explosives expert Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard), whose reasons for participating don’t even seem misguidedly principled.

In Reichardt and Raymond’s elegantly bisected narrative structure, these nascent eco-terrorists are impenetrably cool customers until, suddenly and catastrophically, they’re not. Mapped out with the director’s customary care and deliberation, this is a film of two even acts, with no need for a third. Over the first hour, Josh, Deana and Harmon methodically plot, prepare and finally execute their act of extreme vandalism; over the second, relations between the separated accomplices unravel as they face the ugly, unforeseen human consequences of their silly stunt.

Played with appropriately wan, quivering intensity by Fanning, Deana turns from glass to tissue as her impetuousness catches up with her at an accelerated rate. Hers is the steepest emotional ascent, so it’s interesting that Reichardt, in the film’s later stages, sticks largely with Josh, whose nervous collapse is less visible but no less dangerous to the collective: in the best dramatic showcase for his sullen, nervous intelligence since his Oscar-nominated Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network,” Eisenberg gives a performance highly calculated in its inexpression, variable posture and eye contact giving away what the set of his mouth will not.

To call “Night Moves” Kelly Reichardt’s first thriller isn’t inaccurate. Certainly, the musty, HD-grey textures of Christopher Blauvelt’s cinematography and atonal twang of Jeff Grace’s score are working toward a kind of homemade noir aesthetic in the same way that “Meek’s Cutoff” stripped the Western down to great-wide-open elements. As in that film, Reichardt isn’t hurried along by genre expectations, telling this potentially shrill story in her own time and tone. Indeed, at 112 minutes, this is actually her most languid film to date; I do wonder how much more it would pinch the nerves in her formerly standard 80-minute format.

But if Reichardt hasn’t previously made thrillers in the strictest sense, the pervading atmosphere of distrust and disorientation here is far from unfamiliar. “Night Moves” (sinister if second-hand title and all) outdoes its predecessors for shock and shadow and human peril, but her films have always been fuelled by uncertainty: the precipice of fatherhood in “Old Joy,” the search for lost companionship in “Wendy and Lucy,” the end of the trail in “Meek’s Cutoff.”

Much of the uncertainty in “Night Moves” concerns matters of criminal consequence for its protagonists, but there’s a political ambivalence to her storytelling here that feels newest of all. Where her past work has been subtly, non-forcibly liberal (even the seemingly depoliticized “Wendy and Lucy” worked in a few sly digs at the Bush-era economy), “Night Moves” is a film expressly about the hazards of ill-considered leftist excess, here given lethal symbolic agency. Reichardt certainly hasn’t gone conservative on us, but after a series of films that have underlined the occasional benefits of community, this slowly, steadily unnerving one expounds the virtues of being on your own side. 

Ordinarily, if a film festival announced its lineup and I found I’d already seen over 60 of the selections, I’d probably strike it from the to-do list. But it’s a testament to the strength and breadth of this year’s London Film Festival programme, which was announced this morning, that I’m still excited to dive into it. The LFF remains one of the world’s great cherry-picking festivals: only 22 of the 234 features screening over the 12-day fest are world premieres, but it’s a comprehensive catch-up of highlights from Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Berlin and Sundance, to name just its biggest suppliers. For any UK readers getting itchy over our Venice, Telluride and upcoming Toronto coverage, this should be your first port of call.

The most high-profile attractions, of course, are the Gala screenings: it’s here where you’ll find Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Blue is the Warmest Color,” with the Coens’ “Inside Llewyn Davis” (my review), Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” (my review), Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” (my review) and Alain Guiraudie’s steamy gay thriller “Stranger by the Lake” (a particularly bold pick for the LFF’s top tier; my review) making the journey from the Croisette.

Venice hits “Gravity” (my review), “Philomena” (my review) and “Night Moves” have all been granted Gala slots, as well as recent Telluride premieres “12 Years a Slave” (Greg’s review), “Labor Day” (Greg’s review) and “The Invisible Woman” (Greg’s review), all on the way to Toronto. The Gala pick that most surprises and tickles me is Lukas Moodysson’s delightful teen-punk comedy “We Are the Best!,” a welcome return to form for the Swedish auteur and one of the undersung highlights of the Venice fest so far. (I reviewed it for Variety here.) Previously announced, of course, were festival opener “Captain Phillips” and closing film “Saving Mr. Banks.”

Of course, much of the best stuff at the festival lies further down the list, but I’ll be here all day if I go about listing all the potential highlights, from sure-to-be-hot tickets like Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” (Greg’s review) to buried gems like Andrew Dosunmu’s “Mother of George” (a personal Sundance highlight). Best to peruse the vast list for yourself. 

Meanwhile, the festival also announced the slate of nominees for its four juried awards, which include some very interesting selections indeed. The Best Film award, inaugurated four years ago, initially took heat from critics for plucking its shortlist principally from the fest’s highest-profile selections, but this year’s selection digs pretty deep.

Obviously, some have been plucked from major festivals: Venice provides “Under the Skin,” John Curran’s lovely “Tracks” (my review), Xavier Dolan’s career-best thriller “Tom at the Farm” and Peter Landesman’s iffy JFK drama “Parkland” (my review), while Cannes contributes Hirokazu Kore-eda’s crowd-pleasing Jury Prize winner “Like Father, Like Son” and Clio Barnard’s devastating “The Selfish Giant.” But there are enough less obvious nominees, like Catherine Breillat’s Isabelle Huppert-starring “Abuse of Weakness” (premiering at Toronto) and Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” (hopefully a rebound after last year’s anticlimactic comeback “The Woman in the Fifth”) to make the contest and genuinely interesting one. (The winner will be following in the footsteps of previous Best Film champs “A Prophet,” “How I Ended This Summer,” “We Need to Talk About Kevin” and “Rust and Bone.”)

The LFF’s longest-standing prize, the Sutherland Award for Best Debut Feature, went to “Beasts of the Southern Wild” last year, but there’s nothing quite that obvious in this year’s shortlist, which ranges from the Daniel Radcliffe-starring Sundance hit “Kill Your Darlings” to Cannes Camera d’Or winner “Ilo Ilo,” recently named Singapore’s Oscar submission. (Incidentally, I’ll be catching up with that submissions process soon.) 

The Grierson Award for Best Documentary was won by Alex Gibney last year for “Mea Maxima Culpa.” Lo and behold, Gibney’s back in the mix for “The Armstrong Lie,” which I discussed earlier today. Another Venice title in the running is veteran docmaker Frederick Wiseman’s four-hour college study “At Berkeley,” which I simply haven’t been able to squeeze in at Venice, but look forward to catching up with in the more relaxed LFF environment. Finally, the aforementioned Best Film nominee “The Selfish Giant” has a leg up in the contest for Best British Newcomer, with both its extraordinary young leads in the running.

Full list of award nominees on the next page, while the whole lineup is available here. The 57th BFI London Film Festival runs from October 9 to 20. 

Official Competition (Best Film)
“Abuse of Weakness,” Catherine Breillat
“The Double,” Richard Ayoade
“Ida,” Pawel Pawlikowski
“Like Father, Like Son,” Hirokazu Kore-eda
“The Lunchbox,” Ritesh Batra
“Of Good Report,” Jahmil X.T Qubeka 
“Parkland,” Peter Landesman
“Rags & Tatters,” Ahmad Abdalla 
“The Selfish Giant,” Clio Barnard
“Starred Up,” David Mackenzie
“Tom at the Farm,” Xavier Dolan
“Tracks,” John Curran
“Under The Skin,” Jonathan Glazer

Sutherland Award for Best Debut Feature
“B for Boy,” Chika Anadu
“Hide Your Smiling Faces,” Daniel Patrick Carbone
“Ilo Ilo,” Anthony Chen
“Kill Your Darlings,” John Krokidas
“The Long Way Home,” Alphan Eseli
“Luton,” Michalis Konstantatos
“Salvo,” Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza
“Sarah Prefers to Run,” Chloé Robichaud
“Sixteen,” Rob Brown
“Trap Street,” Vivian Qu
“Wounded,” Fernando Franco
“Youth,” Tom Shoval

Grierson Award for Best Documentary
“Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys,” Jessica Oreck
“The Armstrong Lie,” Alex Gibney
“At Berkeley,” Frederick Wiseman
“Cutie and the Boxer,” Zachary Heinzerling
“Here Be Dragons,” Mark Cousins
“La Maison de la Radio,” Nicholas Philibert
“Manhunt,” Greg Barker
“The Missing Picture,” Rithy Panh
“My Fathers, My Mother and Me,” Paul-Julien Robert
“Pipeline,” Vitaly Mansky
“Teenage,” Matt Wolf
“Ukraine is Not a Brothel,” Kitty Green

Best British Newcomer
Jonathan Asser (screenwriter), “Starred Up”
Rob Brown (director), “Sixteen”
Conner Chapman (actor), “The Selfish Giant”
Destiny Ekaragha (director), “Gone Too Far!”
Jack Fishburn and Muireann Price (producers), “Love Me Till Monday”
Shaun Thomas (actor), “The Selfish Giant”

By now I imagine the well-worn quotes of glee from James Cameron regarding Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” have made it across your browser, but we might as well point to them, too.

