You can hear the Oscar gurgles percolating as studios have been showing films in hushed theaters looking for feedback and shuffling their schedules to find the right release dates for this and that. Soon the fall festival season will reveal what’s what and it’ll be a race to the finish among the players.

Fox Searchlight made a move today that I’ve frankly been expecting, pushing Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave” (note: the number 12, not “Twelve”) from a dangerous late-December slot to an October 18 platforming release. The studio also has Sundance crowd-pleaser “The Way, Way Back” in play this year, but this adaptation of the Solomon Northup memoir would seemingly be the perennial awards studio’s best bet for awards.

I’ve heard the film is “devastating” and doesn’t shy away in its depiction of slavery. It should make an intriguing counterpoint to last year’s “Django Unchained.” In addition to Chiwetel Ejiofor in the lead actor race and Michael Fassbender in supporting, another performance to watch out for is newcomer Lupita Nyong’o.

This clears out December for Searchlight, so assuming they’d like to pad out their slate with any number of still unacquired that may play the all fests, they have the real estate. Films still looking for a home include Anton Corbijn’s “A Most Wanted Man” with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jonathan Teplitzky’s “The Railway Man” with Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman and Susanne Bier’s “Serena” with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

As the clock ticks down on June, so it does on the first half of 2013. It’s funny how fast those first six months zip by. The Oscar season bleeds into the year, March rolls around and soon enough, the summer movie season arrives. Then Cannes and before you know it, the mid-way point.

How has the year stacked up so far? Personally, I’ve been consistently pleased, and I’m even somewhat satisfied with the blockbuster offerings of the hot months. Could anything we’ve seen so far show up on the Oscar radar at the end of the year? Time will tell, but I think there are some strong possibilities.

Predicting isn’t necessarily the spirit of this article, though. The danger of great work being showcased in the first half of the year is it being forgotten by the time the awards season rolls around, and so we’ve taken it on our shoulders to shine a spotlight on some of that deserving work in a personal “for your consideration” gallery. Many of these have little to no chance of being recognized, but so be it. We think they deserve to be in the conversation, so we’re inserting them into it.

More on the season Monday when I’ll offer up the first “Off the Carpet” column of the year. And keep an eye out over the weekend for some gurgling and signs of life in the Contenders section.

In the meantime, click through the gallery below to see what Greg Ellwood, Guy Lodge and I think should have a fighting chance from the year’s first half, and feel free to offer up your own FYCs in the comments section below.

EDINBURGH – This year’s trip to the Edinburgh Film Festival has been a brief, last-minute one. After three days of attempting to distil the highlights of artistic director Chris Fujiwara’s defiantly independent-minded programming — ranging from “The Conjuring” to “Leviathan” –, I’m heading home this evening, my festival experience over before it’s even begun. (Tomorrow: off to Karlovy Vary.) Still, I’ll be sharing the standouts with you in a couple of paired review pieces. First up: “This Is Martin Bonner,” which begins its staggered release tomorrow, and “Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction” — which, it was announced yesterday, will be released in Los Angeles on September 13.

First, let’s get the weird bit out of the way: yes, it feels a bit strange to be reviewing a film from a former member of the In Contention family. But it’s a strangeness born of familiarity and unfamiliarity at once. I had never met Chad Hartigan, our erstwhile box-office analyst, when I first saw his sophomore feature “This Is Martin Bonner” (B+) at Sundance in January; after viewing this unassumingly personal dual character study, particularly on a second go-round in Edinburgh, I felt I knew him a bit better. That’s entirely the film’s achievement, and I’ve been wanting to discuss it for some time. After all, if I didn’t sincerely think “This Is Martin Bonner” was remarkable, it’d be easy enough to duck out of discussing it on grounds of principle.

In any event, longtime readers who remember Hartigan for his casually caustic box office columns may or may not be surprised by his film’s calm generosity of spirit; “decency” isn’t much of a buzzword in the current, irony-fuelled indie realm, but “Martin Bonner” posses a pure, palpable strain of it from first cleanly composed frame to last. The rare contemporary film about Christian behavior that doesn’t go out of its way to announce its secularity, it’s equally unpatronizing in its sharp articulation of loneliness in middle age and beyond.

“This Is Martin Bonner” is, it should be said, a somewhat misleading title for what turns out to be a democratically balanced two-man portrait — and then, the eponymous Bonner, directly inspired by Hartigan’s own father, never entirely reveals who he is. A sixty-ish divorcee resettling and rebuilding his life in, of all places, Reno — a city perhaps better known for tearing lives down — Bonner (played by an extraordinary discovery in Paul Eenhoorn) is a warm, open presence in his dealings with others, but we never wholly learn who “this” is. Working for a Christian charity that guides newly-released ex-cons toward the straight and narrow, he keeps his pain close to his chest so as to handle that of others: we never learn the reason behind his divorce, nor his evidently non-hostile estrangement from his grown son. (He has a happier relationship with his daughter, whose breezy chats over the phone nonetheless betray her concern over her dad’s late life switch.)

