The short film awards have been handed out as well as yet another acting award, something of a surprise for many: Tilda Swinton in "Michael Clayton." (Which begs the question -- is this a harbinger of Best Picture?)  Oh, and we finally got to the art direction category.  Check out our commentary here.

Well, the first two surprises of the night (one of them a true shocker) have landed.  The guys are PISSED about "Transformers" missing Best Visual Effects (told you -- net geeks).  "Sweeney Todd" also upset "There Will Be Blood" for Best Art Direction (though we ran out of time to discuss it), while the night's first acting honor was also handed out.  Here's what we had to say.

By the way, according to Robert, what Javier Bardem basically said in Spanish was, to his mother, "this is for my parents, this is for my grandparents, your parents, this is for Spain," etc.

•  The local ABC affiliate sits down with Kevin O'Connell and Greg P. Russell to discuss the art of sound mixing and their history with Oscar. [ABC]

•  Steve Chagollan talks to this year's honorary Oscar recipient, art director Richard Boyle. [Variety]

•  Anne Thompson rounds up a few pundit predictions. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Sasha Stone, meanwhile, starts her big ole' compilation chart. [Awards Daily]

•  Jon Stewart speaks!  Bill Carter does the reporting at the Gray Lady. [New York Times]

•  Edward Havens handicaps the Oscar race. [Film Jerk]

•  Jeffrey Wells keeps this "Juno" thing going with one guy's assessment of some unquantifiable British sentiment. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Don't think about taking an embed, biatch!  The Oscars get tubed. [YouTube]

•  Michele Norris talks to the two poor souls from Price Waterhouse tasked with counting all 6,000 ballots. [NPR]

•  Pete Hammond hits the nail on the head: it's a year of upsets; why not Oscar, too? [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil tosses around the "actor rule" reagarding Best Picture winners. [Gold Derby]

•  The Gurus o' Gold do not expect "No Country for Old Men" to lose at all on Sunday. [Movie City News]

•  Gurus 2.0 offer up their final guesses as well. [Movie City News]

•  Nathaniel Rogers hearts the fact that love can survive in Hollywood, spotlighting the 34 year marriage of Sissy Spacek and "There Will be Blood" production designer Jack Fisk. [The Film Experience]

•  Anne Thompson writes up Saturday night's Art Directors Guild Awards. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Rachel Abramowitz checks in with Tom Wilkinson, enjoying his great winter romance with the screen. [The Envelope]

•  David Carr explains the fascination with Oscar. [The Carpetbagger]

•  David Denby hearts the Coen brothers. [New Yorker]

•  Sasha Stone points us to the AP's Oscar week countdown. [Awards Daily]

•  Tom O'Neil concocts some Best Actor odds, wonders if George Clooney can pull an upset (uh...no). [Gold Derby]

•  Kim Voynar takes a stab at predicting the Oscar outcome... [Cinematical]

•  ...and explains why the Best Foreign Language Film category is something of a, well...a joke this year. [Cinematical]

(A piece regarding last night's ACE awards will be on the way later in the afternoon.  Lots of fun, lots to discuss.  Sorry for the delay.)

Well, fresh off of winningat the Cinema Audio Society this evening, it seems "No Country for Old Men" also won in the contemporary category at the Art Directors Guild Awards.  The only guild award the film has conceded to another pic thus far is the ASC trophy, which went to Robert Elswit and "There Will Be Blood."

Speaking of "Blood," Jack Fisk and company won in the period category, perhaps on the way to doing the same at the Oscars, while "The Golden Compass" won in the fantasy category.

Variety reports.

I'll be attending tonight's Cinema Audio Society Awards at the Millennium Biltmore downtown and will try to post some commentary and pics from the event later this evening.

Greg P. Russell and Kevin O'Connell, of course, are trying not only for their first Oscar win this year, but for their first embrace from their peers in the society.  However, "No Country for Old Men" has become a popular choice in the guild circuit and, indeed, has been championed for its creative aural touches by the sound community as a whole.  So it'll be interesting to see how things play out.

Tomorrow the American Cinema Editors dish out their kudos.  From what I'm hearing, "The Bourne Ulatimatum" should reign triumphant there and not the Coens' Roderick Jaynes composite, believe it or not.  I think the Oscars might follow suit there.

