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National Board of Review’s Best Film: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Film Critics Circle had its say on Monday. Now the National Board of Review weighs in with its choices for the best of 2012:

Best film: “Zero Dark Thirty”
Best director: Kathryn Bigelow, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Best actor: Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Best actress: Jessica Chastain, “Zero Dark Thirty”
Best supporting actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, “Django Unchained”
Best supporting actress: Ann Dowd, “Compliance”
Best original screenplay: Rian Johnson, “Looper”
Best adapted screenplay: David O. Russell, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Best animated feature: “Wreck-It Ralph”
Special achievement in filmmaking: Ben Affleck, “Argo”
Breakthrough actor: Tom Holland, “The Impossible”
Breakthrough actress: Quvenzhané Wallis, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Best directorial debut: Benh Zeitlin, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Best foreign-language film: “Amour”
Best documentary: “Searching for Sugarman”
Best ensemble: “Les Misérables”

The board also bestowed some nontraditional prizes, like the William K. Everson Film History Award for “50 years of Bond Films.” John Goodman, whose year included “Argo,” “Flight,” “Paranorman” and “Trouble With the Curve,” picked up the Spotlight Award. And there were two Freedom of Expression Awards, one for the documentary “The Central Park Five” and another for the Gus Van Sant film “Promised Land.”

Below the Line: Editing the Crash in ‘Flight’

By MEKADO MURPHY
Denzel Washington in a scene from Paramount Pictures Denzel Washington in a scene from “Flight.”

In some ways, the job of film editors is to make their work invisible. They hope that audiences don’t notice the editing and see only that a clear path has been drawn to the heart of the film’s story.

Below the Line
Below the Line

This series singles out behind-the-scenes players and their contributions to films competing during the movie awards season. Read More »

An editor who is in tune with a director’s vision is crucial,  and it helps when the two have a long-established collaboration. Such is the case with Jeremiah O’Driscoll, the editor of “Flight,” and that film’s director, Robert Zemeckis, who have worked together for 21 years, starting when Mr. O’Driscoll served as an apprentice to Mr. Zemeckis’s editor  Arthur Schmidt, then moved into the editor position on “The Polar Express” in 2004. Along the way, he has developed a shorthand with Mr. Zemeckis.

“My training in the craft of editing was growing up in his cutting room,” Mr. O’Driscoll said, speaking by phone from Los Angeles. “I don’t always know 100 percent what he wants, but I pretty much can gather, from just looking at his dailies, what his intention is in a scene.”

Much of “Flight,” which stars Denzel Washington as the alcoholic pilot Whip Whitaker, is a series of dialogue-rich scenes, and the edits therein often followed the script. But Mr. O’Driscoll said Mr. Zemeckis’s films usually include one major sequence in which the dramatic tension is built through editing. Here, that sequence involves a breathtaking plane crash that occurs early in the film:

“On page, the dialogue is down and the basic action is down,” Mr. O’Driscoll said. “But then you get to a gray area where what we’ve shot is not exactly what’s in the script.”

The scene’s intensity is amplified by the fact that much of it takes place inside the plane, both in the cockpit and the cabin, with only a few shots showing the plane exterior. It creates a claustrophobic feel and helps the audience relate intimately to the characters.

A look at the scene as it appears in the AVID editing system, including two shots from the sequence. Click to Enlarge Image A look at the scene as it appears in the AVID editing system, including two shots from the sequence. Click to Enlarge Image

For the scene, Mr. O’Driscoll worked with a number of elements: the actors and their performances, shots of passengers and close-ups of the controls and signals.
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Having an Eponine Day, Every Day

By MELENA RYZIK
Samantha Barks as Eponine in "Les Miz."Laurie Sparham/Universal PicturesSamantha Barks as Eponine in “Les Miz.”

Have you been enjoying “Les Miz” week here at the Bagger? (If you can tolerate even more, click on over to the “Les Misérables” advent calendar from our pals at Vulture.)