Four years ago Cameron’s “Avatar” became the highest grossing film of all time and made a huge impact as an experience, a roller coaster ride of a film. Cynicism has had its way with it since but I still think it’s a major accomplishment in filmmaking, just as I do “Gravity.”

Cuarón’s latest is a full-on ride, as immersive an experience as you could hope for in a movie. It puts you right there with Sandra Bullock, having its way with your equilibrium. So it’s high praise when a guy like Cameron calls it “the best space film ever done.”

That’s exactly what the “Avatar” helmer had to say about the film in the latest Variety cover story. “I was stunned, absolutely floored,” he said. “I think it”s the best space photography ever done, I think it”s the best space film ever done, and it”s the movie I”ve been hungry to see for an awful long time.”

Cameron was most impressed by the “human dimension,” he said, and indeed, in a separate piece, he expressed hope that Warner Bros. will sell it as “the human story it is” rather than leaning too hard on its genre aspects. But genre it is, and the ride of this film will get people into the theater. The gravy will be that it has that human touch and reveals a character’s emotional journey. That is, after all, what makes a film great.

“Gravity” is definitely in the mix for the Best Picture Oscar at the moment. The question is how long that will sustain. It’s just so early. Coming down the pike are other festival films like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “Her,” “Foxcatcher” and “Saving Mr. Banks,” as well as non-festival plays like “American Hustle,” “The Book Thief” and “The Monuments Men.” There is a potential embarrassment of riches this season and “Gravity” is right at the top of the list, a gripping movie, a meaningful film. It’ll be interesting to see how far Warner Bros. can take it.

“Gravity” plays the Toronto Film Festival this weekend. It arrives in theaters on Oct. 4.

One of the reasons “12 Years a Slave” works so well is that it’s rather naturally structured as a thriller. As the film follows Solomon Northup from freedom to shackles, his circumstances — kidnapped in Washington D.C. and sold into slavery in the south — are just terrifying, and director Steve McQueen follows that natural structure with convention and invention in equal measure.

As reported here, the film was a huge hit at the Telluride Film Festival over the Labor Day weekend. It’s all set for the Toronto fest on Friday and will certainly spin further into assured awards prospects (and those bemoaning that it was so strongly considered in such terms at Telluride will surely use the same “O” word in Toronto that the rest of us used in Colorado). Indeed, by the end of this week, when word on another fall film finally hits, I expect the conversation may well shift to “12 Years a Slave” being one of two early frontrunners for the Best Picture Oscar. Maybe three, as “Gravity” certainly is a contender for the win in the eyes of some.

But, again, there are lots of bends in the road ahead. I’m just glad the movies, for the most part anyway, are so good (so far).

A new featurette for McQueen’s film, which debuted at Yahoo! Movies, does a great job of setting the scene. Interviews with McQueen, star Chiwetel Ejiofor and producers Dede Gardner and Bill Pohlad are sprinkled throughout. Have a look below.

“12 Years a Slave” arrives in limited release on Oct. 18.

AFI Fest has come out swinging with a pair of big premieres for the 2013 edition of the Los Angeles-based festival and a closing night selection reflective of an American indie skipping across the festival circuit like a stone this year.

Set for opening night on Thursday, Nov. 7 is John Lee Hancock’s “Saving Mr. Banks” starring Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson. It won’t be the world premiere of the film, as that honor has been saved for closing night of the BFI London Festival on Oct. 20. But it will be the North American debut of the Walt Disney/P.L. Travers story that could be a dominant force on the awards circuit.

Meanwhile, in the form of a gala presentation, Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” will receive its world premiere at the festival on Friday, Nov. 8. The film stars Steve Carell in a performance that could bring him a Best Actor nomination much like Miller’s work secured the same for Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Capote” and Brad Pitt in “Moneyball.”

Closing the festival will be the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis,” just another festival stop for a film playing the long game this season. It just played the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado but will skip the busy Toronto fest in favor of New York later this month.

Finally, documentary filmmaker Agnès Varda, often called the mother of the French New Wave movement, has been tapped as Guest Artistic Director.

“Our line-up of programming, from opening to closing, reflects what Hollywood is today: a broad spectrum of stories from studio and independent filmmakers,” Festival Director Jacqueline Lyanga said via press release. “Having Agnès Varda as Guest Artistic Director was a conscious decision to recognize the global influence of an icon of the French New Wave. The blending of studio, independent, foreign and auteur films and the artists who made them is the embodiment of AFI FEST.”

The 27th annual AFI Fest runs Nov. 7 – 14.

VENICE – Venice festival scheduling is a business that can seem haphazard at best, and perverse at worst. Kim Ki-duk’s castration-and-incest bonanza “Moebius” straight after breakfast? Sure. Philip Groning’s three-hour, 59-chapter dissection of domestic abuse to finish the day? Hey, why not? Sometimes, however, they let on that they really know what they’re doing with a juxtaposition that seems too perfect to be accidental — and they don’t come much more effectively on-the-nose than last night’s back-to-back double bill of Alex Gibney’s “The Armstrong Lie” (B-) and Errol Morris’ “The Unknown Known” (C+). (Even the titles have a pleasingly similar cadence.) It wasn’t labelled in the programme as The Great American Douchebags Special, but we got the idea.

Perhaps it’s a side effect of viewing them with only a 20-minute, theater-traversing in between, but the films seemed too well-matched — not just in content, but in a number of their strongest and weakest points — to review separately, even if they’ll rarely be re-partnered outside the festival environment.

Of course, it’d be a pretty vapid line of criticism to directly equate the docs’ subjects. Having finally admitted guilt after years of strenuously denied doping allegations — and having been unceremoniously stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles — cyclist Lance Armstrong may be the biggest fraud in the history of recorded sport, but his sins have largely come at his own expense. That’s something that can’t be said for former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whose strenuously denied errors of judgement in the Iraq War came not only at significant human cost, but at the already frail international political credibility of his country. Degrees of media fascination may suggest otherwise, but one is plainly a drop in the ocean of another.

What they have in common — and what seems principally to aggravate Gibney and Morris, both occasionally audible in their films as rather animated interviewers — is a certain faith-breaking status in contemporary American culture, a legacy of public distrust that, particularly in the case of a more romantic figure like Armstrong, has been symbolically extrapolated to realms beyond their personal reach. Rumsfeld certainly wasn’t the only one making terrible, uninformed decisions in that fraught period of US political history, but for a few years, it seemed his thin smile and rimless spectacles were the all-purpose face of American institutional corruption — arguably even more so than his equally widely loathed Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, if only because Rumsfeld was so much more articulate, and therefore more insidious to his detractors.

Armstrong, by contrast, has no political agency, but his long-term feat of self-elevating deception — perhaps more immediately comprehensible to the general public in terms of its moral transgressions than Rumsfeld’s political acts, and more prone to salacious media interpretations — betrayed an ideal of American heroism that the global public had invested in to a considerable degree. Nobody expects politicians, even the ones on the side of right, to be all that honorable. (We do, however, want them to be competent.) But the good-looking cancer survivor who battles the odds to become a world-beating athlete and lead-by-example philanthropist? When he turns out to be an illusion, nobody dies — but people are hurt anyway.

Gibney is one of those people. Normally the coolest of customers, the prolific documentarian here lets a passive-aggressive tone of disenchantment, even anger, seep into his filmmaking that speaks less of a admirer’s aggrievement than of a professional’s annoyance at having had the wool pulled over his eyes. Gibney started this documentary with a very different motivation in 2009, chronicling Armstrong’s attempted Tour de France comeback — regardless of the outcome, his last professional hurrah before he was conclusively rumbled as a doper — with the intention of discovering just what made this supposed human superman tick.

