After releasing quite the agreeable slate of nominees last week, the Online Film Critics Society has awarded “The Tree of Life” its 2011 Best Picture prize. The film won five awards in total. Previously announced special awards go to Jessica Chastain and Martin Scorsese. Check out the full list of winners below.

Best Picture: “The Tree of Life”

Best Director: Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”

Best Actor: Michael Fassbender, “Shame”

Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”

Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain, “The Tree of Life”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

Best Original Screenplay: “Midnight in Paris”

Best Cinematography: “The Tree of Life”

Best Editing: “The Tree of Life”

Best Animate Feature: “Rango”

Best Documentary: “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”

Best Film Not in the English Language: “A Separation”

Special Award:Jessica Chastain (breakout performer of the year)

Special Award: Martin Scorsese (in honor of his work and dedication to the pursuit of film preservation)

Be sure to keep track of the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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The Central Ohio Film Critics Association should implement different nominating procedures so that ties, etc., don’t leave them with a ridiculous slate of 15 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES. Anyway, it looks like “The Tree of Life” has the most mentions. Check out the full list of nominees below.

Best Film
“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“Drive”
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“The Ides of March”
“Margin Call”
“Martha Marcy May Marlene”
“Melancholia”
“Midnight in Paris”
“Moneyball”
“Super 8”
“Take Shelter”
“The Tree of Life”
“Win Win”

Best Director
David Fincher, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”
Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”
Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”
Lars von Trier, “Melancholia”

Best Actor
George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Michael Fassbender, “Shame”
Ryan Gosling, “Drive”
Michael Shannon, “Take Shelter”

Best Actress
Viola Davis, “The Help”
Kirsten Dunst, “Melancholia”
Elizabeth Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Charlize Theron, “Young Adult”
Michelle Williams, “My Week with Marilyn”

Best Supporting Actor
Albert Brooks, “Drive”
John Hawkes, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
Patton Oswalt, “Young Adult”
Brad Pitt, “The Tree of Life”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”

Best Supporting Actress
Jessica Chastain, “The Help”
Jessica Chastain, “The Tree of Life”
Melissa McCarthy, “Bridesmaids”
Carey Mulligan, “Shame”
Shailene Woodley, “The Descendants”

Best Adapted Screenplay
“The Descendants”
“Drive”
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
“The Ides of March”
“Moneyball”

Best Original Screenplay
“Midnight in Paris”
“Source Code”
“Take Shelter”
“The Tree of Life”
“Young Adult”

Best Cinematography
“Drive”
“Hugo”
“Melancholia”
“The Tree of Life”
“War Horse”

Best Score
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hanna”
“Hugo”
“The Tree of Life”
“War Horse”

Best Animated Film
“The Adventures of Tintin”
“Arthur Christmas”
“Kung Fu Panda 2”
“Rango”
“Winnie the Pooh”

Best Documentary
“African Cats”
“Cave of Forgotten Dreams”
“POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”
“Project Nim”
“Tabloid”

Best Ensemble
“Bridesmaids”
“The Descendants”
“The Help”
“The Ides of March”
“Margin Call”
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
“The Tree of Life”

Actor of the Year (for exemplary body of work)
Jessica Chastain, “Coriolanus,” The Debt,” “The Help,” “Take Shelter,” “Texas Killing Fields” and “The Tree of Life”
George Clooney, “The Descendants” and “The Ides of March”
Michael Fassbender, “A Dangerous Method,” “Jane Eyre,” “Shame” and “X-Men: First Class”
Ryan Gosling, “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “Drive” and “The Ides of March”
Brad Pitt, “Happy Feet Two,” “Moneyball” and “The Tree of Life”

Breakthrough Film Artist
Jessica Chastain, “Coriolanus,” The Debt,” “The Help,” “Take Shelter,” “Texas Killing Fields” and “The Tree of Life”
Sean Durkin, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
Elizabeth Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”
Shailene Woodley, “The Descendants”

Most Overlooked Film
“Attack the Block”
“Beginners”
“Higher Ground”
“Margaret”
“Of Gods and Men”

Be sure to keep track of the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

Sign up for Instant Alerts from In Contention!

It’s always nice to look back and see the real outside-the-box picks of awards organizations, particularly the Screen Actors Guild. Going back to the first annual ceremony, Jamie Lee Curtis was nominated for “True Lies.” That’s what I’m talkin’ about! A year later, the criminally overlooked Kevin Bacon in “Murder in the First” got a tip of the hat, while in its inaugural year, the Best Ensemble spotlighted films like “Get Shorty” and “Nixon.” With that in mind, Nathaniel Rogers flashes back to the 1996 ceremony, which saw a delightfully unique choice for the enemble prize: the cast of Mike Nichols’ “The Birdcage.” [Film Experience]

“The Artist”‘s Bérénice Bejo: Peppy Miller “is my husband”s fantasy.” [Telegraph]

The Toronto Star’s Peter Howell posits a Cannes bow for Walter Salles’s “On the Road.” [Twitter]

Cristy Grosz talks film preservation with Martin Scorsese. [Variety]

The Academy will exercise an option to explore other venues for the Oscars. [Hollywood Reporter]

Mekado Murphy sits down with “Hugo” production designer Dante Ferretti. [New York Times]

Jeff Wells is already taking the 2012 predictions plunge. No. Just…no. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

Steve Pond talks “Winnie the Pooh” tunes with Zooey Deschanel. [The Odds]

Will there be a sequel to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?” [Speakeasy]

Speaking of which, “Now that Mara is a big star, she’s comfortable downplaying a role other actresses would have killed for,” namely, her part in the remake of “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” [Bloody Disgusting]

‘Twas a year of change to say the least at In Contention. A little more than three months into our new arrangement with HitFix and we’re going strong as ever. A new voice in Roth’s unique perspective has added another dimension, as Guy and Gerard continue firing on all cylinders in their roles.