The starry cast in Tom Hooper’s musical adaptation has a notable newcomer in Samantha Barks, who plays Eponine, the star-crossed urchin who sings “On My Own.” Ms. Barks played the same role on the West End in London for a year – the only major cast member who came with stage experience in the same part – but turned out to be a novice on the set, since it was her first movie. (She’d never even done commercials.) “I didn’t know how a film was pieced together,” she said, “so seeing the final product was a revelation of a world I’m really learning about for the first time.”

Ms. Barks, 22, lost weight for the role, and had weapons training (Eponine shoots a gun) as well as vocal coaching, to sing live on camera. So which was more grueling, eight shows a week on the West End, or this two-and-a-half-month production?

“I think a film is more intense,” she said, at a party for the movie on Sunday night . “It’s more like a sprint. Whereas a West End musical is more of a marathon, really.”

“I didn’t throw up,” like many marathon runners do, she added. “But it was funny, being able to smile again.”

Here are more edited excerpts from Ms. Barks.

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Guiding Stars Who Had Never Acted on Film Before

By LARRY ROHTER
A scene from Cannes Film Festival/European Pressphoto Agency A scene from “Beyond the Hills,” which won for screenplay and its lead performances at Cannes.

The Romanian director Cristian Mungiu has never won an Academy Award, but he is nonetheless part of Oscar history. In 2008, his “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” a drama about an illegal abortion that had won top honors at the Cannes Film Festival the previous spring, was considered a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination, but ended up being snubbed by Academy voters. That led to a change in the rules, taking some of the power to choose nominees away from voters and conferring it on a special committee.

The director Cristian Mungiu.Sundance Selects The director Cristian Mungiu.

Now Mr. Mungiu, 44, is back and competing with a new film, “Beyond the Hills,” that has again scored big at Cannes, with awards for screenplay and the performances of its two lead actresses. Set in an Orthodox monastery, it examines the friendship of two women who grew up together in an orphanage but have taken strikingly different paths as adults. One has become a nun, finding inner peace, while the other has migrated to Germany and is so deeply troubled that when she returns to visit her friend that she ends up being subjected to an exorcism. (It’s based very loosely on a 2005 case in which a Romanian novice died in an exorcism.)

“Beyond the Hills” was shown at the New York Film Festival this fall, when Mr. Mungiu was in town and sat down for an interview, and it will close the festival Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema at Lincoln Center on Wednesday. Here are edited excerpts from that October conversation:

Q.

The real-life incident on which your film is based has been amply written about in the press and in two books by Tatiana Niculescu Bran. What compelled you to go back to this episode?

A.

I knew about this story for a very long period, because this was in the press a lot, and I was preserving all the clips and I read the books. Eventually I googled to see what the reaction of people was seven years later, only to discover that people were still so concerned and preoccupied and polarized by this that, apart from the books, I couldn’t find any balanced position about what happened.

For me it was very important to see all the things this story can reveal. And this is why I decided to make a film out of it. Actually, the great difference between the books and what I did is the relationship between the girls, which never existed in reality but which gave me a reason for everything that happened.

Q.

For those two vital roles, you chose performers who had never acted in a film before, and they ended up sharing the best actress award at Cannes. How did you achieve that?

A.

Well, this is the crucial decision you need to make on a film like this: Who are you going to work with? We had the kind of liberty we’ve never had before to just experiment with them, in the rehearsals and at the shooting. We rehearsed a lot during casting, read a lot, and I acted a lot for them, so I am giving them directly the tone of voice, the energy, the rhythm, the body language that I want. Guidance, but not with words. I’m not telling them what to do, I show them how to do.

But it’s fair to say that by the end, I had adapted as much to them as they adapted to me. We did what was there in the script, but each time it wasn’t possible to get the dialogue exactly right, I was adapting what I wanted to do and editing the scene to what they could do. Because you can’t push onto the actors something that does not belong to them.

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Tarantino Unveils ‘Django,’ the Shortest Long Western

By MELENA RYZIK

2:42 p.m. | Updated Just how eager are people to see Quentin Tarantino’s latest, “Django Unchained”? It started screening on Saturday, a deadline Mr. Tarantino almost didn’t make, as he trimmed and fine-tuned his cut, from more than three hours to just under. Lucky viewers took to Twitter immediately, to unleash their thoughts, and unlucky non-viewers trolled Twitter, to collect those thoughts. The Guardian newspaper found mostly endorsements, while over at the Gold Derby blog, there was some worry about the film’s award chances. (Curiously, they were all reading the same commentary.)

