In 2011, New Zealand-based visual effects company Weta Digital was at it again with another banner year in the CG filmmaking landscape, perhaps the company's biggest year to date.

With Rupert Wyatt's “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” performance capture technology was taken to new progressive heights as a franchise was not only rebooted but redefined, primarily due to the hardworking effects engineers behind the enterprise. With Steven Spielberg's “The Adventures of Tintin,” a legendary director saddled up to the technology and commissioned added effects elements to the mixture that brought the work of Belgian artist Hergé to life on the big screen.

At the forefront of making those films a reality were visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri, director of Weta Digital, and actor Andy Serkis, steward of the performance capture form and the face for a technology that could potentially, at some point, become a standardized tool in the filmmaker's arsenal.

On “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” great strides were made toward streamlining the performance capture process and affording flexibility to its use in the making of a motion picture. Coming off of “Avatar,” which was the last milestone for the form (following in the shoes of “King Kong” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy before it), Letteri says the key was realizing it outside of a contained soundstage environment, allowing for run-and-gun usage that set the performance capture unit up like any other unit on a typical film set (grips, electric, etc.).

“We worked out some new technology, LEDs, new filters on the cameras to make it work in sunlight,” he says. “And so, from a filmmaking perspective, it just kind of closed the loop for us there. We had actually experimented with it at the end of 'Rings.' We did a couple of sequences using this idea, but it was really early days and it was just something we always just thought we”d want to get back to if we ever needed to do it. A lot of these things are just ideas until you have a real reason to get in there and make it work.”

When 20th Century Fox was first mulling over the idea of making the film, sparked by a screenplay that had everyone excited over the possibilities, Letteri said he reached to people he knew could click right in and start working on something with this kind of specified technology. So “Lord of the Rings” alums were his first calls, cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, for instance, and, of course, Andy Serkis. And being such an enthusiastic supporter of the form, Serkis was naturally excited about the potential for advancing the technology.

“I guess one of the major kind of progressions is the fact that it”s becoming more transparent as a technology,” Serkis says, calling from the Southern Alps in New Zealand where he's completing second unit photography on Peter Jackson's “The Hobbit” films. “If you look at 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes,' that was pretty much the first time an entire film was shot using performance capture on a live action set with major performance capture characters interacting with live action characters. And it”s kind of seamless.”

The difference between former performance capture projects and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was a considerable one for Serkis as an actor, though. Whereas before, he would act out a scene as, say, Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” with the other actors and sometimes months later recreate individual shots of the character on a motion capture stage, now it was “just purely acting with your fellow actors and you”re sharing the same environment in the same moment,” he says. “That all adds to the symmetry. You have the same stimulation. If I”m acting in a live action film conventionally, it”s exactly the same process.”

This also allowed for director Rupert Wyatt to ease into the form, as it was all very new for him.

“Like in the old days, if you were doing a visual effects shot like without the visual effect creature in it, say, you would just shoot a plate and maybe some tennis balls or a lighting reference,” Letteri says. “In this one it was like, shoot Andy, do your close-ups, the camera will track him. Do all your coverage exactly as you want it and you cut with that and then at some point Andy will get replaced by Caesar, but the performance will be the same. That way all your cutting rhythm and all your dialogue rhythm is all what you want it to be from a live action film.”

If you can believe it, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was actually done in the middle of work on another intensive performance capture shoot, Steven Spielberg's “The Adventures of Tintin.” Weta originally got involved on that project to do a test on a digital Snowy (the lovable dog from the series) with live action actors. It was a time when Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson were still trying to figure out the best way to bring Hergé's creation to life on the big screen.

“The more we all got into it, the more we realized one of the big problems is casting,” Letteri says. “Who are you going to cast that looks like Tintin? And can you get the two guys that play the twins? Are they going to be the right size? You need fat suits. And you start getting into all this and Peter just started thinking, 'Why do any of that? Why not just see if we can bring the whole thing to life digitally?'”

This was prior to “Avatar,” even, so the possibilities of the technology had not reached the fever pitch yet. And Spielberg had never worked in this way before. So to enlighten him a bit, director James Cameron invited Spielberg and company to come onto the stage while he was filming “Avatar” to do a few tests and get the director's toes wet.

“Steven and Peter came over, we set it up for 'Tintin' and they shot for a couple of days and both of them immediately loved it, especially Steven,” Letteri says.  “The idea of having a virtual camera and being able to set up your shots any way that you want and fly the camera everywhere and see your actors and the characters, he just loved it.”

Says Serkis, “I think it”s such a perfect use of the medium for 'Tintin,' to bring it alive in that way. It”s really hard to imagine it could be done that successfully any other way. And it”s very interesting having these two films come out in the same year, because they”re exactly the same technology, to produce entirely different results on screen.”

And yet what binds them, Serkis says, is the acting, allowing actors to stand on the set and work through a scene, to invent and create just as they would on a live action film.

“With all of the characters, you”re just finding a psychological, physical and emotional core and then acting those,” he says. “For me, I've never drawn any distinction between playing live action roles and playing performance capture roles.”

Letteri ultimately shares a similar sentiment.

“What it really comes down to is have you captured the performance,” he says. “And I don”t mean technically recorded it. I mean looking at the finished result, have you got the essence of the performance? We always use our animation team to judge that because what you”re looking at is how much or how little do you need to massage the data that is there to say that you”ve captured the performance.”

From here, performance capture technology will surely, as we've seen it do already over the course of just a decade, evolve exponentially. For Serkis's part, he has started a company in the UK called The Imaginarium, which is dedicated to furthering the art and craft of performance capture in all different realms. There, he and his team are looking at implementing it in new ways via video game projects and even live theater and dance, projecting real-time images onto screens which are driven by actors' or musicians' performances and so on. “And I think it can be used in more abstract ways,” he adds, “that the movements of an actor, the thought processes of an actor can actually drive more abstract characters, which are not necessarily humanoid. I think we”re just really beginning to grasp what possibilities there are.”

For now, though, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “The Adventures of Tintin” represent a new benchmark technically, but it may still take some doing to get the industry completely on board with it as equally performance and technology. Perhaps new ground has been broken with Fox's dedicated awards push on behalf of Serkis in “Apes.” It's certainly a campaign Letteri fully endorses, not only for what it represents for actors but what it represents for the forwarding of the medium.

“I think he should be considered because it is a fantastic performance,” he says. “However, I do understand the reticence because what is happening now is for the first time in history you”re seeing a performance, but separated from the physical recording of that performance. In other words, we separated acting from the character. That has never happened before, and so I think a lot of people are kind of wrestling with that. I think as time goes by that”s going to be less of a distinction to generations of actors who grow up with an XBOX Kinect in their house, where it”s no big deal to see a performance look like something different on your screen. However, one way to handle it would be, as the Academy has done with animation, to add another category for this, but that would depend on there being enough performances to really make that worthwhile.”

Time will tell if the form advances to a stage where there are indeed enough performance capture perforamances to warrant a separate designation. But the possibilities are limitless, so don't be surprised if we find ourselves at that place sooner rather than later.

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is currently available on DVD and Blu-ray. “The Adventures of Tintin,” meanwhile, is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

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[UPDATE: The film has indeed secured US distribution.] Since a few of you have been asking, my Best of 2011 list will go up on December 26 — and for regular readers of my festival coverage over the year, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say this film will be on it. “Elena,” the third feature from Andrei Zvyagintsev (“The Return”), premiered at Cannes, inexplicably in the Un Certain Regard section rather than in Competition, where the director’s lesser sophomore film did get a berth. Still, it won a Special Jury Prize and a slew of critical raves, while star Nadezhda Markina was recently nominated at the European Film Awards, so it all comes out in the wash.

