A few days ago, a friend put me on the spot and asked me to name my five favorite films of 2011 thus far. I wriggled out after a cursory mention of “Drive” – largely because too many as-yet-unreleased films from the festival circuit swam into my head, clashing with 2010 festival favorites that only hit the real world this year, and mentally sorting through them was entirely too confusing an exercise after a few pints in the sun. I choose to reserve such crazy-making activity for December, when the surrounding chaos makes it a positively soothing practice.

Another reason I held off: it reminded me that this year, for this first time, I”m going to have to make such a list on more than one occasion, as two critics” groups will be requiring my ballot for their upcoming awards. (In a dark, sequin-strewn corner, “Burlesque” weeps over the fact that I wasn”t granted such influence a year ago.) For someone who has made a longstanding hobby and partial career out of bemoaning the mistakes made by awards bodies, this is a slightly disorienting turn of events – however much I might disagree with the critical collective”s choices, I shall now have to accept a tiny percentage point of responsibility for the outcome.

This in turn brings up the hypothetical question I”ve asked myself ever since I learned how Oscar voting works: if I had a ballot, would I fill it out honestly or tactically? Would I use it to declare my love for what I think are the best films and individual achievements of the year, no matter how far off the beaten path, or would I instead limit it to the films I like that still have a conceivable chance of being recognized by the larger group – thereby potentially exerting a greater degree of influence on the actual award? Would a Best Picture vote last year for my beloved “White Material” have been a wasted one, or a principled one?

I have no idea if these are questions that bother Academy members (or indeed London Film Critics” Circle members) on an annual basis, but they bother me, and will likely do so more than usual this season. For what they do is force judgments of what may or may not appeal to the majority that are not only unreliable – I”ll raise my hand and admit to thinking “Black Swan” had little chance of major-category Oscar recognition when I saw it at Venice last year – but have a nasty habit of narrowing the conversation at a time when it couldn”t be more essential to expand it.

It”s almost every awards pundit”s self-defeating catch-22 that we mourn the films and artists that”ll never get the recognition that they deserve – even as we strike them from the contenders list because they”re not “that type” of film or artist. How do we hope for the “awards movie” bracket to widen if we define it so narrowly from the outside? It”s the deluded (not to mention conceited) critic or blogger who imagines that his passions hold any sway on voters during Oscar season, but that isn”t an automatic argument for accepting your lot and shutting up.

I”m sure most Academy members don”t give much thought to whether or not something is an “Oscar movie” before casting their vote for it – one need only draw up a Venn diagram listing the common points between “The Hurt Locker” and “The King”s Speech,” or Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” and Natalie Portman in “Black Swan,” to know that most voters don”t know what they”re looking for until they find it. Their “finding it” may entail some collaborative effort between canny campaigners, critics and paying audiences, but enough offbeat nominees – from “Cries and Whispers” to “Pulp Fiction” to “Winter”s Bone” – have occurred over the years to prove that presuming narrow-mindedness doesn”t help anyone in this game.

Already at this early point in the season, I”ve caught myself arguing with readers and fellow pundits that, say, “Drive” doesn”t have a chance of a Best Picture nomination – citing the Academy”s historical resistance to hardboiled exercises in style, and not persuaded otherwise by the film”s disappointing box office – but I must remind myself that it”s in no one”s interest to shut down potentially exciting lines of conversation, however deeply embedded one”s scepticism.

Conversely, it”s important to avoid mythologizing the awards season as some kind of Holy Grail for any quality cinematic work, and regarding it as either the film”s or the voters” failure if it doesn”t find it. It”s natural to want the films and people we love to benefit from the exposure and future opportunities that Oscar (or even critics” award) approval affords, but there”s something noble and beautiful about the misfit achievements that are too prickly, too populist, too exotic or simply too little-seen to get there, that are destined to find future champions on their own ungilded merits.

The romantic in me would love, for example, to see “Certified Copy” star Juliette Binoche make awards headway for the richest, wittiest, most tender and most complicated performance released to US theatres in 2011 – but while I can protest the near-inevitability of her absence from the season”s major Best Actress fields (and there I am making assumptions for the voting majority again, though I have pragmatic concerns of finance and release dates on my side), I think such films can be as flattered by their exclusion as they would be by their inclusion.

All of which is to say I”m not sure there”s a right answer to the “if I had a ballot” questions I asked earlier. Many Oscar voters are doubtless lucky enough to find their favorite films comfortably in play on an annual basis, but for those who don”t, their choice is to treat the voting process as a compromise-heavy team effort with which to find the right films for an appreciative larger audience, or as a lonely soapbox with which to voice their passions into a void – and there”s honor in both strategies.

Many took issue with the Academy”s previous Best Picture balloting system – whereby a voter”s Top Ten could wind up boosting the tally of a plausible contender, even as they reserved their #1 spot for a more esoteric title – but it was one designed to eliminate concern over potentially wasted ballots. The new system, with its emphasis on number-one votes, may or may not change how such voters treat their ballots – I suspect there will still be the odd stray vote for something as left-of-center as “Meek”s Cutoff” floating around the sorting room at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Whoever casts such votes will be content knowing that they probably won”t wind up counting for much, but it”s when misfit voters happen to land upon the same cause that widely unanticipated against-the-grain nominations like Fernando Meirelles” 2003 Best Director bid for “City of God” happen.

There are more strong, idiosyncratic creative personalities in the Academy than we generally give it credit for when we talk about its “type” of film – I have a hunch that AMPAS member Michael Haneke wasn”t fretting over the relative superiority of “The King”s Speech” over “The Social Network” when filling out his Best Picture ballot, for example – even if their tastes may be too scattered to exert a consistent influence. Perhaps there aren”t any “Oscar movies” – just lucky ones.

Check out my updated predictions here.

Humorously antithetical to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s advice earlier this morning is Lee Unkrich’s approach on his “Toy Story 3” follow-up. Earlier this week Unkrich Tweeted, “Today is day one on my next project. Every day I’ll post a new photo chronicling the journey.”