So as 2012 slowly creeps westward across the globe, greeting any number of international readers before finally making its way to Los Angeles, allow me to wish everyone a happy and healthy new year. Thanks for reading, for sticking with us through the growing pains, for engaging and being respectful amid lively debate and for making In Contention unique and rich with the spirit of community.

See you next year.

Welcome to Oscar Talk.

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

We took a week off around Christmas to refocus and leave all this madness behind for a moment, but we’re back on the case today ready to chew on the few morsels left in the year to discuss. The clock is ticking on 2011, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

The film critics have been dishing out year-end kudos and top 10 lists, making for an interesting up and down and jockeying for position as the most lauded film of the year. Contenders like “The Tree of Life,” “The Descendants,” “The Artist” and “Drive” are bubbling up to the top.

The PGA and WGA will be the next guilds to speak up next week. We briefly discuss what we might expect there and what it means at this point in the race.

One film that has won the late-breaking award this year is Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse,” which came on strong at the box office around the holiday and could keep it rolling this weekend. (UPDATE: Looking at the Friday numbers, it actually appears to have leveled out. Interesting.)

Some films seem to have missed the beat, namely “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” Though the book is by no means closed on either hopeful, we talk about how they’re faring amid the competition as they open at the end of the year.

We do a little bit of category focusing by examining the Best Actress race, which, as far as we’re concerned, appears to be locked in.

And finally, reader questions! We address queries ranging from how Jessica Chastain might be perceived if she didn’t have a big body of work this year and what contenders could be surprising “out of the blue” nominees next month.

Have a listen to the new podcast below with The Chromatics leading the way. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. And as always, remember to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here.

“Tick of the Clock” courtesy of The Chromatics and Italians Do It Better.
“Auld Lang Syne” courtesy of Prince.

Greg Ellwood over at Awards Campaign has already posted and criticized this year’s official Oscar poster for being “instantly forgettable” and looking akin to “a home video cover for the best of an Oscar ceremony compilation.”

I don’t disagree with that. There have been some creative spins on this annual artwork over the years, but there has also always been that nagging flavor of conservative design holding things back. Still, what do you want from the Academy? All they’re interested in is having a date and the Oscar as big as possible. Tune in. That’s the message.

But I’ve been considering the film images chosen to accompany the big statue. Greg notes that “Giant” is out of place, because it’s the only film featured that didn’t win the Best Picture Oscar. The others are “Gone with the Wind,” “Casablanca,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Godfather,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Forrest Gump” and “Gladiator.”

If you ask me, the one that really feels out of place is “Driving Miss Daisy.” There is a film from every decade since the 1930s represented, and all of the films, with the exception of “Driving Miss Daisy,” are iconic and/or big and expansive, the kinds of things — not necessarily epics — that you’d like to see on the big screen. I might have chosen Willem Dafoe’s final, iconic moment from Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” to represent the 1980s over an impotent shot of Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy from Bruce Beresford’s 1989 effort (which itself beat another Oliver Stone film, “Born on the Fourth of July”).

I like the inclusion of “Giant,” because that shot of James Dean with his boots propped up is pure cinema, a classic image to say the least. But to stick with Best Picture winners, I might have chosen the image of waves lapping up onto the shore as Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr embrace in a kiss in 1953’s “From Here to Eternity.” A bit obvious, but that seems to be the goal, given the other selections. Or maybe a moment from the chariot race in 1959’s “Ben-Hur.”

I also don’t particularly love the shot they chose from “Gladiator.” If we’re playing up a “see it on the big screen” vibe, a shot of Russell Crowe looking over his shoulder doesn’t really do it. There are others from the film better suited, I think, but I might have sprung for something from “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” or even “The Hurt Locker,” to mix up the diversity of what is better serviced on the big screen.

And I don’t think it would have been too hard to include a shot from 1927’s “Wings” (the first-ever Best Picture winner, which has been restored and is set for a screening at the Academy in a few weeks as part of Paramount Pictures’ 100th anniversary year). The 1920s being the only decade not represented kind of sticks out a little bit, and that’s a big, visually bold film with its share of iconic images.

Oh well, I’m not in charge of the Academy’s marketing department, so what do I care.