“Elena” played Toronto in the fall; and is set to pop up again at Sundance next month — Zeitgeist Pictures will release the film Stateside in May. (It was one of the quality films cheated out of an Oscar play when Russia questionably selected the critical and commercial failure “Burnt by the Sun 2” as its foreign-language submission.) It’s a brilliantly equivocal, morally fragile fable of guilt and obligation, drawn with the stark elegance of a Chekhov short story; I’ll enthuse more in a couple of days, but for now, a brand-new trailer and exquisite poster are after the jump. (Thanks to Palace Films.) 

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

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The 2011 awards season may be young, with a great many breathless winners yet to soak the stage in tears, but I’m not sure we’ll see another acceptance speech quite as humbly overwhelmed as Olivia Colman’s at the British Independent Film Awards earlier this month. Visibly trembling and sincerely astonished at having beaten a roster of nominees including Tilda Swinton, the unassuming London-based actress managed to stammer out a brief list of thank-yous before scuttling off the stage, seemingly shaking her head in disbelief at her good fortune.

It was, of course, not the first trophy she’s won for her shattering performance as a brutally abused charity worker in actor Paddy Considine’s hard-bitten directorial debut “Tyrannosaur,” which also won the top prize at the aforementioned BIFA Awards. Her success began nearly a year ago with an acting award (shared with co-star Peter Mullan) at the Sundance Film Festival, while a Chicago Film Festival prize followed in the fall. Earlier this week, she snagged a nomination from the London Film Critics’ Circle. All through the year, Colman has remained a prominent dark horse in the Oscar conversation, fiercely championed by critics and bloggers who fear this minute UK indie will slip through the cracks: the actress isn’t optimistic about her chances of being invited to that particular dance, but such talk, she finds, is its own reward.

“It’s incredibly flattering, but let’s be honest — it doesn’t seem like a feasible prospect, does it?” she asks cheerily over the phone. She’s just returned home from a day of filming of a long-nurtured TV pilot in Watford; supper is being prepared as we speak. She audibly beams when I mention Hollywood Elsewhere blogger Jeff Wells’ self-funded campaign on her behalf, arranging screenings of the film in L.A. for potential awards voters, though she’s clearly as amused as she is touched by the effort.

“I didn’t even know until people started talking about us that there was all this massive campaigning around the Oscars every year, I had no idea that’s how it worked. This film means so much to me, and when people show that they like it, I couldn’t be happier. I’m in shock that people are even talking about me, but it’s lovely, and it may never happen again — so why not go with it? But I’ve never expected to win anything, and I still don’t.”

Whether it happens again or not, the likelihood has been significantly raised in the past 12 months, as Colman’s big-screen profile has shot up with key roles in two major 2011 releases: in addition to her weighty lead turn in “Tyrannosaur,” she’ll reach even more audiences in The Weinstein Company’s upcoming Oscar hopeful “The Iron Lady,” where she plays Margaret Thatcher’s put-upon daughter Carol, and consequently shares the screen in multiple scenes with Meryl Streep. Under a blobby prosthetic nose and distressed blonde wig, Colman gives the most open, affecting turn in an often stifling film; her rapport with Streep, as the elderly, dementia-plagued former British Prime Minister, is sweetly evident.

This one-two of dramatic projects is an unexpected breakthrough for an actress, now in her mid-thirties, previously best appreciated as a secret weapon of British TV comedy: shows like “Green Wing” and “Look Around You” built up to a long-running gig as seemingly gormless, but ruthlessly manipulative, office drone Sophie in the superb “Peep Show,” where she makes a rich comic virtue of the character’s utter lack of wit. Her dry gifts also reached cinema audiences in the hit police spoof “Hot Fuzz,” where she first worked with Paddy Considine. The off-kilter actor was sufficiently impressed by Colman’s work to offer her a part opposite Peter Mullan in his short film “Dog Altogether,” which won awards from BAFTA and the Venice Film Festival, and essentially served as the opening chapter for “Tyrannosaur.”

“I’ve always done some smaller serious roles along the way, but I’d go to auditions, and I wound up getting picked for a lot of comedy parts — which is great fun, and a lovely way to spend your life,” she says, speaking with great affection of her work on “Peep Show” in particular. “But drama is where my heart’s always been, and it took Paddy to see it. And I don’t know why he did, because no one else had — it was always other actors who got the big, ballsy parts. I’m so thrilled he took a chance on me.”

“Dog Altogether” introduced the emotionally damaged protagonists of “Tyrannosaur,” Joseph and Hannah (called Anita in the short), but left them dangling in their suffering. Colman explains that Considine initially conceived a second short following Hannah’s story in more detail, but when funding for that fell through, decided to expand the project to a full feature — writing the script in just one week. Colman and Mullan remained on board throughout, she says: “They’re such beautiful people to play: to have someone write a character like that specifically for you is amazing, but then you have to justify their faith.”

For Colman, that meant going to some psychological territory she’d not yet been in her work: the abuse endured by Hannah at the hands of her husband (strongly played by Eddie Marsan) is as tough to watch as it surely was to play, beginning with a much talked-about scene in which he urinates on her as she pretends to sleep. The action she takes against him forms the nervy moral crux of the film.

“Paddy had warned me while writing the script that he was taking it somewhere quite dark,” she says. “And I remember seeing his wife Shelley at an event and her saying to me, ‘Oh God, I can’t believe what Paddy’s going to make you do.’ So I’ll admit that when I read it, I was scared. But I wanted to go there. That he believed I could do that was incredible, and I wanted to prove him right. With Paddy at the helm, you feel like you can do anything.”

Colman speaks of her director with immense affection, calling him “an extraordinary creature” and citing his own formidable acting experience as a key factor in encouraging her to lay it on the line: “It goes without saying that Paddy is a great actor, but it turns out he’s an even better director. I felt completely safe with him, even doing the hardest scenes; he would sit as close to me as he possibly could on set, so I never felt I was on my own while he was staring at a monitor. He understands what it feels like to be that exposed, which other directors don’t — they might think it’s better to leave you to your own process, which doesn’t always give you courage. It’s magical to see that little smile on his face at the end of a really tough take and think, ‘Yay, I’ve made Paddy proud.'”

As unflinching as the film is in its depiction of emotional suffering, Colman was determined not to play Hannah simply as a doleful martyr, and found her comedy experience valuable in this regard. “The comedy I’ve done, that I’ve always been drawn to, tends to have a bit of darkness to it. You can find darkness in comic characters — in ‘Peep Show,’ for example, Sophie makes one bad choice after another — and conversely, in an unhappy character like Hannah, you can find a lot of strength and warmth. Everyday life is about finding comedy in misfortune and vice versa; acting is much the same. There’s nothing lovelier than hearing people bursting with laughter in the cinema; you need that release. But you can surprise people with those moments in films where they aren’t necessarily looking for it.”

That sense of balance carries over into the narrative’s most tragic stages, she continues: “As an actress, I respond to characters who are human, who are understandable rather than perfect. Hannah is both human and animal, I suppose — they go hand in hand. An animal can only be pushed so far: at some point, it’s not your fault if you snap. She believes in goodness and she believes in love, even if she’s exposed to so little of it in her daily life. As an actress, I have to make the audience understand that.”

In “The Iron Lady,” the principal challenge that concerned Colman was more a technical one: how to successfully inhabit a living figure whose face and distinctive lisp are still fresh in the minds of UK audiences, thanks to Carol Thatcher’s recent exploits on local reality TV. She recalls turning up for the audition, her jangling nerves amplified when she observed the spot-on mimicry of some of her rivals for the part: “I’ve never been very good at impressions myself. So I did think it was pointless, since, well, why wouldn’t they want the soundalike? Luckily, I was wrong. Or maybe I wasn’t, and they asked the soundalike, but she turned them down. I don’t know.” She laughs.

“I’m intrigued to see how people take me as Carol,” she says, genuine curiosity creeping into her voice. “I used some broad brushstrokes, but overall, I tried to ignore the fact that I was playing someone so familiar and focused instead on making the mother-daughter relationship work. Surely that’s what’s more important. Anyway, Meryl’s doing such an extraordinary job, so you’re already standing there alongside her worrying about what a tough act she is to follow. How much pressure is it reasonable to put on yourself?”