An unfazed outsider — with an Australian accent — who wears his faith with modest conviction rather than evangelical zeal, he proves the ideal mentor for Travis (Richmond Arquette), a sad-sack type just out of prison after serving time for manslaughter, and looking to reconnect with his daughter. Martin appears to have done less than Travis to earn his child’s distance, but this mutual lack — coupled with their quiet yearning for company — suggests the men aren’t worlds apart, despite appearances to the contrary. Stopping short of any contrived moral conclusions, the film leaves us to ponder what intangible spiritual contentment distinguishes one man from the other — what it is, if not personal actions and circumstances, that separates a “good” life from a “wasted” one. 

This is regrettably rare, unfashionable thematic territory for modern film drama: a study in human goodness, of both the innate and hard-earned varieties, and the everyday challenges of being alone. Hartigan gets the performances he needs to animate, but not overwhelm, material this tonally refined and morally patient. As played with unwavering delicacy and twinkling good humor by Eenhoorn, Martin is both what we’d like our dads to be, and what we fear they may become. The actor teases out the dignified sadness masked by the character’s unapologetically dorky zen demeanor, and the performance works in effective contrast to the touching dolefulness of Arquette, playing a man who hasn’t yet mastered that concealment.

In marked contrast to his scrappy debut “Luke and Brie Are on a First Date,” Hartigan’s filmmaking is in the same still, soft register as his leading men; he’s abetted by cinematographer Sean McElwee, who brings a bleak elegance to the formless Reno cementscapes, and the wonderful composer Keegan DeWitt, whose great skill lies in pairing somber notes with playful ones. Indeed, there’s an unshakeable melancholy to “This Is Martin Bonner” that proves sneakily uplifting once you let it sit with you awhile. The film begins its slow-burning theatrical rollout in the US tomorrow. I hope audiences find it. (Look out for my interview with Hartigan in the coming week.)

I’d be hard pressed to pinpoint any direct similarities between “This Is Martin Bonner” and Sophie Huber’s lovely documentary “Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction” (B+), beside their shared interest in older men gently fighting for their place in the world. Still, I don’t think it’s merely because I saw the films in close proximity to each other that I’d be tempted to place them on a double bill: affectionate but not fawning, Huber’s unfussy portrait of the 86-year-old actor and singer left me with much the same sense of sorrowful optimism.

At one point in this stylishly composed talking-heads exercise — shot, often in crisp monochrome, by Oscar nominee Seamus McGarvey — Stanton’s current personal assistant refers to him as “the Forrest Gump of cinema.” Not, he hastens to add, because of any intellectual deficiencies on the part of the actor, who often speaks in a kind of artless poetic register, but because he seems to have stumbled, without much awareness or calculation, into one cinematic landmark after another over the course of his 200-film career. From vivid supporting characterizations in film ranging from “Cool Hand Luke” to “Alien,” to his belated leading-man debut (aged 57) in Wim Wenders’s “Paris, Texas” (the same year he earned further cult cred in “Repo Man”), even to an appearance in last year’s monolithic blockbuster “The Avengers,” he’s a kind of scruffy spirit animal for American film, at once indispensable and unacknowledged.

This belated celebration doesn’t play any formal or structural tricks: a succession of colleagues and admirers, ranging from David Lynch to Debbie Harry to Kris Kristofferson, turn up to pay their respects in a chatty, anecdote-strewn manner, while Stanton himself reflects on his career with a mixture of detached bemusement and salty wit — and the occasional sweetly-sung country tune. It’s a casual, conversational affair that seems in keeping with Stanton’s own unmannered acting style — generously reflected in well-chosen clips from some of his key films. (The churlish would accuse Huber of being over-reliant on these, but no director who includes significant stretches of “Paris, Texas” in her film is going to hear any complaint from me.)

Beyond the hilariously related revelation that Stanton was once dumped by Rebecca DeMornay in favor of Tom Cruise, the film isn’t much interested in extensive, demystifying biographical detail on a subject who professes to having been a lifelong loner: “I don’t give much away,” he amiably warns Huber at one point, and he largely sticks to that promise, albeit in an engagingly humble fashion. “Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction” is the rare star portrait that enhances its subject’s mystique rather than dismantling it; the man behind the myth is apparent, with the myth itself yet to receive its due after seven decades at work, the film’s happy to examine both.

The 39th annual Saturn Awards were presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films tonight in Burbank, Calif. Top prizes for film went to “The Avengers,” “Life of Pi,” “The Cabin in the Woods” and “Skyfall,” while “Revolution,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead” triumphed in the television categories.

Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” was nominated in a number of categories but was mostly shut out, save for a Best Supporting Actress win for Anne Hathaway (who was also nominated in the category for her Oscar-winning performance in “Les Misérables”).

William Friedkin had a great night as his film, “Killer Joe,” took the award for Best Independent Film and Best Actor (for Matthew McConaughey). Friedkin was also awarded the organization’s lifetime achievement award. Joss Whedon also had a good night, winning the Best Director award for “The Avengers” (the big winner on the night with four prizes) and accepting the Best Horror/Thriller Film prize for “The Cabin in the Woods.”

Acting honors also went to Jennifer Lawrence (“The Hunger Games”), Clark Gregg (“The Avengers”) and Suraj Sharma (“Life of Pi”). Quentin Tarantino followed up his Best Original Screenplay Oscar win by taking the Best Writing award for “Django Unchained,” while the crafts categories went to a number of films, from nominations leader “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (which only managed one award on the night) to “Cloud Atlas” to “Frankenweenie.”

