Remember how just last week we told you that Hugh Jackman was cast in Lee Daniels’ upcoming film, Selma, about the three marches in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement? Now, Vulture has the scoop about what role Jackman will be playing: the hot-tempered sheriff Jim Clark, who sparked international controversy for his actions. Jackman also seemed to realize that he had just inadvertently given them a major bit of news, as he said, “You’re the first person I’ve told, so I’m not even sure if I was meant to say that. So there you go, that’s enough trouble for one night.”

The Aussie actor, who hosted the Oscars last year, was a fan of Daniels’ film Precious, which he felt was the best of the year despite not winning Best Picture last weekend (it did however, win Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay). He also divulged what he thought of this year’s hosts and a story about him getting naked for acting class. Meanwhile, with the recent rumor of Robert De Niro set to play the Governor of Alabama as well, it is apparent that Daniels is quickly rising up the ranks of Hollywood directors. With shooting planned for May, casting news is going to be heating up so stay tuned for more.

When the Oscars are finally handed out tomorrow night, Lee Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire will probably lose out to that band of blue horse cats or Bigelow’s bomb squad, but at the Independent Spirit Awards it pretty much rode to a complete sweep.

At Friday night’s ceremony hosted by comedian Eddie Izzard, Precious won five awards, including best feature, best lead actress for Gabourey Sidibe, best supporting actress for Mo’Nique, best director for Daniels and best first screenplay for Geoffrey Fletcher, all well deserved in this movie buff’s opinion. The only one likely to prevail on Sunday night is Mo’Nique, but we tune in to find out, right?

In other big categories, Oscar favorite Jeff Bridges took the best actor prize for his work as Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, and Woody Harrelson, who had a rather amazing year, took the best supporting actor prize for The Messenger. Hit the jump to hear what the winners had to say and to see a full list of the prizes handed out.

If director Doug Liman gets his way, you should be hearing chants of “Attica! Attica!” everywhere you go in the near future. The director of Swingers, The Bourne Identity and other flicks is now moving into more serious territory with his eyes on directing a movie about the 1971 uprising at that New York state prison.

Working with a script from Precious:Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (man is that a long title) scribe Geoffrey Fletcher, Liman will re-create the four-day confrontation between prisoners and guards that capture the attention of the entire nation. For Liman, the project has a personal appeal, with his father, the late Arthur Liman, having served as chief counsel to the New York State Special Commission on Attica Prison and co-authored the commission’s report on the uprising.

Sounds like a perfect match of director and material to me. Hit the jump to hear more of what Liman had to say about the project and to find out what kind of spy games he’ll be getting up to even sooner.

Despite opening up the Best Picture race from five nominations to ten, this morning’s announcement of the 2010 Oscar nominations hardly had any surprises.  When the biggest shocker comes from the widely-unseen The Secret of Kells being nominated for Best Animated Feature, then the prediction system worked as it should.  That’s not to say that there’s nothing to be happy or disappointed about.  It’s just that with no surprises, that happiness or disappointment has probably been felt well in advance.  Personally, I’m jazzed that District 9 picked up a Best Picture nomination and I’m really bummed that Peter Capaldi wasn’t nominated for Best Supporting Actor for In the Loop.

But the race between Avatar and The Hurt Locker remains close.  Each film picked up nine nominations and so there’s no clear favorite to win the award.  Right now, Hurt Locker would seem to have a slight edge with its victories from both the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild.  But Avatar‘s box office numbers contribute to its status as does the mainstream acclaim for the film.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of nominees.  The winners will be announced at the 82nd Academy Awards on Sunday, March 7th at 8pm EST on ABC.

The Screen Actors Guild cast their votes for the best performances of 2009, and the results were announced on Saturday night.  Virtual Oscar locks Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique were honored for their supporting turns in Inglourious Basterds and Precious, respectively.  Golden Globe winner Jeff Bridges repeated here for his lauded role in Crazy Heart.  Sandra Bullock took home the award for best female lead in The Blind Side, adding some drama to what is now ostensibly two-horse race between her and Meryll Streep for the Oscar.  Poor Carey Mulligan.

On the TV side, critical darlings 30 Rock and Mad Men took home three awards: the duo of Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey swept the lead comedy awards, while Mad Men was deemed to be television’s best drama ensemble.  Michael C. Hall, fresh off a Golden Globe win, won for being the only great part of Dexter.  Freshman shows also found some love, as the youthful cast of Glee is the SAG’s favorite comedy ensemble, and Juliana Marguiles turned some heads with a starring role on The Good Wife.