Quentin Tarantino at the Museum of Modern Art benefit on Monday.Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images Quentin Tarantino at the Museum of Modern Art benefit on Monday.

At a Museum of Modern Art benefit on Monday night honoring Mr. Tarantino, Peter Bogdanovich introduced the filmmaker as “the single most influential director of his generation,” adding that “Django” “may be his best picture so far.”

It’s “the shortest long western since ‘Rio Bravo,’” he continued. “’Django’ runs two hours and 44 minutes and seems to last only half that length.”

Mr. Bogdanovich, the director of “Paper Moon” and “The Last Picture Show,” had seen it the night before, at a screening where he sat next to Mr. Tarantino. “I’m still shaking,” he said.

“His pictures,” he added, “grab you by your shirt front and never let you go.”

Mr. Tarantino, in a black suit, white shirt and loosened black tie, took the stage flashing peace signs, and reminisced about his long fascination with New York – as a schoolboy in Los Angeles, he developed a Brooklyn accent (“like Robert De Niro in ‘Mean Streets’”) to seem tough – and his first visit here, with Harvey Keitel. All on Mr. Keitel’s dime, they scouted actors for “Reservoir Dogs.” (They found Steve Buscemi.)

“Being in New York for the first time and having Harvey Keitel show you around is a little bit like going to Texas and having John Wayne show you around,” Mr. Tarantino said.

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A.O. Scott and the Many Meanings of ‘Lincoln’

By A.O. SCOTT
The film David James/DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century Fox The film “Lincoln” will be the subject of an online symposium of sorts.

Since most of the action in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” consists of people arguing, it makes sense that the movie has provoked a lot of off-screen contention about its interpretation of history and its political implications, not to mention its awards prospects. Though I deposited my $.02 early, I’ve been following the debates with great interest and have accepted an invitation to take part. Over at theatlantic.com, Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the best writers around on matters of race, history, politics and just about everything else, has convened a kind of minisymposium on “Lincoln,” with particular emphasis on its ideological meanings and its treatment of slavery. I’ll be in some very learned company, hoping not to make a fool of myself and hoping above all to continue the vital conversation about this complicated and important film. Links will be posted here as new posts go up, and the action can be found here.

Post I: Why Aren’t More Liberals Defending ‘Lincoln’?

Post II: The Underrated Radicalism of ‘Lincoln’

Scrutinizing What’s on the Documentary Shortlist (and What’s Not)

By MELENA RYZIK
A scene from Magnolia Pictures A scene from “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” which didn’t make the Academy’s cut.

After a revamped process that left some members confounded and others crying foul, the Academy announced this season’s shortlist of 15 documentaries on Monday, with 5 eventually to be chosen as Oscar nominees.

The list includes several high-profile or expected titles, like “Searching for Sugar Man,” “Ai Wei Wei: Never Sorry,” “Bully” and “How to Survive a Plague,” which also earned a top prize from the New York Film Critics Circle on Monday. But the list also had notable omissions, including “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” the popular and mouth-watering story of a sushi chef; “West of Memphis,” a film that had the backing of Peter Jackson, about the cause célèbre of the West Memphis 3; “The Central Park Five,” from Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon; and “The Queen of Versailles,” Lauren Greenfield’s film about a super-wealthy couple who lose their economic footing.

“The Central Park Five” was even given special attention in a letter the Academy sent to members to help guide them through the selections, as our colleague Dave Itzkoff reported. (The Academy also allowed an internal bulletin board for members to recommend films to their friends.)

Two of the overlooked films were also subject of legal wrangling: materials and interviews from “The Central Park Five,” about the five men wrongly convicted in the Central Park jogger rape case, were subpoenaed by lawyers for the City of New York. And Ms. Greenfield was sued, accused of defamation by one of the subjects of “Queen of Versailles,” just before the film’s big-ticket premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

Still, Sundance was a proving ground for many of this year’s Oscar-track documentaries like “Searching for Sugar Man,” a frontrunner released by Sony Pictures Classics. And the list also resulted in a good showing for Kickstarter, which helped finance several of the films, including “Ai Wei Wei,” “Detropia” and “The Waiting Room.”

