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By Joey Magidson
Film Contributor

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It’s common belief that the Academy Awards are steeped in tradition, but that distinction doesn’t apply to all Oscars categories. There are some exceptions, the most notable of which is in regard to animation. The Best Animated Feature category is among the newest at the Oscars, having been added just at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony.

With this being only the 12th year in which a Best Animated Feature is being crowned, I thought it was about time to see if there’s a formula that Oscar hopefuls should follow in order to maximize their chances of being nominated. Over the years a blueprint has emerged, even if it’s not an altogether clear one at this point. There are storylines, themes and trends that successful nominees take heed of when campaigning for a citation by the Academy, and the devil in the details is just being able to recognize them.

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By Joey Magidson
Film Contributor

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If you’re like me, you’re still recovering from the surprises that the Academy threw us on Thursday. In an attempt to try and move away from figuring out the “why” of the Oscar nominations last week, I decided to look at the “when” and “where” of the films and performances that were nominated. I’m curious to see which release period of the year and which film festivals were the most effective launching pads for award nominees in 2012.

It’s no secret that certain periods of the year and certain festivals are lighter than others. Fests like Tribeca and months like January just don’t jive with Oscar. In fact, I recently looked at the festival season in a previous article (found here) to see which ones contributed the most awards players this year. Likewise, when I removed the late-season releases a week or so ago from the Oscar race (found here), I found just how many contenders are from the last few months of the year.

Now that we have the nominees for the Academy Awards at our disposal, we can look at the main categories and see if there’s anything more we can learn. Did any one film festival wind up doing especially well? Was there a choice period of release for the movies and performances that were cited by Oscar voters? Let’s take a look …

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By Joey Magidson
Film Contributor

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Aside from the Academy Awards, no ceremony has as much pomp and circumstance to it each year than the Golden Globe Awards. While the Golden Globes don’t have the same cultural legacy that the Oscars do, the former is definitely an event that affects the latter at times. Most years, the influence on Oscar is there, but it’s minimal. This year, however, we could be looking at a time when Oscar voters are looking to the Globes more than ever before.

The reason for this added interest is the new timeframe for Academy members to vote. Usually there’s more distance between the Globe nominations and the Oscar nominations, which is not the case here. This makes the Globes a show to look forward to more than is usual.

I’m not going to outright list the things to most look forward to with the Golden Globes this year, but there are a lot, and they don’t all have to do with the Oscar race. One can see what the Hollywood Foreign Press does this year and enjoy it independently of what eventually goes down with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There will be simple pleasures on display for all awards show and movie fans to enjoy.

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By Scott Mendelson

As the initial reviews for Pixar’s Brave roll in (again, I’m waiting till opening day to take the kid), it’s clear that the film is both pretty solid and somewhat disappointing considering the uber-high standards that Pixar has set for itself. I personally think it’s almost dangerous to go into a Pixar film expecting each one to be as good as Up, but I digress. One of the running themes of said reviews is that the film is merely ‘Dreamworks good’.

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• Star: The gossip rag’s latest cover features an unauthorized photograph of “Solitary Man”/“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” star Michael Douglas, who is battling throat cancer, looking extremely sick. Douglas’s hair has gone completely white; his face is now wrinkled everywhere; his eyes look sunken in; and his throat appears to be severely scarred. To see a man who was so vibrant reduced to this is enough to bring tears to the eyes.
• Slash Film: Peter Sciretta, in a post from June that we only discovered today, exposes the “Easter Eggs” — “hidden little bits of trivia that act as inside jokes to fans of Pixar’s films” — that the digital animation studio snuck in to “Toy Story 3.” Among them: numerous references to the number 95 (the year in which the first “Toy Story” was released); a letter from “Carl and Ellie Fredrickson” (the elderly couple in “Up”); and a flyer for Pizza Planet (a fictional restaurant that has been referenced in all every Pixar film except “The Incredibles”).
• Los Angeles Times: Stephen Zeitchik wonders why Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter,” which opens nationwide tomorrow, appears to have divided critics “along generational lines.” He surveys reviews of the film and concludes, “Many younger reviewers — those in their 30s and 40s, and maybe inching into their early 50s — are coming down hard on the movie. Most of those among the older generation? They’re finding much to embrace.” Why? “The simple explanation, I suppose, is that a movie preoccupied with mortality will appeal more to older filmgoers than younger ones.”
• Knoxville: Terry Morrow, in a post from August that we only discovered today, reports that “Get Low,” which has been advertised as “a true tall tale,” is actually more true and less “tall tale” than most people realize. As it turns out, there really was a Felix Bush (the tortured character portrayed by Robert Duvall) — Felix Breazeale (nickname: “Bush”), to be precise — and, much like the character in the movie, he teamed up with a local funeral home operator and organized a “pre-death” funeral “party” for himself that “turned into one of the biggest community gatherings in the history of Roane County.”
• INDIEwire: Pete Knegt performs a post-mortem on the nominations for the Gotham Independent Film Awards that were announced on Monday and concludes “there’s probably very little the Gothams have suggested about the overall awards race” except for the strength of Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone.” That little indie wound up with the same three nominations that “The Hurt Locker” received en route to winning the best picture Oscar — “which is not at all to suggest that ‘Winter’s Bone’ is going to surprise anyone in that regard,” Knegt hastens to add.
• The Dish Rag: Elizabeth Snead catches up with “Country Strong” director Shana Feste, who believes that Gwyneth Paltrow’s performance in the film will bring the actress her first Academy recognition since she was nominated for and won the best actress Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love” (1998). Feste says, “This is a complete departure for her. She plays an alcoholic in desperate need of a comeback. She sings, plays guitar, and dances.” (Paltrow will be performing the film’s title song at the Country Music Awards on November 10.)
• Hitfix: Drew McWeeny mourns Pixar’s decision to replace Brenda Chapman as the director of “Brave” (formerly titled “The Bear and the Bow”), one of the studio’s next films. Chapman, who is being succeeded by Mark Andrews, was to have been the first female director of a Pixar film. McWeeny reports that many in the animation community have reacted to this news with great disappointment, “not because she’s a woman, but because that particular woman developed that story, and because she has proven with her work that she’s got a real voice as a storyteller.”
• Hollywood-Elsewhere: Jeff Wells, who has been salivating over “Love and Other Drugs” ever since he first heard good things about it back in February, has finally seen the film and is anything but disappointed. He believes “it is first and foremost a hit… sharp and polished and beautifully shot and acted and cut… with sass and wit and ultra-frank sexuality and generous nudity and undercurrents that are ‘Jerry Maguire’-ish at times… [director Edward] Zwick’s finest film yet… [and] could easily qualify as one of the ten best picture contenders.”

Photo: Michael Douglas. Credit: Star.