Another awards ceremony, another The Artist triumph. Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film continues its near sweep of awards season as it took home the Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor prize from the London Film Critics Circle Awards. Surprisingly, the other film to tie The Artist with three awards was the Iranian drama A Separation. The foreign film has been riding a wave of immense positive word of mouth, and the London Film Critics awarded the pic with Foreign Language Film of the Year, Best Screenwriter, and Best Actress.

Nearly shut out of the awards was Britain’s own Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The espionage drama failed to pick up any major prizes and was sent home with a win for Best Production Design. Elsewhere, We Need to Talk About Kevin was named Best British Film, Anna Paquin shared the Best Actress prize with Meryl Streep for her work in Margaret (quickly becoming the little engine that could), and Michael Fassbender won British Actor of the Year for his stellar work in Shame and A Dangerous Method. Full list of winners after the jump, which includes the critics’ top 10 films of 2011.

Though many are busy finalizing their predictions for the Best Actor and Best Picture Oscar categories, the Costume Designers Guild today announced nominees for excellence in wardrobe. The nods are split into three categories: contemporary, fantasy, and period. Among the films singled out are superhero fare like X-Men: First Class and Thor, blockbusters franchises Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and dramatic critical favorites like Drive and The Descendants. Personally, I’m thrilled to see the excellent work in X-Men: First Class singled out, and I’m still waiting for a reasonably priced way to own Ryan Gosling’s ridiculously cool jacket from Drive.

Hit the jump to see the full list of nominees. The winners will be announced on February 21st, and the nominees for the upcoming 84th Annual Academy Awards will be revealed this coming Tuesday, January 24th.

The nominations for the 27th Annual Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning with The Artist and Take Shelter each nabbing five nominations. In addition to The Artist and Take Shelter, Drive, 50/50, The Descendants, and Beginners will duke it out for the top prize. Absent from the Best Feature list is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, though the film was recognized in Best Supporting Male (Corey Stoll) and Best Cinematography. Also of note, Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes landed nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Male for Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Ryan Gosling and Woody Harrelson were both singled out in Best Actor for Drive and Rampart respectively.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominations. Recognizing the best in independent film, the awards will be handed out on February 25th, the day before the Oscars.

Yesterday we unveiled our picks for the top contenders in the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories for the upcoming 84th Academy Awards. Today, we’re taking on Best Actor and Best Actress. Though it’s still relatively early in the race, we’ve got some surefire contenders and a couple of clear frontrunners for the top acting categories. In addition to Academy darlings like George Clooney and Meryl Streep, we’ve seen some extraordinary performances from relative newcomers likes Elizabeth Olsen and Michael Fassbender. As I stressed yesterday, it’s still pretty early so things can definitely change between now and February, but there are certainly some clear frontrunners in these two races already. Hit the jump to see find out how everyone stacks up.

[This review is a re-print of my review from the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival]

Lars Von Trier‘s Melancholia opens in magnificent, operatic fashion. Birds fall from the sky, strands of light stream forth from the finger tips of Kirsten Dunst, the ground sinks beneath Charlotte Gainsbourg‘s feet and then a bigger planet obliterates our planet. This is all beautifully shot, set to classical music from a booming orchestra, and played in slow motion. It’s a prelude to the film’s big ideas, terrific performances, and thoughtful examination of what it means to be happy and if happiness is even worth pursing. But for all of its grandiosity and introspection, Melancholia never manages to strike an emotional connection.

Should you choose to follow the end, this article will lead you to three new posters.  The first is for Haywire, Steven Soderbergh’s spy actioner led by MMA superstar Gina Carano.  The second is a motion poster for Melancholia, which lights up the faces of stars Kirsten Dunst and Alexander Skarsgard with pretty little twinkles.  The last is for The Divide, a post-apocalyptic thriller which traps nine strangers in a New York basement following a nuclear attack.  All three posters and more info on each movie after the jump.

New posters have gone online for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse and Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia.  War Horse continues to be a tough sell mainly because the lead character is a horse and the horse doesn’t talk.  You can put Mr. Ed in your World War I drama, Mr. Spielberg, but a non-talking horse?  How will that play in Peoria?  At least the poster is pretty-looking.

As for Melancholia, it’s a collection of character posters plus one interesting addition.  Von Trier gets his own poster.  It’s the first time I’ve seen a director who wasn’t also an actor in the movie get his or her own character poster.  Of course, Von Trier is a bit of a character and his poster even bears a fake seal proclaiming “Official Persona non Grata – Cannes 2011″.  Hit the jump to check out the posters.  War Horse opens December 28th.  Melancholia hits OnDemand on October 7th and opens in theaters on November 11th.