Colman isn’t too blasé to describe working with Streep as a “sheer out-of-body experience,” though she floated back to earth soon enough. “The first day I went to meet her, I couldn’t sit down — I was beside myself with excitement and nerves,” she recalls. “And then Meryl walked right past, then spotted me and backtracked, before giving me a big hug and saying how pleased she was to see me. I couldn’t say anything; all I was thinking was, ‘Oh my God, Meryl Streep’s given me a hug!’ But in a snap, that feeling’s gone, because you just realize that she’s real and lovely and just this incredibly warm, funny woman. She makes you feel like you’re her equal, though who is?”

As we say our goodbyes and she settles in for a hard-earned dinner, I don’t tell her that her performance in “Tyrannosaur” is one Streep would have been proud to give in her prime. Perhaps I should have. But one of Olivia Colman’s greatest personal and professional assets, it seems, is her lack of outward awareness of just how good she really is.

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

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Perhaps the most pleasant surprise for me of the awards season thus far has been the relative ease with which Tilda Swinton has slid through the precursor circuit for her searing performance in “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” collecting helpful nods from SAG, the Globes and the BFCA, not to mention an NBR win. Swinton hasn’t left my predicted five since I saw “Kevin” at Cannes, but I did fear her chilly, challenging vehicle would prove an obstacle. Not so, apparently. Emboldened by this success, Oscilloscope is capitalizing on the buzz by bringing forward the film’s January release date, hoping to capture a younger, genre-happy audience. Could the film gain momentum in other categories where it deserves recognition, not least for the superb Ezra Miller? One can dream. [The Wrap] 

Oscar number-cruncher par excellence, Steve Pond, tells us there will be a total of eight Best Picture nominees this year. Here’s why. [Reuters]

Better known for his patented rom-com work, screenwriter Richard Curtis reflects on his experience collaborating with Spielberg on “War Horse.” [Evening Standard] 

Best Supporting Actor hopeful Kenneth Branagh gets the David Poland video treatment. [Hot Blog]

Team “Margaret” finds another recruit in the shape of Jeffrey Wells. Keep it going, people. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

Great idea for a list: Sean O’Connell counts down the Top 10 Tiny Supporting Performances of 2011. [CinemaBlend]

Anthony Horowitz, author of a new Sherlock Holmes novel, sizes up Guy Ritchie’s latest screen outing for the venerable detective. [GQ]

Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis top IMDb’s list of most searched-for names of 2011. Gee, I wonder why. [The Guardian]

Finally, one for western lovers: a superb essay on the links between “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” (And it goes beyond long titles.) [The Film Experience]

The Dublin Film Critics Circle is the latest critics group to name year-end superlatives, and “Drive” was clearly a favorite, taking Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Jessica Chastain won Best Actress for her performance in “The Tree of Life.” Check out the full list of winners below.

Best Picture: “Drive”

Best Director: Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”

Best Actor: Ryan Gosling, “Drive”

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

Best Documentary: “Senna”

Best Foreign Language Film: “A Separation”

Best Irish Film: “The Guard”

Best Irish Documentary: “Knuckle”

International Breakthrough: Jessica Chastain, “The Help,” “Take Shelter” and “The Tree of Life”

Domestic Breakthrough: John Michael McDonagh, “The Guard”

Best 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 other big release mid-week is Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin.” By now, I think I’ve made it clear that I’m an enthusiastic fan of the experience this movie is. I went so far as to include it on my top 10 list, after all. But there are certainly detractors, and I imagine our readership is full of plenty opinions from both sides. So now that the film has made its way to domestic theaters, it’s time to solicit those opinions. If/when you get around to the film, come on back here and give us your take on The Beard’s latest.

Actor Ben Kingsley first got his taste of collaboration with filmmaker Martin Scorsese in 2010 on the thriller “Shutter Island.” It was a long time coming, but for Kingsley, who says he always appreciated Scorsese’s work as a filmmaker, it was a unique characteristic of the director’s process that really spoke to the actor.

“I haven”t quite realized until working with him that he films male vulnerability in a very special and gifted way,” Kingsley says over tea at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills. “He actually directs like a lover more than a tyrant, with tenderness rather than insistence. He”s a perfectionist, but he gets it through extraordinary virile tenderness as a man. And he can guide an actor through vulnerability superbly well.”

In “Shutter Island,” Kingsley starred as a psychiatrist desperately, it turns out, trying to guide a patient (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) out of the twisted, fragmented shards of his own mind. His vulnerability in that film was his unconditional love for his patient, but in “Hugo,” his latest collaboration with Scorsese, it comes from a different place of personal anguish.

“Here, my vulnerability was a destroyed life,” he says. “It’s a destroyed ambition, the aborted journey, the broken arc, all those things. And you feel, as a man, you can show Marty vulnerability and he”ll never exploit it in the wrong way or take advantage of it, because he is so secure in himself.”

In the film, Kingsley stars as a mysterious Paris train station shopkeeper with a connection to an unusual key that the film’s titular young protagonist discovers (which itself may provide some closure to Hugo’s relationship with his father). From that discovery onward, the two are at cross-purposes, Hugo desperate to uncover the past, Kingsley’s shopkeeper determined to forget it.

“I loved working with him very much,” Kingsley says of Asa Butterfield, the young actor who portrays Hugo in the film. “He has a wonderful stillness as an actor, that every gesture is essential. It”s the essential Hugo. There is nothing arbitrary and there are no filters. It comes straight from his heart, and his subversion of the truth is absolutely riveting and pure, so that in playing with him, in acting with him you have to respond on his level.”

Kingsley’s character turns out to be famed French filmmaker Georges Méliès (something hidden within the narrative but rather difficult to avoid in media matters and marketing). He plays Méliès as a broken man, formerly a wizard of the filmmaking form, left behind in a bitter post-World War I environment that didn’t have the patience for the dreams-on-celluloid he captured throughout his career.

“They made me smile,” Kingsley says of Méliès’s films, which he of course studied intensely while preparing for the role. “He is nearly always smiling in his films. He has wonderful energy. And then having seen that and seen his energy and his joy in being an actor, then reading a little bit, I realized that he wrote, directed, edited, designed, set design, costume design, everything, everything and was consumed with joy. That really was my starting point.”

From there, Kingsley says his performance was not only greatly buttressed, but greatly informed by the set design of the film. Frequent Scorsese collaborator Dante Ferretti headed up the production design of the film, which involved meticulously recreating settings like Méliès’s toy shop in the train station and the all-glass studio where he shot his films. Adding further to the illusion was Scorsese’s decision to cast the various elements of Méliès’s crew (which are featured in a key flashback sequence at the end of the film) with fixtures of “Hugo”‘s own crew. So Méliès’s costume designers were “Hugo”‘s costume designers, as with lighting technicians and on throughout the call sheet.

“Even when I looked behind me, he built a row of stables and factories outside of the studio,” Kingsley says of the immersive environment. “And then in the toyshop, everywhere I looked I saw things waiting to come to life, the little acrobat on his ladder, the little flying machines, the boats. Toys are very still until you play with them, inert, and that was a gut process of being surrounded by dead things.

“And the railway station was so huge that you could hardly see from one end to the other because they knocked two studios together. The café, the rotisserie, the luggage shop, the wine shop, the book shop — the kids told me that when they took a book out of the bookshop, they were all genuinely print books. It”s wonderful for us [as actors]. Every corner of that railway station was alive. There was always steam coming through the vents. The only thing that it lacked was the smell of French cigarettes, because we weren”t allowed to smoke on the set, but other than that it was a railway station. And from my shot I could see the world and all the people milling around and their indifference to Georges, which enhanced my feeling of exile, too. It was fantastically nourishing and sustaining in a stimulating sense.”

Circling back to Scorsese and his work ethic, Kingsley says he was most appreciative of the director’s security in his casting decisions, and therefore, his allowance for freedom. It’s a quality all actors want out of a director, but don’t always get.