In the television categories, Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) and Kevin Bacon (“The Following”) tied for Best Actor while other performance awards went to Anna Torv (“Fringe”), Jonathan Banks (“Breaking Bad”) and Laurie Holden (“The Walking Dead”).

Other special awards went to Vince Gilligan, Jonathan Frakes and author Richard Matheson, who passed away Monday. A moment of silence was observed for the genre legend and the awards were dedicated to his honor.

Check out the full list of winners on the next page.

NOMINATIONS HERE

FILM AWARDS

Best Science Fiction Film
“The Avengers”

Best Fantasy Film
“Life of Pi”

Best Horror/Thriller Film
“The Cabin in the Woods”

Best Action/Adventure Film
“Skyfall”

Best Independent Film Release
“Killer Joe”

Best International Film
“Headhunters”

Best Animated Film
“Frankenweenie”

Best Director
Joss Whedon, “The Avengers”

Best Actor
Mathew McConaughey, “Killer Joe”

Best Actress
Jennifer Lawrence, “The Hunger Games”

Best Supporting Actor
Clark Gregg, “The Avengers”

Best Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway, “The Dark Knight Rises”

Best Performance by a Younger Actor
Suraj Sharma, “Life of Pi

Best Writing
“Django Unchained”

Best Production Design
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”

Best Editing
“Cloud Atlas”

Best Music
“Frankenweenie”

Best Costume
“Les Misérables”

Best Makeup
“Cloud Atlas”

Best Special Effects
“The Avengers”

TELEVISION AWARDS

Best Network Television Series
“Revolution”

Best Syndicated Cable Television Series
“The Walking Dead”

Best Television Presentation
“Breaking Bad”

Best Youth-Oriented Series on Television
“Teen Wolf”

Best Actor on Television
(TIE) Kevin Bacon, “The Following” and Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad”

Best Actress on Television
Anna Torv, “Fringe”

Best Supporting Actor on Television
Jonathan Banks, “Breaking Bad”

Best Supporting Actress on Television
Laurie Holden, “The Walking Dead”

Best Guest Star on Television
Yvonne Strahovski, “Dexter”

HOME ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS

Best DVD/BD TV Series
“Star Trek: The Next Generation” (Season 1 & 2)

Best DVD/BD Collection
“Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection”

Best DVD/BD Release
“Touchback”

Best DVD/BD Special Edition Release
“Little Shop of Horrors: The Director’s Cut”

SPECIAL AWARDS

Theater Showcase Award
“Silence! The Musical”

Dan Curtis Legacy Award
Vince Gilligan

Visionary Award
Richard Matheson

Life Career Award
Jonathan Frakes

Lifetime Achievement Award
William Friedkin

Since seeing it almost exactly a year ago, I’ve devoted a lot of column inches to Belgian director Joachim Lafosse’s magnificent domestic drama “Our Children.” A jolting worst-case study, inspired by actual events, of a young mother driven to the brink by a combination of postpartum depression and an excess of male authority figures, it wound up at #7 on my list of 2012’s best films and continues to eat away at me.

The film was released in the UK earlier this year, but US distributors Distrib Films have bided their time, settling on release date of August 2 in New York, and August 9 in Los Angeles and beyond. It’s worth the wait. This week, they unveiled a new trailer that does a good job of expressing the film’s cumulative, claustrophobic power, without giving too much away. It also holds back on the most sensational moments of Emilie Dequenne’s staggering lead turn, which won her a richly deserved Best Actress award in last year’s Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes.

I’ve written before that Dequenne’s performance is as award-worthy as any you’re likely to see this year — it would take a miracle for the necessary voters to see that for themselves, though the ever-eccentric Satellite Awards did hand Dequenne a nomination last year, despite the film still being unreleased. There’s sensitive support from Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup, reunited from “A Prophet” in a very different scenario, though they wisely cede the spotlight to their female co-star’s crushing tour de force — as does Lafosse’s measured, mature direction.

You may recall that the film was last year’s Belgian submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar; it didn’t make the pre-nomination shortlist, which means it’s eligible for consideration in other categories this year. We can but dream. Check out the trailer below, and share your thoughts in the comments.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYWI880IXg?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

This year’s Best Visual Effects category is sure to be stacked. We’ve already seen great stuff in “Iron Man 3,” “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Oz the Great and Powerful” and “Man of Steel.” The work in “Pacific Rim” is, as you might expect, jaw-dropping. We still have “Elysium,” “Gravity” and a new “Hobbit” installment to come, and who knows how films like “Rush” and “All is Lost” might figure into the otherwise blockbuster-heavy (as usual) line-up?

All of that is to say that Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” is going to have a difficult time insinuating itself into the conversation. I know this film didn’t land very well with a great many but I’ll still stick up for it, and even though the effects go perhaps a bit too far for my taste here and there, for the most part, they are the extension of a discernible vision. That’s more than you can say of a great many contenders that find themselves duking it out in this race year after year.

One way to turn heads is putting together an elegant reel showcasing the work that went into bringing the film to life through CGI, and that includes the not-so-noticeable stuff as much as the eye-catching stuff that couldn’t possibly go unnoticed. That’s just what visual effects supervisor Chris Godfrey has done with vendor Animal Logic. And frankly, looking at the video below, I feel like the film might have a better shot at a nomination than I’ve been thinking as of late. We’ll find out at the end of the year.