Of course, not everything will be exciting. One captivating reveal, for instance, was a perfectly framed shot of Unkrich’s lunch. It would be great to do this kind of thing as performance art to show how out of control the obsession over in-production projects can be. Someone get on that.

Unkrich is supplementing his #UnkADay Twitter updates with a Tumblr site he recently launched. (I’m still fuzzy on the whole Tumblr thing. What is it, like, drawn-out Tweets and Instagraming?) Of course, with something like a Pixar project, it could actually be fascinating to chart the progress, as these films tend to take years and years to complete.

Nothing is known about Unkrich’s latest film yet. As in, nothing. He launched things with a shot of his Mac’s keyboard and a note: “The starting line.” So if you’re so inclined, follow Lee on Twitter at @leeunkrich and maybe one of these days something more exciting than his sandwich and broccoli will be there for the showing.

Side note: This is kind of related. Unkrich’s favorite film is Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” He dropped a lot of visual references from it into “Toy Story 3” and even bought the frightening-by-proxy sweater that the kid wears in the film…for his own son. Yeah, he’s into it. So I imagine the recent news that Stephen King will be crafting a sequel to his novel is of some interest to Unkrich.

I’ll be publishing a big interview with “50/50” star Joseph Gordon-Levitt tomorrow, and believe it or not, it’ll be about “50/50.” Much like Michael Shannon and “Man of Steel,” Gordon-Levitt has found himself hit up for any and everything about “The Dark Knight Rises” — his second collaboration with director Christopher Nolan and the third in one of the most anticipated series of films of all time — while trying to promote his new film. Again, it was ever thus.

With “The Dark Knight Rises,” though, the fever pitch is deafening. As discussed recently, every morsel to float out of that production has made its way to the net and been devoured. We’re all guilty of spectatorship, and really, take your own council on that. But when it gets in the way of promoting something else, it has to be frustrating.

And please, I’m not claiming white tower innocence here. In the fall of 2009 I published the first plot breakdown of “Inception,” but outside of one considerable spoiler (which was labeled as such), there was nothing in that material that wouldn’t have had to come out in the marketing of the film eventually. And, indeed, it was pretty much outed by the first major trailer a few months later. But this stuff has gotten more and more out of hand.

With the film in question, we’ve seen Anne Hathaway and Christian Bale getting into a cab via riveting YouTube video, images of the Batmobile crawling down snow-covered streets, footage of Tom Hardy filming a scene as bane at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh and Batman in whatever his flying machine happens to be in this film (horribly out of context both narratively and practically, naturally). Even the first still that made it out from the production (of Catwoman on the Batpod) was actually a bit of preemption on the part of the studio because they knew footage of those scenes would leak in the days that followed.

Gordon-Levitt himself has been filmed doing a few takes of — get this — crossing a street. It has to be a head trip when this kind of stuff causes such a fervor, so I asked him to comment on that. Here’s what he had to say:

“It’s cool that people are excited about the movie. I’m excited about the movie. And I would be really excited if I weren’t in it. I get why people are interested. But sometimes it can be a little weird because we try really hard to get the details right and make a great experience for the audience. And then when other shots that aren’t, like, how we want to present them, or shots that we wouldn’t want to be presented to the audience sort of get out there, it can be a little, ‘Oh well.’ The truth is I feel like audience members will probably enjoy the movie a lot more if they avoid those types of spoilers.”

The diplomatic answer.

Check back tomorrow for our full interview with the “50/50” star.

Linked in today’s round-up is the Gurus o’ Gold’s list of predictions post-Venice/Teluride/Toronto at Movie City News, and I was a bit surprised to see “The Descendants” leading the way in Best Picture. I think that has partly to do with there being a quality known commodity, as skepticism around things like “War Horse” and “J. Edgar” can amplify in the face of something you know has the goods. Still, I don’t expect the film, which I respect dearly, to maintain that hold for long. “Moneyball,” meanwhile, is a little bit lower than I would have anticipated, though I guess many are conceding that maintaining a conversation for the next four months will be challenging. Finally, “Midnight in Paris” sort of surprised me for it’s placement, too. I’ve been wondering lately whether it can bring out the passion necessary for first place votes (as Guy has contended all along). Now I’ve gone and dumped on three movies’ Best Picture prospects. Though I do think “The Ides of March” is too low on the list. Let’s see what’s going on in the Oscarweb today…

“The Descendants” leads the latest round of guessing for the Gurus o’ Gold. [Movie City News]

Tom O’Neil flashes back to “The Lion King” at the Oscars and the Tonys. [Gold Derby]

Jeff Nichols brings Michael Shannon to “Mud,” making for their third collaboration to date. [Deadline]

Brad Pitt eating in movies: The definitive food diary. [Vulture]

Cirque du Soleil sends up the Academy Awards in “Iris.” [24 Frames]

“You’re Next” wins big at Fantastic Fest. [Motion/Captured]

Nathaniel Rogers writes up the Best Foreign Language Film race. [Film Experience]

The submissions deadline for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Short Film rapidly approaches. [Oscars.org]

Jessica Chastain makes it across the pond to talk “The Debt,” among other things, naturally. [Guardian]

“Bridesmaids”: The longest argument ever. [Rope of Silicon]

Actor Michael Shannon first met director Jeff Nichols through the latter’s film school connections. North Carolina School of the Arts professor Gary Hawkins had a project at the Sundance Film Festival’s Filmmaker’s Lab some years back called “Down Time,” which featured Shannon. Nichols saw it, loved the actor’s work and knew he had to write a project for him.

Out of that came “Shotgun Stories” —  the 2007 Arkansas familial drama that netted the director awards recognition at festivals and at the Independent Spirit Awards — and it was as simple as a phone call and a “let’s do this” (no deals or payment terms were laid out) to get it going. More importantly, it was the beginning of a collaboration Shannon very much appreciates.

“The first time I read ‘Shotgun Stories,’ I was like, ‘Oh, I get this,'” the actor says. “‘I know what he’s trying to do.’ We’ve always kind of had an unspoken understanding. You just luck out, to find people like that.”