“With some directors, when you”re working with them you get a sense that you”re being auditioned all the time,” Kingsley says. “By nature, we”re animals that respond and our response to that undercurrent of being tested or being auditioned is to start explaining our character between action and cut, which is disastrous. I’m sorry to put Marty into a context, but with lesser directors you always feel that you”re explaining that you really do understand the character.”

Finishing up, one can’t leave it with the man tasked to portray Georges Méliès without inquiring about what the trailblazer’s work has meant to him, particularly the famed “A Trip to the Moon.” A colorized version of the film, which features perhaps the most famous image in all of cinema (a rocket ship embedded in the eye of the moon), was discovered nearly 20 years and was painstakingly restored by Lobster Films and Technicolor. (The restoration was ultimately used in “Hugo.”) Kingsley, is lost in wonder over it.

“What is magic about it is that over 100 years later, we could look at it and still wonder how he did it,” he says. “And that”s an amazing achievement, a technical achievement of a man who knew no limits, because he was not surrounded by executives who told him, ‘You can”t do that.’ He was just on his own. Not only is [‘A Trip to the Moon’] a film about the unknown, about no limits, about reaching beyond the planet, but it”s filmed in a way that is utterly appropriate to it by a director, a leading man, who says, ‘Well, I don”t what the limits are.’ So it”s like the film mirrors the mentality of the man who created it, totally, in that there are no limits, and if I want a rocket to go to the moon and then be pushed off the moon and then land in the sea, that”s what I’ll do. Nobody said, ‘But you know it”s not logical, don”t you?’ Nobody said that to Georges.”

“Hugo” is currently playing in theaters nationwide.

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

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Yesterday’s unveiling of the trailer for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” was greeted with feverish enthusiasm not just by the legions of “Lord of the Rings” and Peter Jackson fanboys (and girls), but by the equally excitable clan of Oscar pundits too.

That’s hardly surprising: as Kris wrote yesterday, when one is talking about the follow-up (or, shall we say, prequel) to a blockbuster trilogy that amassed 17 Academy Awards and 30 nominations, it’s fair to guess the new film will at least be in the conversation next year. Particularly when most of the original creative team is involved: production designer Grant Major has been replaced with Dan Hennah, while Ann Maskrey fills in for Ngila Dickson on costumes, but otherwise, we’re partying like it’s 2003 here.

True to form, I haven’t watched the trailer, but my own blind prognosis for the new film’s awards performance has little to do with how good it turns out to be: there was such an aura of finality to the 2003 Oscar race’s crowning of “The Return of the King,” a sense of dues paid and collective achievement recognized, that I’d be surprised if the Academy feels obliged to go there again, outside the likely slew of technical citations.

Since his triple win nearly eight years ago, Jackson’s Academy stock has dropped with the crafts-only recognition for “King Kong” and the outright disaster of “The Lovely Bones”: this return to the Tolkien well will need to wow even more than its predecessors to have a hope of replicating their awards-season success. (I suspect the second film in this two-part project would be the likelier horse anyway: the “Rings” films had to wait for their closing chapter to really hit home with the Academy, after all.)

In all the time I’ve been following the Oscar race, there has never been a more inevitable Best Picture winner than “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”: its victory was written on the wall not just at the very outset of the 2003 season, before the film had even been seen, but a full two years earlier. When “The Fellowship of the Ring” failed to nab top honors despite a whopping 13 nominations and a quartet of technical trophies — losing to a film with as obviously short a shelf life as “A Beautiful Mind,” to boot — it was clear the Academy voters were merely biding their time until the full extent of Jackson’s achievement in adapting Tolkien’s epic was out on display. 

Similarly, when “The Two Towers” earned a lukewarm total of six token nominations the next year, without even a director citation for Jackson, one could sense voters were merely keeping the trilogy on the back burner, reminding us they hadn’t forgotten it entirely, until the next year. (For my money, it’s the most compelling and vividly realized of the three films, but it was always going to pay the price for having no real beginning or end.) That “The Return of the King” turned out to be the most awkwardly constructed and overbaked of the trilogy was of no consequence: Jackson would have had to randomly insert “Irreversible”-style sex scenes between Frodo and Gollum, or at least replace Ian McKellen with Larry the Cable Guy, to derail the third film’s Oscar chances.

As “The Return of the King”‘s unprecedented clean sweep of all 11 categories in which it was nominated — a sweep assisted by its absence from the acting and, more surprisingly, cinematography fields — made for a grindingly monotonous Oscar ceremony, there was something both wearying and inarguable about its success. Even as someone who wasn’t a particular devotee of the films, I couldn’t deny that the Academy was doing the right thing by acknowledging this particular cultural phenomenon: it’s a win that will age well, even if one thinks there were finer films in the mix.

But did it deserve all even awards? Taking a cue from Kris’ similar “Titanic”-themed post a while back (appropriately enough, one of the films with which “King” shares its all-time Oscar record), let’s break it down, category by category:

BEST PICTURE

Jackson’s film beat out “Lost in Translation,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” “Mystic River” and “Seabiscuit” for the win here — and it’s indicative of just how non-existent the competition was this year that it’s still hard to guess which of the nominees even placed second. None of those films have anything approaching the cultural cachet of the “Rings” films, so fair play to the Academy. Still, “The Return of the King” would only place fourth on my personal ballot: Sofia Coppola’s woozy, whispery anti-romance had my heart in 2003, and probably still does, though “Master and Commander” looks more robust and for-the-ages with every viewing.

BEST DIRECTOR

Here, Jackson beat Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation”), Peter Weir (“Master and Commander”), Clint Eastwood (“Mystic River”) and wild-card nominee Fernando Meirelles (“City of God”), who thankfully elbowed “Seabiscuit” out of this race. It wouldn’t make any sense to give a film as wholly helmer-steered as “King” the Oscar without giving it the Best Director prize too, but in my dreams, this was a tight three-person race between Coppola, Weir and Meirelles: their directorial achievements are so vastly different in scale and reach that they can hardly be compared, but ultimately, I’d have liked to see Coppola predate Kathryn Bigelow’s ceiling breaking win by seven years.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Jackson and his collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens defeated “American Splendor,” “City of God,” “Mystic River” and “Seabiscuit” in the one category that most awards pundits weren’t expecting the film to triumph in — and I must confess, I think this is a pretty silly award to give an adaptation this undisciplined in its structure (let’s not speak of its surfeit of endings, since plenty of others already have). Admittedly, it’s not a vintage field, but I’d have made the same choice as the Writers’ Guild of America: in “American Splendor,” Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman inventively riffed on Harvey Pekar’s quicksilver graphic source material to create a singularly cinematic script.

BEST ART DIRECTION

After scoring nominations for all three films, Grant Major finally won here, beating “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” “The Last Samurai,” “Master and Commander” and “Seabiscuit.” For my money, Major’s most dazzling work was on “The Fellowship of the Ring,” where he was unlucky to come up against the delirious designs of “Moulin Rouge!,” so I’m glad he has a trophy to mark his spectacular realization of Tolkien’s world. Still, on a single-year basis, my vote would have gone the same way as BAFTA’s: William Sandell’s finely textured, claustrophobic housing of an entire society on a single ship in “Master and Commander.” 

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Nigila Dickson and Richard Taylor’s wardrobe of sackcloth and royal robes was an easy pick for the win over “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” “The Last Samurai” (for which Dickson scored a second nomination that year), “Master and Commander” and “Seabiscuit” — yes, the Academy’s art direction and costume branches dully matched 5-for-5 in their respective nominee fields. Still, I guess repetition is the name of the game here: as with the previous category, BAFTA opted for “Master and Commander”‘s sullied naval finery here, and again, I side with them. (The intricate color-coding of “Girl With a Pearl Earring” is close behind, however.)

