With the 85th Academy Awards looming closer, we here at Collider thought now would be a good time to take a look back at Oscar race thus far.  It’s been a wild and somewhat nutty 12 months, as we’ve seen numerous contenders rise and fall (and some rise back up again) in the contentious hunt for Oscar gold.  We’ve already run down the ebbs and flows of the Best Supporting Actor category, and today we’ll be taking a look back and how the race played out for Best Supporting Actress.

The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a whirlwind of nominees.  As expected, Lincoln landed the most nominations with 12, followed with Ang Lee’s Life of Pi which nabbed 11.  The big story here, though, is the Best Director category.  Shockingly, only two (two!) of the DGA nominees for Best Director made the Oscar cut: Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg.  The rest of the category was filled out by Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and Michael Haneke for Amour.  It was almost guaranteed that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would be landing nominations for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively, but shockingly neither made the cut.  Apparently those films just directed themselves.  Based off today’s nominations, it now looks like it’s (surprisingly) down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the big win.

Hit the jump to check out the list of nominees, and click here to check them against my predictions (somehow I predicted the Best Picture and Supporting Actor categories perfectly).  The 85th Academy Awards will take place on February 24th.

At last, Oscar is upon us.  Back in November I shared a look at the early awards season race by way of our 2013 Oscar Preview articles, and now nearly two months later there’s still quite a bit up in the air.  This truly is one of the more exciting awards races in recent years, as 2012 is so stacked with quality that there are a surprising number of uncertainties this close to the Academy Awards ceremony.  Nevertheless, I am once again foolishly going to attempt to predict how the Oscar nominations will shake out when they’re announced tomorrow morning, January 10th.  Hit the jump to check out my predictions.

Oscar season is in full swing, folks.  2012 has been a fantastic year in film so far, and with merely weeks to go before 2013 begins there are still a couple of highly anticipated films that have yet to be seen.  Just like last year, I’ll be running down a preview of the upcoming Oscar race during this fine Thanksgiving week, giving readers a look at what the state of the race looks like right now.  To be clear, this isn’t a personal list but rather an objective look at how things look to be shaping up.  I’ve divided each category into frontrunners, likely to be nominated, and other contenders in order to parse out where things stand at the moment.  There are multiple strong contenders in nearly every category, so this is looking to be a rather heated run to the finish line.

We’ll be looking at a couple of different major categories each day over the next four days, and we’re kicking things off with the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories.  Hit the jump to read on.

[Note: This is a re-post of my review from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.  Silver Linings Playbook opens today in limited release.]

We have acceptable levels of “crazy” in our society, and that in itself is kind of crazy. Some psychosis is cute and charming, while other acts of craziness demand hospitalization and medication. This distinction is obviously based on harm, both to others and to oneself. But there’s a “healthy” level of crazy, and the search for that level is what makes David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook sharply comic and surprisingly sweet. O. Russell has once again returned to study the dysfunctional family, and while Silver Linings Playbook is softer than Flirting with Disaster and even The Fighter, it still has enough of an edge to deliver some great jokes, and strong performances to make the emotions ring true.

Steve walked the floor at the American Film Market (AFM) early this morning and managed to bring back some detailed synopses for the following films:

• Jane Got a Gun – A Western starring Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender
• Parkland – A drama about the JFK assassination starring Billy Bob Thornton, Paul Giamatti, and Jacki Weaver.
• The Green Inferno – The next directorial project from Eli Roth.
• A Walk Among the Tombstones – A crime thriller starring Liam Neeson.
• Agent: Century 21 – An action comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Benicio Del Toro.

Hit the jump to check out all the detailed synopses, which include production start dates.

The Tom Hanks-produced JFK feature film Parkland just landed three impressive actors.  It was announced today that Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton, and Jacki Weaver have joined the cast of the real-life drama.  The film revolves around the chaotic events that occurred at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Parkland Hospital is where Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby all died.

Peter Landesman wrote the screenplay based on the book by Vincent Bugliosi and will make his directorial debut with the pic.  No word on what characters the aforementioned actors will portray, but production is set to take place in Austin.  The film is being planned for a 2013 release around the 50th anniversary of the assassination, which will be November 22nd.  Hit the jump to read the full press release.

An international trailer for Park Chan-wook‘s Stoker has gone online.  Like the first trailer that debuted last week, this one is dark, creepy, unsettling, and absolutely fascinating.  The film centers on a young girl (Mia Wasikowska) who encounters her mysterious uncle (Matthew Goode) while mourning the death of her father (Dermot Mulroney).  The plot seems to have a mix of Lolita and The Professional, although it’s not paid assassinations as much as serial killing (money makes all the difference!).  There are also some strange layers going on between the girl and her mother (Nicole Kidman).  Even though I’ve now seen two trailers for the movie, I still have no idea what to expect, and that makes me very excited to see it.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Jacki Weaver, Lucas Till, and Alden Ehrenreich.  Stoker opens on March 1st, 2013.