Nevertheless, when Shannon first showed up on “Shotgun Stories,” he says Nichols probably didn’t know what to expect. It was the young filmmaker’s first film and Shannon had been in his fair share of projects already, while most of the rest of the cast consisted of friends and unseasoned actors.

“He wasn’t sure, like, what I was going to do or if he was going to embarrass himself,” Shannon says. “Jeff would do a lot of, ‘What do you think we should do? Should we rehearse?’ And I’d be like, ‘Nah. I don’t know. We’ll be alright. Let’s just hang out.'”

Indeed, Shannon confesses to being extremely low maintenance on a film set. “I’m kind of like a dog,” he says. “‘Oh, you want me to sit? You want me to roll over?’ But in ‘Take Shelter,’ I watched him go through that experience with Jessica [Chastain]. Jessica is, like, super frickin’ intelligent, and she would ask questions. Jeff would be like, ‘Uh, that’s a good question. Uh, wow, Jesus, let’s go think about that.’ I think what Jessica was like on ‘Take Shelter’ is what he thought I was going to be like on ‘Shotgun Stories,’ like he thought I was going to show up and be like, ‘Have you considered the Stanislavski method?'”

And so the relationship has developed accordingly in the four years between the movies. Nichols is more self-assured. Shannon’s process is even more in tune with the director’s and they are moving right into their third collaboration, the Matthew McConaughey-starrer “Mud.” But in “Take Shelter,” Shannon got a lot of room to stretch, delivering one of the year’s absolute powerhouse performances.

The film is more “formal” and “delicate” a thing than “Shotgun Stories,” Shannon says. So naturally the approach was going to be a bit different. But it all started from a personal place for the director.

“The period after he finished ‘Shotgun Stories’ I think was a period of great anxiety for him,” Shannon says of Nichols. “He wasn’t sure what was next. ‘Shotgun Stories’ had enjoyed some success in its own way, but he wasn’t even sure he had another thing to follow it up with. Meanwhile he was getting married and he was like, ‘I’m supposed to be a man now and I still feel inadequate or something. I’m gonna start a family,’ you know? And he started writing ‘Take Shelter.’ He told me that the first time he gave it to me to read it, which he gave it to me as a friend. He wasn’t saying, ‘I want you to do this movie.'”

The reason Nichols was somewhat wary of casting Shannon in the role of a man on the verge of losing his mind amid a series of nightmares is that he was very clear that the film wasn’t about some crazy person, that the character, Curtis, is an everyman dealing with unusual problems. “He knew, ‘What if I put Mike in this part and people just think right off the bat: freakin’ lunatic,” Shannon says. “He didn’t want that to happen.”

One day, though, Nichols had Shannon on the phone and overheard the actor talking briefly with his young daughter. It revealed a side he didn’t really know about and it was in that moment, Shannon says, that revelation of a certain paternal energy, that Nichols decided he wanted him in the part.

“There was a lot of synchronicity,” Shannon says of the role. “Curtis’s father passes away not too long before the movie starts and my father had passed away. That’s an interesting part of a man’s life, I think, particularly if you have your own family that you’re raising. But I think more than any character Jeff’s written, Curtis is a version of himself, probably. I mean it’s poetic and it’s extreme. Jeff doesn’t have these dreams or anything like that, but it’s a manifestation of something he was experiencing.”

In the film, Shannon stars alongside “it” girl of the year, Jessica Chastain. Chastain had just finished work on Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” when Sarah Green, Malick’s producer and a producer on “Take Shelter,” got her involved with Nichols’ project. After she finished she was off to film “The Help,” but in the time she had on set, Shannon was really impressed.

“Sometimes I’d think, like, ‘I’m working with Meryl Streep in ‘The Deer Hunter,'” he says. “This is someone that, 20 or 30 years from now, it’s like, ‘You worked with her?’ She’s so smart and she has such a big emotional life. She’s like pulsating with feeling and she has a big heart, you know? She’s very vulnerable and sensitive, but in a good, smart way. Some people can’t deal with that so well, but she does.”

Shannon hasn’t had a chance to see “The Debt” yet, another film featuring Chastain already in the marketplace this year, but in “The Help,” he was particularly moved. “She broke my heart,” he says of her performance in the film. “In ‘The Tree of Life,’ I don’t know, it’s odd to me that she’s not a mother. I’m sure she will be some day, but she’s just got that maternal energy down cold. Her main concern wasn’t, ‘Me, me, me.’ It was always, ‘Where’s Tova [Stewart],'” the young, deaf actress who plays Chastain and Shannon’s daughter in the film. “She was always playing with Tova and doing sign language with her and making sure she was okay.”

It’s tricky, he says, for actors to show up and just start acting like a family. But a production lacking amenities and instilling a bit of intimacy (all of the scenes in the family home were shot in a house outside of Grafton, Ohio) makes it a little easier to get into that flow.

“When we were at that house, we’d do a scene and then we’d go hang out upstairs and, you know, play Scrabble,” he says. “The three of us were always together cultivating this family unit. It was almost like we were just living in the house and every once in a while we’d go do a scene. I think that really contributed to the authenticity of it.”

Shannon was nominated — rather surprisingly, some would say — for an Oscar in 2008 for his work on Sam Mendes’s “Revolutionary Road.” Since then he’s maintained his usual even keel with film projects, though he will be seen in a completely new way (and hopefully find a massive new audience) next year in Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel.” Nevertheless, for an Oscar nominee, doors begin to open and options are there to be had.

Paul Thomas Anderson is the first name out of his mouth when asked what filmmakers he’d like to work with. Lars Von Trier is also on the list, as is David Lynch. Lynch was involved with Werner Herzog’s “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?,” which starred Shannon. The actor was at least able to have a cup of coffee with the director after finishing the film. (“It was awesome. It was like one of my favorite days ever. He just talked about transcendental meditation.”)

Actors on the list include Daniel Day-Lewis and Vincent Cassel, and he says he’d have loved to have been in on Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” biopic in some way. (Who wouldn’t?) But as for the film and the character at hand, Shannon says both he and Nichols had a certain breed in mind.