BEST FILM EDITING 

Jamie Selkirk beat “City of God,” “Cold Mountain” (cut by a giant of the field, Walter Murch), “Master and Commander” and “Seabiscuit” here: it’d be easy to snarkily blame the editor for the film’s more bloated areas, but he’s also responsible for its propulsive action sequences, so this win is really a case of swings and roundabouts. Still, Daniel Rezende’s pulsating, razor-sharp shaping of “City of God,” which seemingly gives the film the perspective of an entire city, would handily have earned my vote in this field.

BEST MAKEUP

After winning for “The Fellowship of the Ring” in 2001, Richard Taylor (also a winner this year for costumes) claimed another trophy in this field over “Master and Commander” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (that’s the first one, in case you’ve lost count). And, as much as I like the subtle, dirt-stained character work in Peter Weir’s film, who can argue with that? (Fun fact: Taylor was also part of the winning FX team on “Fellowship,” bringing his Oscar tally for the trilogy to four, spread across three categories.)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

In another repeat of a “Fellowship” victory, Howard Shore beat Danny Elfman (“Big Fish”), Gabriel Yared (“Cold Mountain”), Thomas Newman (“Finding Nemo”) and James Horner (“House of Sand and Fog”) here — a field with several heavyweight composers on less-than-heavyweight movies, so it’s not hard to see why Shore’s unfailingly stirring orchestral swoops again carried the day here. But it’s not my favorite of the nominees: Yared’s artful incorporation of rootsy early Americana into his typically lush work on Anthony Minghella’s uneven epic has the most replay value for me.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG  

Trivial category that it may be, I can make my peace with every one of “The Return of the King”‘s win but this one: Annie Lennox’s tune-averse closing credits dirge “Into the West” would be an uninspired winner in any year, but it was an especially dreary choice in a creative, diversely retro field that included one spot-on genre parody from a Christopher Guest film (“A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” from “A Mighty Wind”), one sly, narrative-aiding chanson pastiche (“Belleville Rendezvous” from “The Triplets of Belleville”) and a pair of gorgeous, period-specific folk tributes from “Cold Mountain” (Sting’s “My Ain True Love” and T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello’s “The Scarlet Tide”). Any of these four would have made a credible winner, but it’d have warmed my heart most to see the eccentric Gallic flavor of “Belleville” rewarded here.

BEST SOUND MIXING

Another very easy win for the film (and somewhat surprisingly, the trilogy’s only victory in this field), ahead of “The Last Samurai,” “Master and Commander,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Seabiscuit” — and again, it’s hard to make a solid case for denying the overwhelming, bigger-is-better sound work across the films. “Master and Commander” is no less satisfying in this department, but since it aptly received its due in the Sound Editing field (where “King” wasn’t even nominated, and would surely have scooped a record-breaking twelfth statuette if it had been), I’ll gladly let Jackson’s film have this one.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS 

The only category where every film in the trilogy emerged triumphant — and it was a no-brainer every single time. Due respect to the rock-solid FX work in “Master and Commander” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” (the Academy really didn’t consider the broadest field of films this year, I must say), but this win couldn’t, and shouldn’t, have been denied. 

So, there you have it. Even I’m a little surprised that, despite my admiration for Jackson’s colossal achievement, I’d personally given the film only three of the 11 Oscars it won. But what about you? Cast your mind back to March 2004, and have your say in the comments below.

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

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After all the behind-the-scenes drama on embargoes and what not, David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” finally opens nationwide today and you’ll be able to see it and gauge for yourself. If you heard last week’s podcast, you heard pretty much all I have to say on the matter, but in brief, I find it to be Fincher’s least compelling film to date, a waste of resources on a property that wasn’t enlivened or elevated at all by the presence of all the talent involved. I do, however, believe that Rooney Mara’s performance is something special. But enough about what I think, what do you think? Tell us here when/if you get around to the film this week.

The Utah Film Critics Association has chosen “Drive” as the Best Picture of the year. The film also won Best Supporting Actor for Albert Brooks and Best Cinematography. The group handed two awards to Jonathan Levine’s “50/50,” Best Actor for Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Best Original Screenplay. Check out the full list of winners below.

Best Picture: “Drive” (Runner-up: “The Artist”)

Best Director: Michel Hazanaicius, “The Artist” (Runner-up: Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”)

Best Actor: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “50/50” (Runer-up: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”)

Best Actress: Michelle Williams, “My Week with Marilyn” (Runner-up: Rooney Mara, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”)

Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks, “Drive” (Runner-up: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”)

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, “Win Win” (Vanessa Redgrave, “Coriolanus)

Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Descendants” (“The Muppets”)

Best Original Screenplay: “50/50” (Runner-up: “Beginners”)

Best Cinematography: “Drive” (Runner-up: “The Tree of Life”)

Best Animated Feature: “Rango” (Runners-up: “The Adventures of Tintin” and “Kung Fu Panda 2”)

Best Documentary Feature: “Senna” (Runner-up: “Project Nim”)

Best Non-English Language Feature: “A Separation” (Runner-up: “13 Assassins”)

Best 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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With travel and near-terminal laptop trouble consuming the last two days for me, I was late getting to Indiewire’s 2011 critics’ poll, the most comprehensive collective of its type, and one in which Kris and I both participated. The results are unsurprising, but no less gratifying for it — I’m particularly pleased to see “Margaret” scoring in the Top 10, while Anna Paquin, Jeannie Berlin and Kenneth Lonergan’s screenplay all place in the top three of their respective fields. Additionally, they collected some observations from participants about the year in film: I muse on the British auteur revival, Mike D’Angelo celebrates the Team Margaret hashtag phenomenon and Richard Brody tackles the distribution racket. Fun reading all round. [Indiewire]

A list to go with Kris’ Christmas-themed Top 10 yesterday: Brad Bird’s favorite winter movies. [The Daily Beast]

“A Separation” director Asghar Farhadi talks about the challenges of making a film in Iran, and what an Oscar nomination would mean for the industry. [Living in Cinema]

Paolo Sorrentino’s “This Must Be the Place,” which premiered at Cannes seven months ago and has already been picked up by the Weinsteins, will play Sundance 2012. What’s the point? [Thompson on Hollywood]

Todd McCarthy’s top 30 films of 2011 mixes the ubiquitous (“The Descendants”) with the refreshing (“My Joy”). [Hollywood Reporter]

David Fincher tells Benjamin Secher why he took on “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” The words “guaranteed hit” do not come up. [The Telegraph]

Janet McTeer, for my money the sole spark of life in “Albert Nobbs,” talks to Rachel Dodes. [Wall Street Journal]

Sasha Stone sizes up the screenplays in the race. (Not sure “Harry Potter” counts as an “outside-the-box” feat of scripting, however.) [Awards Daily]

Finally, away from the Oscar bait, Stuart Heritage looks at Kim Jong-il’s cinematic legacy. [The Guardian]

Nearly eight years ago, the Academy Awards saw one of the great clean sweeps of all time as “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” walked away with the 11 Oscars for which it was nominated. The grand release at the end of a three-year journey that saw a total of 30 Oscar nominations and 17 wins, the film was the bow on a lucrative, critically acclaimed series that could only again be matched by the same unique mixture.

After legal disputes and a non-starting try with a different filmmaker at the helm, audiences will again be treated to that same unique mixture after all as the Peter Jackson-directed “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters in one year’s time, with a part two, “There and Back Again,” to follow in 2013. And with the release of the first full trailer for the former, one can’t help but wonder: will Oscar come calling again?

I was always appreciative of the “Lord of the Rings” franchise and what Jackson accomplished, even if I wasn’t at all a fan or thought all that much about the films after they had come and gone. I revisited them once or twice over the years, picked up the extended editions on DVD and then again on Blu-ray (the extended version of “The Fellowship of the Ring” being my favorite installment). But certainly the films built magnificently on an already established fan base as they raked in $2.9 billion worldwide.