Hit the jump for the full list, which also includes wins for Star Trek, 24, Kevin Bacon, and Drew Barrymore.

Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker won best picture and best director again today at the San Francisco Film Critics Circle (SFFCC) awards. The film has already been awarded with both honors by critics in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston.  Meanwhile, the Southeastern Film Critics Association did not give the film best picture, but did award best director to Bigelow.  I really hope that these are all signs that Bigelow will be the first female to win best director come Oscar time.

Other SFFCC winners included Colin Firth for best actor in A Single Man, Meryl Streep for best actress in Julie & Julia, Mo’Nique for best supporting actress in Precious, Christian McKay pulling a surprise win for best supporting actor in Me and Orson Welles, and Quentin Tarantino winning best original screenplay for Inglourious Basterds while Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach  received the award for best adapted screenplay for Fantastic Mr. Fox.

The full list of winners are after the jump.

Is it too soon to say that The Hurt Locker is the film to beat in 2009?  After being named film of the year by the LAFCA and the BSFC, the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) has added another accolade to Kathryn Bigelow’s intense war drama.  Bigelow herself also took yet another win for Best Director, while Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique each took home another accolade for Best Supporting Actor (Inglourious Basterds) and Best Supporting Actress (Precious), respectively.  George Clooney was named Best Actor for his performances in Up in the Air and Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is impressive considering the latter is only a vocal performance.  Speaking of Fox, the film pulled another surprise upset by taking Best Animated Film over Pixar’s Up following yesterday’s announcement that LAFCA chose Anderson’s stop-mo flick over Pete Docter’s delightful 3D adventure.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

Taking another step forward in the 2009 Oscar race, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker picked up Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Jeremy Renner), Best Cinematography, and Best Editing from the Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC) today.  As we reported earlier, Hurt Locker also took Best Picture and Best Director from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Also, like LAFCA, BSFC awarded Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor (Inglourious Basterds) and Mo’Nique for Best Supporting Acress (Precious).

Hit the jump for the complete list of the winners.

The major critics groups are beginning to make their voices heard for what they think are the best films of 2009.  Today, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) named Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker as their top film of 2009, with Up in the Air as their runner-up.  Bigelow also won for Best Director and the film was runner-up for Best Cinematography.

Other big winners include Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) for Best Actor, Yolande Moreau (Séraphine) for Best Actress, Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) for Best Supporting Actor, and Mo’Nique (Precious) for Best Supporting Actress.  There was also an interesting upset in the animation category with Fantastic Mr. Fox being named the Best Animated Film and Up taking the runner-up category, and Carey Mulligan landing the runner-up victory for Best Actress.

Hit the jump for the full list of winners.

If the world really does end on December 21, 2012, at least one guy is gonna go out happy. Director Roland Emmerich saw his latest disaster epic rake in an estimated $65 million domestically and over $160 abroad for a grand total of $220 million worldwide. That puts the film in the top ten international launches of all time. I always thought that Sony had made an odd choice by scheduling 2012 for a mid-November release. That’s the time of the year that we usually see more high-brow fare in theatres… and teenaged vampires, of course.  But it looks like the studio knew exactly what they were doing. Not only did 2012 manage to blow away all its early estimates, the tsunami of money the film is surfing this weekend brought a taste of summer blockbuster back to the box office.

It looks like Roland Emmerich had at least one more catastrophic hit left in him. 2012, the latest paean to exploding landmarks from the director of Independence Day, brought in a whopping $23.7 million on its opening day on 3,404 screens. That’s the highest opening ever for Emmerich and it puts 2012 on track for a weekend total of over $55 million – a figure that the box office hasn’t seen since mid-July. Second place went to Disney’s A Christmas Carol, down a reasonable 38% with $5.5 million. And though estimates have The Men Who Stare at Goats barely edging out Lee Daniels’s Precious for Friday’s third place, the momentum is all on the side of the indie sensation. The drama doubled its total gross just one day after expanding into 175 theatres. Check back tomorrow for full details on these films plus news on the box office fate of new releases Pirate Radio and Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

You know it’s the end of the year when there are more new releases per week than any one person could reasonably care about. Or maybe I should just speak for myself.  The first full weekend of November featured four new wide releases all boasting some major star power: “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” with Jim Carrey (times four), “The Box” with Cameron Diaz, “The Fourth Kind” with Milla Jovovich and “The Men Who Stare at Goats” with George Clooney.  And though no one film can be said to be a total washout this weekend, the A-listers fell short compared to the stunningly successful debut of Lee Daniels’ “Precious”. The indie sensation opened in just 18 theatres, taking in an estimated $100,000 per screen to make it the most-lucrative limited release of all-time.