Here is what Godfrey had to say about the reel:

“Baz has graciously agreed to let us release this ‘before and afters’ reel to show our peer group the VFX work completed on his film ‘The Great Gatsby.’ While this specific reel was the work of Animal Logic (as my primary vendor), in total I worked with 7 vendors including Animal Logic, Rising Sun and Iloura in Australia, ILM in San Francisco and also Prime Focus and Method Vancouver. We also ran an amazing internal SWAT team that completed over 400 shots. Congratulations to all who did such fabulous work on almost 1500 shots.”

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEeQmFK2o2U&w=640&h=360]

It was 40 years ago this December that William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” terrified audiences and found itself in the rare position of being a critically admired prestige horror film. It landed 10 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Ellen Burstyn), Best Supporting Actor (Jason Miller) and Best Supporting Actress (Linda Blair). William Peter Blatty even walked away with the trophy for the adaptation of his own novel.

Why am I mentioning this now? Because four decades later, James Wan’s “The Conjuring” is easily the best film of its kind since Friedkin’s masterful thriller. In a genre that has increasingly given way to the cheapest levels, where films like “The Devil Inside” are rattled off like products on an assembly line, here is a film with a real respect of the craft and, most importantly, a level of restraint. Restraint and a sense of build is what made the most chilling elements of “The Exorcist” land like holy water burns on demon flesh, and it’s equally what makes Wan’s more direct terrors connect in “The Conjuring.”

It’s a film that frankly seems somewhat enamored with its 1973 predecessor, borrowing a similar title treatment and employing a score with familiar rapid string movements blended with ominous low end dread. It also takes a fair amount of cues from 1982’s “Poltergeist.” But it’s very much of a piece with the age into which it is born, a sort of bridge from that era’s sensibilities and this one’s. That it depicts events which took place two years before the release of “The Exorcist” only strengthens the bond.

I don’t want to get out of hand here. “The Conjuring” isn’t a masterpiece and it isn’t quite up to the level of “The Exorcist” or “The Shining,” true high water marks of the genre. But it stands out amid the fray of an increasingly cheapened corner of the horror shelf, that of the exorcism film. More than that, it’s a haunted house ride with earned thrills and plenty of cringing at what’s around the corner.

“It does not reinvent the wheel,” Drew McWeeny wrote in his review, “and it’s not a movie that suddenly redefines a genre, but it is confident, it is beautifully acted, and when it gets serious about being scary, it is remarkably tense and terrifying.”

I feel like I’ve witnessed Wan creeping to this place. The first “Saw” film may have wrought one of the most dubious horror franchises of recent years, but it was, finally, something truly unique. I was mostly unconvinced by 2010’s “Insidious” because the screenplay couldn’t find a more elegant way to present its otherwise compelling ideas. But Wan handled it from a place of vision. Even stinkers like “Dead Silence” and “Death Sentence” I would argue play like exercises building to the full set of something like “The Conjuring.”

It takes a lot for the Academy to respond to a film like this. “The Exorcist,” which certainly had its critics, may likely have been ignored were it not a box office and pop cultural phenomenon. But “The Conjuring,” particularly on a craft level, deserves recognition. The sound editing, as you might imagine, sets the atmosphere. The production design is in many ways the star of the film, forging a fun house of terror out of a Rhode Island farm house. And the photography is immersive and rich.

If you’ve tired of films like this over the last decade or so, give “The Conjuring” a chance. It’s one of those rare films that — like “The Exorcist” — might even get a non-believer to stop and consider, but moreover, it’s a wonderful example of a horror filmmaker in complete control of his craft. That’s a luxury these days.

“The Conjuring” arrives in theaters July 19, 2013.

Have you ever wanted to see all 85 Best Picture winners and access them easily and efficiently without buying DVDs or waiting for Netflix mailers to arrive? Well, iTunes can almost get you there. And really, 88% ain’t too bad at all.

I stumbled across the “Oscar winners” section in the iTunes store recently and was immediately impressed by its slate of 75 Best Picture winners for purchase and/or rent, stretching back to inaugural victor “Wings.” Only 10 films are missing, likely attributable to any number of streaming rights issues, but what a treasure trove for awards hounds. If you’ve ever thought about a Best Picture marathon, with this resource, it couldn’t be much easier.

The section also features winners in the documentary, foreign and short film categories, though those aren’t nearly as comprehensive. And luckily, the films that are missing from the Best Picture line-up aren’t that difficult to track down in one form or another.

The 10 films not included at the moment are:

“Cavalcade” (1933)
“Rebecca” (1940)
“The Lost Weekend” (1945)
“All the King’s Men” (1949)
“Tom Jones” (1963)
“The Sound of Music” (1965)
“The Deer Hunter” (1978)
“The English Patient” (1996)
“A Beautiful Mind” (2001)
“Million Dollar Baby” (2004)

But any other holes you’ve needed to fill? “The Broadway Melody?” “The Life of Emile Zola?” “Going My Way?” They’re all there. So head over to iTunes and check it out. (This list might be in continual flux given rights and whatnot. I’ve already seen one film be yanked. So get ’em while they’re hot!)