Check out the poster below and feel free to rate it in the feature above.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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Captain Haddock, the crusty seadog sidekick of boy-wonder reporter Tintin, has, as even casual readers of the Hergé comics know, a bit of a drinking problem. It’s a weakness the books always treated as greater cause for comedy than concern, and Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” follows suit, hinging several gags on the Andy Serkis-voiced character’s alcoholism. Fine by me, but others seem worried about treating the subject so lightly in a piece of family entertainment. David Haglund looks into the issue, also wondering if Spielberg is a more booze-friendly filmmaker than his wholesome reputation suggests. [Slate]

Rounding up the strongest dark horses in the Oscar race, from “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” to “Melancholia.” [Vulture] 

Sasha Stone wonders why Tate Taylor, director of “The Help,” isn’t getting more awards attention. That’d be because the film isn’t very well directed. [Awards Daily] 

Scott Tobias and Tasha Robinson debate the merits of “Hugo” — a terrific read for fans and detractors alike. [A.V. Club] 

With children’s and young adult fiction at the root of many major 2011 releases, a group of authors (yay, Lois Lowry!) offer thoughts on what properties they’d like to see hit screens in 2012. [Salon]

Meanwhile, Anita Singh anticipates that 2012 will be a big year for films aimed at the over-50 market. [The Telegraph]

Eric Eisenberg lists the 10 most disappointing films of the year. Fine, but who really had high expectations for “Cars 2?” [Cinema Blend]

Looking back on the year’s biggest underperformers, and asking the essential question: who thought a birdwatching comedy was a good idea? [The Playlist]

The wonderful Olivia Colman, still working the publicity circuit for “Tyrannosaur” and “The Iron Lady,” talks to David Poland. [Hot Blog]

If we were to canvas 10 cineastes at random and ask them to define the term “Spielbergian,” we would likely see a similar set of responses with varied points of focus. For some, the term denotes a drive toward an inevitably bittersweet, but ultimately joyful conclusion (though this has not always been the case in his films). For others it references a number of iconic images ranging from the “The Spielberg Face” (a push in on an awe-filled gaze) to an elaborately constructed, and ultimately effective, chase sequence peppered with intermittent one-liners.

Most would agree that Spielberg has often used a non-human entity, be it an alien (or aliens), a shark, dinosaurs, a trusted family pet or, now, a horse, to highlight aspects of his perception of human nature via our response to said entity. His central characters are, in many cases, ordinary people given a set of extraordinary circumstances (with the exception of Indiana Jones, who is inherently remarkable). He is fascinated by the idea of innocence, its value, the threats it faces in the larger world and the sacrifices that are necessary to transform nativity into willfully preserved innocence. And, well, he is interested in war.

Author Michael Morpurgo was also interested in war, specifically WWI, a war whose history is more present in the cultural consciousness of Europe than of the United States, when he wrote the children’s book upon which first a play, and now the film was based. “Every village in England has a memorial to the fallen,” Jeremy Irvine, the young star of “War Horse,” says. “Everyone has a relative that was in the first World War. It’s something that’s a big scar on our national history and wiped out an entire generation of young men.”

Irvine, like Spielberg, had an avid interest in military history prior to being cast as Albert Narracott in the film. He has also spent the bulk of his (now limited) spare time writing a documentary on WWI fighter pilots, a choice that illustrates the continued significance of the war in his life.

While thinking of how to approach the subject of the Great War, Morpurgo met a veteran at his local pub who had worked with horses in the Devon Yeomanry. The soldier spoke with such passion and regret about the animals that Morpurgo began to consider the idea of telling the tale of the war via the point of view of a horse. The author encountered two additional men who would influence his narrative before he committed to the project, the first a Cavalry soldier and the second a villager who recalled local equine auctions at the war’s inception.

The novel was published in 1982 and adapted into a Tony award-winning play featuring starkly constructed puppets to stand in for the horses in 2007. Producer Kathleen Kennedy introduced Spielberg to the stage production and encouraged him to think about translating it for the screen. The match of Spielberg and the property seems almost inevitable. A hybrid family-war film, “War Horse” has all of the elements necessary to create a quintessentially Spielbergian tale. Though the film (for the most part) bridges the gap between the fable of the boy and his horse and the series of vignettes that are used to illustrate the unfolding of WWI, the filmmakers appear to be somewhat conflicted about the genre.

Irvine and co-screenwriter Richard Curtis both emphatically agree that the film is fundamentally anti-war. Yet Irvine attests that he would not necessarily call “War Horse” a war film. “It’s set against the backdrop of the first World War, but it is a family movie,” he says. “I’ve got a younger brother whose 12 and I took him to see it the other day and he loved it. So I think it’s one of those films.”

And yet Curtis was given no mandate to pen a “family friendly” picture when he saddled up to the script. “Steven never, ever once mentioned to me that the movie was a PG-13 movie,” he says. “So that’s quite interesting. I mean he clearly knew that, he clearly made that decision when he chose to shoot the scenes in such a way that we would not witness the soldiers being shot, and not to have any blood in the charge across no man’s land, but those weren’t things he talked to me about. I think he deliberately never wanted me to click into that mindset where you may start writing a different kind of joke, or scenes and characters. Steven took the burden of having it be a family film and didn’t put it on me at all.”

Screenwriter Lee Hall had already written a draft of the script when Spielberg approached Curtis, who had experience writing for multiple storylines and characters on “Love Actually.” His task was to approach each of the scenarios as though they were a complete film and then find the core of each story in five or ten minutes.  Curtis likens his process to that of a mix of a record.

“It’s alarming the way they take down the vocals and everything else and just work the sax for a day,” he muses. “The guy is insistent on getting the sax part perfect before he pushes up the other ones. And I will say I really have to concentrate on the plot today, or I really have to concentrate on how this character talks to that character, even if the scenes that I’m going to write aren’t going to be in the movie.”