With films like “The Dark Knight” and “Avatar” setting new box office milestones and benchmarks, one wonders what film, if any, will be able to make a strong play at those numbers. I’d say the second film in this two-parter might be the one, but more importantly, it will be fascinating to see what Jackson’s lessons will bring to these prequels to his previous series, just as it will be delightful to see where Andy Serkis and the Weta crew expand on what they’ve already pioneered in performance-capture technology with the character of Gollum.

Speaking of which, perhaps by that time, after all the fuss over his work in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” this year, some ground might have been softened, if not broken, to allow for serious consideration of Serkis’s performance in the films. We shall see.

Check out the new trailer for “The Hobbit: An Incredible Journey” at Motion/Captured (courtesy of Apple). And feel free to leave your thoughts on it, or on the previous franchise in general if you like, in the comments section below.

Only 12 more months to wait.

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

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The Black Film Critics Circle has chosen “The Help” as the best film of the year. The film won four other awards, including Best Actress for Viola Davis. “Pariah” director Dee Rees won Best Director, one of three awards for the film. And Albert Brooks added yet another honor to his mantle. Check out the full list of winners below.

Best Picture: “The Help”

Best Director: Dee Rees, “Pariah”

Best Actor: Olivier Litondo, “The First Grader”

Best Actress: Viola Davis, “The Help”

Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks, “Drive”

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, “The Help”

Best Independent Film: “Pariah”

Best Adapted Screenplay: “The Help”

Best Original Screenplay: “Pariah”

Best Animated Film: “Rango”

Best Documentary: “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey”

Best Ensemble: “The Help”

Pioneer Award: Harry Belafonte

Rising Star Award: Adepero Oduye

Special Mention: “Attack the Block”

Top 10 Films (in order): “The Help,” “The Artist,” “Pariah,” “Drive,” “The Descendants,” “Attack the Block,” “The Tree of Life,” “Hugo,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Warrior”

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

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The Women Film Critics Circle has come out in strong favor of “The Help,” “The Iron Lady” and “The Whistleblower.” The association (which consists of 57 female film critics and scholars) has made selections that feel generally in line with the films and performances one would imagine ought to be be highlighted in this year”s landscape.

I will confess that their choices are seasoned with one or two surprises. Having said that, organizations such a this one are absolutely crucial. One hopes that enough balance will be achieved that they eventually become irrelevant. But as Melissa Silverstein pointed out in a November 17 Women and Hollywood article on The Hollywood Reporter”s directors roundtable, the feminine voice is still by-and-large underserved.

There are no real shakeups in the Best Film By A Woman category, which resulted in a tie between “The Iron Lady” and “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” Both have been in the larger critical conversation, though primarily for the performances of their respective leads. Adapted from the novel by Kathryn Stockett by her childhood friend Tate Taylor, “The Help” feels like a no-brainer for a strong depiction of women (which is what I assume is meant by Best Movie About Women), as well as Best Ensemble. Viola Davis”s Best Actress win is another tip in a very tight Best Actress field.

Shailene Woodley”s win for Best Young Actress in “The Decedents” is absolutely right. She is more than a “scene stealer.” She strengthens and elevates the performance of her highly accomplished and seasoned co-star, George Clooney. Melissa McCarthy collects another feather with a Best Comedic Actress win for her performance in “Bridesmaids.” I loved McCarthy in the film, as I have mentioned previously, but I do wish a bit of room had been made for a few other phenomenal comedic portrayals this season, Amy Ryan in “Win Win” or Charlize Theron in “Young Adult,” for example. Which brings me to some of the categories that took me by surprise.

Though “Melancholia” ultimately took the prize, “Young Adult” was nominated for Worst Female Images In A Movie. Given “Jack and Jill””s nomination, one would imagine that any number of heinous depictions of women in this year”s painfully lacking selection of romantic comedies would be more suited to the title. To be clear, I do not as a general rule hate romantic comedies, in fact I often enjoy them. But the catty, silly or superficially driven ladies presented in this year”s rom-com fair were appalling. If they were not female friends stabbing one another in the back, they were women acting like post-adolescent males in what was meant to be some cartoonish version of “strength.” I would count “Friends with Benefits,””No Strings Attached” and “Something Borrowed” all as grotesque depictions of women, their priorities, maturity levels and general attitudes about life. Rachel McAdams in “Midnight in Paris” isn”t too bright and shiny, either.

It was admittedly not the strongest film of the year, but I was somewhat surprised to see that Michelle Yeoh”s portrayal of Aung San Suu Kyi in “The Lady” did not warrant a mention for performance, Best Female Images In A Movie, or Best Equality Of The Sexes — all of which feel perfectly applicable.

“The Debt” is a suitable fit for the Equality Of The Sexes award, though I would argue that one of the film’s great weaknesses stems from the fact that Jessica Chastain’s torment arises more from having been made pregnant by the wrong man than from the lie she took part in. In truth, I would rather see “The Iron Lady” or, as mentioned, “The Lady,” in that field.

Finally, one simply cannot argue with this: Mommy Dearest Worst Screen Mom Of The Year Award to Judi Dench for her role in “J. Edgar.” There is even that delicious moment with Leonardo DiCaprio dressing up as his mum after her death that momentarily delves into the arena of “Psycho.” It is perhaps not the most effective way to skirt around the issue of cross-dressing, but certainly makes for one of the more bizarre and unintentionally hilarious moments in film this year.

Check out the full list of winners below.

Best Movie by a Woman: (TIE) “The Iron Lady” and “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Best Movie About Women: “The Help”

Best Woman Storyteller: Abi Morgan, “The Iron Lady”

Best Actor: George Clooney, “The Descendants”

Best Actress: Viola Davis, “The Help”

Best Comedic Actress: Melissa McCarthy, “Bridesmaids”

Best Young Actress: Shailene Woodley, “The Descendants”

Best Foreign Film by or About Women: “The Hedgehog”

Best Female Images in a Movie: “The Whistleblower”

Worst Female Images in a Movie: “Melancholia”

Best Male Images in a Movie: “The Descendants”

Worst Male Images in a Movie: “The Hangover: Part II”

Best Documentary by or about Women: “Always Faithful”

Best Family Film: “Hugo”

Best Animated Females: “Puss in Boots”

Best Equality of the Sexes: “The Debt”

Courage in Acting: Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”

The Invisible Woman Award: (TIE) Hiram Abbass, “Miral” and Michelle Williams, “Meek’s Cutoff”

Best Ensemble: “The Help”

Best Screen Couple: Bérénice Bejo and Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”

Lifetime Achievement: Kathy Bates, Cicely Tyson

Acting and Activism: Elizabeth Taylor

Adrienne Shelly Award (for a film that most passionately opposes violence against women): “The Whistleblower”

Josephine Baker Award (for best expressing the woman of color experience in America): “The Help”

Karen Morley Award (for exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society and a courageous search for identity): “Albert Nobbs”

Mommie Dearest (worst screen mom of the year): Judi Dench, “J. Edgar”

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 commentary follow @JRothC on Twitter.

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This article first appeared in part at InContention.com on December 23, 2008. It seemed like a good time to re-purpose it for new readers here at HitFix and to give the usual list-making shenanigans a rest for a week.

Tis the season, no?

I don”t have the heart to call this a “best” list per se. So I'm giving it a different angle. Every year I have a few staples of the season that make their way into my DVD player or, in some instances – gasp! – my VCR, like new friends come home to visit before going back on the shelf for another 12-month stretch.

While the films on my list might not be the “best” Christmas movies or, in some cases, even considered Christmas movies, they are my Christmas movies. Typically, I just can”t feel right about the holiday season without making my way through each of them at least once. They”ve slowly gelled into my “must-watch” Christmas movie list for various reasons: reminiscence, unavoidable television programming, uniqueness in the face of the typical seasonal film glut, etc.

While there are a handful of classic, well-made staples that would be agreeable to the masses as far as quality is concerned, I think everyone”s list would be different when it comes to this kind of thing. So check out my picks below. And as always, feel free to rifle off your holiday favorites in the comments section below.

