James Armstrong in "The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement"

Credit: ShortsHD/Magnolia Pictures

(The Oscar Guide will be your chaperone through the Academy's 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 26, with the Best Picture finale on Saturday, February 25.)

For the second year in a row the documentary short nominees will be included in Shorts International/Magnolia Pictures' theatrical program of Oscar-nominated shorts. The films release as a package in 200 theaters nationwide on tomorrow, February 10.

The docs this year were an interesting and diverse assortment. At least two of them are top-notch works of cinema. Another is a gripping if somewhat clinical dissection of an unfortunate wartime event, while one will likely land well for its old Hollywood connections. The least-compelling of the lot is a new spin on familiar Civil Rights movement territory. Meanwhile, there are three former nominees in the line-up, two of them having been chalked up for feature work in the past.

The nominees are…

Max von Sydow at Monday's Nominees Luncheon

Credit: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

I've kind of been going nuts lately at the amount of people reporting from the Oscar Nominees Luncheon leaning on the amount of applause Max von Sydow received as if it's, in and of itself, an indication of anything. If you're a film industry professional and you have a chance to applaud for a guy like that, you're going to do it. Annette Bening got a lot of applause at last year's event. It just means respect. Plus, Christopher Plummer wasn't even there, so you can't gauge one response versus the other. This week, Dave Karger uses the burst of applause as a reason to move von Sydow up to #2 in his Best Supporting Actor rankings, but that's really where he should have been since day one. I'll say it again: von Sydow's mere presence in the category makes things interesting. [Entertainment Weekly]

John Williams in rehearsal with Boston Pops Orchestra.

Credit: AP Photo/Robert E. Klein

Whatever your take on Lucasfilm’s output over the last 13-years may be, there are very few of us who can listen to more than just a few notes of the “Star Wars” score without feeling a rushing sense of possibility, excitement and remembered pleasure, or if it is the "Imperial March" a delicious impression of impending evil.

John Williams is responsible for some of the most beloved and iconic scores of our time. He’s been nominated for 47 Oscars (including two this year, for “The Adventures of Tintin” and “War Horse”), making him the second-most nominated person after Walt Disney (and the most-nominated composer, passing Alfred Newman this year). He won four original score Oscars, for the haunting and evocative “Schindler’s List” (1993), the bitter-sweet optimism of “E.T.:The Extra-Terrestrial” (1983), the indelible and enduring “Star Wars” (1977), and what has become the universal sound symbol for “danger in the water,” “Jaws” (1975). He also won Best Scoring Adaptation and Original Song Score for “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1971, kicking off his love affair with the Academy.

Alright, you know the drill. Rifle off your need-to-knows and we'll address as many as we can on Friday's podcast. I believe we're going to try and discuss the live action and animated shorts, perhaps the doc features. Anyway, a few categories will be covered in detail. Have at it!

"True Romance" alums Gary Oldman (left) and Brad Pitt mingle backstage at Monday's Nominees Luncheon.

Credit: AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Gary Oldman is back in town and hitting the press rounds hard on behalf of his first-ever Oscar nomination for "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." And though I'm fairly resigned to Jean Dujardin turning the trick with Oscar as he did with SAG, I can't help but wonder -- or perhaps merely hope -- if things are in such a state of flux within the Best Actor category that a guy like Oldman has a decent shot.

Roth's piece on Brad Pitt's press rounds and a window of opportunity in the field was fair enough as it pertains to his chances. After all, Pitt's a big-time celebrity who doesn't rest on his laurels and is heavily involved, constructively, on the production side of things. And he turned out one of his best performances to date in "Moneyball."

But what about a guy like Oldman, who has worked with just about everyone in town and has been at the grind for decades? Not only is he a solid worker, but he offers up stunning portrayal after stunning portrayal, even in the most dubious of projects (many of which he's been forced to take on over the last 10 years or so).

Chris Pratt in "Moneyball."

Credit: Columbia Pictures

(The Oscar Guide will be your chaperone through the Academy's 24 categories awarding excellence in film. A new installment will hit every weekday in the run-up to the Oscars on February 26, with the Best Picture finale on Saturday, February 25.)