A new trailer has gone online for David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook.  The film stars Bradley Cooper as a man who’s recently been released from a mental hospital after having a nervous breakdown as a result of walking in on his wife sleeping with another man.  However, he’s resolved to get his wife back, but along the way he meets the equally-damaged Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), who’s recovering from her husband’s death.  Silver Linings Playbook was one of the better movies I saw at TIFF this year.  It’s sweet, funny, thoughtful, and this trailer conveys all those aspects (although it opens by showing off one of the film’s best scenes).  The movie will likely be one of the major contenders in this year’s awards race, especially for Lawrence who gives an outstanding performance.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film also stars Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, and Chris Tucker.  Silver Linings Playbook opens November 21st.

We have acceptable levels of “crazy” in our society, and that in itself is kind of crazy.  Some psychosis is cute and charming, while other acts of craziness demand hospitalization and medication. This distinction is obviously based on harm, both to others and to oneself.  But there’s a “healthy” level of crazy, and the search for that level is what makes David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook sharply comic and surprisingly sweet.  O. Russell has once again returned to study the dysfunctional family, and while Silver Linings Playbook is softer than Flirting with Disaster and even The Fighter, it still has enough of an edge to deliver some great jokes, and strong performances to make the emotions ring true.

Though the two just starred together in Richard Linklater’s Bernie, Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine are already planning a reunion of sorts.  It was announced today (via ScreenDaily) that Black and MacLaine will star in the comedy Wild Oats alongside Jacki Weaver and Alan Arkin.  The caper follows two fugitives who are forced to outwit a trio of conmen and the law, with Howard Deutch (Pretty in Pink) onboard to direct from a script by Gary Kanew and Claudia Myers.

The cast is impressive, but Deutch’s recent filmography (My Best Friend’s Girl, The Whole Ten Yards) isn’t exactly up to par with his earlier material.  Production on Wild Oats is set to get underway in mid-July, but Black is also attached to star in Charlie Kaufman’s incredibly promising Frank or Francis.  That film has a solid cast, but producers are still firming up financing before production can begin.

A red-band trailer for The Five-Year Engagement has gone online.  The film follows Jason Segel and Emily Blunt through the ups and downs of their prolonged engagement.  Segel reteams with Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller on the film, and I’m a big fan of what we’ve seen thus far.  This red-band trailer focuses on some of the dirtier jokes we were expecting from a Judd Apatow-produced comedy, with a fairly great sex scene between Segel and Blunt thrown in for good measure.  It’s also nice to see The 40-Year Old Virgin scene-stealer Kevin Hart back in an Apatow comedy.  I love the ensemble cast that Stoller has put together and I’m excited to watch everyone play off of one another in the finished film.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Steve’s set visit coverage including 20 things to know about the film and bunch of on set interviews.  We also posted 24 images and five clips.  The film also stars Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Rhys Ifans, David Paymer, Mimi Kennedy, Jacki Weaver, Brian Posehn, and Mindy Kaling. The Five-Year Engagement opens on April 27th.

We’ve got five new clips from the upcoming comedy The Five-Year Engagement to share today.  The film comes from Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller, who co-wrote the screenplay with star Jason Segel, and follows a couple through the ups and downs of their extended engagement.  I loved the first trailer and included the pic in our most recent iteration of the Most Anticipated feature, so I’m quite looking forward to what Stoller and Segel have put together.  If you missed them, you can check out Steve’s set visit coverage including 20 things to know about the film and bunch of on set interviews.  We also just posted 24 images, which you can check out here.

Hit the jump to watch the clips.  The film also stars Emily Blunt, Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Rhys Ifans, David Paymer, Mimi Kennedy, Jacki Weaver, Jim Piddock, Kevin Hart, Brian Posehn, Mindy Kaling. The Five-Year Engagement opens on April 27th.

Universal has released 24 images from director Nicholas Stoller‘s (Get Him to the Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) The Five-Year Engagement.  If you’re not familiar with the film, The Five-Year Engagement “looks at what happens when an engaged couple, Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, keeps getting tripped up on the long walk down the aisle.”  The film stars also stars Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Rhys Ifans, David Paymer, Mimi Kennedy, Jacki Weaver, Jim Piddock, Kevin Hart, Brian Posehn, Mindy Kaling, and many other familiar faces.  I did a set visit last year and listed twenty things to know about the film.  In addition, here’s a bunch of on set interviews.  Hit the jump for the images and full synopsis.  The Five-Year Engagement opens April 27.

With the 84th Annual Academy Awards nearly one week into our past, I’d be interested in hearing from our readers what the one genuine surprise of the night was for them. For me, it was Meryl Streep’s Best Actress win. Now, don’t get me wrong, Streep is obviously an incredible actress who requires zero justification from a movie blogger. It’s just that, of all the award categories in question, I genuinely expected Viola Davis to win Best Actress. So, if you feel so inclined, sound off in the comments section below about your biggest surprise win/loss of the night. Sarcasm, including “your mom” responses, is encouraged.

In the bag of goodies that is this week’s “Top 5″ you’ll find the new trailer and a ton of new images from The Avengers, a new television spot for G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a Prometheus viral video that reassures my suspicions that Guy Pearce could indeed take over the planet if he wanted to, interviews for The Lorax with Danny Devito, Ed Helms, and more, and all of our coverage from the set of Jason Segel and Emily Blunt‘s The Five-Year Engagement. A brief recap and link to each follows after the jump.