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Awards || ||

LA Film Critics Name 'Amour' Best Picture, Boost 'The Master,' Jazz Up Oscar Race

LA Film Critics Name 'Amour' Best Picture, Boost 'The Master,' Jazz Up Oscar Race

After so much Zero Dark Thirty domination from the New York Film Critics Circle, their West Coast counterparts in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association made a splash with more art house-leaning picks, voting Michael Haneke's Amour the best film of 2012 — technically a foreign language entry, though Leos Carax's Holy Motors earned that honor. (I see what you did there, LAFCA — and I like it.) LA critics also showed love for Beasts of the Southern Wild, whose non-professional actor/NOLA-area baker Dwight Henry earned a Best Supporting Actor nod, launching his awards season prospects.

Get the full winners after the jump along with results from today's awards announcements from the Boston Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Online groups, both boosters of Kathryn Bigelow and Zero Dark Thirty...
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Awards || ||

Oscar Index: 'Zero Dark' Domination & McConaughey's 'Magic' Moves

ZERO DARK THIRTY. (2012)

Welcome back to the Gold Linings Playbook, otherwise known as the Oscar Index, in which we take the pulse of the pundits handicapping this year’s emerging Oscar class!

Oscar handicapping began in earnest this week with The New York Film Critics Circle’s selection of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty as Best Picture, adding further speculation that the hunt for Bin Laden drama may steal some of Ben Affleck’s Argo’s thunder. In the past decade, four of the NYFCC’s Best Picture winners have gone on to win the Academy Award: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; No Country for Old Men; The Hurt Locker, and The Artist.
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Awards || ||

Academy Names 15 As Best Documentary Oscar Contenders; 'Central Park Five' Snubbed

Academy Names 15 As Best Documentary Oscar Contenders; 'Central Park Five' Snubbed

Fifteen docs advanced to the final stages for Oscar consideration Monday. While the films making the cut are, of course, notable, some others that did not are also. Today's winner of the New York Film Critics Circle for Best Non-Fiction film of 2012, Central Park Five, which made headlines recently because New York City officials attempted to gain access to the film's outtakes related to a pending civil suit, did not make the cut. Other high profile docs also left out were Toronto's West of Memphis and Sundance's Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present as well as Magnolia's The Queen of Versailles. While distributor IFC Films will likely be disappointed by the CP5 omission by the Academy, it will celebrate the inclusion of How To Survive a Plague, an AIDS doc that opened quietly, but to acclaim for its bravery. The distributor also had its Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry in the list.

[Related: Movieline's Central Park Five coverage]

Tribeca's Bully, which opened to controversy for its R-rating from the MPAA to pushback from distributor The Weinstein Company, also made the cut.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies (information provided by AMPAS):

 
  
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Never Sorry LLC
   
Bully, The Bully Project LLC
   
Chasing Ice, Exposure
   
Detropia, Loki Films
   
Ethel, Moxie Firecracker Films
   
5 Broken Cameras, Guy DVD Films
   
The Gatekeepers, Les Films du Poisson, Dror Moreh Productions, Cinephil
   
The House I Live In, Charlotte Street Films, LLC
   
How to Survive a Plague, How to Survive a Plague LLC
   
The Imposter, Imposter Pictures Ltd. 
   
The Invisible War, Chain Camera Pictures
   
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Jigsaw Productions in association with 
Wider Film Projects and Below the Radar Films
   
Searching for Sugar Man, Red Box Films
   
This Is Not a Film, Wide Management
   
The Waiting Room, Open'hood, Inc.

Awards || ||

Lawbreakers, Unite: After NYFCC Awards, Is Matthew McConaughey An Oscar Contender?

Lawbreakers, Unite: After NYFCC Awards, Is Matthew McConaughey An Oscar Contender?

All right, all right, all right.