It’s almost time to start pulling the veil back on coverage for the upcoming 86th annual Academy Awards. Are you ready?

One film from the year’s festival circuit so far that I’m particularly looking forward to revisiting is David Lowery’s “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.” That’s partly because a first viewing afforded many rich textural pleasures — from Bradford Young’s dusky cinematography to Daniel Hart’s inventive, handclap-heavy score — that deserve to be savored in less pressured surroundings than a Sundance premiere, but also because the film has changed a little, and reportedly for the better.

In my otherwise admiring review of Lowery’s film, a kind of spiritual sequel to Terrence Malick’s “Badlands,” I voiced some concerns about its luxuriantly deliberate pacing: “[It] seems a tad too impressed with its own longueurs, thickening the pace less to serve its own story than a vague sense of formality,” I wrote back in February.

As it turns out, Lowery felt similarly — and so, it seems, did The Weinstein Company, which is distributing the film outside the US. (IFC are doing the honors at home.) Harvey Weinstein’s reputation for muscling in on the editing process of his company’s films precedes him: that oft-repeated nickname “Harvey Scissorhands” didn’t come from thin air, after all. And though often viewed in an uncharitable light, his hands-on approach has often been creatively enhancing rather than meddling: he’s a man with a keen sense of how audiences respond to films, and isn’t afraid to tell protective directors to kill their darlings.

Since its Sundance premiere, Lowery has re-edited the film, in line with (though not dictated by) notes from Weinstein. The changes weren’t foisted upon Lowery, who felt that the pre-Sundance editing process had been too rushed, and the film apparently hasn’t been drastically reshaped: as described by Anne Thompson, the new cut “[isn’t] missing anything significant, with Weinstein’s suggestions used “to help get in and out of scenes faster and build dramatic tension and emotion in some key sequences.”

Lowery knows a thing or two about this: he edited the structurally dizzying yet disciplined “Upstream Color” with director Shane Carruth. The version of “Saints” shown at Sundance had three credited editors: Craig McKay, Jane Rizzo and Patrick Knickelbine. However, Thompson quotes producers as saying Lowery is the editor of the new cut. Weinstein, meanwhile, might well take the credit for himself, but that is to be expected.

The re-edited film played at Cannes and, most recently, at the Los Angeles fest. Critical word has remained steadily effusive throughout, suggesting that whatever changes have been made, they’re working. I’m eager to see for myself; the film opens in the US on August 16.

Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor” has a lot of people curious what with it being the first original screenplay from “No Country for Old Men” and “The Road” author Cormac McCarthy. It’s a marriage of two visionaries and it has a stellar cast — Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem etc. Diaz in particular has a pretty showy (and raunchy) role and could end up in the Best Supporting Actress Oscar conversation at the end of the day.

How will it pan out? Scott’s been on a bit of a downswing in my opinion over the last couple of years, with films like “Prometheus,” “Robin Hood,” “Body of Lies” and “A Good Year” underwhelming (to put it lightly). I was a big fan of “American Gangster,” though, and “The Counselor” is treading similarly seedy waters.

The first trailer — of a sort — for the film has made its way online (hat tip to Awards Daily here). It’s a Russian quickie, basically a TV spot. But it gives us an idea of the visual vibe, the performances (Bardem looks to be doing his best Robert Downey Jr.) and basically just the groove. I imagine an actual domestic version will show up in some capacity soon.

Check out the tease below. (UPDATE: Swiftly enough, the English version has started making the rounds. The embed below has been replaced.)

Oh, and speaking of Oscar stuff, we might just have something planned in the very, very near future. Stick around if you’re ready to start discussing the new season already.

“The Counselor” is due out in theaters on October 25.

Beth McCarthy-Miller has been a part of the “30 Rock” family almost since inception. She”s directed some of the show”s finest episodes, including both live ones and “TGS Hates Women,” so it was natural for co-showrunners Tina Fey and Robert Carlock to place her at the helm for their show”s two-part finale. “Hogcock!” and “Last Lunch” aired January 31 one right after the other, requiring McCarthy-Miller to meld two episodes into a cohesive whole and put a button on the series’ seven-year run. HitFix spoke with her about this process as Emmy voters are casting ballots — McCarthy-Miller has been nominated five times for her work on “30 Rock,” but never won.

*****

How did you go about unifying both parts of the finale, especially considering four different writers had a hand in the product?

First of all, I was blown away and so honored to be asked. It”s like being asked to do the finale of “Cheers” or “Newhart,” one of those real classic sitcoms. I knew this one was gonna be crazy, because how do you end a show and make all the fans happy, all the critics happy, and satisfy yourself in the process? So I was ready for `it. I got to cheat a little, just because I was able to have a shorthand with most of the creative folks there. I”m happy to have four writers as long as the final product is what it ended up being. It wasn”t like there were so many voices involved that it was hard to get through it. That”s the beauty of having a very clear voice on the show: Usually there aren”t too many opposing sides. I had to make sure there was a cohesiveness to them, but that was the tricky thing. They were being aired together, but needed to be able to be aired separately and make sense.

What was different about these two episodes?

Usually when a director comes in they get a single half hour episode and they have to, along with making it their own, make sure that it makes sense within the confines of the show. The great thing about doing both of those half hours is that I was really able to do the whole story arc [of the show], and it was a little meatier. One of my favorite things about it was that one of the first episodes I directed was “The Rural Juror,” and it was heartwarming that the show ended with the song from “The Rural Juror.”

