Forty-eight hours to Oscar. Gut-check time — or maybe make that "gut-instinct check" time, a moment to break away from the meticulous zeitgeist-combing science of Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics and make a few choices for myself. Not that they'll be so different, but if you can't go with a hunch where 5,765 fickle, insular industry minds are concerned, then what can you go with? We can't all be be Otis the Oscar Cat, you know. Anyway, let's make this quick:
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As you may have heard or read, the 2012 Academy Award nominations have stirred strong reactions in certain pockets of the Oscar snubculture. And you just know that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close filmmaker Stephen Daldry -- a first-time non-nominee for Best Director -- is seething somewhere out there: "But at least two of those guys won't even show up!" Fair enough! Or is it?
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Or some other lukewarm cling-monkey: "If I were feeling less generous and more cynical on this holiest of all Oscar-calendar mornings, I might say that to decipher this year’s Academy Awards contest, we need only look for inspiration to the GOP presidential race. The Artist is Mitt Romney — desperate to please, doesn’t stand for anything in particular, not especially popular with the general public, will eventually keep most of its money offshore, and, though dinged up and trash-talked, will probably cross the finish line first by default. The Descendants is Newt Gingrich (emotionally unsteady, hard on wives, doing better than expected, but probably can’t go all the way). Hugo is Rick Santorum (a little slow, doesn’t really like anything that changed in the culture in the last 80 years). And The Tree of Life is Jon Huntsman (believes in evolution, probably a little too classy for this field)." [Grantland]
The American Society of Cinematographers recognized a typically diverse, eclectic gang of shooters this morning, singling out cinematographers from four countries -- including two first-time nominees -- in revealing its 2012 awards nominations.
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When Lars von Trier's latest masterpiece Melancholia last had any real time in the awards spotlight, Kirsten Dunst was accepting the Best Actress hardware at Cannes. News came over the weekend that their drought is over: The National Society of Film Critics voted Melancholia its Best Picture of 2011, with Dunst again earning Best Actress for her role as a depressed bride coming to grips with the end of the world. Other honorees included Terrence Malick, Brad Pitt, Albert Brooks and Jessica Chastain; read on for the full list of winners, runners-up and voting totals.
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The annual critical powwow that is Slate's Movie Club is currently underway, with that site's Dana Stevens leading a conversation between a redoubtable quartet also including Michael Phillips, Dan Kois and Movieline's own Stephanie Zacharek. What's on the agenda?
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The Producers Guild of America just announced its 2012 award nominees, with a few surprises (The Ides of March? Again?) and noteworthy snubs (sorry, Tree of Life-ers) in the main event. Meanwhile, the animated category dared to recognize the roundly loathed Cars 2, and the documentary voters gave at least on conspicuous Oscar snubbee a break (I'm looking at you, Senna).
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I found 2011 to be a great, overstuffed year in film, though the sweeping trend of nostalgia that peaked during this awards season left me a little cold. Hugo, War Horse, The Artist, The Adventures of Tintin, The Help, even the self-aware looking back of Midnight in Paris -- when it's been such a turbulent 12 months beyond the movies, the comfort of evoking the past, especially the cinephilic past, is understandable, particularly with attendance down once again. But the features I really loved tended to be more prickly, vital affairs, about tragedy and life messily, stubbornly going on in its aftermath -- ones that reminded us that film can not only be a great escape, but can also engage and reflect the outside world.
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