“I think we have in our consciousness this southern/midwestern American man who on the surface seems able to deal with everything and underneath can’t really deal with anything,” he says. “He can go to work and he can get his check and he can do this and that, but when he starts having bad dreams, he’s completely ill-equipped to fathom what the hell’s going on.

“When I read ‘Shotgun Stories’ or when I read ‘Take Shelter,’ there’s men that I think of. I used to have this stepdad. After my dad, my mom married this dude, his name was Mike, too. So he was Big Mike and I was Little Mike. They had a few kids together and they were together for a while. But I always think of Big Mike, because he’s that type of dude. He can’t talk about anything. He can work and he can throw the ball around and he can go for a run, but if you sat down and went, ‘Hey, Big Mike. Why the hell are you here? What do you think’s going on in the universe,’ he’d be like, ‘Uhhhhhh.’ It’s like iconic. It’s an archetype. That’s the word.”

“Take Shelter” opens nationwide this Friday, September 30.

One of the great unknowns of the season still is Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse.” Having already bowed a trailer soaked in Oscar bait (which some accused of being incredibly forced) in the summer, the studio has today premiered a poster, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. Most are still predicting big things for the film sight-unseen, but who knows if it can hold up to the expectation and scrutiny. “Munich” was forced into a similar corner in 2005 and turned out a Best Picture nominee in the end, but this film will have the added boost of Spielberg visibility both this year and the week of release, as his “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” hits theaters a few days earlier. Check out the full poster after the jump.

Two recent releases, “Moneyball” and “Warrior,” have reminded audiences (the former a bit more than the latter, I”m afraid) of the nutritious, old-fashioned pleasures of the sports movie, that versatile and yet frequently formula-populated genre which filters the live physical thrills of, say, a ball game or a boxing match through the less spontaneous entertainment medium of a subjective camera.

A good sports movie braids the physical tension of athletic competition with the aesthetic and emotional tension of cinema, to such a point that the two languages fuse: I know not a single thing about mixed martial arts, for example, yet the finale of “Warrior” had me utterly invested in the outcome of the climactic duel. You needn”t care for a sport to care for a sports movie (which was good news in 2008 for those of us who think wrestling is the stupidest non-sport imaginable).

Of course, this recent one-two of autumn sports-themed releases is hardly reviving a long-dormant genre: only two years ago, the unlikely combination of Sandra Bullock and American football made “The Blind Side” the sleeper hit of the season, while even more recently, David O. Russell”s double Oscar winner “The Fighter” extended a line of American boxing movies so long as to merit a wholly separate list one of these days. This summer, Formula 1 documentary “Senna” broke box-office records in the UK, emphasizing the carry-over audience of fans that a successful sports film can draw from the source, as it were.

Many of the aforementioned films follow classical Hollywood-informed arcs of triumph against the odds, of course, but it was when I sat down to compile a list of my own top sports movies that I realized how many great examples of the form trade as much in failure as in success; it”s a genre so broad and densely populated as not to be a genre at all.

Before getting to the list, though, I owe an apology to the ladies for the neglect of female-focused sports movies: the diverse likes of “Girlfight,” “National Velvet” and “Water Lilies” were all on the shortlist, yet after my intuitive ranking, none cracked the Top 10. I toyed with swapping in Drew Barrymore”s delightful and underrated “Whip It!” at the last minute, but that seemed tokenistic; consider this an honorable mention for valued reserve players.

Check out my list at our new gallery, and feel free to share your favorites in the comments section below.

You may recall a slight disagreement between Kris and Anne Thompson in last week’s episode of Oscar Talk over the awards potential of Tomas Alfredson’s acclaimed “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” Anne thinks the film too low-key to make much of a dent in the season; Kris, on the other hand, expects it to befit substantially from the British vote, given that they, in his words, “haven’t much else to work with this year.”

I’ve been following Kris’ logic — sight unseen, it’s hard to imagine UK hopefuls “The Iron Lady” and “My Week With Marilyn” generating an equivalent level of critical esteem for Best Picture purposes. But what surely seals the highbrow espionage thriller’s status as this year’s prime Brit pony is its astonishing performance at the UK box office — it held the top spot for the second week running on Sunday, fending off new releases “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “Warrior” and “Drive,” bringing its total haul to £6.9million.

I’m no box office guru, but for the sake of comparison, that’s more than another, more heavily hyped UK prestige pic based on a beloved bestseller, “One Day,” has made in its month-long run. Not bad going for a somber, cerebral period piece whose biggest audience draw, Colin Firth, features only in a modest (and modestly advertised) supporting role.

It’s never going to be a “King’s Speech” scale blockbuster, but this robust, expectation-exceeding commercial success effectively gives UK distributor Optimum the green light for a major BAFTA push that will likely be rewarded with a major haul of nominations. Meanwhile, this all translates into strong buzz ahead of the film’s US release in December — it’ll inevitably be more of a niche item there (widespread public affection for the original John le Carré novel and miniseries brought out the powerful middle-aged market in Britain), but it’ll still arrive with an aura of success the studio will be keen to impress upon Oscar voters.

Meanwhile, the film’s popularity only adds fuel to the fire regarding talk of a sequel (or two). “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is, of course, only the first book in Le Carré’s Karla Trilogy, which further trace the Soviet-chasing travails of the George Smiley character played by Gary Oldman in Alfredson’s film. The remaining two, “The Honorable Schoolboy” (where Smiley takes a secondary role to journalist Jerry Westerby) and “Smiley’s People” have yet to be brought to the big screen, though the latter was, like “Tinker, Tailor,” adapted for TV with Alec Guinness.

That could be about to change. The Guardian’s Jason Solomons reports that European outfit StudioCanal, who financed Alfredson’s film, are interested in turning the Le Carré trilogy into a film franchise — and that an official announcement could be made as early as this week. Again speaking to Solomons, Oldman bolsters the rumors by stating his willingness to reprise the Smiley role — but only if Alfredson directs any future films in the series. Given what a stellar job the Swedish director has done on the first, that doesn’t seem like much to ask.