Lars von Trier’s depression is well-documented. He’s a visionary plagued by his own personal demons. His fears and phobias have kept him out of the skies and the rush of international film promotion. In 2007 they even led him to say, “basically, I’m afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking.” His depression was so crippling, in fact, that it had made him “a blank sheet of paper” that year, unable to create. Luckily, his struggles did not keep him from the directorial chair. The self-proclaimed “melancholy Dane” returned to work and dug to the very depths of empathy with his harrowing Antichrist, and now he’s dared to display his emotional demons front and center with the apocalyptic Melancholia. My review after the jump:

Last year’s Fantastic Fest was– as I’ve heard it always is– a complete blast, with Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse offering up all the food, booze, and genre movies that anyone could ever want over the course of seven glorious days.  The 2010 lineup was pretty awesome (films like I Saw The Devil, the “whatever happened to that movie?” horror flick Mother’s Day, Rubber, and many, many others), but the lineup for 2011′s Fantastic Fest is even more impressive:  Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, Tom Six’s The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence, (Edit: we’ve been asked to remove all references to Bobcat Goldthwait’s God Bless America in this article, as the film’s publicist tells us the film won’t be screening as part of Fantastic Fest), and a whole bunch of movies about hitmen are going to screen this year.  But that’s not all Fantastic Fest has on offer!  Read on to see the full list of awesome films headed our way at the end of the month…

With the summer movie season officially a thing of the past and many awards season contenders bracing at the bit to reach general audiences, we figure now is a good time to breakdown some of our most anticipated films of the fall. After the jump, you’ll see that Adam and Jason have taken the honor of presenting the five films each is most looking forward to catching along with some basic info on the flicks and a brief explanation of why they chose the ones they did. Hit the jump to check out their lists and be sure to use the comments section to share your own most anticipated films.

Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia opens in magnificent, operatic fashion.  Birds fall from the sky, strands of light stream forth from the finger tips of Kirsten Dunst, the ground sinks beneath Charlotte Gainsbourg’s feet and then a bigger planet obliterates our planet.  This is all beautifully shot, set to classical music from a booming orchestra, and played in slow motion.  It’s a prelude to the film’s big ideas, terrific performances, and thoughtful examination of what it means to be happy and if happiness is even worth pursing.  But for all of its grandiosity and introspection, Melancholia never manages to strike an emotional connection.

The U.S. trailer for writer/director Lars von Trier’s Melancholia has landed online. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgård and John Hurt, the film pits Justine and Michael’s (Dunst and Skarsgård) wedding against the backdrop of the end of the world. As I’ve written before, I’m not hopelessly devoted to von Trier’s previous work, but Melancholia looks beautifully reflective and I can’t wait to check it out.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. Melancholia premieres on VOD on October 7th, hits U.K. theaters on October 30th and will enjoy a limited theatrical release in the U.S. beginning on November 11th.

The UK trailer for Lars von Trier’s upcoming sci-fi/disaster drama Melancholia has landed online. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård and Kiefer Sutherland, the film features Justine (Dunst) and Michael’s (Skarsgård) wedding taking place against the backdrop of impending doom. I can’t claim to be a huge fan of von Trier’s previous work, but everything I’ve seen from Melancholia has intrigued me. It looks beautifully tragic and, for whatever reason, kind of nostalgic to the point that I can’t wait to see it.

Check out the UK trailer after the jump. Click here to watch the first trailer from the film. Melancholia will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month as well as the New York Film Festival and Fantastic Fest. It hits UK theaters on October 30th before getting a VOD release in the United States on October 7th. It will receive a limited theatrical release in the U.S. beginning on November 11th.

New posters for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Melancholia, and Abduction are now available online. Beginning with Ghost Rider, the film stars Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, and Ciaran Hinds. The pic centers on Cage’s reprised Johnny Blaze who, while kicking it in Eastern Europe, is called upon to stop the Devil (Hinds) from taking human form. Although I prefer the teaser promos found at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, this new sheet seems effective enough in positioning the film as a grittier take on the character than its predecessor. The new Melancholia poster is essentially the full, hi-res shot of a Kirsten Dunst image we seen back in April while the Abduction sheet features star Taylor Lautner running from a city skyline.

Check out each of the posters after the jump. Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance opens on February 17th, 2012. Written/directed by Lars von Trier, Melancholia will hit VOD platforms on October 7th before opening in theaters on November 11th. Directed by John Singleton, Abduction will be released on September 23rd.

New images have gone online for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, the bird-watching comedy The Big Year, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Hit the jump to check out all the images along with synopses and brief descriptions for each film.