The broadening field for documentaries – technologically easier to produce now than ever – is part of the reason that documentary branch members, led by their president, Michael Moore, chose to reconfigure the rules about what can be nominated for an Academy Award. Whether they succeeded may be determined on Jan. 10, when the nominations are announced, or next season, when the new batch of hopefuls — the first made after the new procedures stick — emerges.

Amanda Seyfried and the Hathaway Extraction

By MELENA RYZIK
Amanda Seyfried, right, with Anne Hathaway at the afterparty Sunday.Dave Allocca/STARPIX, via Associated Press Amanda Seyfried, right, with Anne Hathaway at the afterparty Sunday.

As the campaign continues for “Les Misérables,” Tom Hooper, its director, mentioned at an invite-only screening on Sunday that he had forbidden the cast to watch dailies. His thinking was that he planned to use lengthy close-ups and didn’t want the cast to feel any embarrassment.

For Amanda Seyfried, who plays Cosette, it was an acceptable decree. “I don’t watch dailies, not as a rule,” she said. “I just don’t have any interest in seeing all those angles.”

“You gotta throw your vanity out the window when you’re shooting a movie,” she added.

Ms. Seyfried said she officially quit singing when she was 17 — she’s now 27 — and so employed the daily help of a vocal coach for her audition for “Les Miz.” “She taught me all these exercises,” she said, “to show me that I really can do certain things with my voice that I didn’t know, that I do have control. She knew the geography of this machine right here.”

Ms. Seyfried also credited Ms. Hathaway, whose character, Fantine, is Cosette’s mother, with helping her in the role.

“My first day of shooting was with Annie,” she said. “So I was able to extract some of her essence, so I could infuse it into Cosette. She gave me such sensitivity and warmth, this maternal kind of grace that I realized then that you needed to recognize in Cosette. It was really helpful.”

“Les Misérables” was filmed for two months on a grueling schedule that didn’t leave time for even a table read, Ms. Seyfried said, but the cast members quickly bonded over their mutual trepidation about the project, which involved live singing, no dubbing, in a studio. It’s something they’ve readily talked about as the movie moved quickly from the editing bay to the awards circuit. “We were all kind of leavened by the fear aspect of singing live,” Ms. Seyfried said.

Mr. Hooper was ready with his retort to this post-mortem artistic gripe. “They all told me they were really happy to do it,” he said, smiling.

At Sundance, a Starry Lineup of Premieres

By BROOKS BARNES
Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in Sundance Institute, via Associated Press Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in “Jobs,” which will play Sundance in January.

LOS ANGELES – In recent years, the Sundance Film Festival’s noncompetition lineup has looked increasingly like … its competition lineup. The out-of-competition section, called Premieres, had become a little artier and less commercial; films from well-established indie directors were few.

Steering the Premieres section back into its own lane was a priority for the coming festival, said Trevor Groth, Sundance’s programming director, and on Monday he unveiled his 2013 selections. Among them: “Before Midnight,” the final movie in Richard Linklater’s trilogy of romantic dramas starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy; the comedy “Don Jon’s Addiction,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directing debut; and “The Way, Way Back,” directed and written by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the co-writers of “The Descendants.”

Among documentaries, Anita Hill will square off against Dick Cheney. (She participated in Frieda Mock’s “Anita,” while he granted lots of access to R.J. Cutler for “The World According to Dick Cheney.”) Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Nirvana fame directs “Sound City.” HBO has two entries (on top of four in the competition section), including “The Crash Reel,” focused on the snowboarder Kevin Pearce and his struggle with severe brain injury.

An unusually broad range of genres will be on display in the Premieres section in January. Six of the 18 feature films are comedies or comedic dramas, including Michael Winterbottom’s “Look of Love,” the true story of a British adult magazine publisher. There is a western (“Sweetwater,” starring Ed Harris and written and directed by twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller) and a biopic (Jobs,” starring Ashton Kutcher as the late technology titan Steve Jobs).

