For the last month or so, many a critical organization has announced its nominations or honorees for congratulatory awards.  Now that we're in 2013, however, it's time for the professional guilds to start rolling out their nominations, which are of interest to awards season obsessives since guild awards are often more reliable indicators of Oscar glory.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that the Writers Guild of America have thrown down their nominees for the 2013 Writers Guild Awards, and there are a few curveballs on the list.

Most of this year's prestige pictures and Oscar-fodder have yet to be strategically released and promoted through huge behind the scenes awards campaigns, but already – even before the annual candy gorging of Halloween – we can hear the faint bugle call of awards season.  In the coming months, the interminable song pomp, circumstance, and self-congratulation will grow louder and louder. 

But for now, it's just starting, as evidenced by the announcement of nominees for this year's Gotham Independent Film Awards.

Anyone hoping that Bryan Mills will be able to just enjoy his next vacation without having to kill a lot of anonymous bad guys should hang up those hopes right about now.  Similarly, anyone hoping that Liam Neeson would return to more dignified thespianism is going to have to get comfortable with the ass-kicking Neeson of late, as Taken 2 opened big enough this weekend to virtually ensure Mills's special set of skills being utilized in Taken 3.

The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's first film since There Will Be Blood in 2007, has now expanded to just under 800 theaters nationwide, and will hopefully continue rolling out across this nation of ours.  It's a movie that has dropped an unusual but totally welcome number of trailers, and Anderson has kept it up with one last hypnotic, magnificent trailer.

Last weekend was the slowest in years at the domestic box office, so this frame in the middle of September was bound to look better by comparison.  Nad though it was still down by 18% from the same weekend last year, the number one movie this weekend earned more than twice the amount of the number one movie last week.

You'd think Jonny Greenwood would be content as the lead guitarist and keyboardist of Radiohead, one of the most influential and admired musical acts of the last two decades.  Just to prove his coolness, though, Greenwood now composes the score for some really cool films, including those of Paul Thomas Anderson.  His simultaneously haunting, gorgeous, and unnerving The Master score is now available for a listen online.