It’d have been an unconventionally rose-tinted approach for the usually assidious Gibney; several talking heads in the film’s 2013 sections, including Armstrong’s former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife, dogged Armstrong persecutor Betsy, openly express their amused dismay that he ever considered making it. But Gibney admits that, four years ago, he fell hook, line and sinker for the so-called Armstrong lie, and has had to perform an about-face on this entire project and his reason for making it.

That can’t be an easy admission to make: the resulting peevishness of “The Armstrong Lie” makes it at once one of Gibney’s most humanly compelling works, and one of his more rhetorically inconsistent, as the film unavoidably slides between interview footage from before and after the fact that pursues very different intelligence and emotion.

Armstrong is a chilly but willing interview participant in footage filmed this spring, in the aftermath of his irreversibly comprehensive Oprah confession, but strangely, he never seems more contrite than in intimate, conversational footage with Gibney immediately after his 2009 Tour defeat, in which he apologizes for losing and thereby denying Gibney’s film its triumphant ending. He’s not joking, either. All along, Armstrong’s chief skill — well, maybe not his chief one; he’s still a half-decent cyclist — has been as a builder of personal narrative. If he’s unrewardingly bland and unforthcoming in what should be the ‘gotcha!’ stages of Gibney’s new-model film, it’s because, with his personal and professional reputation still in fresh tatters, he hasn’t located the next narrative yet.

Rumsfeld, by contrast, built an entire career on being unrewardingly bland and unforthcoming — as “The Unknown Known” reminds us with frequent flashbacks (boxed, as we saw them, within a turn-of-the-century television screen) to his famous White House press conferences, where he deflected one question after another with breathtakingly smarmy poise and patter. He may not have fooled onlookers into believing he knew significantly more than they did — or, in the case of his recurring gaffe over WMDs, that his professed ignorance was any more considered than theirs — but his watery confidence was intimidating on a human level. It’s hard to argue productively with someone who may indeed have nothing to hide, who genuinely appears to believe his stubborn, transparently unsustainable convictions.

That enigma — whether Rumsfeld has ever doubted his public frontage, whether his most contentious war strategies were born of profound belief or tactical stopgapping — is one Errol Morris doesn’t really come close to penetrating in “The Unknown Known.” A typically handsome, charcoal-hued effort, it has plainly been conceived as a structural and thematic bookend to “The Fog of War,” Morris’ Oscar-winning interrogation of another former Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, with a lot on his conscience. In his smooth but insistent way, Morris cracked McNamara: there was no cathartic mea culpa on his Vietnam decision-making, of course, but his open engagement and reasonably candid self-evaluation was victory enough.

If Morris was hoping to tease out this degree of consideration in Rumsfeld, he’s out of luck. Pristinely power-suited, with his high, even vocal tone as intact as if he’d just fielded another press conference, Rumsfeld sits before Morris’ classically direct camera like a man out to pass a test, barely pausing for thought before batting off the interviewer’s questions with unfazed, occasionally bored politeness. “I’m not an obsessive person,” he responds dully, at the first hint of a rise in Morris’ tone. “I’m cool and measured.”

That may be a smug, unendearing start to an interview, but damn it, the man’s not wrong. “Everything seems amazing in retrospect,” he drawls, sounding resolutely unamazed, as Morris tries in vain to draw him into battle on such matters as the conflation of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden in the US imagination (“Oh, I don’t think so”), those confounding weapons of mass destruction (“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”) and the human violations of Guantanamo Bay (“Things occur that shouldn’t occur”). Most lines of enquiry are punctuated with that tightly sealed smile.

The few victories Morris claims over his subject are small ones. When Morris brings up the simple defeat he suffered to George Bush in the contest to be Ronald Reagan’s running mate, asking if he believes he missed the chance to be President, Rumsfeld’s lips purse up a little too abruptly as he concedes, “It’s possible.” For all the drastically unflattering circumstances that led to his resignation in 2006, he seems more perturbed by a loss he can’t pass off as voluntary.

And on the interview’s umpteenth reiteration of his signature knowns-and-unknowns spiel — aphoristic bosh, essentially, designed to defuse almost any given question — he finally comes unstuck, if only for a moment. Re-reading one of his famously innumerable memos, visualised throughout the film either as snowflakes or looming pillars of “Brazil”-like bureaucracy, he stumbles and admits that he may have incorrectly flipped a “known” or “unknown” here and there. It’s a small error, played for laughs, but it’s his only moment of doubt in the film, caught out as he is by his own obfuscation of the truth.

If Gibney finally scores more points over his subject than Morris does, that’s because his film at least has the advantage of multiple talking heads to fortify his stance, most of them anti-Armstrong. (I did wonder, amid the cadre of former friends and associates brought before the camera, if Armstrong’s ex-fiancee Sheryl Crow was approached for interview, given what a crucial supporting role she played, at the apex of his career, in enhancing his fairytale celebrity. I can’t imagine it was a stone left unturned.)

Morris, as is his wont, has only his subject to contend with — the more striking approach, but the more limiting one when the subject won’t be engaged. In contrast to the professionally televisual construction of “The Armstrong Lie,” “The Unknown Known” shakes out its maker’s trademark bag of formal techniques and technical embellishments, including an overegged score from Danny Elfman that plays on two definitions of horror, in an apparent attempt to make the interview content seem more dramatic by association. Morris has a more artistic filmmaking sensibility than Gibney — there’s a reason his film is in Competition at Venice, and Gibney’s isn’t. But he can also be awfully literal-minded in his choice of imagery, as when the phrase “a black hole of words” is accompanied by a digital graphic of words swirling in a vortex.

For their respective shortcomings, however, the chief reward of both films — I was about to type “pleasure,” before rethinking — is watching their subjects in repose. If there can be such a thing as defiant defeat, Lance Armstrong appears to have nailed it. Twitchy and hunted-looking as he fields Gibney’s questions without affect, he’s a different man from the guy who once brazenly rebuffed all enquiries about his drug-taking with such hypocritical self-righteousness, but his self-image is still undented: he still believes he’s the best, and did what he needed to do to prove that.

Rumsfeld, meanwhile, seems not to have changed a whit from his time in the hot seat  His unflappability is as compelling as it is enervating, perhaps because it’s a comfortable side effect of the limits of his consciousness. (Or, indeed, conscience.) Has Errol Morris failed to illuminate Donald Rumsfeld, or is there simply nothing in the shadows? Lance Armstrong could probably have taken a leaf from Rumsfeld’s book. Gibney’s cleverly selected archive footage reveals that his tack has always been so defensive, it’s a wonder he lived his lie for as long as he did. As one of these guys said — though it could have been either — everything seems amazing in retrospect.

Ron Howard’s “Rush” has occupied some prime real estate throughout our Contenders section for a number of weeks. Lots of “but racing movies don’t register” and “it looks too commercial” or whatever greeted the suggestion that it could be an Oscar player. There’s been a reason we’ve had a lot of faith in it: people love this movie. And today, Variety’s Peter Debruge has posted a cartwheel-turning rave up one side and down the other.

I caught the film just before the Telluride Film Festival and had high hopes. I’ve been hearing stellar things about this one for a while now, particularly Daniel Brühl’s performance. So maybe expectation was too high, but it felt like something was missing for me. Peter Morgan’s script awkwardly makes its way through a story of rivalry and friendship between Formula One racing stars Niki Lauda (Brühl) and James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and it doesn’t quite hit the high marks it apparently thinks it hits. But it’s not like the film is a big miss or anything. There’s a lot to appreciate here and I think it will continue to gather fans, perhaps on the way to major Oscar recognition.

Starting with Brühl, he completely inhabits the prickly, temperamental, cocky Lauda. From voice to visage, Brühl becomes the guy. When tragedy strikes Lauda (it’s no spoiler that he sustained considerable burns and scarring following a crash in 1976), Brühl keeps the character’s spirit alive in surprising ways. He’s virtually a co-lead in the film, splitting the overbearing narration with Hemsworth, but Universal will set him up with a Best Supporting Actor push, and I think he’ll get there.

Hemsworth makes so much of his movie star moxie that he’s a delight to watch, but performance-wise, the film really is dominated by Brühl. And the whole enterprise doesn’t feel like anything Howard has given us before, a filmmaking rush (no pun intended) from start to finish, and it’s there that the film truly sings: below the line.