Jane Campion will be there with her six-hour BBC and Sundance Channel miniseries (presented once during the festival) called “Top of the Lake.” Park Chan-wook (“Old Boy”) has a Fox Searchlight mystery called “Stoker,” which stars Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman.

Speaking of stars, they are everywhere in this lineup. Paul Rudd, Naomi Watts, Dakota Fanning Steve Carell, Maya Rudolph, Holly Hunter, Elisabeth Moss, Amanda Seyfried, Sharon Stone, James Franco, Shia LaBeouf, Evan Rachel Wood, Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore are just a few.

Below, the full feature and documentary lineups for the Premieres program:

Read more…

Academy Unveils Documentary Shortlist

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released the shortlist of 15 films eligible for the Oscar for best documentary. They are:

– “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry”
– “Bully”
– “Chasing Ice”
– “Detropia”
– “Ethel”
– “5 Broken Cameras”
– “The Gatekeepers”
– “The House I Live In”
– “How to Survive a Plague”
– “The Imposter”
– “The Invisible War”
– “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God”
– “Searching for Sugar Man”
– “This Is Not a Film”
– “The Waiting Room”

The final list of five films in the running will be made public along with the rest of the nominations on Jan. 10.

A Repeat Win for Kathryn Bigelow, Plus a Few Surprises From New York Film Critics Circle

By MELENA RYZIK

It’s a busy day for pop culture news and a slow-drip day for movie news: All afternoon the New York Film Critics Circle has been revealing its year-end winners on Twitter. For its surprises, at least, the Bagger will say it was worth the wait.

Matthew McConaughey took best supporting actor, for his work as a Texas lawyer in “Bernie” and a Floridian ecdysiast in “Magic Mike.” Sally Field bested the expected supporting actress winner, Anne Hathaway (tearful and gaunt in “Les Miz”) for her turn as Mary Todd in “Lincoln.” Rachel Weisz also beat out expected competitors like Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain to take best actress for the little-seen drama “Deep Blue Sea.” And surprising no one – except if he reads his acceptance speech in character – Daniel Day-Lewis won for his portrayal in “Lincoln.” Tony Kushner’s script also got the critics’ prize, which is typically a written document, not a statuette or a plaque.

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Kathryn Bigelow, a winner with the NYFCC for “The Hurt Locker,” won again as best director of “Zero Dark Thirty,” her unflinching look at the hunt for Osama bin Laden, which the columnists, writers and professional contrarians also rewarded with best feature. Is that good news for its shot at an actual statuette?

Last year the NYFCC prefigured the Oscars by choosing “The Artist” as its best picture, and its maker Michel Hazanavicius for best director, part of the critical and guild sweep that eventual earned Mr. Hazanavicius a pair of golden guys. (The same thing happened to Ms. Bigelow circa “The Hurt Locker.”) But most critics groups have a hit-or-miss record with predicting Academy Awards. About the only thing a betting person can double down on is that, at the NYFCC ceremony next year, one of the winners will make a crack about how this is the only time they agree with their critics. The fact that the pros spread the wealth amongst so many films only goes to underscore the quality of this year’s batch. It’s still an unpredictable season, and that’s a good thing.

The ‘Les Miz’ Folks, Singing Even After Production Wraps

By MELENA RYZIK

The campaign for “Les Misérables,” an expected juggernaut in the making, continued apace this weekend. On Sunday Universal, the studio behind Tom Hooper’s big-budget musical adaptation, held another invite-only screening, complete with the now de rigueur applause breaks after musical numbers. (Anne Hathaway’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” typically brings down the house.)

The afterparty, at the Porter House at the Time Warner Center, had an especially festive, genuinely fun vibe, especially when Hugh Jackman – Jean Valjean in the movie – serenaded Amanda Seyfried, who plays Cosette, for her birthday.

“I hate being the center of attention,” Ms. Seyfried said afterward, backing into a corner of the room, “but I loved being the center of attention for that.” Mr. Jackman’s lap-dance moves probably helped.

