ScottFeinberg.com

Question: Michel Hazanavicius, the director of The Artist, would become only the second person born in France to win the best director Oscar. Who was the first?

Prize: The first person to Tweet the correct answer to this question to @ScottFeinberg will win Ludovic Bource’s Oscar-nominated soundtrack to The Artist!

(To be eligible, your mailing address must be in the United States, and you must be following @ScottFeinberg on Twitter so that we can direct message you, if you win, and tell you the email address to which you should send your mailing address.)

Photo: Jean Dujardin and Hazanavicius on the set of The Artist. Credit: The Weinstein Company.

The 31st annual Oscar nominees luncheon took place this afternoon in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. Hosted by the Academy’s Board of Governors, the event drew an impressive 150 of this year’s 188 nominees — including A-listers like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Meryl Streep — all of whom were assigned seats at one of 47 tables alongside nominees from categories other than their own, as well as a few journalists, including yours truly.

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It seems to me that the Golden Globe Awards should have no bearing on the Academy Awards — after all, the former are determined by a group of roughly 90 journalists who work for foreign news outlets, whereas the latter are determined by over 6,000 people who actually make movies. The truth, however, is that the outcome of the former does impact the race for the latter. Why? Because perception — accurate or not — often becomes reality.

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By Sean O’Connell

Ludovic Bource won the Golden Globe for Best Original Score on Sunday evening for his work on “The Artist.” It was his first win at the Globes.

His score triumphed over “W.E.” (Abel Korzeniowski), “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), “Hugo” (Howard Shore) and “War Horse” (John Williams).

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By Roger Friedman

It sure is the silly season in Oscarland. Today, actress Kim Novak– a noted recluse so out of the Hollywood loop that I doubt most people under 50 know her name–took a full page ad in Variety. Her gripe was that the music for “The Artist,” the much loved silent film by Michel Hazanavicius, was taken from a movie she’d starred in over 50 years ago. Indeed, Hazanavicius credits Alfred Hitchcock’s composer, Bernard Herrmann.

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Earlier this morning, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced the nominees for the 69th annual Golden Globe Awards — which will take place in Hollywood on Sunday, Jan. 15 — and there were numerous noteworthy surprises and snubs. Here’s my best attempt to make sense of it all.

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By Sean O’Connell

While the L.A. crix were busy announcing their year-end selections, the New York Film Critics Online were gathered on the opposite coast handing out its annual awards. They mirrored the BostonFilm Critics, going with “The Artist.”

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By Sean O’Connell

As if there wasn’t enough going on Sunday afternoon, with the L.A. and New York Film Critics Online handing out their annual awards, the Boston Film Critics Association gathered to nominate their Best of 2011, settling on Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist.”

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As most of us prepare to give thanks, some among us — particularly young and up-and-  coming film composers — are saying please, as in, “Please Academy, give us a chance!”

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