Starting at the top with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, the film is shot with a vengeance. Along with Daniel P. Hanley and Mike Hill’s film editing, as well as the hard work of the visual effects artists, Mantle’s sleek work at the camera puts you right behind the wheel, feeling every ounce of excitement and terror Lauda and Hunt experience around the track.

Additionally, the film’s aural elements are outstanding. Nominations for sound editing and sound mixing are definitely on the table, while Hans Zimmer’s score — quite different from what he offers on “12 Years a Slave” this year — is a gripping pulse-pounder.

So there are a lot of shots at recognition here. I could see it going either way, though: success throughout the categories or merely a crafts hog. We’ll see how it lands at Toronto next week, as well as how it fares at the box office against adult fare like “Prisoners” and “Enough Said.” Universal also has “Lone Survivor” coming on the back end of the year, which is very much in play for similar awards, too. But people are really responding to “Rush” in ways I’m even a little surprised by after having finally seen it. So keep an eye on it throughout the season: it could have the checkered flag in its sights.

“Rush” will screen at the Toronto Film Festival next week. Keep an eye out for HitFix’s coverage. It arrives in theaters on Sept. 27.

VENICE – I want to sit with Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” for a while longer before writing about it at length: the film’s hard surfaces are so immaculate, belying the powerful, frayed-nerve story of multiple forms of bodily invasion that nestles inside, that I may take in a second screening at Venice before trying to crack them. This much is immediately apparent: it’s the riskiest, most extravagantly sensual and image-fuelled film in Competition at Venice. Naturally, a handful of dolts booed it at this morning’s press screening. What else is new?

Glazer’s been here before. Nine years ago, “Birth” debuted on the Lido to profoundly split critical opinion, but rode it out: today, the film remains divisive, but its critical rehabilitation has been aggressively impassioned, and its cultural stock is substantial. Something tells me his latest, an even thornier piece, will follow a similar trajectory: its defenders (particularly within the Brit contingent, though Greg Ellwood was among its champions when it sneaked a few days ago in Telluride) are already vocal.

The person with the most to gain from “Under the Skin” is Scarlett Johansson: people are calling her performance revelatory, but when I say she’s not doing anything I didn’t already know she can do, I mean that as a compliment. It’s adventurous but selfless work in a film that puts her milky bombshell beauty to more ideal use than anything she’s ever been in. This is a great year for Johansson: at the other end of the spectrum, we have her delightfully droll, best-in-show turn as a snappy Jersey girl in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “Don Jon” coming up. She couldn’t have picked two more different vehicles with which to reinvent herself this year.

More on the film later, then, but in the meantime, UK distributor StudioCanal has unveiled the film’s first teaser trailer. It won’t leave you any the wiser as to the tricky game Glazer is playing — but does give you a chance to sample its exquisitely imagery, as well as 26-year-old composer Mica Levi’s startling score. Check it out and tell us what you think.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOLLKM7-lL0?rel=0&w=640&h=480]

TELLURIDE, Colo. – The 40th annual Telluride Film Festival has come to a close, unofficially launching the Oscar season and wrapping up another wonderfully curated program that continues to be one of my most anticipated journeys each year.

Not to start on a down note, but there’s been an odd whiff of ownership of the fest amongst a certain set that likes to think that, because of the way studios have been using sneak previews of Oscar-contending films here as an awards season launch pad, things just aren’t the way they used to be. This was just my fifth stint. I’m by no means a long-timer. But talk to anyone who’s been here 20, 30 years and you find out that the spirit of the fest is the same as it has always been. It’s just the noise around it that these people are responding to, and really, that noise isn’t unique to Telluride.

Part of this is obviously the rise in media attention here. Maybe some think their little paradise has been spoiled. But speaking personally, I’ve absolutely relished the experiences I’ve had here over the last five years, precious few of them regarding the awards season. Only a grouch would begrudge more people experiencing that cinephile joy, right?

Telluride XL was a packed affair. Indeed, the three films I had been saving for today ended up scheduled right on top of each other. In the end, I settled on Hayao Miyazaki to round out my experience. With the animation legend taking his leave of the cinema, it felt somehow apt. And though I don’t count myself as a major fan of the director’s work, I found “The Wind Rises” to be something of a gem in his catalog. It has an elegiac feel but also one of life lessons learned. It’s so deeply felt, so mature, with grace notes throughout hinting at a swan song: Here’s a film that, after all, contains the line, “I’m retiring. This is my last design.”

Earlier in the morning I took in a second screening of Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity,” the first time I’ve ever double-dipped at Telluride. Mostly it was a last resort due to odd scheduling on the fest’s part Monday morning and afternoon, but it also seemed like a film that demanded another ride. I liked it even more the second time, affected by its tender if easy emotional strokes and, naturally, blown away by its technical accomplishments.

I should also mention I caught up with John Curran’s “Tracks” Sunday night. I’m a fan of the filmmaker, who somehow manages to have a unique voice with each film he gives us. This one’s a lesser work,  though, not overly compelling thematically or formally, but a little difficult to dislike at the same time. Mia Wasikowska is a solid anchor throughout.

I also finally saw Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past,” which shocked me at how minor it felt. The performances and craft are great but the soap opera story left me wanting more. I’m one of many who felt “A Separation” was a towering achievement but this one didn’t land right for me at all. Bérénice Bejo gives a wonderful performance, however.

Those are really the only moderately down notes of the fest for me. And really, if those are the lows, it says a lot for the highs. Looking back at the program, I’m mostly happy to have experienced the dream of seeing “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” in these mountains. And not only that, but such a beautiful HD scan of the negative. It will be my favorite Telluride memory for years to come, I imagine.

The awards stuff made its mark, no doubt. But the question is, did we see the 2013 Best Picture winner at Telluride this year, as we have four of the last five years? I’m honestly not so sure. In fact, I’ve been wondering lately if the ultimate winner ends up being a non-festival film — “American Hustle” or “The Monuments Men” — rather than the nurtured players of the season. It’s way too early for such talk, but the appearance of “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Artist” and “Argo” at this festival in recent years at least welcomes a pondering of the possibilities. Do “Gravity” and “12 Years a Slave” — both October releases — have the stuff of winners? The latter certainly could, but I have a nagging feeling the Telluride Oscar streak will hit a hiccup this year.

Speaking of Oscars, the Academy put together a lovely little exhibit at the Sheridan Opera House celebrating 40 years of Telluride. In addition, there were clips depicting iconic filmmakers from the Academy’s TFF Special Collection that screened in advance of each film, as well as special screenings of Satyajit Ray’s “Mahanagar” and the 1948 short “Muscle Beach,” both courtesy of the Academy Film Archive. Also, the Werner Herzog Theater displayed photos of the director over the years taken from the Academy’s collection.

Speaking of the new 650-seat venue, it is, easily, the best theater of the lot. Comfy seating, exquisite sound, gorgeously designed, it’s truly worthy of the namesake. I think I ended up there most of the time.

I saw 12 films on the program and that’s a little more than I normally find time for, what with the filing and the peripheral things like interviews and whatnot. Favorites include “Gravity” and “Tim’s Vermeer,” but all of it made for a solid anniversary year. I have to hand it to programmers Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer and Julie Huntsinger for crafting yet another sterling program.

Here’s to 40 more years.

Check out all of our 2013 Telluride Film Festival coverage here.

TELLURIDE, Colo. – The 2013 Telluride Film Festival has come to a close and, overall, the quality of the slate was befitting the event’s 40th anniversary. Granted, you might have expected more celebratory moments, but Telluride has always been about the movies first. Parties? Special ceremonies?  Eh, they’ll stick with the annual Thursday “feed” and Labor Day picnic thank you very much.

This was my fourth straight trip to Telluride and it has quickly become my most anticipated festival of the year (Sundance is a strong no. 2). In fact, I’m not sure I can imagine the Labor Day weekend without it. The quality of the films is always high and it’s become a must in covering awards season. Young or old, attendees (many of them Academy members) love to strike up a conversation about what they liked and, only if you really pester them, what they didn’t. This year, “Nebraska” was the semi-surprise stand-out and “12 Years A Slave,” “Gravity” and “Tim’s Vermeer” were not that far behind. “All Is Lost” was mentioned as a favorite the first two days of the festival, but didn’t come up as often the rest of the weekend (hmmm). “Inside Llewyn Davis” had its fans (although it didn’t go over like gangbusters like I thought it might) and “Under the Skin” easily became the most polarizing film of the festival (and possibly the year). Jonathan Glazer’s art film will probably (hopefully?) go over much better in Venice and Toronto, but that reaction is why the Telluride brain trust brought it in the first place. Every year they love to include a film or two in the program that challenges the regulars. “Under the Skin” (read my review here) certainly fit that bill.