I find myself a little mystified by Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” and not just because I haven’t seen it yet. Usually, at this late point in the season, we have some idea if previously mooted Oscar bait is in the mix or dead on arrival, if it’s closer to “The Artist” or, say, “The Lovely Bones.” But with this one, the signals are still all over the place. Reviews are predictably divided, but so are the precursors: the BFCA, always sniffing for potential Oscar hopefuls, placed some stock in it, but SAG and the Globes didn’t bite. Michael Cieply investigates the film’s curious campaign strategy, revealing that the HFPA was “deeply split” on the film. [New York Times]  

Phil Hoad on the “half-native, half-Hollywood” identity of Fincher’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” [The Guardian]

Is “Bridesmaids” on track for a Best Picture nomination? No, but you’d be surprised how many pundits think otherwise. [Gold Derby]

David Poland talks to “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” FX wizard Joe Letteri, nominated this morning by the London critics. [The Hot Blog]

Kyle Buchanan wonders if Charlize Theron and “Young Adult” go too far for audiences. [Vulture]

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson talk “The Adventures of Tintin.” [Los Angeles Times]

Nathaniel Rogers catches up with some of the year-end releases — tweet-style. [The Film Experience]

With Woody Allen on everyone’s mind at the moment, Geoffrey Macnab revisits the director’s work, and counts down his finest. [The Independent]

I feel a bit awkward commenting on a set of critics’ award nominations that I had a hand in voting for — any credit or blame for the choices can only bounce back to me and my colleagues in the London Film Critics’ Circle. Happily, in this case, it’s mostly credit: I realize how absurdly self-congratulatory this sounds, but for my money, this is the strongest of the countless such nominee lists that have been released in the past few weeks.

What can I say? I’m proud that the LFCC is the first group to promote Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian Oscar entry “A Separation” from the foreign-language ghetto to the Best Film category. (It scored five nods overall, including a pleasantly surprising Supporting Actress bid for Sareh Bayat.) I’m proud that Kenneth Lonergan was recognized for the screenplay of late-breaking critics’ cause “Margaret,” while Anna Paquin made it into the Best Actress field. I’m pleased that Kirsten Dunst (look out for my interview with her later this week) cracked the same category for “Melancholia,” while more obvious candidates, including Viola Davis, were left out. Critics should be there to mix up the awards race, not handicap it.

I’m particularly pleased that one of my favorite films of the year, “Drive,” leads the field with six nominations, including acting bids for Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks and (jointly with her work in “Shame”) Carey Mulligan. Technically, it’s tied for the lead with “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” but since the latter has more categories to compete in (the LFCC have additional British-only awards), “Drive” and “A Separation” are the real winners here.

Still, it’s nice to see the London crowd rallying around Tomas Alfredson’s elegant espionage thriller after it’s been largely frozen out of the US awards derby — it was the only British film to crack the top race, though given that “We Need to Talk About Kevin” helmer Lynne Ramsay replaces Alfredson in the director field, it must have been close. “Tinker, Tailor”‘s haul here furthers my conviction that it remains the top British contender in the race; expect a strong BAFTA showing too.

Still on the British side of things, I’m thrilled that rising star Tom Cullen received a Best British Actor nod for “Weekend” (which also nabbed a British Breakthrough mention for writer-director Andrew Haigh), though disappointed his equally strong co-star, Chris New, was left out. And it warms my heart to finally see some love for Rachel Weisz’s astonishing work in “The Deep Blue Sea” — thus far the great lost performance of the season.  

Of course, there are some more predictable nominees, too: “The Artist” continues its brisk jog through the precursors with four nods, while supposed frontrunners like George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams and “The Help”‘s supporting duo of Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain are also invited to the party, despite minimal enthusiasm for their vehicles. (“The Descendants” may have come on strong in the US critics’ awards, but across the pond, Best Actor and Screenplay mentions are all she wrote for the film.)

Those who have followed these awards in previous years will notice a few changes: the British Director category has been scrapped, while the supporting races are no longer British-only. Happily, two categories have been added: a documentary award and a multi-discipline Technical Achievement Award, the shortlist for which has been compiled by a smaller committee of Circle members, including yours truly. (I’m as surprised as you that “The Tree of Life” didn’t crack the list, but I’m no position to talk: my votes went elsewhere too.)

The winners will be announced at a swanky ceremony at London’s BFI Southbank on January 19; check out the full list of nominees below. 

Film of the Year
“The Artist”
“Drive”
“A Separation”
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
“The Tree of Life”

British Film of the Year
“The Guard”
“Kill List”
“Shame”
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
“We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Director of the Year
Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive”
Asghar Farhadi, “A Separation”
Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”
Lynne Ramsay, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Actor of the Year
George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Michael Fassbender, “Shame”
Ryan Gosling, “Drive”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

Actress of the Year
Kirsten Dunst, “Melancholia”
Anna Paquin, “Margaret”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”
Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

British Actor of the Year
Tom Cullen, “Weekend”
Michael Fassbender, “Shame” and “A Dangerous Method”
Brendan Gleeson, “The Guard”
Peter Mullan, “Tyrannosaur” and “War Horse”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker, Tailor Soldier, Spy”

British Actress of the Year
Olivia Colman, “Tyrannosaur”
Carey Mulligan, “Shame” and “Drive”
Vanessa Redgrave, “Coriolanus” and “Anonymous”
Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”
Rachel Weisz, “The Deep Blue Sea”

Supporting Actor of the Year
Simon Russell Beale, “The Deep Blue Sea”
Kenneth Branagh, “My Week With Marilyn”
Albert Brooks, “Drive”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Michael Smiley, “Kill List”

Supporting Actress of the Year
Sareh Bayat, “A Separation”
Jessica Chastain, “The Help”
Vanessa Redgrave, “Coriolanus”
Octavia Spencer, “The Help”
Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”

Screenwriter of the Year
Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, “The Descendants”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Margaret”
Asghar Farhadi, “A Separation”
Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

Foreign Language Film of the Year
“Mysteries of Lisbon”
“Poetry”
“Le Quattro Volte”
“A Separation”
“The Skin I Live In”

Documentary of the Year
“Cave of Forgotten Dreams”
“Dreams of a Life”
“Pina”
“Project Nim”
“Senna”

Breakthrough British Filmmaker of the Year
Joe Cornish, “Attack the Block”
John Michael McDonagh, “The Guard”
Richard Ayoade, “Submarine”
Paddy Considine, “Tyrannosaur”
Andrew Haigh, “Weekend”

Young British Performer of the Year
John Boyega, “Attack the Block”
Jeremy Irvine, “War Horse” 
Yasmin Paige, “Submarine”
Craig Roberts, “Submarine”
Saoirse Ronan, “Hanna”

Techncial Achievement of the Year
Cliff Martinez (original score), “Drive”
Dante Ferretti (production design), “Hugo”
Robert Richardson (cinematography), “Hugo”
Manuel Alberto Claro (cinematography), “Melancholia”
Joe Letteri (visual effects), “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
Chris King and Gregers Sall (film editing), “Senna”
Alberto Iglesias (original score), “The Skin I Live In”
Maria Djurkovic (production design), “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
Paul Davies (sound design), “We Need to Talk About Kevin”
Robbie Ryan (Cinematography), “Wuthering Heights”

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

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

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Kenneth Branagh embraced what he describes as potentially “dangerously obvious” casting with his portrayal of Sir Laurence Olivier in “My Week with Marilyn.” The actor has, of course, quite notably been compared to Olivier throughout the course of his career. He was given the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1983 for Most Promising Newcomer. Both he and Olivier directed themselves as “Hamlet” and “Henry V” and both men often directed the women that they were involved with and/or married to.

Branagh has been nominated for four Academy Awards (Best Actor and Best Director for “Henry V” in 1990, Best Live Action Short for “Swan Song” in 1992 and Best Adapted Screenplay for “Hamlet” in 1996), but has yet to secure a win. Olivier himself was granted an honorary award in 1979 for the full body of his work. It would be somehow poetic if Branagh were to take home the Best Supporting Actor statue for his depiction of the man that paved the road for much of the trajectory of his own career.