Curtis will write up to 20-30 pages of what he knows will primarily be unused material in a given day. “I’m completely aware that what I am doing is creating a world of conversation and talk and alternative content and trying to find which bits of it are true,” he says. On “War Horse,” he spent full days “working on the horse.” Interludes in which his girlfriend claims he would regularly neigh and whinny at his desk after spending time with what he refers to as “the five least-promising horses in the world” in the field where he lives. “We had to really know when the horse starts to respect the other,” Curtis says. “We had to think through how a horse that’s been happy on a farm would notice that suddenly they’ve got a harness on and would definitely notice the first time that they saw the dead body of another horse and be aware of the elements of danger.”

The scribe describes the collaborative process with Spielberg as fertile. “If he said there was a problem he would very quickly come up with three fully imagined scenarios to solve that problem,” he recalls. “And some of the time those are the things that are actually in the film. So it wasn’t one of those scary things where a person looks at you and says, ‘You’re meant to be good. Do your job and I’ll wait.’ He was very eager to chat and very creative in that way.”

Structurally, Curtis made at least one dramatic shift. “The book is narrated from the point of view of the horse and I read the book aloud to my daughter and we both were immensely moved after Albert had been missing for a hundred pages and suddenly he re-enters the story,” he says. “But what they’d done in the stage play was thread the story of the horse in with Albert joining the army and experiencing his first battle and looking for the horse. So I said, ‘I think you can afford, you can risk, taking Albert out and then bringing him more startlingly back in later.’”

Centering the focus on Joey, the horse, is as mentioned, more in line with the book and also serves the inherent allegory. He becomes the neutral figure through whom we are able to witness the madness of war, sans the burden of judgment. “The horse doesn’t speak German, or English or French,” Irvine says. “World War II had a very clear right and wrong. In World War I, there’s none of that. It’s just mindless slaughter of millions and millions of young boys and men who didn’t want to be there. And the horse can tell the story from a completely unbiased point of view. He doesn’t know right from wrong, and it shows the futility and the pointlessness of it all.”

In a sense, Joey also stands in for the human tendency to fall in line and blindly follow orders. “All the worst things in the world have been done by people who were obeying orders,” Curtis says. Though ultimately the purpose of the animal as protagonist is to unleash the audience from both conscious and unconscious bias and (we imagine) some measure of ingrained cynicism.

“The thing that I felt most when watching the finished film was not something that I think that I’d quite known we were doing,” Curtis says. “I think because of the innocence of the horse I had this tremendous yearning in the last 45 minutes for things to turn out well. I think that happens in the movie because you are not following a human character. You get a slightly abstract sense of the potential for human kindness. Each new character you meet who actually behaves well gives you a kind of generalized hope, rather than a very specific, ‘Well, that person could help our hero do this.’ I think having a horse at the center of it is a strange, but in some ways rather complicated thing.

“That scene in no man’s land is a really good example of how telling the story through endlessly new characters really pays off. What would happen in a normal movie is that at least one of those soldiers would be the friendly storekeeper, or the grumpy sister, it would be someone you knew. Therefore their behavior would be motivated by who they already were. But these are strangers (to us and each other). It’s another two normal characters, soldiers on both sides who display all the qualities of compassion and good humor that you’d hope that they would. That’s one of the things that this strange structure of always introducing new characters does: it makes the movie seem to be about people in general rather than just the story that you’re telling.”

The no man’s land scene Curtis references is sure to be one of the most memorable from the film, followed by the poignant cavalry charge at the start of act two. Each depicts an aspect of the particular tragedy of World War I. One exemplifies the thoughtless arrogance with which the war was begun, and the ultimate death of the old way of battle and the birth of modern warfare. The other highlights the intimacy of the trenches and the untenable choice to continue to engage in nonsensical mass murder on the part of the leadership.The scene is reminiscent of the famous Christmas truce, during which soldiers from each side left the trenches, traded presents and sang “Silent Night” in one another’s language, only to carry on with the carnage the following day.

We are often able to feel a deeper sense of sympathy toward an animal in a film than we are toward a human being. There is something about their nature as an expression of that incorruptibility that Spielberg is so fond of that allows us to be both forgiving and benevolent. “I think it has to do with the fact that they can’t communicate,” Irvine says. “They’re incredibly honest. An animal can’t lie. You know it’s not the horse’s fault that it’s been thrown into this horrible war and all its trying to do is get home. And there’s something very tragic about that.”

The film is intrinsically a “lest we forget” parable. Yet, we cannot ignore that fact that we are currently at war. While Irvine does not want to enter the realm of the political in his public discourse at this time, he does note that by addressing the inexplicable suffering created by a specific war, you inevitably highlight the cruelty of all war.

“I’m very keen on the fact that the last British soldier from World War I died last year and it’s dying in actual memory,” he says. “But it’s so important to keep it alive in our collective memories. At the end of World War I, it was nick-named ‘the war to end all wars,’ and the fact that it didn’t was tragic. And it’s important not to forget why it was called that.”

For year-round entertainment news and commentary follow @JRothC on Twitter.

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When Tech Support first launched at In Contention five years ago, Alexandre Desplat had proven his talents with top-notch scores for “The Girl With a Pearl Earring,” “Birth” and “Syriana.” It was clear to those of us watching (and listening to) the film composing world that this talented Frenchman was going places. His Golden Globe win that year for “The Painted Veil,” and Oscar nomination for “The Queen,” kicked off his success with awards bodies.