Now, awards season takes a quick breath before it all begins again Thursday with the kickoff of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. In the meantime, here are my thoughts (and some awards consideration) on a number of films I didn’t fully review.

“Prisoners”
Grade: B
Director Denis Villeneuve (“Incendies”), famed cinematographer Roger Deakins and a stellar cast turn what could be a conventional melodramatic thriller into something much more interesting.  Well, at least for the first 30 minutes or so. Eventually, the storyline’s genre trappings kick in and it all starts to feel less special than it first appeared to be. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal are the standouts among an excellent ensemble.  The former would be a shoe-in for a best actor nomination any other year, but this season?  It’s gonna be tough.
Awards Potential: Hugh Jackman (Best Actor), Roger Deakins (Cinematography)

“Palo Alto”
Grade: C
Gia Coppola comes from an increasingly long line of Coppola filmmakers and that’s a good thing.  Unfortunately, her debut is based on James Franco’s book of the same title and it centers on a group of high schoolers dealing with typical teenage angst issues (well, sort of).  Coppola has talent with actors and tone, but the material is nothing we haven’t seen before (sometimes decades before). It also hurts that Coppola doesn’t really have anything to say about this “generation” she’s thrown the spotlight on.  “Palo Alto” includes some notable turns by Emma Roberts and Val Kilmer’s son Jack Kilmer (someone to watch for), but that’s about it.
Awards Potential: None

“Gravity”
Grade: A
I’m going to predict I’ll be talking about Alfonso Cuaron’s masterpiece (yes, it’s true) a lot during the upcoming season, so I’ll edit myself here (or you can take in Guy Lodge’s similarly rapturous review out of Venice). Bluntly, “Gravity” is a visceral and compelling cinematic experience that deserves all the praise it’s already gotten.  What’s abundantly clear out of Telluride and Venice is that those who love will love with a passion. Where that puts it on March 2 still remains to be seen.
Awards Potential: Best Picture, Sandra Bullock (Best Actress), Alfonso Cuaron (Director), George Clooney (Supporting Actor), Emmanuel Lubezki (Cinematography), Alfonso Cuaron, Mark Sanger (Editing) Andy Nicholson (Production Design), Steven Price (Original Score), Alfonso Cuaron, Jonas Cuaron (Original Screenplay), Tim Webber (Visual Effects), (Best Sound), (Sound Editing)

“Tim’s Vermeer”
Grade: B
Directed by Teller and produced by Penn Jillette and Farley Ziegler, this documentary follows a 3-year  journey by millionaire inventor Tim Jenison to prove a theory on how famed painter Johannes Vermeer created his classics. Jenison believes Vermeer used mirrors and a special reflective box to bring his photo-like paintings to life. In order to prove it, he decides to paint his own version of a classic Vermeer in his San Antonio warehouse. The result is an intriguing and entertaining doc, but also a slight one that might be slightly overhyped after a rapturous Telluride audience response.
Awards Potential: (Documentary)

“The Wind Rises”
Grade: C+
This was one of the more disappointing films at the festival. Seemingly the last film from animation master Hayao Miyazaki, “Rises” is inspired by the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the chief engineer of the Mitsubishi Zero fighter used by the Japanese army during WW II.  How it treats the war itself is somewhat disturbing, but the picture’s downfall is its screenplay (there are numerous scenes about getting the right rivets for the plane and engineering presentations that are about as exciting as that sounds).  Even when Miyazaki is focusing on the film’s romance he tests the audience’s patience with sequences that never seem to end. That being said, Miyazaki conjures up some inspired “dreams” for Horkioshi. You just wish he’d been willing to edit the overall film just a bit more.
Awards Potential: (Animated Feature)

Additional Telluride reviews you might have missed:

“Labor Day”
Grade: B

“12 Years A Slave”
Grade: A-

“Under the Skin”
Grade: A-

“The Invisible Woman”
Grade: C+

VENICE – Playing an online shrink, Tilda Swinton raps for about 30 seconds at the midpoint of “The Zero Theorem” — a stiff, Scots-accented Fresh Prince breakdown performed from under a broom-like hairpiece. It doesn’t advance the story in any way, but then, nothing here does; her screen is switched off and the rap passes without comment, like a slippery fart in an elevator; the onscreen witnesses look sheepish to have heard it at all.

I lead with this otherwise irrelevant detail because it’s the one moment in the film I can imagine hapless uninitiated viewers hearing about, and latching onto as a single reason to see the ghastly whole: “Tilda Swinton raps? This movie sounds crazy! This I gotta see.” But you don’t: it’s merely a tone-deaf gag that perhaps has marginally more YouTube life in it than the surfeit of other tone-deaf gags in “The Zero Theorem,” a British-French-Romanian-produced sci-fi bauble that says ‘no’ to little, and has evidently been said ‘no’ to a lot. Terry Gilliam films are hard to get made these days even if you’re Terry Gilliam, a truth you could use to prompt a speech decrying the lack of eccentricity and risk-taking in studio-film fantasy, if not for a compelling alternative argument: Terry Gilliam films are hard to get made these days because Terry Gilliam films these days are kind of awful.

The British-adopted American arguably reached a more hopeful brink of awfulness with 2009’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” a botched but genuinely reckless formal gambit that at least has compelling design work on its side. But “The Zero Theorem” represents an alarming backslide, perhaps even past Gilliam’s last film to play the Lido, 2005’s desperate “The Brothers Grimm.” A dystopian quest narrative that offers ample density without complexity, its superficial structural and symbolic parallels to “Brazil” — still, at 28 years of age, the director’s most broadly admired film — suggest even Gilliam has clocked, and tired of, his creative decline. (We’ll give the benefit of the doubt and say “parallels” when a director cribs from his own oeuvre, but first-time screenwriter Pat Rushin should arguably face harsher charges of thievery.)

Still, a strain (and I do mean strain) of disheartened self-nostalgia runs through “Theorem,” touching on more than just the bureaucratic terror of “Brazil”: its slap-headed  victim-hero Qohan Leth (played by Christoph Waltz, also shorn of eyebrows and confidence) is a feyer Euro cousin to Bruce Willis in “12 Monkeys,” for starters. Never mind that “The Zero Theorem” is essentially an obscure synonym for the already-taken “The Meaning of Life.” None of the visual and story cues prompt comparisons that flatter the new film to any degree, though, while you needn’t even view it relation to past works to wonder why it looks so appalling, with slipshod post-production and cinematographer Nicola Pecorini’s hard lighting doing little to build upon a resourcefully spent but palpably meager budget.

What’s it about? I’m inclined to say nothing at all, though proceedings are certainly busy enough, so I assume things happen between all the shouting and internet sex and singing pizza boxes. It’s every cash-strapped sci-fi director’s favorite period, The Near Future: street denizens wear neon rollerblades and what appears to be last season’s Junya Watanabe, and David Thewlis’ software company employee is still rocking a Macklemore haircut. (I peg it at November 2014.)

The Mancom Corporation is not a new gay socializing app, but a large technology company that performs some kind of Big Brother-y, data-preserving variety of Stuff — insert Miranda Priestly’s testy eyebrow-raise here — and is headed up by Matt Damon in his second-worst coiffure of 2013. Damon, otherwise known as The Management, employs reclusive computer whiz Leth to hack away at the titular theorem: a supposedly intricate process that appears to involve playing a version of Minesweeper that would have blown your mind back when the George Bush, Sr, was still President. Once cracked, I think the Theorem reveals The Meaning of Life, though I could be wrong about that, since Leth also spends years waiting for a phone call that, he believes, will also let him in on The Meaning of Life. Perhaps there are two Meanings. Perhaps Leth is simply covering his bases. Either way, you will come away feeling considerably older, if no wiser.