Guests included Anna Wintour and Michael Kors, as well as members of the Hollywood Foreign Press, who just so happened to close down the party. Mr. Jackman dined with his cast mate Russell Crowe, in town to shoot a movie in Brooklyn, and took frequent breaks to pose for photos and speak with well-wishers. Ms. Hathaway, too, was surrounded. Mr. Hooper, meanwhile, was deep in conversation with Celia Weston, a grand dame of Oscar voters in New York and a frequent presence on the circuit.

He was eager to talk about one of the most notable choices he made in his adaptation, to have his actors sing live, instead of dubbing the songs afterward.

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Don’t Rush the Critics Circle (People Have Tried)

By MELENA RYZIK

The New York Film Critics Circle, one of the country’s pre-eminent critics’ groups, knows how to build anticipation: it’s releasing its choices for the year’s best cinema one by one on Twitter today, leaving the awards blogosphere alternately panting with me-firstness and grumbling with me-lastness.

Its first announced award didn’t disappoint, though: “How to Survive a Plague,” about the rise of the AIDS advocacy group Act Up, earned best debut film, besting the expected winner, “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” It’s the first documentary to take home that prize from the circle. It also earned best documentary at the Gothams, and the Bagger has been hearing constant praise for it from movie-industry players, so expect it to make a showing all season long. “The Central Park Five” won best documentary and best cinematography went to Greig Fraser for “Zero Dark Thirty.”

In better-paced news, the Annies, the Oscars of the animation industry, announced all of the nominees today. Eight (!) films are vying for best feature: “Brave,” “Frankenweenie,” “Paranorman,” “Hotel Transylvania,” “Rise of the Guardians,” “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” “The Rabbi’s Cat” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” That list includes films from all the major studios (Pixar, DreamWorks, Sony, as well as two from Walt Disney) and a few from indie distributors. Expect competition to be fierce with the Academy.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming: making Pope-on-Twitter jokes and speculating about Kate Middleton’s pregnancy.

‘Amour’ Gains a Euro Prize, and Perhaps Momentum

By MELENA RYZIK
Michael Haneke, left, with Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant on the set of "Amour,".Denis Manin/Sony Pictures ClassicsMichael Haneke, left, with Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant on the set of “Amour.”

The European Film Awards – a polling of 2,500 professional across the continent – were handed down over the weekend, and it was a near-sweep for Michael Hanecke’s “Amour,” named the best feature. The tale of an elderly Parisian dealing with his wife’s dementia, it also won top prizes for its stars, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, and best director for Mr. Haneke, the Austrian filmmaker and frequent Cannes champion best known for “The White Ribbon” and other cinematic tragedies. “Amour” is, as our colleague Larry Rohter wrote, the front-runner for the best foreign-language Oscar.

But Sony Pictures Classics, which is distributing “Amour” in the United States, is trying to making a case for other prizes, including best actress for Ms. Riva, who has been working steadily since making her mark in the French new wave, and best actor for Mr. Trintignant. It’s worth a shot at other categories: last season, the Iranian film “A Separation” earned an original screenplay nod, the first foreign-language film in five years to do so. (It also won best foreign film.)

The European cinéastes tend to favor artier fare than the Academy — last year, their top choice was “Melancholia,” which wound up not even placing in the Oscar race.

Still, any momentum is good news for “Amour,” a serious and meticulously created film about a difficult subject that is angling for eyeballs anyway it can.

After Years of Indies, Will Studios Triumph?

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences handed out its Governors Awards on Saturday night. The honorees were the stuntman Hal Needham, the documentarian D. A. Pennebaker and the film advocate George Stevens Jr. But the celebratory feel in the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Hollywood had as much to do with past achievements as with the Oscar season ahead.

As Michael Cieply writes in an article on Monday, “After watching indie films like ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ claim Hollywood’s top honors for the last five years, the major studios are campaigning with a ferocity that could make one of them a winner on Feb. 24, Academy Awards night.”

This year every major studio seems to have a shot: Universal Pictures with “Les Misérables,” Sony with “Zero Dark Thirty,” DreamWorks/Disney with “Lincoln,” 20th Century Fox with “Life of Pi,” and Warner Brothers with “Argo,” to name a few of the contenders.

Then again, don’t count out the indies. For the last two years the Weinstein Company has taken home the best-picture prize (for “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist).