Because one seemingly interminable night of bloviating and self-congratulatory pomp just isn't enough, the awards season must span the three months leading up to the Oscar Ceremony in late February.  During those three months, many a critical organization drops their own list of honorees from cinema of the last year, and all of these awards contribute to the narrative of "buzz" for a film or performance film leading up to the Academy Awards.  One such set of honors are the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and today, the nominees for the 18th annual awards were announced, with the winners set to revealed on Sunday, January 29, 2012.

We've got more than a year to wait until The Great Gatsby renders F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel in 3D for the first time in theaters, but Warner Bros has gone ahead and released the first two official images from the film.  Over the last few months, photos from the Sydney, Australia set have shown the central characters of Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Nick Carraway, played respectively by Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire in predictably sharp costumes by Catherine Martin, but these stills give a better idea of the film's look,with director Baz Luhrmann cranking up the old school Hollywood glamour on the faces of his exceedingly attractive leads.  Just look at that first image of DiCaprio and Mulligan, with the dramatic lighting, impeccable hairstyles, and promise of melodrama.  This is going to be one handsome movie.

Just how much does the movie industry like awards?  So much so that lists must be compiled of favorite movies that don't actually exist.  That's not exactly true, but we're talking about the Black List, an annual compilation of the finest unproduced screenplays of the year (not a McCarthyist list of suspected Communists whose lives are now ruined).  To put it in perspective, the 2008 list included both 50/50 and The Descendants.  The seventh list was released today by Black List founder Franklin Leonard, and it's topped by The Imitation Game, a biopic of Alan Turing, the mathematician who developing the Turing Test and had a strange, strange existence.  That film will probably get made at Warner Bros, possibly with David Yates directing.

With the 84th Academy Awards only three months away, it’s time to go on record with some Oscar predictions. The race is officially on, with front-runners beginning to take the lead and dark horses waiting in the wings to shake things up. Several movies have still not yet been released, but every film that hopes to qualify for the Oscars will be in theaters by the last day of December. Let's take a look at how the six major categories are taking shape, with the top ten contenders fighting for five coveted slots…

After a few years of development and a stumble or two, Warner Bros' live action Akira adaptation is proceeding apace.  Most of what we've been hearing as of late has been concerned with casting, as Garrett Hedlund is set to play Kaneda, and offers are out to Kristen Stewart, Ken Watanabe, and Helena Bonham Carter for supporting roles.  While much attention has been paid to the whitewashed casting, what of Akira's actual story?  How will it incorporate both Katsuhiro Otomo's manga series and his seminal 1988 anime feature?  How will it be different from either?  What could very well be an official, if broad, story synopsis is now making the rounds, and offers some insight on these questions, as well as big potential changes to Kaneda and his relationship to Tetsuo.

Having starred in Saving Private Ryan and produced both Band of Brothers and The Pacific, two-time Oscar winner and certifiable American treasure Tom Hanks has demonstrated an obvious enthusiasm for World War II as cinematic subject matter.  All three of those projects took place in the midst of the armed conflict, but Hanks might head back a bit further chronologically for a new project.  Hanks is now is developing In the Garden of Beasts, the true story of the U.S. ambassador to Germany in 1933, based on the narrative non-fiction bestseller by Erik Larson.

Last week we saw the first trailer for the 3D rerelease of Titanic, the 1997 hit that became the biggest movie of all time, until director James Cameron decided to one-up himself with last year's Avatar, which usurped the story of youthful love aboard a doomed ocean liner.  That trailer was like a little time capsule taking us back to those heady days during which the world was infatuated with the film, thanks to Cameron's technical virtuosity, Leonardo DiCaprio's dreaminess, Kate Winslet's impeccable nudity, and Celine Dion belting out "My Heart Will Go On."

Today, though, we have a new featurette on the theatrical reissuing of Titanic, featuring the man himself, James Cameron, discussing the film's lasting emotional resonance and the thinking behind its conversion to 3D.  Cameron's reputation for perfectionism and ambition is well-earned, and when he promises that Titanic will provide a faultless post-conversion 3D experience that is equivalent to a feature filmed with 3D cameras, you take Big Jim at his word.

Hear ye, hear ye, a new batch of photos from the Sydney, Australia set of The Great Gatsby are now online, and they ably demonstrate what The Aviator, Titanic, J. Edgar, and Gangs of New York made abundantly clear: Leonardo DiCaprio is very good at wearing period costumes.  Last month we saw some set photos of Tobey Maguire in costume as narrator and sidekick Nick Carraway, but these new images give our first look at DiCaprio as title character Jay Gatsby, as well as Carey Mulligan as the object of his inadvisable affections, Daisy Buchanan.  All three actors portraying the central figures in the story (though to be fair, Nick doesn't really do too much) look just as sharp as you'd expect in their costumes designed by the reliably great Catherine Martin, with DiCaprio seeming to capture the stylish arrogance of a showboating Gatsby.

After every Quentin Tarantino movie comes out, I hold my breath for however long it takes him to commit to his next project, hoping fervently that he doesn't repeat the six year gap between Jackie Brown and Kill Bill: Vol. 1.  The last several months have been one giant exhale as he preps Django Unchained, his Civil War-era Spaghetti Western that happens to be set in the South and follows a liberated slave on a righteous mission to find his beloved wife.  Most every story related to the film has been focused squarely on casting, but now there's concrete news on the technical side, as we know who Tarantinto has recruited to shoot and cut his latest tale.

Up until Avatar last year, Titanic was by far the most successful movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation, naturally), and since James Cameron is all about three dimensions nowadays, we're getting a theatrical 3D rerelease of the film early next year.  In order to let the world know about said rerelease, a trailer and poster for Titanic 3D are now online and ready to view.

Time has heightened many of the film's flaws, and the backlash against Titanic was vicious enough that is easy to forget just how impossibly popular the film was after its 1997 debut.  This trailer, though, works overtime to push its audience's collective nostalgia-button, and if the sight of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as crazy kids falling in every shade of love doesn't get you, then James Horner's score might just do the trick.  And if that doesn't work, Celine Dion and the unabashed melodrama of "My Heart Will Go On" will be the nostalgia iceberg colliding with your vulnerable heart.