Were there any specific challenges that arose directing those final two episodes?

I think that the show was taxed based on the fact that it was a shortened season, so everything was having to be done quicker and more efficiently than a full length season. Also, for better or worse, there was a lot of emotion on and off camera for that final episode. It was important to be aware of the emotions each person on and off camera were going through after being part of something so special for seven years. But I think the biggest thing was the responsibility to try and give Tina the finale that she wanted and make sure that her vision was realized.

You”ve been nominated five times for an Emmy, and haven”t won. Do you think Emmy voters have an accurate sense of what directors do on television shows?

With everything, there are people who do get it, and people who don”t. You just hope there are enough people out there who do get it. I know some people were a little upset when I didn”t win for “Live Episode.” The best job a director can do is make people not even realize how big of a job it is. I vote on the Emmys; when I watch an episode of something, I know how challenging or interesting [it is]. When you”re deciding between five episodes of “The Sopranos” or whatever show, you really think about if there was something shot especially well that added to the content of the show. Hopefully you think other people think that way too.

What would an Emmy win mean for you?

Boy, it would always be a treat and an honor to win such a prestigious award. But I am kind of starting to enjoy my friends and family calling me the Susan Lucci of the Primetime Emmys. But really, I feel like I already won a prize being part of that show for seven seasons. And the fact that Tina trusted me with the finale makes me feel like I already won a prize.

What specific takeaway, directing-wise, will you take from your experience on “30 Rock?”

I think there is a huge preciseness to the comedy in the scripts of “30 Rock” and it was a good exercise as a director to make sure that those jokes played as precisely as they were on paper. It was also a unique experience to watch the dance of making sure the show was funny enough, but also have story, heart and connectivity. There was a fine line of what was funny and believable.  There also is a huge perk to watch these great actors at their craft and learn how to get the most out of each moment they have.

Are you going to vote for yourself?

Hells yeah I”m gonna vote for myself! I never submitted myself for anything, but this year it was like, “All right fine!”

Pedro Almodóvar’s cabin-crew comedy “I’m So Excited!” finally jets into US theaters on Friday, and as I suggested in my review, some of the kooky Spanish auteur’s fans may want to brace themselves for a crash landing.

But you may disagree. The critical reception for his latest is cooler than Almodóvar has come to expect, but as many die-hard fans of the director have been tickled as have been dismayed. One thing both camps will agree on, however, is that it couldn’t be the work of anyone else: from his recurring themes of fringe sexuality to his Crayola color palette, Almodóvar’s films are arguably the most immediately and universally identifiable of anyone’s in the current hierarchy of European auteurs — to the point that even the Academy has embraced him and even Almodóvar himself has taken to parodying his own stylistic tics.

“I’m So Excited!” is the 19th feature film in a career that now spans four decades, and to say it’s the weakest of them is faint praise for his glittering cinematic highs — from sketchy, vivacious early works like “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” to the more polished pleasures of “All About My Mother.” So it seemed a good time to (almost) bisect Almodóvar’s career by counting down his 10 best films.

What I ended up with, after due consideration, was an exciting, imperfect assortment that includes the wild absurdist farces on which his reputation was built, the sleek psychological thrillers he’s returned to over the years and the full-blooded, heartbroken melodramas he perfected in middle age that made converts of Oscar voters and arthouse dilettantes alike. No two films on this list are quite alike, though they have plenty of recurring elements between them, from matadors to transsexuals to extreme crimes of passion. Also evident in the list is the selection of Spanish superstars whose star personae Almodóvar helped to either establish or redefine: from Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem to character-actor mainstays like Carmen Maura.

Even with this final list consuming over half of Almodóvar’s career, the list of his films that I like certainly doesn’t stop at #10. I imagine no one’s list will look exactly alike, so check out my picks in the gallery below, then tell us your favorites in the comments section.

By now you may have heard the news of the unfortunate passing of author Richard Matheson, a titan in his field who leaves behind him a rich, vast, deep legacy of material that will continue to be enjoyed and mined for years to come. And his impact on cinema as we know it is nowhere near negligible. Indeed, consider the beginnings of Steven Spielberg’s career, whose calling card adaptation of Matheson’s short story “Duel” catapulted him to Hollywood’s attention.

“Richard Matheson’s ironic and iconic imagination created seminal science-fiction stories and gave me my first break when he wrote the short story and screenplay for ‘Duel,'” the director said in a statement. “His ‘Twilight Zones’ were among my favorites, and he recently worked with us on ‘Real Steel.’ For me, he is in the same category as Bradbury and Asimov.”

Matheson was set to receive the Visionary Award at the 39th annual Saturn Awards Wednesday night, presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. Pity the award will now be presented posthumously, but the ceremony will now be dedicated to his memory.

“We are heartbroken to lose a writer of towering talent, unlimited imagination and unparalleled inspiration,” said Academy President Robert Holguin via press release. “Richard was a genius whose visions helped bring legitimacy and critical acclaim to science fiction and fantasy. He was also a longtime supporter of the Academy, and everyone associated with The Saturn Awards feels emptier today to learn of this enormous loss. Richard”s accomplishments will live on forever in the imaginations of everyone who read or saw his inspired and inimitable work.”

Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” led the way with nominations for the Saturn Awards when they were announced way back in February. Other films in the mix include “Life of Pi,” “Skyfall,” “The Avengers,” “The Hunger Games” and “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Also set to be honored alongside Matheson are filmmaker William Friedkin, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” star and director Jonathan Frakes and “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan.

The 39th annual Saturn Awards will be presented on Wednesday, June 26 at the Castaway Event Center in Burbank.

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The more I think back to David Gordon Green’s “Prince Avalanche,” which I saw at the Sundance Film Festival where it made its world premiere, the more charmed I am by its unexpected charisma, its personal flourishes and its central performances. It popped up as one of our under-the-radar films for the summer movie season, and indeed, when it hits theaters in August, it will be a nice change of pace for those looking for as much after the blockbusters have had their way.

Green told me back in January that the film was “a dialogue between me and me in terms of these two characters and that kind of surreal emotional journey…There’s a romanticized version of adulthood and then the frustrations of youth and how they connect to each other over this series of days.” He picked up the Best Director prize at the Berlin Film Festival in February and could find himself in the thick of the independent film awards circuit by year’s end.

Magnolia Pictures has released a full trailer for the film, which you can check out above. The note about Explosions in the Sky and David Wingo’s original music reminds me, though, any chance the Academy’s music branch could see past the usual favorites for a change this year? This film has wonderful music, Wingo cooked up a fantastic score for “Mud,” Daniel Hart’s work on “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” is positively breathtaking, etc. There’s a whole crop of new film composing talent and it’s a shame the Academy rarely seems to take note.

“Prince Avalanche” hits theaters and VOD on August 9.

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Jim Carrey is backing out of supporting his new film “Kick-Ass 2” due to its depiction of violence, the actor said in a pair of Tweets this afternoon.

“I did ‘Kick-Ass [2]’ a month before Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence,” he wrote. “My apologies to others involve[d] with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.”

One would expect, however, for the actor to have a contractual obligation to promote the superhero sequel, in which he stars as Colonel Stars and Stripes, an ex-mafia member turned masked vigilante. This is often worked out prior to shooting, and especially with someone as mercurial as Carrey. Universal did not respond to a request for comment. Last week it was announced the studio would be making “Dumb and Dumber To” with the star after Warner Bros. passed on the project.

Following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of last year, Carrey dived headlong into the gun control debate. His rhetoric on the issue (largely vis a vis magazine limits) built until he participated in a Funny or Die sketch called “Cold Dead Hand,” which mocked former National Rifle Association spokesman Charlton Heston and drew the ire of Second Amendment proponents as well as the right-wing commentariat.

Meanwhile, as Carrey’s comments circulated on the web, the New York Times’ Michael Cieply published an article entitled “Hollywood’s Passion for Guns Remains Undimmed,” citing a number of 2013 action films that prominently feature weapons as part of their marketing. “Almost a year after the theater shootings in Aurora, Colo., and a half-year after the killings in Newtown, Conn., one of the things that hasn”t changed is Hollywood”s enchantment with the gun, at least when it comes to selling the big movies,” he wrote, going on to spotlight upcoming films like “White House Down,” “World War Z,” “The Lone Ranger,” “R.I.P.D.” and “2 Guns.”

“Kick-Ass” creator Mark Millar took to the internet to express how “baffled” he was by Carrey’s decision. “Like Jim, I’m horrified by real-life violence (even though I’m Scottish), but ‘Kick-Ass 2’ isn’t a documentary,” he wrote. “No actors were harmed in the making of this production! This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorcese [sic] and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-wook Park, ‘Kick-Ass’ avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead o[n] the CONSEQUENCES of violence, whether it’s the ramifications for friends and family or, as we saw in the first movie, Kick-Ass spending six months in hospital after his first street altercation. Ironically, Jim’s character in Kick-Ass 2 is a Born-Again Christian and the big deal we made of the fact that he refuses to fire a gun is something he told us attracted him to the role in the first place.”

The first “Kick-Ass” film raised a lot of questions about movie violence when it was released in April of 2010. “We”ve been here before: A movie pointedly tests what seems to be an established boundary of propriety, and rhetorical battle lines are drawn. ‘How dare they!’ faces off against ‘Oh, lighten up,'” New York Times film critic A.O. Scott wrote in a think piece about the film and the current state of violence in the cinema at the time. “We will, I suppose, each find our own limits and draw our own boundaries, but it may also be time to articulate those and say when enough is enough.”

Wrote Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman in the way of push-back, “Or does it, in fact, highlight the decadence of what most of us accept, more or less every week, at the movies? That never-ending onslaught of blockbuster blood and ballistics leaves all of us a bit numb, but I”m not sure that any critic is going to sign on to condemn that.”

Meanwhile, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, “Django Unchained” director Quentin Tarantino faced harsh criticism about the level of violence in his films, criticism he’s certainly weathered before. “I think it’s disrespectful to their memory, actually…to talk about movies,” he said in an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross at the time. “Obviously, the issue is gun control and mental health. I’ve been asked this question for 20 years, about the effects of violence in movies related to violence in real life. My answer is the same 20 years ago. It hasn’t changed one iota. Obviously, I don’t think one has to do with the other.”