His record since then, in terms of quantity and quality of work, as well as awards recognition, has been nothing short of phenomenal. Oscar nominations for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The King”s Speech” have followed, undoubtedly contributing to his seemingly being the most in-demand composer today. This year, he incredibly managed to score eight titles, including Chris Weitz’s “A Better Life,” Roman Polanski”s “Carnage,” Stephen Daldry”s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” David Yates”s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” George Clooney”s “The Ides of March” and Terrence Malick”s “The Tree of Life.” He is eligible for Oscar consideration for his collaborations with Clooney, Daldry and Yates.

How does he find the time to do all of this? “That”s what I do,” Desplat says matter-of-factly. “I never stop and that”s how I like it, to never stop composing. If you think about great architects, they just keep designing and it”s the same with me; if you need to create, you just create.”

This exceptional work ethic has clearly paid off. It’s a great honor, he says, to have so many top-tier directors calling him up for collaboration. “It”s a dream I”ve had since I was a teenager,” he says, “looking at Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams working with great directors, and here I am working with Polanski and Frears.”

The work flow has been constant, with virtually no breaks, even when the work isn”t composing for films. Before we spoke earlier this month, Desplat had just returned to Paris from South America, where he was conducting several concerts. But how can you manage to stay fresh despite all of this? He says the music itself is a self-replenishing source of continual new energy.

“When you really dig, music takes you places you haven”t thought about and it opens wide gates that were unknown to yourself,” he says. “Writing more opens up new inspiration within myself.”

He owes that to variety, too, noting the very different films he’s worked on this year, from drama to light comedy to documentary. “If you try to compare their moods, they”re all so very different but with great directors and great people, there”s always something new,” he says. This variety of directors, not only this year but throughout the last several has certainly kept his work varied, making it impossible for a critic to peg down what a “Desplat score” sounds like.

The films did pose specific challenges. “The Ides of March” reminded him of his days as a teenage cinephile. “When you look to political films of the 70s, such as ‘All the President”s Men,” there”s not much music,” he says. “It was a challenge not to overwhelm the movie with music and build tension as the movie is going on.”

Of all the work he has in play this year, though, his work on “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the best-selling novel about a young boy grappling with grief in the wake of his father’s untimely death in the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York seems to be his leading ticket for an Oscar bid. Desplat was not expecting to work on the film this year, but he jumped at the opportunity when it arose.

“Stephen Daldry was a director I was clearly hoping to collaborate with,” he says. “When he called me, I had a gap in my schedule. It was a challenge because music is very important in Daldry”s movies and I had to do an hour and 15 minutes of scoring in three weeks.”

Adding to this was the fact that Daldry was in New York while Desplat was in Paris. “It was a very demanding subject and I had to find emotion and sentiment in the music,” Desplat continues. “But we managed to have great communication, and when you”re shown such a beautiful movie, you”re quite inspired.”

If “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” was an effort where Desplat came aboard at the last minute, the opposite was true for “The Tree of Life,” as Terrence Malick called him very early in the process.

“We first met in 2007 and [Malick] came in and discussed that he had in mind classical pieces and he wanted me to try and bring some kind of flow of music that would link all these pieces,” he says. This reliance on integrating pre-existing music has undoubtedly been a factor in the film”s disqualification in the Oscar race, but that did not take away from the importance of Desplat’s role in creating music for the film. “We would meet, we”d talk on the phone and then we”d speak again and he would just use my music as he would have used classical pieces, integrating them,” he adds. This was a particularly easy film to be inspired by, however, as Desplat offers that “every shot is a piece of art, incredibly beautifully framed; everything is so gorgeous.”

Despite his working primarily with these amazing directors, he acknowledges filmmaking is a collaborative effort and composers are not immune from this. “We have occasional discourses with sound designers, sound editors or [film] editors,” he says, noting that it is essential to ensure the music works in the film”s soundscape. Creating the story has even led him to interacting with the screenwriters, as he believes his work impacts directly upon theirs. “For instance, I had exchanges with Peter Morgan on ‘The Queen” on deciding when a good moment for music would be,” he says, “because we”re the last ‘screenwriters” – that”s how the music works. You can bring so many things.”

At the end of the day, however, despite interacting with other behind-the-scenes artists, and particularly relishing his relationships with directors, Desplat admits composing is a lonely profession, with many long hours writing music in solitude.

“I do feel very lonely, but I can”t be a composer without it,” he says. “I like to be all alone in my studio. It”s not always fun but that”s the way it works if you”re a composer.”

It will be interesting to see, or should I say hear, what Desplat does next, and it”s obvious he is enjoying his journey: “I”m exactly where I want to be and I”m incredibly happy.”

“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is currently in limited release. It expands further on Friday, January 20. “The Tree of Life” is currently on DVD and Blu-ray, while “The Ides of March” comes to home video on Tuesday, January 17.

