In a recently-posted piece about the award-season competition as it now stands, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone offers the following about Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s Birdman: “Talking about this film is how the whole process gets dumbed down. No one should come out of Telluride saying Birdman won’t win because it will be too divisive. That might be true but they say that like it’s a bad thing. That it’s divisive means it’s doing SOMETHING RIGHT. It’s pushing buttons, challenging its audience. In short: delivering brilliant, groundbreaking, unforgettable CINEMA.

“Remember cinema? Remember when movies were judged on how great they were rather than their so-called ‘Oscar potential’? Think about what James Rocchi always says about how little he cares about the Oscar race because of WHO THEY ARE. Remember who the Oscar voters are, he meant. Remember how little what they think actually matters. If they huddle up to a film like Birdman (or if they had for Inside Llewyn Davis last year) that makes THEM look GOOD, not the other way around. They need to catch up to the artists, have their own realities shaken a bit, be given something other than a warm blanket and a cuddle and a goodnight kiss from mommy saying it will all be all right.

In a 9.10 piece called “Deathbed State of Film Criticism Plays Key Role in Endless Awards Prognostication,” Fishbowl NY‘s Richard Horgan suggests that awards-blogger coverage by the top few is…well, it’s a little complex as he acknowledges the death of old-style film criticism as practiced by Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel, which is nothing to jump up and dance about, but he’s being more or less complimentary toward myself and a few others.

“If you filter the enterprising work of folks like Anne Thompson, David Poland, Jeffrey Wells, Sasha Stone, Roger Friedman and Anthony Breznican through the prism of changing-with-the-film-criticism-times, awards season journalism becomes suddenly a very different animal,” he states. “It’s not just an attempt to keep the ad dollars rolling in. It’s also a clever and necessary way for film journalists to keep their opinions relevant. Not an easy feat in a world where most people no longer cite or read long-form reviews but rely instead on the briefest of Smartphone glances. In conclusion, film criticism is dead. And alive. And well.”

Here’s a HuffPostLive discussion (recorded at 4:30 pm Eastern) about how the Toronto Film Festival may impact award season. Hosted by Ricky Camilleri and featuring Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet and myself. The Theory of Everything was/is the festival’s big Best Picture contender, but it’s not on the level of Birdman and doesn’t try to be — it plays its own game. Nothing else that played here challenges Birdman either. You can take that to the bank. We also kicked around Men, Women and Children, While We’re Young, Love and Mercy, The Judge, Nightcrawler. I was intending to mention Mike Binder‘s Black and White but didn’t…brilliant.

Lisa Cholodenko‘s Olive Kitteridge, a four-hour adaptation of Elizabeth Strout‘s novel about a somewhat testy New England math teacher (Frances McDormand) and her marriage to a small-town pharmacist (Richard Jenkins), will debut on HBO over two nights — Sunday, 11.2 and Monday, 11.3. Bill Murray obviously costars; ditto Zoe Kazan and John Gallagher, Jr. Produced by Tom Hanks‘ Playtone.

I went to see Daniel Barber‘s The Keeping Room last night, mostly due to prodding from Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn. I’m not sorry I saw it as Barber and particularly dp Martin Ruhe, who collaborated on Harry Brown, are fans of flavor and especially handsome, subtly-lighted photography. It’s given a classy treatment with period trappings (rural South in 1865, the end of the Civil War) and a few meditative detours. The latter refers to interminable dialogue scenes that are only half-decipherable due to the actors speaking in a kind of whispery Southern drawl fry (especially when Hailee Steinfeld has the floor…good God). But the film is basically a cabin in the woods horror-violence flick about evil, almost-foaming-at-the-mouth Union soldier invaders trying to defile and murder three Southern women (Brit Marling, Steinfeld, Muna Otaru). Kohn bought into it but I didn’t. There isn’t the slightest trace of half-sensible motivation or recognizable humanity driving the bad guys (Sam Worthington, Ned Dennehy) — they’re just doing the old Jason Voorhees thing with a couple of rapes thrown in plus some personality sauce, period clothing, old rifles and so on. Marling delivers the most substantial performance but that’s almost damning with faint praise in this context. Say it again: I hate, hate, hate “evil” behavior that lacks a semi-discernible motive. Cut away the art-film pretensions and it’s clear that The Keeping Room is pandering to the slobs who like their exploitation tropes the way low-rent Los Angelenos like their pickles and mayonnaise at Fatburger. Final warning: Beware of filmmakers who love burning things (wagons, homes) around dusk — it’s a sure sign of hackery.

I was assured several months ago by producer Neal Dodson that J.C. Chandor‘s A Most Violent Year would definitely be diving into the award-season melee. So where is it and what’s the word? Still deeply in post, I was told last night at the A24 party at Michael’s on Simcoe. But the first teaser will pop sometime next week. Set in 1981 Manhattan and focusing mainly on a married couple (Abel and Ann Morales) played by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year is allegedly not that violent. It’s basically a good, strong, super-tasty Sidney Lumet film, I was assured. More relationship-driven than anything else. The relative lack of shootings and face-beatings may disappoint the primitives who would pay to see it for precisely that element, but them’s the breaks. Chandor (All Is Lost, Margin Call) is not a panderer — he makes complex, real-deal, human-scale films. The release date will be late in the year, I was informed. Costarring David Oyelowo (just pronounce it “oh-yellow”), the great Albert Brooks plus Alessandro Nivola, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ashley Williams, etc.

Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain in J.C. Chandor/’s A Most Violent Year.