I’m being glib, but it’s not as if Rushin’s screenplay offers much in the way of an alternative, as it feeds us helpful lines like, “The nature of the origin of the call remains quintessentially a mystery to us.” Well, okay. Be that way, then. Gilliam’s brand has always been dependent on an element of obtuse whimsy, but at no point in “The Zero Theorem” did I feel I was playing catch-up to anything or anyone, particularly as its rather shabby utopian aspirations come into focus.

In the closest thing the story has to an emotional nub, Leth pursues twinkly French cyber-callgirl Bainsley (Melanie Thierry) through a virtual reality suit that encouragingly suggests “Holy Motors” is at least one film Gilliam has enjoyed in the last two years. (Hers is a cone-breasted catsuit straight from Madonna’s 1990 Blonde Ambition collection: “This thing is years ahead of the competition,” she says, somewhat unexpectedly revealing that, even in The Near Future, the competition will still be Paula Abdul. Who knew?)

Naturally, they fall in love with each other, even if one or the other or both is merely a construct of a figment of a byte of something: their getaway, and a projection of our potential salvation, is a digitally-constructed beach at perma-sunset, where a piano-lounge cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” plays on loop. I don’t know if changing the music is an option. I hope it is.  It’s the final proof, however, that Gilliam’s claustrophobic, maximal brand of futurism  is so rigidly stuck in 1995 — coincidentally or otherwise, the last time he made a fully satisfying film — that “The Zero Theorem” plays practically as a period piece. Tilda Rap and all. 

TELLURIDE, Colo. – Like any artist, J.C. Chandor isn’t interested in tying his work down with one thematic takeaway. Indeed, his latest film, “All is Lost,” lives in the abstract and can service any number of perspectives on it. But for a guy who launched his career with the financial crisis indie “Margin Call,” one can’t help but wonder if this film, about a man stranded at sea as things go from bad to worse, isn’t in some way a metaphor for market collapse and financial ruin as seen over the last five years.

Put the question to him and he’ll side-step it a bit, but he will admit that he had the baby boomer generation in mind when conceiving the story. That’s what led him to cast Robert Redford in the lead — well, only — role.

“It’s about this guy coming to grips with the end of his life,” he says back stage at the Palm theater here after introducing the film to another festival audience. “And there’s this bubble that is, when all is said and done, probably going to be a 10 to 12 years to get out of this whole mess. We’re still flailing around a little bit in it, and certainly in other parts of the world terribly so. So, when you take a guy of Redford’s generation, this is the time in their lives for reflection.”

“Margin Call,” he says, was largely about misused potential. Chandor graduated school and spent 10 years kind of “flopping around,” he says. Many people of his generation experienced a lengthy climb of “bubble-making,” be it financially, in real estate, etc., and witnessing the responsibilities of the older generation falter in that regard sparked his chamber-piece debut.

“All is Lost” is another sort of chamber piece, but Chandor isn’t so cagey as to not admit there are plenty of lines to be drawn. After all, this is a film in which a man stranded at sea desperately tries to flag a massive ship full of commercial shipping containers as it passes him by, unaware, like the vast enterprise of a nation passing the little guy by as economic disparity continues to widen the gap between the haves and have nots. The man fishes for food, reeling in a catch as suddenly a shark gobbles the spoils, recalling notions of the privileged benefitting from the accomplishments of the working class.

It’s even right there in the film’s first moment when a similar container tears a gash in the side of the man’s modest sailing vessel, lighting the fuse for the rest of the film’s narrative. “Is it a huge Chinese shipping crate that does him in when he’s sort of sleeping because he’s not paying attention,” Chandor asks rhetorically. “Yeah…there are certainly things in the movie that represent elements of that. And that was the fun thing for me, was to sort of be able to play with that. Because my first film was so sort of on the nose of everything, or very specific in what it was trying to accomplish and who it was representing. If we were having a beer, I might not tape it, but I’d get into it further. The nice thing for me is I love that it can be different things for different people.”

So he’d like to keep the Rorschach open to interpretation. And indeed, point taken. Like “Gravity,” another film playing the Telluride Film Festival this year, “All is Lost” can also be perceived as a story of rebirth. Its final moment could be read at face value or as spiritual release. It’s all those things and more.

Another thing Chandor is hoping audiences will get out of the film is bringing their own history with Redford to the table. In the 77-year-old actor, the director was looking for someone at once iconic and everyman.

“Everyone has such a history with the guy that it’s really hard to get a role where he can kind of play a blank slate,” he says. “Once you get to a point of iconic status, it’s hard to break through as a pure character actor. So in this film, what I was hoping would work is that hopefully you forget that it’s Robert Redford on the surface because the situation is so dire and outside of the norm. But subconsciously you bring your sort of history with this person and your own experience with him.”

Chandor had been writing the film with Redford in mind even before his first film was accepted at Sundance in 2011. He recalled being at a big filmmakers gathering at the festival that year and almost drumming up the courage to present the project to Redford, but he quickly balked at his own audacity. “I had this very self-destructive moment where I was like, ‘I’m not going to wait in line to meet him. He’s never going to say yes!'”

A few weeks later Chandor called Redford’s agent and went through the usual channels. The next thing he knew he was in LA meeting the actor for the first time, and of all the filmmakers Sundance has accepted over the years, Redford says Chandor is the first to have approached him with a project. They met for a while and finally the actor said to Chandor, “I wanted to make sure you weren’t crazy. Let’s go do this.” And they were off to Rosarito, Mexico to start production shortly after.

Chandor actually looked back at the action movies of the 80s in structuring some of the meticulously plotted circumstances of the film. Movies like “Die Hard,” he says, have mini-structures within for sequences, a few minutes of seeing the problem coming, a few minutes of being in the middle of that problem and then a few moments of getting over it. And each trial and tribulation Redford’s character faces in the film follows that sort of flow.

The first 12 minutes of the film set the scene for that structure and Chandor says he felt strongly about keeping it as drawn out as it is, even though there were conversations with his financing and distribution partners about how the scene unfolds. In a nutshell, Redford’s character wakes up to see water flooding his tiny boat. He finally pushes free of the floating shipping container that did the boat in by tying it down with an anchor, then circles back around to retrieve the anchor. The whole scene is very much indicative of the behavioral minutiae that permeates the film.

“My theory, which I believe very strongly and fought for, was that this is a very different movie,” he says. “It structures as a narrative very differently. So I had to teach you right up front, right off the bat, that if the first 12 minutes work for you, then the movie’s probably gonna work for you. It sets the tone and it also sets the way the narrative is going to be structured. You’re not always going to know what’s happening right away because not everyone knows all the nautical and technical stuff, but if you stick with me for like four minutes, I’m not gonna make you wait an hour to tell you the answer to each of these little questions.”

Chandor also shot the film quite specifically to make the viewer feel as if he or she were in the middle of this dilemma with Redford. The camera is almost always eye-level with the actor and never really pulls back to a position of observation. When you’re on a boat, that’s your world, Chandor says, even though the instinct with filmmaking equipment like technocranes and the like is to shoot things in a grander, more omniscient way. The world of the ship becomes a microcosm. “It’s what people do,” he says. “Our world becomes very small and it’s what really is just around us.”

The Telluride experience has been very different for Chandor than the world premiere Cannes experience, which the director says was an “emotional disaster.” He was living in total denial about the film, which was so off the beaten track creatively, and at around $10 million — a modest budget by some measure but hardly shoe string — there was risk involved for various investors. Not only that, but there was a hyper-personal element: he was sitting next to Redford at the first big public screening and the actor had not yet seen the film. Once that was all over, it was like a giant weight had been lifted.

So here in Telluride, the pressure is mostly off. “Whether people love the movie or not, they are really responding to it,” he says. “And the festival kind of seems like it’s about film lovers. They’re just coming to see movies.”

In the end, even with the chasing of thematic threads and attempting to nail it down to this or that, Chandor wants it to be viewed in a personal way by audiences, just as he had his personal take on making it. “Redford, I hope, is representing us all,” he says. “But certainly somewhere in my mind was Robert Redford representing people from a generation that had all this promise and all this prosperity and what came from it. Great things did, but at the end of your life you always question, I would think. I mean, that’s my guess.”

“All is Lost” arrives in theaters on Oct. 18.

The Telluride Film Festival wraps up today and with that, the upcoming awards season has finally taken a little shape. We have a long way to go, of course, and no one should be calling the race from this far out, but we certainly know a few things.

Despite the weird and borderline envious sniping on Twitter from non-Telluride journos eager to have their own say on how the narrative was being shaped, “12 Years a Slave” is a knock-out contender full stop. Chiwetel Ejiofor has already been the recipient of some extreme “one-to-beat” coverage, and that may be a reach (we don’t know how the other performances in a hugely contentious Best Actor race will be received), but he’s outstanding in an emotional piece of work that elicits outright sobbing.

And it’s certainly not cheaply achieved emotion, either. Steve McQueen is further refining his filmmaking acumen, and even if I remain partial to the abstractions of “Hunger” and “Shame,” as more conventional work goes, “12 Years” is masterful stuff. Fox Searchlight was smart to bring the film here ahead of its Toronto premiere in order to make a nice splash before diving into that upcoming glut, and it’s really the only all-cylinders film they have to work with this season. They know what they’re doing and the film does plenty of its own work, so expect Academy members to take it seriously. And with an October release, it will have a long time to sit and marinate with voters, much like “Argo” last year.

The other big sneak preview of the festival was Denis Villeneuve’s “Prisoners,” which is an unexpectedly patient and measured studio thriller. Villeneuve has chops, there’s no question, but despite some breathy exclamations elsewhere, I remain a bit reserved on its awards prospects. At the end of the day, it doesn’t quite match the filmmaking prowess to which it has been compared (David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” for instance, which, by the way, wasn’t an Oscar movie). I think ultimately we’ll see this was “just” Villeneuve’s impressive leap onto the Hollywood stage, and at the end of the day, there’s no shame in that. However, critics in love with the film could end up pushing the issue and Warner Bros. thinks its a film to nurture through the circuit. Hugh Jackman will have trouble cracking the tight Best Actor field but Jake Gyllenhaal isn’t a huge stretch for supporting. Others think Melissa Leo is someone to consider but in my humble opinion she represents the weakest element of the film.

Jason Reitman has big shoes to fill on the awards circuit: his own. And the director’s latest, “Labor Day,” was the biggest official world premiere on the schedule. The film landed in somewhat more mixed waters than I was expecting, though women are really responding to it. If cynical takes on the film don’t hurt the film’s chances, it could find room to navigate the Best Actress (Kate Winslet) and Best Adapted Screenplay races, and perhaps Josh Brolin could hit in supporting. But, like a number of films actually, it could be a victim of a crowded, quality year. Paramount also has another pair of films that are hardly Best Picture slam dunks, so we’ll have to watch the reaction further as the film heads to Toronto next week.

The other big official drop (no pun intended) was “Gravity,” which saw its North American debut in Telluride. It was the festival’s hottest ticket, and it delivered. Alfonso Cuarón’s vision is impeccably realized and the emotion lands just right by film’s end. Like “Avatar” and “Life of Pi,” it will be the technical marvel of the season. As such, I would expect to see nominations across the board, particularly since it’s a better play on the circuit than WB’s “Prisoners” and, certainly, all the other hopefuls on the studio’s slate. Picture, Director, Actress, Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects — with all the shots on goal this film has throughout the categories, 10 nominations are certainly reachable. Look for more excitement out of Toronto next week.

Films that first landed at Cannes and made the transition to North America three months later included J.C. Chandor’s “All is Lost,” the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska” and Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past.” And all found fertile ground to keep their awards hopes blooming.

Payne’s film, in particular, found new life after a different cut screened in Telluride than what audiences in Cannes saw. It’s a delicate piece of work that will absolutely resonate with Academy members and really, a Best Picture nomination isn’t out of the question. At the moment the best shots seem to be for Best Actor (Bruce Dern), Best Supporting Actress (June Squibb) and Best Original Screenplay.

Speaking of Dern, there’s a very strange desire to torpedo his chances by a media (particularly The Hollywood Reporter, which has gone to the well three times on this issue) obsessed with his category placement. Of course, it doesn’t help that he has been as forward about it as he’s been when asked the question, but he’s old school and will tell you how it is. That said, there’s nothing particularly embarrassing or even untrue about his actual quotes on the matter, and the fact is, the question itself is kind of pointless. But kudos on landing more traffic with sexy headlines.

I happen to think this is a lead performance so it’s easier for me to talk in these terms, but those arguing for supporting act as if it’s cut and dry. It’s not. “The film is Will Forte’s story” is facile, poorly considered reasoning, in my opinion, and I’m already on the record about the cynical logic of going supporting merely to chase a win. In any case, it doesn’t matter because a) voters will make that call themselves and b) the performance will register and, in all likelihood, be nominated in lead. Paramount would be smart, though, to put a pin in this for now before it becomes the story of the movie.

In the case of Chandor’s film, Robert Redford’s Telluride tribute gives him another boost into the season. Here is a nuanced, rich performance with a narrative already humming: that the actor wanted to see what he was capable of at 77. Interestingly, he and Dern, if both are nominated, could end up pulling votes from one another while someone like Ejiofor or Matthew McConaughey slips in for the win. We’ll save that kind of analysis for when it actually matters, though. But “All is Lost” also deserves notice in a number of other areas, not least of them the sound categories where a last minute change to the post-production crew yielded brilliant results at Skywalker Sound.

And finally, the Coens’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” As noted, I’m still turning this one over in my head. But Oscar Isaac’s performance is so incredible it pains me to realize it will probably fall out of contention in a Best Actor race full of heavy-hitters. I do hope I’m wrong and I wish CBS Films all the luck in the world as they are very excited about pushing this film through the circuit. The film also deserves plenty of below-the-line recognition, from its lush photography to its crisp sound mix. And if anything, the whole enterprise argues in favor of bringing back official Academy recognition for adapted soundtracks; T Bone Burnett is the hero of this film. CBS will continue to play the long game, wisely skipping Toronto and heading for New York at the end of the month. Drips and drabs will keep it bobbing on the circuit through to its early December release.

Beyond that, the documentary race could be spiked by Penn and Teller’s “Tim’s Vermeer,” though Errol Morris’ “The Unknown Known” faced a bit of a muted reaction at Telluride, largely because no one wants to sit through Donald Rumsfeld’s lies and platitudes for so long; there aren’t epiphanies to be found here like there were in “The Fog of War.” Maybe more distance would have yielded that, but then, who knows how much longer Rumsfeld will even be with us? Finally, “Salinger” screens Monday at the fest ahead of its release next week. Maybe that will figure into the race as well. (And thankfully everyone is okay after a scary crash landing with the film’s crew and Weinstein publicists at the Telluride airport.)

Speaking of The Weinstein Company, Harvey picked up John Curran’s “Tracks,” but expect that to release next year and be part of his next wave of countless films thrown at the wall to see what will stick. “The Invisible Woman” from Ralph Fiennes didn’t quite launch him onto the Best Actor radar as Sony Classics might have hoped, while the foreign film race, from “Bethlehem” to “Gloria” to “The Past,” kept the coals stoked. Oh, and “The Wind Rises,” which showed up as a last minute TBA, kept chugging after a warm Venice reception. Hayao Miyazaki’s swan song is sure to place in a thinner animated film than we’ve seen in a while

Beyond that, there isn’t much left to say about how Telluride shaped the race this year, and that’s frankly plenty. A year ago the story coming out of Colorado was “Argo” and Warner Bros. kept that conversation alive throughout the circuit. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish. Can “Gravity” keep its high going? Can “12 Years a Slave?” Time will tell. But from here, the rest of the fall festival circuit will continue to have its say.

The Contenders section has been updated in full but Telluride is still going. Check back for a festival wrap later today.

TELLURIDE, Colo. – More than any other medium, the chemistry between two actors is paramount onscreen. The camera intimately reveals what the stage cannot and, ultimately, is most unforgiving if there is none. The latter, sadly, is the fate of Ralph Fiennes’ impeccably realized “The Invisible Woman,” which premiered at the 2013 Telluride Film Festival on Saturday.

Based on Claire Tomalin’s 1990 novel, the film is the true story of Ellen (“Nelly”) Ternan, a young English woman who had a long affair with legendary writer Charles Dickens in the mid-19th Century. Ternan (Felicity Jones) was only 18-years-old when she met Dickens, 27 years her senior, but he quickly became captivated by the young actress’s charm and intelligence. Dickens (Fiennes) was also seriously disillusioned with his marriage to Catherine Dickens (Joanna Scanlan) at the time and the affair led to their eventual separation. While certain key details regarding the relationship are publicly known, much of their time together was not documented by either party or their families.

The film begins years after Dickens’ death, introducing us to Nelly Warton, a schoolteacher in the seaside town of Margate. Her marriage to George Wharton (Tom Burke), who seems like a fine bloke, is cordial at best. During a dinner party we learn of her family’s friendship with Dickens that supposedly occurred when she was a child. In fact, Nelly has an amazing collection of Dickens’ publications, including one with a personal inscription. Still, something isn’t quite right about Ms. Warton. Something is distracting her, keeping her on edge. At this point, the picture flashes back to Nelly’s former life as young Nelly Ternan and her first encounter with the man who would change her life forever. Eventually the circumstances of Nelly becoming Dickens’ mistress are revealed and all we are left to guess is how Ternan will end up Mrs. George Wharton.

“The Invisible Woman” is Fiennes’ second directorial effort after his underrated debut “Coriolanus” in 2011. Working with up-and-coming cinematographer Rob Hardy (“Shadow Dancer”), Fiennes proves his keen visual eye wasn’t a fluke the first time around. Fiennes, along with editor Nicolas Gaster (“Moon”) also finds superb individual moments from his actors’ performances that other filmmakers might miss. The screenplay, on the other hand, has some issues. Screenwriter Abi Morgan (“Shame, “The Iron Lady”) wants to primarily tell the story from Ternan’s point of view. The problem is she’s unable to depict Dickens’ marital woes without making it a lengthy tangent that distracts from his romance with Ternan. This puts the focus solely on Dickens much too often and makes it unclear whose story this really is. For all of Fiennes’ impressive attention to detail, it’s a flaw that likely could only be overcome by a palpable spark between the picture’s two leads. Unfortunately, that’s an even bigger problem than the script.

Jones, who shined in 2011’s “Like Crazy,” is impressive when portraying Ternan’s broken heart and Fiennes wears Dickens’ charisma endearingly. Almost shockingly, however, there is little attraction and passion between the two actors.  As the minutes pass, the audience finds no love to root for or against. The whole affair is almost played as a doomed exercise. The production actually cast Jones first and it appears Fiennes was convinced to play Dickens by his producers and Morgan. In hindsight, he may have been better served by finding another actor who clicked with Jones or vice versa.

One other glaring mistake is Fiennes’ decision to refrain from almost any musical score in the film whatsoever. It’s a gutsy creative choice, but even an unconventional score could have made the movie’s central affair easier to swallow.

Besides some superb costumes and the aforementioned visuals, the best part of “The Invisible Woman” are the individual performances. Relatively unknown in the US, Scanlan is fantastic as Mrs. Dickens, making her sympathetic and not scornful. Fiennes’ “English Patient” co-star Kristin Scott Thomas is wonderfully understated as Ternan’s mother. Tom Hollander provides some slight comic relief as Dickens’ best friend and collaborator Wilkie Collins and “Game of Thrones” star Michelle Fairley has a memorable appearance as Collins’ unmarried companion.

Sony Classics acquired “The Invisible Woman” before its Telluride and Toronto Film Festival premieres. It’s currently scheduled for a limited release before the end of the year for awards consideration. But outside of the costumes and hair and makeup categories, there likely won’t be much in play for this period piece.

“The Invisible Woman” will screen at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and the 51st New York Film Festival. It will open in limited release on Dec. 25.

TELLURIDE, Colo. – I must say I’m happy to see that the media is finding its way to Penn and Teller’s “Tim’s Vermeer” here at the fest. I caught the film on a whim Friday morning and haven’t found the right time and head space to write it up, but it might just be — still — my favorite entry of the 40th annual Telluride Film Festival.

The film tells the story of engineer, inventor and self-professed geek Tim Jenison, who upon reading about the Hockney-Falco Thesis in David Hockney’s landmark book “Secret Knowledge,” set out to recreate one of Johannes Vermeer’s classic paintings with the use of optical aids. Not only that, but Jenison rebuilt, to painstaking specifications, Vermeer’s studio and the layout of the painting in question (“Lady at the Virginal with a Gentleman”).

Enter magician Penn Jillette, a friend of Jenison’s who happened to discover this upcoming experiment in conversation one day. “I told him to not make a move until we got a crew together and shot this,” Jillette said in a post-screening Q&A Friday. “Tim believed this was going to be a couple of YouTube videos and I thought that it should be a movie in Telluride. And I was right!”

Jillette and his partner Raymond Teller set out to document the entire thing, which was a five-year ordeal. There were three motion picture cameras running at all times on Jenison as he finally put brush to canvas as well, as a number of still cameras and webcams. “Sometimes there were nine cameras,” Jenison said. “It felt like I was being watched.”

The result was two 50 terabyte hard drives packed with footage that editor Patrick Sheffield had to “excavate,” as Teller put it, in order to tell the story. “There is not one brush stroke on the painting that isn’t covered by at least two or three cameras,” Jillette said. “Every single touch of paint on the canvas is covered that much. So yes, for all of you people who are going to jump up Tim’s ass and say this was faked, we do have pretty good documentation and they are welcome to watch all of the cameras all the way through. You watch the 100 terabytes; we’re thrilled.”

The resulting film is, for much of its running time, mostly an awe-inspiring curiosity. But it ends up dipping into the profound. What is art if not the height of ingenuity? If Vermeer and certain contemporaries used methods asserted by the Hockney-Falco Thesis, is that “cheating?” Or is it as majestic a note on the human spirit as something born purely of imagination? And where is that line, really? As Jillette says in the film, bringing genius into tangible light makes the accomplishment more amazing than if it remained mysterious, because it humanizes it and affirms that spirit of ingenuity.

“If I’m right, and that’s still an ‘if,’ I think he was kind of a geek, kind of an experimenter,” Jenison said of Vermeer. “And I think he just wanted to get the best result possible. That was the goal of Dutch art at that time, to approach realism so that it looked like you were looking through a window. Art has not been that way before or sense.

“But maybe a better analogy to what they were trying to do is a modern motion picture, where we are using every skill and technology we can to get a realistic image on screen. It may be totally imaginary but we certainly have no qualms about using whatever technology available to get that great result. I think that was their mindset. I think he was just a very talented nerd.”

And Jenison has another theory that could, if this lot wanted to jump back into it, yield another film. At last night’s annual Sony Classics dinner held at La Marmotte restaurant, he told me he’s planning another experiment regarding Caravaggio’s work in what would be called “chiaroscuro.” Perhaps, then, we’ll one day see “Tim’s Caravaggio?”

For his trouble, Jenison received one of the most enthusiastic standing ovations I’ve seen in my five years attending Telluride. And the film itself, which is set for release this year by Sony Pictures Classics, has quietly become one of the biggest hits of the festival, an instant success story that is sure to pick up more steam at Toronto next week. The film could even crack the Best Documentary Feature category come Oscar time, because it definitely elicits a response. It’s an unassuming work that says that, for all our faults, humanity can achieve wonders. Whether Vermeer used these techniques or not is really beside the point in the end. Invention and expression are one and the same.

TELLURIDE, Colo. – There’s an interesting bit of synergy happening in Telluride this year between the hottest ticket of the festival and a modest short film that has been screening before John Curran’s “Tracks.”

Without giving too much away (though some might consider this paragraph to contain SPOILERS — you’ve been warned), Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” features a scene in which astronaut Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) makes an S.O.S. radio call down to Earth and picks up the signal of an Inuk man in the arctic. Of course, you don’t really know he’s an Inuk until you get a look at Jonás Cuarón’s short film “Aningaaq,” which depicts the very same scene but from the Inuk man’s point of view with Stone’s voice coming in over the radio.

Of course, people seeing “Tracks” here who haven’t seen “Gravity” probably aren’t all that aware of what’s going on, but the short works on its own terms as a bit of a curiosity. It would have been nice to have it programmed along with the feature (Disney’s 3D short “Get a Horse!” is playing before “Gravity”), but having it pop up elsewhere in the fest lends a quirky bit of ubiquity to Alfonso Cuarón’s spectacle.

I imagine we’ll see the short pop up on the home video package for “Gravity,” but it would be neat if Warner Bros. could find a way to pair the two pieces up in cinemas. Maybe playing the short after the feature? I don’t know. But for festival-goers here in Telluride, the synergy is, well, kinda neat.

Oh, and a bit of trivia: In Greenlandic mythology, Aningaaq is the name of the moon.

“Gravity” arrives in theaters on Oct. 4.