• Oscar season ramped up this week, with the popular selection of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as this year’s Oscar emcees.
• This week’s Off the Carpet column surveyed the runners and riders for Best Actor …
• … only to be immediately outdated as Jeff Bridges and “Crazy Heart” arrived to turn that race on its head.
• Big news in the Best Animated Feature race, as last-minute entry “A Town Called Panic” ensured we’ll have five nominees.
The American Society of Cinematographers has announced that veteran lenser Caleb Deschanel will receive the guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award this year. Recent recipients have included Jack N. Green, Stephen H. Burum and Allen Daviau.
Deschanel won the ASC award for Best Cinematography in 2000 for his work on Roland Emmerich’s “The Patriot.” He has been nominated for the Oscar five times, stretching back to 1983’s “The Right Stuff.” His most recent nod came for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” but he has yet to win a statuette from the Academy.
Most recently Deschanel worked on Nick Cassavetes’s “My Sister’s Keeper.”
“Caleb Deschanel is an extraordinarily talented cinematographer who has played an influential role in cinema history, and driven artistic excellence in contemporary filmmaking,” ASC President Michael Goi says in the press release. “For him to receive this honor while still at the top of his field shows the profound influence and respect he has among his peers. His innovative cinematography is inspiring. We look forward to seeing what is yet to come in his work.”