And finally, the Art Directors Guild will hand out awards in three categories.  The period field will be the one to watch, where three Oscar nominees square off against one another: "Atonement," "Sweeney Todd" and "There Will Be Blood."

Actor in a Leading Role Daniel Day-Lewis
Art Direction Jack Fisk (Art Direction); Jim Erickson (Set Decoration)
Cinematography Robert Elswit
Directing Paul Thomas Anderson
Film Editing Dylan Tichenor
Best Picture JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers
Sound Editing Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Written by Paul Thomas Anderson

(This wraps up our nominees series.  Hopefully it brought back some good memories for viewers and voters alike.  Four more days until polls close!)

Finally I came across the panels for the crafts behind "No Country for Old Men."  Miramax has put each of them up as a handomse effort to generate buzz and support for the cinematography, sound and art direction of the piece.  Check it out.

The Hollywood publicity machine is well-oiled at the start of this week, to be sure.  I count at least four studios with events lined up this evening, and who knows what shin-digs I haven't been invited to today.  We all make our blacklists.

First, there's Picturehouse's celebration of Marion Cotillard, Oscar nominated for "La Vie en Rose," if you're into a poolside gathering at the Chateau Marmont.

If a nuts and bolts dialogue is more your speed, Paramount Vantage has set up the "There Will Be Blood" crew for a screening and Q&A over at the Harmony gold Theater on Sunset.  Film editor Dylan Tichenor, cinematographer Robert Elswit, sound designer Chris Scarabosio, supervising sound editor Matthew Wood, and set decorator Jim Erickson -- nominees all of them -- are expected to attend.

Down the street at Book Soup, screenwriter Christopher Hampton is participating in a book signing of his Oscar-nominated adaptation, "Atonement," while Ariana Huffington will be hosting a screening of Charles Ferguson's "No End In Sight" at the Paley Center for Media out in Beverly Hills, for those really jonsing for a political experience, what with Super Tuesday right around the corner.  Huffington just hosted a similar "No End" event over the weekend at the Hotel Plaza Athenee in New York.

Oh, and Tamara Jenkins was just at Book Soup yesterday reading from her "Savages" screenplay.

All of these events come on the heels of last weekend's spotlight of the below the line nominees from "No Country for Old Men" -- coverage of which I've yet to stumble across, by the way.  Come on.  Somebody was there, right?

Anyway, lots of media exposure for lots of deserving contenders this season.  Some might think no more than usual, but the agression on the part of campaigners and strategists seems to have slid up a notch to me this year.  Lucky us, eh?

Art Direction  Dennis Gassner (Art Direction); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)
Visual Effects  Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood

Actress in a Supporting Role  Ruby Dee
Art Direction  Arthur Max (Art Direction); Beth A. Rubino (Set Decoration)

Actress in a Supporting Role  Saoirse Ronan
Art Direction  Sarah Greenwood (Art Direction); Katie Spencer (Set Decoration)
Cinematography  Seamus McGarvey
Costume Design  Jacqueline Durran
Music (Score)  Dario Marianelli
Best Picture  Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)  Written by Christopher Hampton

Actor in a Leading Role  Johnny Depp
Art Direction  Dante Ferretti (Art Direction); Francesca Lo Schiavo (Set Decoration)
Costume Design  Colleen Atwood

This is a guild that nominates 15 films in three categories, so it's a little difficult to judge how they may or may not translate in the actual Art Directio category (beyond knowing that contemporary films are almost always left out of the mix).  But it is certainly beneficial to see which films have clear insustry support.

The usual suspects are here: "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood."  No "Juno" or "Into the Wild," but neither film showcases this craft.  However, with that in mind, "The Bourne Ultimatum" continues a stealthy trek through the guild precursor circuit by showing up in the contemporary category today.

"Atonement" gets its first guild mentions since the ASC mention at the beginning of the week (and what a long week it must have seemed to the Focus camp in that regard).  "American Gangster" also found its first industry love since two SAG nominations last month.

Finally, it has to be encouraging for Miramax to have "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" surprisingly pop up in the contemporary field.  As it continues to make a case for a Best Picture nomination, these guild citations only fuel the cause.