Michelle Williams has long been in the conversation for an Oscar nod for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in the film, but as we move further into the precursor season, it looks as if Branagh is also a legitimate contender in the supporting actor field. With Golden Globe, SAG and BFCA nominations under his belt, an Oscar nomination is looking more and more likely. But while it’s certainly exciting, the actor has a fairly balanced take on the role that awards play in the broader context of his work.

“I tell you it”s lovely to be in a film people want to watch, so that”s step one,” he says. “You get recognition as we have this week with the various nominations, step two. Delicious. Anything after that is absolute gravy. The big prize we got this week is attention. That means more people are going to go see this movie. Which means that next time I want to do a sort of obscure piece I can point to this and say, ‘People went to see this.” And I will have to do that bang of the drum.”

As a director, Branagh is clear that he will need to do a similar “banging of the drums” when, and if, the time comes for him to direct another large scale event film like “Thor.”  If there is an unusual choice he would like to make he can go to the studio executives and point to the success of that film. When all is said and done, “what you want is the opportunity to work and an audience,” Branagh says. “Prizes after that are just a great big bonus.”

Though we enter “My Week with Marilyn” through the eyes of the 23-year-old Colin Clark, it is the relationship between Olivier and Monroe that feels the richest. Clark has a line in the film that perfectly captures the nature of the dynamic. He says (essentially): “It”s agony for him (Olivier) because he wants to be a movie star, and it”s agony for you (Monroe) because you want to be taken seriously as an actress. And you”re making a film that isn”t going to achieve either of those goals.”

“The Prince and the Showgirl” was backed by Monroe”s production company and directed by Olivier and, of course, starred the pair opposite one another. The film was a light farce in which the childish and exuberant showgirl Elsie (Monroe) makes guileless attempts to usher the stogy Prince Regent (Olivier) into the modern age. It is a pleasure to watch or re-watch the film after having seen “My Week with Marilyn” and note the gorgeous parallel that exists between the two stars and the characters they are portraying. One, irresponsible and almost unconsciously riveting, the other respected, old-fashioned at an impossible crossroads and momentarily lost in time. There are exchanges in which you would swear that Olivier had adjusted the dialogue to send a passive message to Monroe.

Each is riddled with insecurity and possessed of a palpable presence, each desperate for what the other is incapable of giving. Monroe and Olivier act as positive/negative images of one another. “Ruthlessly, as an artist, she wants to take from him what he can give her, which, I think he has the sense is a disappointment to her,” Branagh says of Monroe. “She came expecting pearls of wisdom from the master, and instead she gets a sort of mechanical fellow who can”t explain why he”s so brilliant. But it was tough for him that she was running the show. It was Marilyn Monroe productions. She was his boss. That was tricky, so that was an interesting thing to sort of have under the surface. I think a bit of male ego was driving its way through the story.”

What Simon Curtis describes as the “agony and ecstasy” of directing comes into play as well in a unique fashion for Olivier when the natural competition between actors enters the equation. “He doesn”t want her to win, but he”s the director so it”s in his best interests-she must win,” Branagh says. “She must be the best that she can be; otherwise he shoots himself in the foot. And yet, he doesn”t want to be seen as less good than her. And also, he”d feel completely different if she fell in love with him. He”d feel completely differently if she loved him. But she”s this terrifying thing of sort of indifferent to him.”

Indifferent to Olivier as a man, and yet achingly aware of him as a respected artist, Monroe sought to elevate her own reputation by association. She was famously enamored of Lee Strasberg”s interpretation of the method and (in the world of the film) almost pathologically reliant on his wife Paula. Whereas Olivier was classically trained and notoriously resistant to the method (particularly following his wife, Vivien Leigh”s, work with director Elia Kazan on “A Streetcar Named Desire”). A portion of the director”s frustration was a result of Marilyn insisting that she needed to “feel” ready to work – which may be three days after her call.

As Branagh explains, “Part of it was that Norma Jean had constructed this major performance in her life of a woman called Marilyn Monroe, who was already, if you like, a wonderful artificial thing. But that”s the person that turns up saying, ‘I”ve got to be real; I want to be real.” And Olivier”s smart enough to say, ‘But you”ve already arrived false, so the reality you”re after is already relative. Do you want to be real Norma Jean as Elsie? Do you want to be real Marilyn, who”s already false, as Elsie?” Not that he necessarily articulated it that way.” They were oppositional forces who, with painful exactitude highlighted one another”s failings and yet were paradoxically covetous of the other”s approval and innate or manufactured skills.

A half century has passed since her death, and yet we still work to articulate the nature of Monroe”s appeal. “I think she had a great natural quality on screen where somehow the audience felt very close, in direct contact with her,” Branagh theorizes. “There was nothing in between the audience and her heart and soul. It”s not like other people hadn”t played innocent characters before. But somehow she met the time, mid-50s, where that kind of wide-eyed, doe-eyed kind of thing was also being presented in a package labeled sex, much more overtly and up front than ever before. And she could somehow play all of those things. But disarmingly natural.” He likens her essence to (one of my favorite films) “The Purple Rose of Cairo.” As if Marilyn “could walk straight off the screen and she”d be exactly the same.” That gift was maddening for Olivier, who was forced to face the full scope of his strength”s and limitations as a performer (at that moment in his career) while in production on “The Prince and the Showgirl.”

“Literally a mirror was being held up for him every single evening,” Branagh explains. “He was there (on set) and then watching the scenes back in daily’s at night and he would see her be more real than him. Or even more irritating, see her be terrible for 15 takes, and then one where she’s much, much better than his 15 excellent takes, none of which were great.”

Despite of, and in addition to the creative angst each of the characters is experiencing in the film, “My Week with Marilyn” ultimately reads as “light” and “easy” for Branagh. “It”s a little quiet corner of England where a little bit of madness between artists is going on,” he says. “But the world is potentially a nicer place if she could just find the right guy and if he could just chill out a bit and if the kid could just find his way. It would be lovely because the fields are green and the Bobbies are on the beat and the pubs are lovely and the phone boxes are red and England is, you know, somehow a beautiful, idealized place. But underneath it all is this, are these endless layers of introspection. All those doubts, insecurities, fears and vulnerabilities that can make the work interesting as a performer, will also be the ones that leave you unsatisfied.”

Each of us can relate in one form or another to the struggle to balance our power against the will of our self-created monsters. It is what every classical hero”s journey is based upon. “I think that”s one of the reasons we get attracted to someone like Marilyn,” Branagh says. “She looks like she will never be happy. But maybe we can fix her. Maybe Colin could fix her.” She becomes a manifested Greek tragedy, the iconic image of a desire beyond our reach and the all too human woman who”s potential is colored by ultimately fatal self-destruction.

“There”s a line of mine I love,” Branagh says, “when Olivier says to Colin, ‘Are you glad you ran away to the circus?” Because there is this sense that doing these projects, small or large, is in some sense uprooting yourself, going to another town, throwing things up, having adventures, dramas, irritating, loving, whatever. And then traumatically pulling it all again and going on to the next one. You can feel that with Marilyn as she leaves this film, although she does so with compassion and kindness for Colin. She sort of left a trail of absolute wreckage, as it were. The field is littered with bodies. That bit of a circus, it is complete now, with life devastated. And Olivier is also like, ‘It was so important, it was so intense… Yeah, bye. Oh diddly dee, an actor”s life for me.””

Branagh can both relate to the intensity of the passions in play on a project like “The Prince and the Showgirl” and illustrate some self-deprecating awareness of the place of entertainment in the grander scheme of life. “They”re the kinds of things the outside world should have been happily entirely indifferent to, because most of their importance is often ludicrous from the outside,” he says. “And again, it”s one of the features of ‘My Week with Marilyn” that I like: It”s affectionate about the fact that they all take it so seriously. “

“My Week with Marilyn” is currently in a limited release and goes wide on December 25th.

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

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