Director Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 continues production apparently unconcerned about the number of set photos making their way around the web.  We recently brought you the first set images to crop up, followed shortly the first look at Shailene Woodley, presumably before her make-up transformation.  Today brings more set images of Sally Field as Aunt May and Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man/Peter Parker.

Also starring Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Paul Giamatti, Felicity Jones, Chris Cooper and Martin Sheen.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in 3D on May 2, 2014.  Hit the jump to see the new images.

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.

Yesterday, we showed you Part 1 of Zach Galifianakis‘ Between Two Ferns – Oscar Edition.  Today, Part 2 has gone online and features his interviews with Jessica Cheststain (0 Dark 30), Sally Field (Linkin Park), and Brad Lee Cooper (Silver Lining Cookbook).  Between the two parts, I enjoyed this one more because Galifianakis gets a little more time to play off his guest, especially his Hangover co-star Cooper. There’s also a special surprise by a certain Lewis.

Hit the jump to check out the latest episode of Between Two Ferns.

Earlier today, we reported that Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 began production in New York.  Now, we have the full press release that reveals the first official synopsis and the principal cast.  We knew that Paul Giamatti was in talks to join the production and can confirm that now, but his role has yet to be specified.  Another new name that joins the sequel’s cast is Colm Feore (Thor), but his role is also unspecified (Norman Osborn?).  Hit the jump to check out the synopsis and read the press release.

A new twenty-minute special on the making of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, titled, “Lincoln: An American Journey,” is now available to watch online.  The behind-the-scenes featurette chronicles the twelve-year journey to bring Lincoln to the screen with commentary from Spielberg, producer Kathleen Kennedy and stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field.  With twelve Academy Award nominations (the year’s highest), Lincoln is one of 2012′s standout pictures, therefore Lincoln: An American Journey is certainly worth a watch.  Hit the jump to check it out.

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.

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s drama Zero Dark Thirty continues its dominant critics awards path, as it has picked up two more Best Picture wins from the New York Film Critics Online and Boston Society of Film Critics groups, adding to its previous wins from the New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review.  Bigelow also won Best Director from both organizations, while Daniel Day-Lewis took home Best Actor for Lincoln.  Emmanuelle Riva won Best Actress from New York and Boston, while she shared the award in a tie with Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Los Angeles broke from the mold a bit by naming director Michael Haneke‘s devastating French-language film Amour the Best Film of the year.  They also awarded Paul Thomas Anderson Best Director for The Master and Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Dwight Henry the Best Supporting Actor honor in a couple of pleasant surprises.  Hit the jump for the full list of winners from all three critics groups.

The New York Film Critics Circle has kicked the awards race off in earnest, and the love was spread primarily between Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln.  The drama about the hunt for Osama bin Laden took home Best Picture, Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow, and Best Cinematographer, while Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln was awarded Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress.  The group also had a couple of left field choices with the Best Supporting Actor award going to Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike (alright, alright, alright) and Best Actress going to Rachel Weisz for The Deep Blue Sea.  McConaughey winning the trophy was a pleasant surprise, but Weisz’s win is a tad baffling.

Hit the jump to check out the full list of winners, and click here to peruse our recent Oscar Preview features.

Expanding into more theaters this weekend is Steven Spielberg’s Best Picture nomination shoo-in, Lincoln.  The period piece is less a cut-and-dry biopic of America’s 16th President, played brilliantly by Daniel Day-Lewis, and more of an examination of the burdens placed on Lincoln to keep a nation from falling apart while abolishing slavery and attempting to hold his personal life together. Lincoln also stars Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, David Strathairn, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lee Pace and Hal Holbrook.  For more on the film, here’s three clips, Dave’s review, a great trailer, and all our previous coverage.

At the recent Los Angeles press day I got to speak with Sally Field (she plays Mary Todd Lincoln).  She talked about what it was like to collaborate with Steven Spielberg and the rest of the cast, how she fought for the role, how much did she know about the behind-the-scenes turmoil trying to pass the 13th Amendment, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to watch.

As I write this review, we here in the States are approaching an historic Presidential election.   For many, the voting decision comes down to individual beliefs related to the economy and civil rights.  So it was with a familiar national context that I approached Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, a film as much about the man himself as it is about the fight to approve the 13^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery and thereby put an end to the Civil War.  Much as our 16^th President was equal to the task, so too was Spielberg in his effort to bring this story to the screen, complemented by the absorbing lead performance of Daniel Day-Lewis and the dynamic writing of Tony Kushner.  While the film missed on a few marks, Lincoln remains an engaging story full of heart, humor and conviction that remains culturally relevant even today.  Hit the jump for my review.

Three new clips have gone online for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.  The clips provide glimpses of conversational scenes throughout the film and feature President Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis), Mrs. Lincoln (Sally Field), Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and Robert Lincoln (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).  Taken individually, the clips give a nice suggestion of tone, visual aesthetic, character interaction and a bit of plot.  However, taken together, they reflect a core principle of the film, one that stresses the balance that Lincoln had to maintain, not only in his Presidential decisions, but in his role as a husband and a father.  Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tony Kushner’s dialogue and the superb performances all around make this a must-see movie.

Also starring David Oyelowo, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace and Jared Harris,  Lincoln opens on November 16th.  Hit the jump to view the new clips.

The weirdest part about the release of The Amazing Spider-Man was finding out that a lot of people didn’t like the Sam Raimi films. Not just the third film, which is – for the most part – reviled, but all of them. Marc Webb had the hard job of rebooting a franchise that was still fresh in audience’s minds, and did so with Andrew Garfield as the titular web-slinger, and Emma Stone as his girl Gwen Stacy. The approach mostly fails by trying to avoid being too much like the Raimi version. Our review of the Blu-ray of The Amazing Spider-Man follows after the jump.

Just in time for Election Day, a new international trailer for director Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln has been released, and it’s by far the best one yet.  This trailer actually delves into the central focus of the long-in-the-works drama—the passing of the 13th Amendment—and gives us a much better idea of what kind of biopic Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner have crafted.  Much of this trailer is reminiscent of The West Wing, with Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln and his advisers working to secure enough votes to ensure that the amendment will pass.  The trailer also teases the multitude of strong performances from the ridiculously talented ensemble, and I can’t wait to see the whole thing unfold onscreen.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Oyelowo, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes, Michael Stuhlbarg, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill, Jackie Earle Haley, Lee Pace and Jared Harris.  Lincoln opens on November 16th.

With Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man set to release on DVD/Blu-ray next week (it’s currently available on VOD), a new Honest Trailer has debuted just in time.  The trailer takes shots at Webb’s origin story and hilariously points out the film’s shortcomings, all in good fun.  We’ve had a wealth of news on The Amazing Spider-Man sequel as of late, with Jamie Foxx in talks to play the villain Electro, Shailene Woodley’s role as Mary Jane Watson and Steve’s recent interview with Webb, which revealed quite a bit about the upcoming film.

The Amazing Spider-Man stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Sally Field and Denis Leary.  Hit the jump to see the new honest trailer.