Here are the nominees:

PERIOD FILM:

"American Gangster" (Arthur Max)
"Atonement" (Sarah Greenwood)
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Guy Hendrix Dyas)
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (Dante Ferretti)
"There Will Be Blood" (Jack Fisk)

FANTASY FILM:

"The Golden Compass" (Dennis Gassner)
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (Stuart Craig)
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (Rick Heinrichs)
"Ratatouille" (Harley Jessup)
"300" (James Bissell)

CONTEMPORARY FILM:

"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Peter Wenham)
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Michel Eric and Laurent Ott)
"The Kite Runner" (Carlos Conti)
"Michael Clayton" (Kevin Thompson)
"No Country for Old Men" (Jess Gonchor)

Another feature from Variety this week, the Eye on the Oscars: The Look special, which focuses on design elements in 2007's awards hopefuls.  There are 8 films featured specifically, in addition to two separate feature pieces.

First, Kathy A. Macdonald takes a look at the mixture of authenticity and post-modern spin in the year's frontier pics: "3:10 to Yuma," "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "There Will Be Blood."  The costume and production design heads from each are quoted.

Addmie Morfoot, meanwhile, looks at the spectrum through the other lens, detailing depictions of and diversity on location in the Big Apple.  "Across the Universe," "American Gangster," "The Brave One," "Enchanted," "The Hoax," "I Am Legend," "Michael Clayton" and "We Own the Night" are all featured.  I didn't realize how much NYC played into this year's product until I read that piece...interesting.

•  More awards talk from The Paper of Record as Dennis Lim digs into the audio details and silent eccentricities of the "No Country for Old Men" soundtrack... [New York Times]

•  ...Mark Harris spotlights the benefits of seamless editing... [New York Times]

•  ...and production designer Jack Fisk offers up some of his sketches for "There Will Be Blood." [New York Times]

•  John Horn gets into the box office of "Charlie Wilson's War" and the neccessity of a light-hearted stance to get it there. [Los Angeles Times]

•  Nathaniel Rogers takes in a conversation between Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson in NYC.  Kris Tapley is jealous.  So jealous. [The Film Experience]

•  Anne Thompson rounds up the awards announcements of the week, plus looks at Buzzmeter and Gurus o' Gold updates, with a dash of her own speculation thrown in for good measure. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Tom O'Neil has some DGA thoughts on tomorrow's announcement. [Gold Derby]

•  Edward Copeland surveys the hisory of Best Actor Oscar winners from worst to best. [Edward Copeland on Film]

•  Sasha Stone previews tonight's Critics Choice Awards. [Awards Daily]

First and foremost, a happy and safe New Year to you all.  With 2008 coming in, oh, about fifteen and a half hours (for us west coasters, anyway), I thought it would be beneficial to offer up a list of important dates.  A lot of key events are slated for the next few weeks and the Oscar season will pretty much be full steam ahead from here on out.

The guilds are the focus of January, all of which are more likely to forecast the Oscar situation more than any critics group thus far, of that you can be sure.  Taking a measure of the guilds is key when it comes to gauging apparent disinterest ("Cold Mountain") or surprising unanimity for films that might have otherwise been considered far-fetched in the big race ("Capote," "Little Miss Sunshine").

Here's what to look for next month:

January 3: Five finalists for USC Scripter award announced.
January 7: BFCA hosts the Critics Choice Awards (Live on VH1).
January 7: VES nominees announced (Visual Effects Society).
January 7: ASC theatrical and TV nominees announced (American Society of Cinematographers)*
January 8: DGA feature film nominees announced (Directors Guild of America).
January 9: Winners of USC Scripter awards announced.
January 10: CAS nominees announced (Cinema Audio Society).
January 10: DGA documentary nominees announced.
January 10: WGA screen nominees announced (Writers Guild of America).
January 11: ACE nominees announced (American Cinema Editors).
January 11: ADG announces nominees (Art Directors Guild).
January 12: AMPAS nominations polls close, end of Oscar voting.
January 13: HFPA hosts Golden Globe Awards (Live on NBC...maybe).
January 14: PGA motion picture and long-form television nominees announced. (Producers Guild of America).
January 16: AMPAS announces seven bake-off finalists for Best Visual Effects category.
January 16: BAFTA nominations announced (British Academy).
January 18: CDG nomees announced (Costume Designers Guild).
January 22: Oscar nominees announced for the 80th Annual Academy Awards (Live on E!, et al).
January 26: DGA Awards.
January 27: SAG Awards (Live on TNT, except on west coast).