Oli Lyttelton at The Playlist, meanwhile, digs up another quote from Oldman on the matter, this time in an Empire webchat. There, he states his belief that the likeliest course of adaptation is for the studio to amalgamate “Smiley’s People” and “The Honorable Schoolboy” into a single script — largely because the latter’s focus on the Westerby character is a shift that likely also prevented a BBC adaptation of the novel. (Stephen Graham did a fine job as Westerby in Alfredson’s film, but it’s hard to imagine him headlining a sequel.) Exciting news, either way: consider this advance notice for those flummoxed by the first film to hit the books.

We’ve been building to our big interview with Albert Brooks the last few days by dropping a few extraneous nuggets here and there. Friday it was Brooks’s feelings on being a part of the Pixar family and his sequel pitch for “Finding Nemo.” Yesterday it was his take on Steven Soderbergh’s kinda, sorta retirement. Today, though, it’s all about his impressive presence on the social networking website Twitter.

Basically, if you’re on Twitter and you don’t follow @albertbrooks, you’re missing out. With so many celebrities taking to the site for boring self-promotional outreach or opportunistic, blank-faced PR on behalf of this or that cause, it’s always refreshing when someone actually uses it for creative and entertaining means, peeling back the layers a bit to offer up a little personality.

And Brooks taken to it like a duck to water. Whether it’s one-liners or humorous takes on current events, he’s using the platform well. It was launched ostensibly to promote his recent book, “2030,” but it has folded in nicely with “Drive” PR over the last few weeks. (And, he tells me, he has an affinity for In Contention because the first Tweet he got in response to the film’s Cannes bow was from our own Guy Lodge, before he’d heard word one out of the fest.)

Here are his thoughts on entertaining the world, one Tweet at a time:

“I tell you, it’s funny. You’d be surprised. I put more thought into this than I should for a medium that produces zero income. I’ll run these by my wife. ‘What do you think? You like it?’ I’ll call a friend. I take it, like, seriously. I know what you mean, though. There’s a lot of people who just say, ‘Oh, watch me at eight o’clock tonight.’

“I like it because it lets me comment on the news and the sort of day’s events. I have no knowledge of Facebook. Facebook doesn’t interest me. I know what it is I just don’t have any desire to go on it. But Twitter, I like these ways of sort of commenting on, you know, the republican debate. If I wasn’t doing that I’d be calling a buddy and doing it on the phone. So I’m calling hundreds of thousands of buddies.”

But how would his “Drive” character, mobster Bernie Rose, take to Twitter? Brooks put a lot of effort into his backstory so he’s quick with a reply:

“Bernie wouldn’t know what Twitter is. Bernie wouldn’t have ever heard of it. The only thing that Bernie would be doing on his computer is gambling.”

Check back tomorrow for our full interview with Brooks as it’ll be all about Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive” and the buzz he’s getting for his supporting performance in the film.

One of the stories linked in today’s line-up includes Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone humbly offering a handful of FYC suggestions, specifically of films for consideration in the Best Picture category. It got me thinking about elements from the first three quarters of the year that are already in danger of being forgotten or buried, if they aren’t already. And one in particular is Mélanie Laurent’s lovely, authentic and soft portrayal opposite a similarly undervalued Ewan McGregor in “Beginners.” Christopher Plummer will get the lion’s share of awards attention for his supporting performance in the film, but Larent makes good on the promise of her early stateside career. It’s the kind of work that needs champions throughout the year to maintain any kind of attention, so consider this my flag in the sand for her. I was quite moved by what she offered in the film. Feel free to offer up similar FYCs in the comments section, but for now, let’s see what’s going on in the Oscarweb today…

Sasha Stone writes up the main categories and offers up her own FYCs to boot. [Awards Daily]

Steve Weintraub talks “50/50” and “The Help,” among other things, with Bryce Dallas Howard. [Collider]

The principals of “50/50,” meanwhile, talk about the making of the cancer comedy. [Making Of]

With “The Lion King 3D ” in mind, Steven Zeitchik wonders if moviegoing as we know it is “changing before our eyes.” [24 Frames]

Steve Pond reports on reaction to “Moneyball” at this weekend’s Academy screening, but keep in mind, it doesn’t really matter. As I always mention, one of the best Academy screening reactions ever: “Casino Royale.” [The Odds]

Oh yeah, Pete Hammond wrote the same story. With similar sources, it seems. [Deadline]

Mark Harris, meanwhile, crunches the numbers and comes away thinking Brad Pitt isn’t all that assured a nomination for the film. [Grantland]

And Anne Thompson chats with director Bennett Miller. [Thompson on Hollywood]

From across the pond, Tim Robey on “The Artist”‘s Oscar chances. [Telegraph]

Corey Stoll on “Midnight in Paris,” being Ernest Hemingway and the audition of a lifetime. [Movieline]

Actor Michael Shannon was hit up left and right while he was at the Toronto Film Festival promoting his latest film “Take Shelter” (opening Friday) by eager beavers looking for scoops on Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel,” in which he plays the villainous General Zod to Henry Cavill’s Superman. Naturally. It was ever thus.

Of course, the film at hand, Jeff Nichols’ meditative portrait, is infinitely more interesting to me than the blockbuster fodder coming down the pike. But Shannon is a really nice guy and is happy there is so much excitement around the production, not unlike Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who is fielding similar obsessive queries about “The Dark Knight Rises” while trying to promote “50/50”).

I had no real interest in the specifics of “Man of Steel” when I spoke to Shannon yesterday. But for a guy like him, who started in the theater and, save for a stint on a Michael Bay movie you probably forgot he was a part of, and last year’s summer flop “Jonah Hex,” always keeps to more intimate projects, I was curious about how much of a cold bucket of water to the face something like “Man of Steel” might be.

It’s also an interesting point of consideration that “Take Shelter” implements visual effects in very creative and unique ways. The specialists at Hydraulx Entertainment (which were also responsible for the effects of “Skyline” and “Battle: Los Angeles”) did a great job on a few key sequences in the film.

