Since becoming managing editor of iamROGUE over a year ago, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to some of the most accomplished filmmakers of all-time including Francis Ford Coppola, John Carpenter, Lawrence Kasdan, Guillermo del Toro, J.J. Abrams, and Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. So you could imagine my delight recently when I was invited, along with several other members of the press, to attend a press conference with one of the most celebrated directors in the history of cinema … Woody Allen!

Allen, who very rarely does press, was in Los Angeles last week promoting his latest film To Rome with Love, which was the opening night film at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival and begins playing in theaters on June 22nd. The movie follows-up last year’s Midnight in Paris, which earned Allen an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and was also nominated for Best Picture. In fact, the director has now won four Oscars in total and has helmed such classic movies as Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Husbands and Wives, Bullets Over Broadway, Mighty Aphrodite, Everyone Says I Love You, Deconstructing Harry, Sweet and Lowdown, Match Point, Scoop, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

To Rome with Love features another all-star “Woody Allen Cast” including Alec Baldwin (The Departed), Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful), Jesse Eisenberg (30 Minutes or Less), Greta Gerwig (Lola Versus), Ellen Page (Juno), Italian actress Alessandra Mastronardi, Italian tenor Fabio Armiliato, and Allen himself, as well as Penelope Cruz (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides), Alison Pill (Goon), and Judy Davis (The Ref), who have all worked with the director before. The film’s plot revolves around a number of different people in Italy, some American, some Italian, some residents, some visitors, and the romances, adventures and predicaments they get into.

Hey, Woody Allen fans, the trailer for the writer-director's next film, To Rome With Love, is viewable now and it is deliciously Allentastic, so much so that it actually includes the man himself in an increasingly rare onscreen role.  He's but one member of a rock-solid ensemble whose separate tales of romance, eccentricity, and comedy play out on the streets of the historical Italian city.

With Oscar ballots due earlier this week, and only a few days to go until the Oscars on Sunday, February 26th, here is how things stand in the race for the gold... 

We have but a week until the orgiastic display of congratulations, accolades, pomp, and circumstance that is the Academy Awards finally puts an end to the awards season that so consumes us for months, regardless of foreign wars, humanitarian crises, or potentially Orwellian national legislation.  That leaves one week of breathless speculation based on the other awards being trotted out.  The latest professional organization to unveil its winners and contribute to that speculation is the Writers Guild of America.

At Miramax, Harvey Weinstein justifiably gained a reputation as something of an Oscar kingmaker, very effectively earning Academy Awards for often unlikely or unexpected features.  Last year, The Weinstein Company, the professional home of the brothers Weinstein, campaigned well on behlaf of The King's Speech, and it's looking increasingly likely that the distributor can do it again this year with The Artist.  See, French helmer Michel Hazanavicius just won the feature film award at the 2012 Director's Guild of America Awards.

The American Cinema Editors have announced the nominees in both film and television for the 62nd Annual ACE Eddie Awards.  The Eddies aren't just the most adorably named honors of the season, they're one of the many awards given out by professional guilds, as opposed to critical organizations.  So add the Eddies to list of officially-announced Guild nominations like those of the Art Directors, Producers, Writers, Directors, and Cinematographers.

The ACE nominated movies are definitely in keeping with the pattern that has emerged over this year's awards season.  Like last night's Golden Globes, the nominees are divided into dramatic and comedic categories.  Drama-wise, the only sort-of surprise is War Horse, edited by regular Spielberg collaborator Michael Kahn – a surprise not because of any fault with the movie, but because it's getting shut out more than expected.  Hugo, The Descendants, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and Moneyball round it out, while The Artist, Midnight in Paris, Bridesmaids, Young Adult, and My Week With Marilyn are all nominated as comedies.

Tonight, the Beverly Hilton was the location for the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards, with British comedian and The Office co-creator Ricky Gervais hosting for the third consecutive year.  Before last year's ceremony, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the 300-member body throwing the shindig, was the subject a lawsuit from their former publicist, the latest in a long string of allegations regarding Globes-based corruption.  This year, though, it's all red carpet pomp and what have you, as well as Gervais doing his job by making fun of people.

Though the Globes are largely accepted as irrelevant (what with corruption and all that),  they're nonetheless the most publicly popular awards, and they also get people all hyphy for the Oscars the following month.  And in that spirit, let's check out the winners at this year's Golden Globes, including Christopher Plummer's continued domination of the awards season for his supporting performance in Beginners, Martin Scorsese's win for Hugo, Octavia Spencer getting love for The Help, and Alexander Payne's The Descendants taking the big prize for a dramatic film.

With just days to go before the Oscar nominations are announced on January 24th, it is now time to narrow down the predictions to 5 in each category. Rather than list each name alphabetically, the contenders have been listed in the order of their likelihood of receiving the nomination. In each category, the 5th slot could possibly go to a “dark horse” instead…

The Directors Guild of America has announced the five nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film at the 64th Annual DGA Awards.  Last week we saw three separate professional organizations formally announcing their awards contenders, with the Art Directors Guild, Producers Guild, and Writers Guild all dropping press releases.  To those folks who assiduously track every blip on the awards season radar, though, the DGA Awards are a bigger deal than any of those.  Why?  Because the winner of this DGA honor has only ever failed to correspond with the Best Director Oscar six times, and the directorial Oscar also tends to go to the Best Picture winner.

Pop quiz, hotshot.  Which season is it?  If you answered "Winter," then you were technically correct.  If you answered "Awards Season," then you're also correct, albeit to a lesser extent.  And you might want to dial back your focus on movie awards.  While critical organizations have been handing out honors for the last month, this week has seen the unveiling of nominees from professional guilds, which tend to be more reliable predictors of future Oscar pomp.  First we had the Producers Guild nominations, followed by yesterday's announcement of the Art Directors Guild nominees and now the Writers Guild of America have issued their 2012 screenplay nominations.