Obviously, Mr. Carrey feels otherwise. We’ll see if he can really get away with not promoting his latest film, though.

“Kick-Ass 2” hits theaters August 16.

Bookended by Pedro Almodovar’s “I’m So Excited!” and Fox Searchlight’s starry Sundance comedy “The Way, Way Back” — which closes proceedings tonight — the Los Angeles Film Festival may boast its share of big names, but when it comes to its competition sections, it juries tend to throw the spotlight on lower-profile fare. 

The jury award for Best Narrative Feature went to Latvian drama “Mother, I Love You” — already the Grand Prix winner in the Berlinale’s Generation section back in February. This sophomore feature from writer-director Janis Nords is a coming-of-age story about an adolescent boy drawn into petty crime, and his brittle relationship with his single mother. Warmly reviewed at Berlin and LA alike, it looks a reasonable bet to be Latvia’s entry in the foreign Oscar race — with its modest industry, the country has only entered on four previous occasions.

The corresponding documentary award went to one of the festival’s world premieres, “Code Black” — a debut feature from former emergency physician Ryan McGarry that documents the ins and outs of an overburdened emergency room in a Los Angeles county hospital.

The Audience Award in the narrative section went to “Short Term 12,” a film that already garnered significant buzz in March at South By Southwest, where it won both the top jury and audience awards. Destin Daniel Cretton’s film stars Brie Larson as a young foster-care worker facing personal and professional crises, and opens Stateside in August; its festival performance to date suggests it could be one to watch. (Last year’s winner in this section was “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”0

The audience’s top documentary was “American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs,” a portrait of a 97-year-old Chinese-American social activist. Their favorite international film, meanwhile, was another title that has already been racking up acclaim on the festival circuit: Haifaa Al-Mansour’s “Wadjda” is a gently observed but incisive fable that is most noteworthy for being the first female-directed feature to emerge from Saudi Arabia.

The film, about a young Saudi girl whose burning desire for a bicycle leads her into bold defiance of her society’s restrictive codes of gender and religion, premiered last year at Venice, picking up awards there, as well as at the Rotterdam, Palm Springs, Dubai and London festivals. Already picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics, it’s the kind of crowd-pleasing charmer that could be a threat in the foreign Oscar race if Saudi Arabia deigned to submit this controversial item — which, given that the country has never entered the race before, is a very big ‘if’ indeed. (Could co-producing country Germany do the honors instead? Probably not.) 

Among the short film winners, incidentally, it’s interesting to see a new film from Tsai Ming-liang, the revered Chinese auteur who hasn’t made a feature since 2009’s Cannes Competition entry “Face.” Good to know he’s still at work.

The full list of awards, which were presented this afternoon at a brunch hosted by actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is below.

Jury Award for Best Narrative Film: “Mother, I Love You,” Janis Nords
Jury Award for Best Documentary: “Code Black,” Ryan McGarry
Best Performance in the Narrative Competition: Geetanjali Thapa, “I.D.”
Audience Award for Best Narrative Film: “Short Term 12,” Destin Daniel Cretton
Audience Award for Best International Film: “Wadjda,” Haifaa Al-Mansour
Audience Award for Best Documentary: “American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs,” Grace Lee
Best Narrative Short: “Walker, ” Tsai Ming-liang
Best Documentary Short: “Stone,” Kevin Jerome Everson
Best Experimental/Animated Short: “Oh Willy…,” Emma De Sweaf and Mark James Roels
Audience Award for Best Short Film: “Grandpa and Me and a Helicopter to Heaven,” Asa Blanck and Johan Palmgren
Audience Award for Best Music Video: “Katachi,” Kijek/Adamski 

Since scoring widespread acclaim (and an Oscar) for “Lost in Translation” a decade ago, Sofia Coppola has become a distinctly divisive figure in the auteur ranks: “Marie Antoinette” and “Somewhere” drew as much praise as criticism for their high-style studies of privileged ennui, and “The Bling Ring” has followed much the same pattern since its Cannes debut. I’ve never felt let down by a Coppola film, and am once more firmly in the pro camp on her latest, an outside-in take on her favored celebrity milieu that may be her chilliest, most formally structured film to date. After opening in New York and LA last week, it goes wide today, and with critical opinion all over the map, I’m curious to read your thoughts. Have your say in the comments, and vote in the poll after the jump.

Marc Forster’s embattled production “World War Z,” based (though not really) on the book by Max Brooks, finds its way to theaters today. Heavy rewrites and reshoots sent the production budget soaring and Paramount is hoping a whole bunch of “it’s not THAT bad” reviews, as well as a Brad Pitt tour, will help get them closer to the black on it. I’ve been pretty hard on the film on Twitter, but let me start with something positive: Marco Beltrami’s score is really awesome.

Now, despite some legitimately jarring moments and one sequence in particular that I thought was fantastic (on an airplane), I thought the film failed, limping its way through dubious set-up on the way to a weak climax. Wrote HitFix’s Drew McWeeny, “A movie like ‘World War Z’ ends up being a passable way to spend a few hours, but forgettable, and to me, that’s the greater sin.” But why don’t you be the judge and tell us what you thought when and if you see it in the comments section below. And as always, feel free to vote in our poll, too.