But Shannon is nevertheless in another world when he’s on that “Man of Steel” set. So, since everyone has responded well to the Albert Brooks nuggets, I figured I’d toss this into the mill as well:

“You see some crazy stuff, you know? Every time you shoot something, there’s a whole series of shots that accompanies every shot. So we’ll shoot my big showdown with you, like here at the table. Then they have to shoot a clean plate. So me and you get up and leave and they shoot an empty room. Then they have to shoot the balls. They have a shiny ball and a dull ball. And they shoot those like where your head is and where my head is. And then they have this cube, that’s like made up of orange straws. And they shoot the cube.

“I don’t know what they’re doing. I honestly don’t know what they’re doing, but like, for every shot that you do, there’s like six more shots afterwards that’s just completely about the computer side. I like the visual effects coordinator, DJ, he’s a really nice guy. He’s on set all the time. I jokingly told him, he came up and said, ‘You’re doing a great job,’ and I said, ‘It’s very nice of you to give me some credit for what this film’s going to be. Because I’m sure ultimately you’re going to be running the show.'”

I should actually put up the audio, because the way he told this story just cracked me up.

Anyway, check back for my full interview with Shannon tomorrow.

The Hollywood Film Awards have been dropping press releases left and right as of late, building to their big gala ceremony on October 24. Much is made of these early ceremonies — the Hollywood Film Awards and the Gotham Awards — as they are in some ways considered to be the beginning of awards season (though I personally don’t start taking careful stock until the National Board of Review in early December).

Indeed, right there in the most recent release for the Hollywood Film Awards’ announcement today is a bit of careful computation: “In the past eight years a total of 73 Oscar nominations and 27 Oscars were given to the honorees of the Hollywood Awards.” But who’s counting?

One must always bear in mind that these awards galas aren’t exactly representative of an objective take on things. If talent isn’t available to show up, accept and thereby promote the festivities, they won’t get the award. So maybe it would be better to call it, say, “Breakthrough Actor Who Was Available.” But I kid. Today’s announcement includes a number of actors that will certainly be in the conversation throughout the year.

Starting with the Hollywood Supporting Actor Award, Christopher Plummer is being recognized for his wonderful work earlier this summer in Mike Mills’s “Beginners.” He’s somewhat ubiquitous this year, popping up in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” in December and, should it find a distributor, “Barrymore” as well.

Next up are the breakthrough awards, one of which is somewhat perplexing. If it’s 2004 and you want to give Joseph Gordon-Levitt your Hollywood Breakthrough Actor Award for “Mysterious Skin,” go to town. Or even a year later with “Brick,” fine, fair enough. But this is 2011. He has established working relationships with multiple directors and has already popped up in featured roles in two Hollywood blockbusters, with another on the way in 2012. It’s safe to say he’s already broken through, but it’s an excuse to get some added star power at the gala and, well, he deserves whatever notice he gets for “50/50” in my book.

Honored alongside Gordon-Levitt with the Hollywood Breakthrough Actress Award is Jessica Chastain, and THAT is a breakthrough actress if we’ve ever had one. Roles in “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter,” “The Help” and “The Debt” have thrust her into the spotlight this year.

Finally, Felicity Jones will be honored with the New Hollywood Award, specifically spotlighting her performance in “Like Crazy.” I expect her to be fighting it out with Elizabeth Olsen for similar honors throughout the year.

Here’s a list of the full slate of awards announced thus far for the Hollywood Film Awards:

Hollywood Supporting Actor Award – Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”

Hollywood Breakthrough Actor Award – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “50/50”

Hollywood Breakthrough Actress Award – Jessica Chastain, “The Tree of Life,” “The Help,” “The Debt,” “Take Shelter”

New Hollywood Award – Felicity Jones, “Like Crazy”

Hollywood Ensemble Acting Award – The cast of “The Help”

Hollywood Animation Award – “Rango”

Hollywood Cinematographer Award – Emmanuel Lubezki, “The Tree of Life”

Hollywood Editor Award – Stephen Mirrione, “Contagion,” “The Ides of March”

Hollywood Production Designer Award – James Murakami, “J. Edgar”

Hollywood Visual Effects Award – Scott Farrar, “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”

This year’s Best Actor race is an odd bird indeed. There are so many wonderful performances out there, but so few seem to fit into the (unfortunate) Oscar paradigm. Hopefully that will mean studios will recognize some opportunity and/or Academy members will venture outside of their comfort zones. But in many ways, the race seems decided.

Four performances have been seen already and are considered formidable. Let’s start there.

It all started with Jean Dujardin’s award in Cannes for Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist” (which was inserted into the competition line-up at the last second). As the film has continued to play the festival circuit, it has consistently charmed audiences and few can find reason to argue that Dujardin won’t find room in the lead actor race. But it’ll take a little extra effort as he isn’t a known commodity in Hollywood and often has to charm via translator. But he’s looking good for now.

Popping up at Telluride was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants” and the undeniable work from George Clooney. Some consider his performance in the film to be a career best (I think I might agree with them). The added exposure of his directorial effort (in which he has a small but significant role), “The Ides of March,” is merely added fuel. Chalk him up.

Not long after that film’s Telluride bow, Tomas Alfredson’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” showed up on a rainy Monday at the Venice Film Festival. Gary Oldman’s icy, reserved and impeccable delivery of John le Carre’s George Smiley character is the kind of thing fellow actors fawn over. And while it’s not a powerhouse of showy emoting, it is impossible not to recognize how much he owns the role. Assuming he’s out of Hollywood’s doghouse following the press faux pas surrounding 2000’s “The Contender,” he should be able to slide in. Certainly the British voting block will spring for him.

Finally, opening this weekend is “Moneyball,” and with it, a unique movie star performance from Brad Pitt. I would say Pitt is bringing up the rear at the moment, as the film’s box office fate is yet to be revealed and keeping any sort of momentum going through the season could be a tall order. But the best thing the film has going for it right now is underestimation.