Whew.  Hope you're ready...

*This is listed as "week of" at the ASC's official website, so expect a date to be nailed down in due time.

I came across this little story by our own Tim Gray today and it stoo out to me as something to keep in mind.  After all, with all the prognosticating and vacuum-inhabiting ponderings, it's worth taking into account who is actually voting for Oscars:

The Oscarcast always provides surprises, but the biggest surprise about the organization is that it's so consistent.

Just before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences mailed out Oscar ballots on Wednesday, the org finalized tallies for each branch, taking into account new members, deaths, dropouts and those who chose to go into retired-membership status.

Since the 2006 mailing, the number of voters has actually dropped -- by exactly one.

There were 5,830 voters last year; unsurprisingly, each branch was stable in its numbers. Six of the 16 branches recorded a slight increase; the biggest jump was in the visual effects branch, which inched up by nine voters.

Of the branches that saw slight decreases, the biggest drop was in the art directors branch, which by coincidence dropped nine.

More of these!

The Washington, D.C. critics voted today, giving their Best Picture honors to "No Country for Old Men."  So in one day, it's the Coens vs. P.T.A across four awards-giving bodies.  INTERESTING.

Here's the full list of D.C. winners

Best Film: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Actor: George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"
Best Actress: Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
Best Ensemble: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Best Breakthrough Performance: Ellen Page, "Juno"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, "Charlie Wilson's War"
Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Best Animated Feature: "Ratatouille"
Best Foreign Language Film: "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly"
Best Documentary: "Sicko"
Best Art Direction: "Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"

So that's 3 for 4 for Amy Ryan today.  I didn't see that coming, I have to say.  Aaron Sorkin's win for "Charlie Wilson's War" is a bit out of left field, given that "No Country for Old Men" racked up three other wins (including a second score for ensemble acting).

No precursor love so far for "Atonement" and "American Gangster."

The Envelope grabbed the scoop on the LAFCA winners.

First and foremost, Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" got a giant kiss and a HUGE Oscar boost from the group, taking down four wins, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

There was no love for "No Country for Old Men," which stuns me, frankly.  Not even in the runner-up arenas.  I spoke to a colleague last week who predicted the critics groups might shy away from the film with the NBR tapping it as the best film of the year, but I shrugged that thought off in a hurry.

Anyway, regardless of all of that, this show of solidarity for Anderson's film is significant to say the least.  The film came pretty close to sweeping, grabbing three runner-up mentions in addition to the four wins.

Also, Amy Ryans grabbed her third supporting actress win in as many awards announcements.  Nothing so far for the perceived frontrunner coming into the season, Cate Blanchett in "I'm Not There" (aside from a runner-up mention from the LAFCA).

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" looks to have been the group's second-place fave, coming in just behind "Blood" in the Best Picture and Best Director categories.  And as expected, the LAFCA went against the grain (typically willful) by going with Vlad Ivanov's supporting performance in "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."  It's a good choice, because Ivanov is so unsettling in the film.

Variety has a write-up.  Here's the full list of winners:

Best Picture: "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: Frank Langella, "Starting Out in the Evening")

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
(runner-up: Anamaria Marinca, "4 Months, 3 Months and 2 Days")

Best Supporting Actor: Vlad Ivanov, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
(runner-up: Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild")

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
(runner-up: Cate Blanchet, "I'm Not There")

Best Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"
(runner-up: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood")

Best Animation: (tie -- boooo) "Persepolis"/"Ratatouille"

Best Foreign Language Film: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
(runner-up: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly")

Best Documentary/Non-fiction Film: "No End in Sight"
(runner-up: "Sicko")

Best Production Design: Jack Fisk, "There Will Be Blood"
(runner-up: Dante Ferretti, "Sweeney Todd")

Best Music: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, "Once"
(runner-up: Jonny Greenwood, "There Will Be Blood")

Best Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
(runner-up: Robert Elswit, "There Will Be Blood")

Best Douglas Edwards Indie Award: "Colossal Youth" directed by Pedro Costa 

Best Career Achievement: Sidney Lumet

Paramount Vantage has added costume design sketches and production design sketches of "The Kite Runner" to their VantageGuilds.com website.  Give it a look.  It could go a long way in garnering branch support for the film, or, at the very least, assist in flooding the beat with material for a film that could be warm-hearted enough to push into Best Picture contention.