Awards season has officially gotten down in the dirt with a little bit of glorious stank. The New York Film Critics Circle, an august body despite three years of madness under Armond White's leadership, has named Matthew McConaughey the year's best supporting actor for his work in both Magic Mike and Bernie.
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Newswire || ||

'Family Guy' En Route To The Big Screen

'Family Guy' En Route To The Big Screen

The Griffins have sung their way through the small screen, making a Broadway-style splash at the start of each program about "Violence in movies and Sex on TV." And apparently, they'll have their chance to do just that on the big screen.

Family Guy creator - who of course will fete the big screen as this year's Oscar telecast host - said that a feature length movie about the animated irreverent nuclear family is in the offing, though it is not clear when it will actually happen.

During a visit to UCLA for MTV's series Stand In, MacFarlane said that "it will happen at some point," he's quoted as saying via Huffington Post.

MacFarlane also announced a new Oscars contest in the surprise visit to the Westwood campus in L.A.'s Westside. He told an undergraduate film and television class that a contest sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will allow college students to appear on the February 24th Oscar telecast. Up to six winners will serve as trophy carriers during the show, replacing models who typically carry in the statuettes.

"In re-imagining what we want the Oscar show to be, we wanted everyone appearing on that stage to feel a deep commitment to film and its legacy, and most importantly, its future," said Oscar telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron in a statement. "That was the impetus in creating this special honor for young film students who will inspire a new generation to create the films that will be honored in the future."

MacFarlane said that Family Guy is based on his own student film.

Speaking of Oscars hosts past, MacFarlane offered up his empathy, noting jokingly that the event is a "crazy little variety show," adding, "all I can do is do what I think is funny and most entertaining."

He noted to the UCLA class: "The Oscars is a tricky venue. The (hosts) who have not done well, I would classify them as a noble failure, an honorable failure, because at least they were trying something new... If I can do it without torpedoing my career and getting drummed out of the business... All I can do is my very best."

[Source: Huffington Post]

Oscar Index || ||

2013 Oscar Predictions: Oscar Index Evaluates The Best Director Race

2013 Oscar Predictions: Oscar Index Evaluates The Best Director Race

You're done gorging on turkey, which means only one thing: 'Tis the season to be stuffed with Oscar punditry. Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has awoken from its L-Tryptophan slumber to provide you with our latest Oscar Index, which evaluates the contenders for Best Director. The latest Index on Best Picture can be found here, and over the course of the next week, we'll be weighing in on the Best Actor, Actress and Support Actor and Actress races. more »

Watch This || ||

WATCH: James Spader Lobbies For 'Lincoln And Name-Checks His Favorite President

WATCH: James Spader Lobbies For 'Lincoln And Name-Checks His Favorite President

James Spader doesn't just make a great lobbyist in in Lincoln. The actor, who provides welcome moments of comic relief as William N. Bilbo — the Democratic operative whose methods of persuasion prove invaluable to the passage of the 13th Amendment — gave an answer befitting a contemporary Beltway arm-twister when I asked him to name his favorite president. more »

Oscar Index || ||

Glimmers Of Gold: Let The Oscar Index Begin!

Glimmers Of Gold: Let The Oscar Index Begin!

If you haven't noticed, there's a fierce battle being fought out there for the right to heft a gold statuette at the Dolby Theater on Feb. 24 and forget to thank some vital member of your family.  And though more than a half dozen pictures and performances that the blogosphere is touting as Oscar-worthy have yet to be seen by the public (and, in some cases, the very bloggers who are touting them), the virtual home office at Movieline has decided it's time to throw open the doors to the Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics and start up the Oscar Index. more »

Watch This || ||

WATCH: One Reason Tommy Lee Jones Should Be Nominated For An Oscar

WATCH: One Reason Tommy Lee Jones Should Be Nominated For An Oscar

Tommy Lee Jones has played a lot of curmudgeonly sons of bitches over the course of his career, but his latest is his something to behold. The actor's portrayal of the rapier-tongued Pennsylvania congressman Thaddeus Stevens is one of the cornerstones of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, and now that Disney has released a clip of one of his key scenes, you can see for yourself why he's generating Oscar buzz. more »

Awards || ||

Lincoln Sneak Offers 19th Century Intrigue And 21st Century Oscar Contender

Lincoln Sneak Offers 19th Century Intrigue And 21st Century Oscar Contender

"This has been a journey for me that's unlike nothing I've done before. It's been a real ride and it's still unfinished." So said Steven Spielberg Monday night as he introduced the New York Film Festival's "Surprise Screening," Lincoln, though most everyone in the jammed unruly line(s) getting into the Alice Tully Hall all but knew the film starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, would be the 'surprise.'

The general consensus about the film is that it is a serious contender for Oscar glory, though with the likes of Day-Lewis and a stunning performance by Tommy Lee Jones as radical Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens, as well as a script by Tony Kushner and director Spielberg, how could it not be?
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Awards || ||

Glimmers Of Gold: An Early Look At The 2013 Oscar Race

Glimmers Of Gold: An Early Look At The 2013 Oscar Race

Did you just see that glass of water tremble à la Jurassic Park? Could that distant rumbling be Harvey Weinstein barreling T-Rex style down the endless red carpet leading to the Kodak Theater in February? Indeed, with the announcement this week that Seth McFarlane will be hosting the 85th Academy Awards, Oscar season is now officially under way. Screeners and For Your Consideration ads shall soon be raining down upon us. So this seems as good an occasion as any to assess the buzz around Oscar hopefuls in the major categories. more »

The Oscars || ||

Seth MacFarlane To Host Oscars: Good Idea/Bad Idea? (UPDATE: Watch MacFarlane's Oscar Announcement)

Seth MacFarlane To Host Oscars: Good Idea/Bad Idea? (UPDATE: Watch MacFarlane's Oscar Announcement)

The Academy Awards could finally get the dynamic host they've been looking for in Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane, whom Deadline reports has been anointed emcee for the 2013 Oscars telecast. Given his solid SNL hosting debut (which began with an Oscars-appropriate song-and-dance monologue) the Ted creator is a well-rounded choice in a town that doesn't actually have many writer-actor-producer-singer-funny voice-doers, let alone any willing to regularly push the boundaries of good taste. [UPDATE: Watch Seth MacFarlane as he makes his official Oscar announcement via video.]
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Watch This || ||

WATCH: Richard Gere's Arbitrage co-stars pimp him out for an Oscar nomination!

WATCH: Richard Gere's Arbitrage co-stars pimp him out for an Oscar nomination!

Fittingly, Richard Gere's new Wall Street thriller Arbitrage had a screening this week hosted by The Wall Street Journal, Brioni, and high-end jeweler Piaget.

But the Peggy Siegal Company fete was hardly a frivolous bacchanal.  Gere and his fellow stars Susan Sarandon and Brit Marling wondered out-loud why more investment bankers weren't in jail, and writer/director Nicholas Jarecki noted his goal was to turn a "paper crime into a blood crime".

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Toronto International Film Festival || ||

Wachowskis, Ryan Gosling, Ben Affleck, And More: 15 High Profile Toronto Debuts Most Likely To Succeed

Wachowskis, Ryan Gosling, Ben Affleck, And More: 15 High Profile Toronto Debuts Most Likely To Succeed

The Toronto International Film Festival annually boasts one of the deepest and glitziest line-ups of the year, and while there are many under-the-radar discoveries to be made, TIFF can be a very effective launching pad for upcoming studio releases and Oscar hopefuls alike. With Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck, Ryan Gosling, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kristen Stewart, Jake Gyllenhaal, Spike Lee, Keira Knightley, Bill Murray and more bringing films to Toronto, which films and A-listers are set to make the biggest splash at the fest starting tomorrow night?
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The Oscars || ||

Jimmy Fallon Not Hosting Oscars: 'It's An Honor To Be Asked'

Jimmy Fallon Oscars

Rumors had swirled that late night host Jimmy Fallon could host the 2012 Oscars telecast, with none other than SNL/Late Night producer Lorne Michaels potentially coming aboard to produce the annual extravaganza. Speaking with Matt Lauer Wednesday on the Today show, Fallon seemed to corroborate the speculation but revealed that he will not be hosting.
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