Now, at the top of most lists coming into the season was Leonardo DiCaprio’s still unseen performance as J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar.” The trailer has dropped, so we have a bit of an idea of what to expect. The project appears to be dripping with Oscar bait, but if anyone is in danger of sliding away here, I would say it’s DiCaprio and Pitt. We simply need to kn what we’re working with vis a vis the former, and the latter has to outshine some things still to come.

So those are the generally agreed-upon five at the moment, but forgive me if I think that doesn’t even BEGIN to represent a stellar year of leading male performances.

Let’s start with the year’s best portrayal, Michael Shannon’s work in “Take Shelter.” Here is an expert class in control and embodiment. It’s undoubtedly his personal best and further proves why he’s one of the best actors of his generation. I can only hope Sony Pictures Classics recognizes that and plans to push accordingly, because he is the best bet for a nod in this category in their stable; though they will try for more with lead pushes for Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly in “Carnage.” (Look for my interview with Shannon tomorrow.)

Then there is Michael Fassbender in Steve McQueen’s “Shame.” I’ve been going on about this one since Telluride and gave a hearty pat on the back to Fox Searchlight for picking it up. Again, it’s the actor’s best work yet, a revelation of nuance and internalized, obsessive agony.

Nipping at the heels of Shannon and Fassbender for my personal favorite performance of the year is Woody Harrelson in the recently acquired “Rampart.” Here is a stunning portrait that could see an entire Oscar campaign for the film worked around it, and my fingers are crossed it’s not lost in the fray.

These aren’t really “Academy-friendly” portrayals, for various reasons. “Take Shelter” is small. “Shame” is NC-17. “Rampart” is a downer. But they nevertheless represent the top tier of performance on film this year.

Moving along, Ryan Gosling gives two brilliant, award-worthy performances this year in “Drive” (cagey and withdrawn) and “The Ides of March” (charismatic and slick). Tom Hardy is all steely will and focus in “Warrior.” And Joseph Gordon-Levitt nails both comedy and drama with ease in “50/50.” (Look for my interview with Gordon-Levitt later this week.)

Demián Bichir’s work in Christ Weitz’s “A Better Life” is still one of the finest pieces of work from a lead this year. Summit is serious about pushing the film and already has screeners out there. Meanwhile, the underestimated Rhys Ifans is electric in “Anonymous,” filling out a triumvirate of leading actor possibilities in Sony films (with Daniel Craig in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” still to come).

Ewan McGregor in “Beginners,” Anton Yelchin in “Like Crazy,” Paul Giamatti in “Win Win,” all brilliant portrayals in quality indies. Hunter McCracken in “The Tree of Life?” One of the year’s absolute best.

This is to say nothing of the beautiful work in foreign films this year, from André Wilms in “Le Havre” to Peyman Moaadi in “A Separation.” They have no chance, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy. They absolutely are.

Still to come we have Matt Damon in “We Bought a Zoo,” Johnny Depp in “The Rum Diary,” Thomas Horn in “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and Jeremy Irvine in “War Horse.” And who knows what will happen if films like “Barrymore” (Christopher Plummer), “Salmon Fishing on the Yemen” (Ewan McGregor) or “Killer Joe” (Matthew McConaughey, who was already brilliant earlier this year in “The Lincoln Lawyer”) are picked up? But the point is, to me, the story of this year’s Best Actor race is outside the box.

I hope Academy voters plan on looking there. More importantly, I hope these various campaigns at least point them there.

UPDATE: Living in Cinema’s Craig Kennedy reminds me of Owen Wilson in “Midnight in Paris,” which I had thought about including here but, knowing the studio has bigger fish to fry, I excluded him. Still, that’s part of the point here, the bevy of quality if not “Oscar” with a capital “O” performances in the field this year. Wilson gave one of the better, more organic surrogate Woody Allen performances of late and could at least get some Golden Globe recognition at the end of the day.

We’re continuing the daily build to our big Albert Brooks interview on Wednesday. Friday we touched on Pixar and the actor’s work on “Finding Nemo.” Today it’s all about Steven Soderbergh and that sudden prospect of retirement that was put out into the ether a number of months back.

In case you’re unaware, Matt Damon dropped a bomb on the film world back in January when he told the Los Angeles Times that Soderbergh — who has been talking about retirement for a number of years — really was planning to hang it up after completing a handful of projects in the pipeline. The story took on a life of its own for the next six months until Soderbergh, while promoting his film “Haywire” at Comic-Con in July, claimed Damon was “about as discreet as a 14-year-old girl.”

So things have been in a bit of a retreating state since then, with Soderbergh saying it’s more like he needs to “recalibrate” and telling Reuters to “call it whatever you want,” suggesting a sabbatical. “It’s been non-stop since ‘Out of Sight.’ That’s a lot of work,” he said at the time.

Well, speaking of “Out of Sight,” you’ll recall Soderbergh worked with Brooks on that film. So even if the retirement talk may have been a bit overstated, I figured I’d get his thoughts on the matter anyway. And, indeed, he seems to think there’s no way a guy like Soderbergh could walk away from his filmmaking career.

“I don’t believe anybody when they say they retire. It’s called, ‘I’m gonna take a vacation.’ There’s no such thing as retirement in this modern age unless you really get ill and you can’t get out of bed, because what do you do? You know? I mean there should be another word for it. ‘Hiatus.’ They have a word. That’s the word. Retirement? How many singers came out of retirement? Isn’t Cher still doing a retirement tour?

“I don’t know what’s in his soul. I read like you do that he likes to paint. He certainly could do another artistic venture. But he certainly makes a lot of movies. I would think just to go from that to none would be difficult. But, you know, I don’t know him that well. I loved working for him. I don’t hang around him and I don’t really know, but I think ‘hiatus’ is the word. Retirement suggests something that our parents did when they couldn’t get up anymore.”

Tomorrow, we’ll have Brooks’s thoughts on his Twitter renaissance before dropping the big “Drive” interview on Wednesday.