This year, the sound category nominations were the ones I found hardest to predict -- I went a paltry 1-for-5 in the Best Sound Mixing category -- and even with the field narrowed to five, I'm not finding the picture any clearer. Part of the reason for that is the unusual disparity between the Academy's picks and those of the Cinema Audio Society. For the first time since 1999, they agreed on only two nominees, both Best Picture contenders that aren't brash sonic showcases: "Hugo" and "Moneyball."

For the other slots, the Academy's sound branch set about rectifying some of the more surprising CAS omissions: the guild did well to recognize the sleekly pulsating "Hanna," but the Academy stuck with more typically large-scale fare for the category in the shape of "War Horse" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." The final field is an eminently mainstream one, but pleasingly balanced between bombast and subtler notes.

The nominees are...

A detail from the offending campaign ad for Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady."

Credit: The Weinstein Company

Oh, it wouldn't be the final stretch  of Oscar voting without a minor kerfuffle over some or other campaign strategy. The people ruffling feathers this time, you'll be shocked to hear, are The Weinstein Company, whose latest campaign effort for Meryl Streep comes close to breaking a selection of finicky rules and regulations, but naturally has a secure loophole in place. The ad, emailed to Hollywood Reporter subscribers (and therefore not directly to the Academy, cleverly enough), makes a big deal of the two-time winner's 29-year Oscar drought, stepping on the toes of an Academy rule forbidding ads to mention past awards, and to "extol the merits of a film... or an individual." (Really? Don't all ads do that?) Several AMPAS voters have felt moved to complain, but I don't see how this harmless stunt affects Streep's chances either way. [The Odds]

A scene from "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

Credit: 20th Century Fox

It was a good night for Industrial Light & Magic at the 10th annual Visual Effects Society Awards, which were presented this evening. The company's work in films like "Rango" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" dominated the proceedings, the former surprisingly sweeping the animated categories.

Why is it surprising? Well, you might recall that "The Adventures of Tintin" led the way with nominations from the Society, including three nods in the category of Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature Motion Picture. I thought that was fantastic, as it's a hybrid media film with stellar effects from Weta Digital that should have been in the mix at the Oscars, too. Alas, the film didn't even make the Academy's bake-off list. It didn't even make the longlist of 15 titles. And tonight, "Rango" pretty much ate its lunch, winning four awards. Steven Spielberg's film turned out zero wins off of six nominations. Ouch.

A scene from international competition winner "Free Men"

Credit: Pyramide Productions

The winners of the 27th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival were announced yesterday, celebrating unique short-form, international, documentary and narrative film.

Kris participated in the jury alongside actor/comedian Dave Koechner, actor/director Brad Hall, actor/writer W. Earl Brown, actor Anthony Zerbe and his wife Arnette Zerbe, SBIFF originator Phyllis de Picciotto, director Glenn Jordan, actor Tim Matheson and writer/ director Perry Lang.

“Each year, SBIFF strives to feature film from all ranges of the ‘cine-spectrum,'" SBIFF executive Roger Durling said in the press release. "Successfully building upon this tradition of excellence, the lineup for the 27th edition of the festival showcased a particularly captivating yet challenging collection of works."

Of the hundreds screened, the following were the offerings that were collectively deemed outstanding in their given category...

Robert Pattinson in "Bel Ami," which will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

Credit: Columbia Pictures

Tomorrow afternoon, I head off to a below-freezing Germany to cover the Berlin International Film Festival -- or the Berlinale, as you prefer -- for the third year running. As with Sundance, critics will be counting on the movies to provide a little heat against the February chill, even if they don't yet know which ones. Berlin is among the hardest of major festivals to second-guess in terms of highlights: though it ostensibly forms an elevated triad of European festivals with Cannes and Venice, it can no longer compete with its sunnier counterparts for major arthouse blockbusters. As Cannes hogs the holiest auteurs and Venice claims some of the fall awards hopefuls, the Berlinale programmers have to dig a little deeper -- and in turn, the critics there have to look a little harder.

After a slight slump at the start of the decade, the fest's quieter approach is beginning to reap rewards. Not that many people were anticipating Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation" before it premiered in last year's Berlin Competition; even during the first press screening, however, the electric ripple of surprise and excitement in the audience was palpable, as it was clear a major arthouse story was being born.