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There’s a provocative piece on IndieWire by filmmaker Jamie Stuart that is likely to provoke strong opinions on either side of the film-or-digital cinematographer divide. Looking back on a number of major 2011 releases, Stuart wonders if 2011 was the year things conclusively shifted in favor of digital, and takes filmmakers like Steven Spielberg to task for his “stubbornness” in shooting “War Horse” on film when it doesn’t, in his opinion, adapt well to digital projection. (Conveniently for his argument, he doesn’t mention “The Adventures of Tintin” at all.) I’d have more time for Stuart’s argument if he admitted to seeing more than two films in theaters in 2011, but aside from that, who’s to tell an artist what medium they may or may not paint in? [IndieWire]

Historian Alex von Tunzelmann takes “The Iron Lady” deliciously to task. [The Guardian]

Steve Pond wonders if “Pina” can nab an unprecedented double of nominations: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Documentary Feature. [Reuters]

The top seven box-office champs of the year have all been sequels. Michael Cieply ponders this depressing stat. [New York Times]

Speaking of box office, Patrick Goldstein wonders why many of Hollywood’s power relationships produced dud movies in 2011. [The Big Picture]

Do the Oscars hate kids? Gold Derby thinks so, including Asa Butterfield’s probable non-nomination for “Hugo” as evidence. Maybe he’s just not very good? [Gold Derby]

Scott Feinberg on why all animated features other than “Rango” may as well stay home on Oscar night. [Hollywood Reporter]

We’ve seen him in “War Horse” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” but is 2012 set to be the year of Benedict Cumberbatch? [Herald Sun]

Brad Brevet wishes he was more excited about the films in the 2011 Best Picture race. [Rope of Silicon]

Stephen Farber lists his 10 favorite movies about the movies, picking five of the titles I included in my own such list last month. [Daily Beast]

The Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced its final honorees for this year”s Awards Gala. Jessica Chastain will receive the Spotlight Award for her work in “The Help,” “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter,” “The Debt” and “Coriolanus,” while composer Howard Shore will be feted with the Frederick Loewe Music Award for “Hugo.”

Shore also received the honor in 2004 for his “The Aviator” score. “Howard Shore is a master composer who has consistently delighted audiences with the more than 80 films that he has scored,” said festival chairman Harold Matzner. “He has received universal acclaim for ‘Hugo,’ with his compositions as dramatic and innovative as the 3D in which ‘Hugo’ was filmed.”

I”m not sure in which ways the 3D in “Hugo” was especially “dramatic” or “innovative.” Making good use of a format doesn”t necessarily equate to innovation, but, there you have it. Perhaps the festival chairman is referring to broadening the range in which 3D is put to use.

Previous recipients of the Frederick Loewe Music Award include T Bone Burnett, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Randy Newman and Diane Warren.

Meanwhile, 2011 is without question the year of Jessica Chastain. For a moment, early on, it looked as if the strength and variety of her portrayals were muddying the critical waters. But with SAG, Golden Globe and BFCA nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her work in “The Help,” her path to an Oscar nod is looking clearer.

Palm Springs has made an obvious, but absolutely appropriate choice in honoring Chastain with an award meant to highlight the full range of an actor”s work in a given year.

“Through a series of virtuoso performances, Jessica Chastain has established herself as one of the cinema”s most versatile and most sought after young actresses,” said Matzner. “To this actress, who captivates audiences with her adroit talents, the Palm Springs International Film Festival is honored to present the 2012 Spotlight Award.”

Other honorees previously announced for this year’s fest include George Clooney, Glenn Close, Michel Hazanavicius, Brad Pitt, Octavia Spencer, Michelle Williams and Gary Oldman. The festival runs January 5-16.

For year-round entertainment news and commentary follow @JRothC on Twitter.

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Whether Meryl Streep wins her third Oscar in two months’ time or not is still highly uncertain — Michelle Williams has so far been winning the battle of the biopics in the critics’ awards, while Viola Davis must wait until January’s more populist ceremonies to potentially make her mark in the race — but she’s already received a neat maybe-consolation prize in the form of her Kennedy Center Honors presentation, which aired on US television last night.

Certainly, no Academy Award presentation can match this one for either generosity of spirit or simple star wattage: in order, Tracey Ullman, Robert De Niro, Mike Nichols, Kevin Kline, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci and Anne Hathaway all turned up to pay their respects in an elaborately staged tribute that, while unrelated, seemed to karmically repay Streep for her own lovely testimony at the Academy’s Vanessa Redgrave tribute evening last month. The actress seems more comfortable at the giving than the receiving end of lavish praise, but good sport that she is, she grins through the whole thing.

It starts rather well, with Ullman’s appealingly rough-edged banter and a killer line from De Niro — “As an actor, looking through those moments of Meryl’s life, my first thought is that… I was amazing in ‘The Deer Hunter'” — though I confess I found myself cringing a bit as it segued into awkwardly rehearsed patter between the commendably game trio of Kline, Tucci and Blunt, climaxing with a twee musical number from Hathaway is full head-girl mode. It’s rather like watching all the worst innovations from the last three Oscar ceremonies rolled into one. Still, everyone’s heart is in the right place, and the whole production couldn’t be in service of a more deserving honoree.

I paid my own tribute to Streep recently with my top 10 list of the actress’s finest performances; check that out if you missed it, and enjoy the Kennedy Center video below.

For more views on movies, awards season and other pursuits, follow @GuyLodge on Twitter.

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Alright, you know the drill. I’m not quite sure what we’ll be discussing yet, but for now, go ahead and tell use your need-to-knows and we’ll address a few in the podcast. As always, keep it fresh and try not to retread things we’ve already covered.

