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By Roger Friedman

The greatest American play? Quite possibly Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” set in 1949 and revived last night on Broadway in a production that is outstanding. Mike Nichols directed and reinvented Miller’s classic, with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Willy Loman, Andrew Garfield (the new movie Spider Man) as Biff, Linda Emonds as Willy’s wife Linda, and Finn Wittrock as Happy. This is a historic production, quite possibly the best ever (and there have been many great ones starring Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy, Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott).

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By Samuel Negin

The 5th Broadway revival (and 6th Broadway production overall) has opened on Broadway to strong reviews.  Variety highly praised director Mike Nichols and the production overall, as well as the performance of Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Film star Andrew Garfield initially came across as miscast but held his own against his more famous costars.  The New York Times called the decision to “recreate the original visual and aural landscape devised by the set designer Jo Mielziner and the composer Alex North” inspired.

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The 27th annual Independent Spirit Awards, presented by Film Independent, were dished out this afternoon in a tent by the beach in sunny Santa Monica. Comedian Seth Rogen hosted the ceremony, which brings together the best and brightest of the indie film community, past and present, for an Oscar-weekend celebration of the struggle that is independent filmmaking. While the event is known for being lots of fun (how many other awards shows encourage day-drinking?), it is not known for its prowess at predicting the Oscars (voting for which closes before the Spirits are dished out anyway).

Indeed, only one of the winners of the Spirit Awards’ top prize, best feature, has ever won the best picture Oscar, and that was 25 years ago (Platoon, 1986), and only 11 of the 100 performances that it has rewarded with acting prizes — 26 in each of the two lead categories and 24 in each of the two supporting categories — were subsequently recognized with Oscars in their respective categories: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote, 2005) and Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart, 2009) for best actor; Geraldine Page (The Trip to Bountiful, 1984), Frances McDormand (Fargo, 1996), Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, 1999), Charlize Theron (Monster, 2003), and Natalie Portman (Black Swan, 2010) for best actress; Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, 2006) for best supporting actor; and Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway, 1994), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2008), and Mo’Nique (Precious, 2009) for best supporting actress.

Most pundits, however, believe that this trend will be broken at tomorrow’s 84th Academy Awards — at least as far as the best picture, best actor, and best supporting actor Oscar races are concerned.

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By Samuel Negin

Broadway vet Philip Seymour Hoffman is gearing up for his Broadway performance in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, but he is looking ahead towards his film resume. Hoffman is in talks to star in a movie adaptation of John LeCarré’s novel A Most Wanted Man according to Daniel Miller of The Hollywood Reporter. The film will be shot in Hamburg, Germany, and will be directed by Anton Corbijn.

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I am very pleased to bring you the twelfth episode of “Feinberg & Friends,” THR‘s weekly awards podcast.

Each installment features a discussion between me and a different guest — a film blogger, critic or journalist of some other variation — about 10 different awards-related topics (which we list in the text accompanying the audio so that you know exactly what you’re signing up for) and runs for approximately 30 to 40 minutes (so that if one topic is not of particular interest to you it will only be about three or four minutes before we’re on to the next one, which hopefully will be).

I was delighted that my friend Dave Karger – a senior writer for Entertainment Weeklywhose work appears both in print and online, and who is one of the best Oscar prognosticators out there — agreed to join me for this episode. I really enjoyed our chat, during which we tackled the following 10 questions…

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By Sean O’Connell

Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” was the best movie I saw in 2011.

Granted, it didn’t register as my favorite movie immediately after a pre-Toronto screening. But I found myself thinking about Miller’s adaptation for weeks. I went out of my way to see it again. Then one more time. By year’s end, no other film stuck to the ribs in quite the same way, resonating on multiple levels as it recounted the maverick story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, at his finest) and his against-the-grain plan to get his undervalued team back in contention.

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The following list and remarks reflect my personal opinions and do/will not in any way impact my projections or analysis on this site, wherein I strive above all else to correctly forecast what will happen, not what I believe should happen.

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Five years ago, I was writing about film in Boston when I had the opportunity to meet for lunch with a few young actors who were in town to promote a little comedy that they had just made and hoped that people would check out. Those young actors were Christopher Mintz-Plasse (a complete unknown making his big screen debut), Michael Cera (best known at the time for his work on TV’s Arrested Development), and Jonah Hill (who was also starring that summer in the hit comedy Knocked Up). Their film, of course, was Superbad, which became a massive hit and turned the three of them into movie stars — at least for a while.

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The 15th annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Film Awards, presented by Starz Entertainment, will honor Academy Award nominee Bennett Miller with its 2011 Hollywood Director Award.

Miller is being recognized for his work on the critically acclaimed blockbusterMoneyball, which was adapted fromMichael Lewis’s best-selling novel and stars Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s general managerBilly Beane. Miller will collect his statuette at the Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony, which will take place at the Beverly Hilton on Oct. 24.

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50 gala and special presentation screenings for the 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival — the annual awards season kick-off, which will run this year from September 8 through the 18 (and receive full on-the-ground coverage from this site) — were announced earlier today.

As Jeff Wells notes, it’s somewhat surprising that “Carnage” (Sony Pictures Classics, ?/?, ?, ?) and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (Focus Features, ?/?, ?, trailer) — both of which will be playing at the Venice Film Festival, which overlaps with Toronto — are not among them. Still, the list includes plenty of riches, based on everything that I’ve seen and heard, thus far, and I just hope that there are enough hours in each day that I’m at the fest to see all of the films that I’d like to see.

At the moment, I’m most looking forward to these 25…

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