Sales at the Toronto Film Festival have become a complex card game over the years as production companies and talent hit the fest with films they want to see in that year’s Oscar race. The goal for many is to land, make a big splash, come out of there with a deal and initiate a campaign to capture the lightning. And often, if the plan isn’t to release that year, well, no deal.

The problem is, films can get lost at Toronto. They can get suffocated. And sometimes, films don’t put their best foot forward by, say, holding for Sundance and stretching things out, rather than attempting to mobilize something as intensive as an awards campaign in three measly months.

Oren Moverman’s “Rampart” is a film I think should have waited for Park City, much like the director’s last effort, “The Messenger.” It’s very much a Sundance film and it could have milked things throughout the year after kicking up steam there in January. But as it stands, it was looking for a Toronto deal and a 2011 release. And now, it has one.

Millennium Films has announced its acquisition of the title with an eye to be in theaters this year. In the press release, Millennium Entertainment CEO Bill Lee says, “Oren”s is one of the great new voices in American film. In ‘Rampart,’ he has created a compelling, genre-bending picture that is not only a poignant look at one man”s fall, but also an exploration of the conflict that often lies between masculinity and redemption.”

Much is made in the release of Millennium Films’ recently-appointed president Mark Gill, and with good reason. Gill cut his teeth early on as a journalist with Newsweek and Los Angeles before moving over to film publicity. He worked on major campaigns at Columbia Pictures in the early-1990s before taking a post as Miramax’s marketing chief, where he worked on Oscar nominees like “Pulp Fiction,” “Good Will Hunting,” “Sling Blade,” “Bullets Over Broadway,” “The Postman,” “The English Patient,” “Life is Beautiful” and “Shakespeare in Love.” He later founded the short-lived Warner Independent Pictures and joined Millennium in June.

So, naturally, that’s a lot of consulting experience and credibility coming to the table here. And my fingers are crossed, because Woody Harrelson delivers possibly his greatest performance to date in the film and could find room in the Best Actor race with a savvy campaign.

When I saw the film in LA just after its Toronto bow, I wrote that Harrelson’s is “a firehouse performance of subtle strokes and vivid internalizations. I was reminded of Michael Fassbender”s work in “Shame” if only because both performances so wonderfully offer a master class in clenched but emotive power.”

Beyond Harrelson, I could see some love for Moverman and James Ellroy’s hard-boiled screenplay. Moverman was nominated for his work on the page in “The Messenger” two years ago. Harrelson joined him, receiving a Best Supporting Actor nomination for the film. And he really is the story here, so here’s hoping a quality campaign can be built around him. He, and the film, deserve it.

Any time an Oscar contender comes along that dabbles in real-life situations and circumstances, you can see the take-down measures coming from a mile away: accuracy gripes. It’s a story as old as time. Films like “The Hurricane,” “A Beautiful Mind,” “The Hurt Locker” and, just last year, “The Social Network” have come under fire during the Oscar race for liberties taken with the narrative, and it’s always just such a tiresome, tedious argument. So you can bet baseball fan Steve Pond’s recent piece, linked in today’s round-up, which addresses the gripes from the sports world, will be the king of logic used by a smear campaign if one is even deemed necessary by “Moneyball” competition this year. Let me be clear that Steve is fair in his piece, but it simply reminded me of how touchy true stories can be for many, and how limp the ammunition of “but it didn’t happen that way” can truly be. It rarely passes the smell test because, the fact remains, if people like a movie, they like a movie. Whether it “happened that way” or not. Now, let’s see what’s going on in the Oscarweb today…

Steve Pond accuses Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” of not telling the real story and trying to put one over on its audience. [The Odds]

Jonah Hill, meanwhile, talks about the film, idolizing Joe Pesci and being all grown up with Mark Harris. [Vulture]

Tom O’Neil straw pulls a boatload of pundits and awards commentators, including our own Guy Lodge. [Gold Derby]

Maureen Dowd writes up Roger Ebert’s new autobiography, “Life Itself.” [New York Times]

Ryland Walker Knight and Danny Kasman engage in “a fittingly geographically separated, electronically connected conversation” about “Contagion.” [MUBI Notebook]

Jonathan Romney talks to Kirsten Dunst about the Lars Von Trier Cannes controversy and her work in Von Trier’s film, “Melancholia.” [Independent]

Jeff Wells keeps banging the gong for Olivia Colman in “Tyrannosaur.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

Anne Thompson takes note of half-eaten movie poster designs. [Thompson on Hollywood]

Well, many of us expected Michel Hazanavicius’s silent-cinema homage “The Artist” to take the Audience Award at Toronto last week. That didn’t come to pass, but it has just taken the equivalent prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival — a less high-profile honor, certainly, but one that further proves the film’s crowd-pleasing chops.

What’s perhaps most notable about the award is the number of high-profile films it beat to get it: also in the running, in a selection of 2011’s finest the festival dubs the Zabaltegi Pearls section, were “Le Havre,” “The Tree of Life,” “Drive,” “A Separation,” “Pina,” “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” “Shame” and others.

It’s interesting, given the strength of the competition, that surprise Toronto champ “Where Do We Go Now?” placed second in the audience balloting by only a handful of votes; for a film that stirred very little buzz on its Cannes debut, the Lebanese Oscar hopeful sure is making its presence felt now.

Also of interest is that downbeat British drama “Tyrannosaur,” with its staggering, Oscar-worthy performance from Olivia Colman, placed third — beating out several titles with far more obvious audience appeal. You can check out the full Audience Award tally here. 

In the Spanish festival’s main competition, meanwhile, it was local film “The Double Steps,” a biopic of French legionnaire and artist François Augiéras, that took the top prize, while “Le Skylab,” the latest directorial effort from actress Julie Delpy, took runner-up honors. Meanwhile, “A Separation” took the TVE Otra Mirada Award, whatever that may be, while “Albert Nobbs,” in addition to providing a platform for a career honor for Glenn Close at the festival, also took the Sebastiane 2011 Award. Just so you know.

Full list of winners can be found at the festival site here.