We’ve talked to Greg P. Russell here at In Contention numerous times over the years, stretching back, I think, to his work on 2006’s “Apocalypto.” He’s amassed 14 Oscar nominations throughout his career (including two in 1998), but the statue has eluded him.

This is kind of what I’m talking about when I harp on the fact that the Academy at large just doesn’t think all that hard about its choices throughout the crafts categories. From member to member, I’d be shocked if the difference between sound editing and sound mixing is all that considered or even known. It’s all about favorite movies when they get to those categories, which explains why other talented craftsmen like Roger Deakins and Kevin O’Connell have also gone Oscarless all this time despite often cranking out some of the best work in their fields.

Films like “The Rock” and “Con Air,” therefore, just don’t win Oscars. But Russell’s contribution to those kinds of films is substantial, as it was this year on “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.”

As part of a “Contenders” series, Russell recently participated in an interview with Below the Line, a trade paper that’s been doing great work spotlighting craft talent for years. Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

“Definition, detail and a great dynamic range are absolutely essential to focusing an audience on what you want them to hear at every given moment throughout the course of a movie…Too many sounds are just going to mud out the mix. You cannot hear seven or eight things on top of each other. It”s just not feasible.”

On that note, Russell told me a while back that when producer Steven Spielberg first watched the finished product of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” he turned to him and said something along the lines of, “It was big and bold and never hurt my ears,” which is the kind of thing a mixer loves to hear.

Russell also, as always, showers director Michael Bay with a lot of love in the Below the Line piece. You always hear the horror stories about working on Bay films, but the guy has forged a committed crew over the years and always fights for them this time of year, hoping that their work can get the proper awards recognition. Says Russell:

“I am a much better mixer today, having worked on Michael Bay films. Having a long history with a director is a phenomenal thing, because you come to understand their own unique processes.”

I don’t think Russell will have any problem getting into the final five yet again this year and picking up his 15th Oscar nomination. But the issue of the Academy’s education on what makes a mix like “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” so special will likely be another hurdle for him.

One day, though, he’s going to get his due.

Here’s a recent SoundWorks Collection profile on the sound of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” that’s worth re-posting:

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/25669979 w=640&h=360]

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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There’s a lovely piece by Ian Buckwalter on NPR today about two of the most striking musical moments in film in 2011: John Hawkes’s performance of “Marcy’s Song” in “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and Carey Mulligan’s slowed-down rendition of “New York, New York” in “Shame.” Neither, of course, is a song originally written for the film, yet both selections feel more cinematically and thematically resonant than most Best Original Song contenders in any given year. As Buckwalter puts it: “[T]hey contain coded messages that pass, hidden between the lines, between the maker and the recipient… a simple two-minute pop song can carry more meaning and history than pages and pages of dialogue.” [NPR] 

Nathaniel Rogers has a 10-point memo for Oscar voters. Among his requests: reward the work, not the career, and don’t forget Vanessa Redgrave. [The Film Experience]

Erik Childress narrows down the Best Director race to nine names, and wonders about wild card Nicolas Winding Refn. [Movies.com]

Sasha Stone believes a healthy opening weekend, plus good reviews from some top critics, make “War Horse” the unassailable frontrunner for Best Picture. Whoa there. [Awards Daily]

Academy Award winner Trent Reznor (I still get a kick out of saying it) talks to Todd Martens about his partnership with David Fincher. [LA Times]

On how two 2011 Oscar hopefuls, “A Better Life” and “Miss Bala,” feed into the immigration discussion. [The Atlantic]

Hard to believe, but Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” is 40 years old. Tim Robey reflects. [The Telegraph]

Big news for festival followers: Marco Mueller has been displaced as director of the Venice fest. Sorry to see him go. [Screen Daily]

Hurrah! Jordan Horowitz provides photographic evidence that Fox Searchlight is indeed sending out “Margaret” screeners. [Twitter]

The Austin Film Critics Association is the latest group to speak up on the year’s best, tapping “Hugo” as the best picture of the year. The film didn’t show up anywhere else on the unique slate of superlatives, though, which included three wins for “Drive.” Check out the full list of winners below.

Best Film: “Hugo”

Best Director: Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”

Best Actor: Michael Shannon, “Take Shelter”

Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks, “Drive”

Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain, “Take Shelter”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “Drive”

Best Original Screenplay: “Midnight in Paris”

Best Cinematography: “The Tree of Life”

Best Original Score: “Attack the Block”

Best Documentary: “Senna”

Best Foreign Language Film: “I Saw the Devil”

Breakthrough Artist Award: Jessica Chastain

Best First Film: Joe Cornish, “Attack the Block”

Austin Film Award: “Take Shelter”

Top 10 films (in order): “Hugo,” “Drive,” “Take Shelter,” “Midnight in Paris,” “Attack the Block,” “The Artist,” “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” “I Saw the Devil,” “13 Assassins” and “Melancholia”

As always, remember to keep track of the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 film awards season via The Circuit.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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As the year draws to a close, we find ourselves in the midst of the season’s superlative train. Most of the critics have had their say, and one film that has done somewhat surprisingly well on the circuit, establishing the field-leading Best Supporting Actor candidate and corralling a healthy share of Best Director trophies, too, is Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive.”

Not only that, but it is also the only film shared by top 10 lists published here at HitFix by Drew McWeeny (#6), Gregory Ellwood (#2), Guy Lodge (#3) and yours truly (#3). That’s interesting to me, because when you look at those three takes on the 2011 film year, they are drastically different and have different criteria (in some instances different release date criteria) for judgment. But they converge at this one dynamic burst of style and vision. Why, I wonder? What is it about this film that manages to bridge gaps like that? And it’s not just us, of course, as “Drive” has popped up on a number of top 10 lists this year, firmly in the top tier of the year’s favorites.

I thought I’d ask the boys for their thoughts, and starting with Guy, who you’ll recall saw and loved the film at Cannes, he says he wasn’t sure if the “sugar rush” would last. “It certainly didn’t take long for detractors to emerge, complaining the film is all surface,” he says, “but ‘Drive’ has somehow mostly kept them at bay, perhaps because of its swift absorption into general pop culture.”

Greg followed a similar line of logic, offering that “it’s one of the few films this year or in the past few years that leaves iconic images or scenes in the viewer’s mind that haven’t been beaten into them by trailers or TV spots. Those are the movies people tend to remember the most.”

At a recent holiday party, I was discussing top 10 lists with Drew (who, by the way, considers any and all films he has seen in a given year for his list, whether released that year or not — much like Guy). He mentioned that his angle on constructing a list this year was all about directors with a clear and unique voice, and of course, Refn’s film is rich with that. But his take on its popularity is more about the film as a Rorschach of sorts.

“I think part of the reason people are able to find so much in ‘Drive’ is because the film leaves so much room for the viewer,” he says. “This is the ‘Year Of The Ambiguous Movie,’ and none of them offer up less specific info than ‘Drive,’ it feels like. [Ryan Gosling’s] Driver is a blank, and you can read a lot into that performance.”

It also has something for film lovers of multiple stripes. As Guy points out, the film “pulls off the arthouse-multiplex mash-up more deftly than any film in recent memory: cineastes feast on its language, its references, its relationship to its own medium, while champions of popular entertainment can bypass all that and enjoy it for its more immediate, even primal pleasures. It plays to both audiences, without playing down to either of them (bar the odd lawsuit-happy moron).”

Of course, Drew closes by noting what is perhaps the most obvious and inescapable truth of the film, which may ultimately be what makes it so hard to resist: “It’s just so goddamn cool.”

Me? I think there are a number of factors at play. The film deals in archetypes, which, as Drew points out, allows the audience to bring its own perspective to the piece. It’s a throwback, which breeds familiarity, but then it turns expected tropes on their ear; surprise is a powerful thing.

I also think there is something about the presence of Albert Brooks, who has been an awards-hogging element of the film all month. But that presence, again, yields surprise. There’s simply something about the familiar coming off fresh that is exciting, and that, I think, is what people are responding to.

Whatever the case, “Drive” is clearly making a mark this year. And the question is: will that mark extend to the Oscars? Brooks being snubbed by the Screen Actors Guild certainly raises an eyebrow, but for the most part, he’s assumed in for Best Supporting Actor.

Where else could it score? Guy is predicting an adapted screenplay nod. I think the film editing could get a surprising mention, while the cinematography could maybe get some love. The sound design is also worthy and would make a lot of sense for a nomination. I’d like to believe it has a chance at Best Picture and Best Director, but I need to hear from more than just critics.

For now, though, the film has certainly been spoken for. And it won’t likely be forgotten any time soon.

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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The Phoenix Film Critics Society has named “The Artist” the best picture of the year, but I have to say, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this line of boast at the organization’s official site:

“Last year the PFCS was the only critics group to name ‘The King”s Speech’ as Best Picture correctly predicting the Academy Awards.”

Look, yay, you were good enough to go against the grain of last year’s pro-“Social Network” critics’ awards onslaught. But don’t brag about it like it should matter. Your job isn’t to predict the Academy Awards, so don’t start thinking it is, please. PLEASE.

The group fell hard for “The Artist” this year, giving the film Best Picture along with eight other awards. Nine wins for the film that has become the 2011 critics’ favorite. Not so against the grain after all, I guess. Of course, that writing was probably on the wall after the film led the way with nominations earlier this month.

Anyway, check out the full list of winners below, and remember to keep track of the ups and downs of the 2011-2012 filma wards season via The Circuit.

Best Picture: “The Artist”

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”

Best Actress: Elizabeth Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”

Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks, “Drive”

Best Supporting Actress: Bérénice Bejo, “The Artist”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Help”

Best Original Screenplay: “The Artist”

Best Cinematography: “The Tree of Life”

Best Costume Design: “The Artist”

Best Film Editing: “The Artist”

Best Original Score: “The Artist”

Best Production Design: “Hugo”

Best Visual Effects: “Hugo”

Best Animated Film: “Rango”

Best Documentary: “Page One: Inside The New York Times”

Best Foreign Language Film: “The Skin I Live In”

Best Ensemble Acting: “Super 8”

Breakthrough Performance on Camera: Thomas Horn, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

Breakthrough Performance Behind the Camera: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”

Best Performance by a Youth in a Lead or Supporting Role: Saoirse Ronan, “Hanna”

Best Stunts: “Drive”

Best Live Action Family Film (Rated G or PG): “The Muppets”

The Overlooked Film of the Year: “A Better Life”

For year-round entertainment news and awards season commentary follow @kristapley on Twitter.

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