Last night I attended a q & a between Silver Linings Playbook director-writer David O. Russell and Jeff Goldsmith. Russell was fresh and fluid as ever, a nonstop power-pulser. He doesn’t “talk” as much as he channels thought streams and turns on the spigot and out they come. I recorded the whole thing but Goldsmith said “no, no, wait…not yet…Wednesday!” I said “okay, man, whatever, but now is NOW. This stuff doesn’t age well. You have to put it out there. Time’s a wastin’.”

David O. Russell, Jeff Goldsmith at L.A. Film School — Sunday, 12.16, 9:55 pm.

After chatting for an hour-plus, Russell suggested that they take questions from the audience. He sensed that the time had come, he told Goldsmith — “These people are restless, man.”

Sony Classics is opening Pablo Larrain‘s No — an all-but-certain nominee for Best Foreign Language Feature — on 2.15.13, and here, I gather, is the first English-language trailer. I called it “one of the smartest, well-layered and riveting real-life political dramas I’ve seen in ages” after seeing it in Cannes. Indiewire‘s James Rocchi called No “exactly the kind of film you hope to stumble across at Cannes…[something] well-made, superbly acted, funny, human, warm, principled…fiercely moral and intelligent.”

I’m sorry but I’ve said many times that the standard-issue “free-falling from a great height” schtick is a stopper for me. Jumping off 200-foot cliffs into the ocean will kill you as surely as it killed Tony Scott. Don’t even bring up the male-protagonist-falling-from-a-tall-building shot — it’s been done so often there should be an automatic DGA fine for this. JJ Abrams knows how to play the big-action-movie game much better than I, but why can’t there be thrills and threats that are realistically digestible?

Urban-action-fantasy heroes don’t drop cyanide capsules or shoot themselves in the temple or walk in front of speeding cars because we all know these things kills…but they can jump off any cliff or tall building they want and it’s always “wheee!” Video-game perversion.

The Newtown revulsion of the last three days is very much in the air, and I don’t think this is going to do any favors for Django Unchained, which [NON-SURPRISING SPOILER] is drenched in blood towards the finale…bodies on the floor, blood on the walls. It would be one thing if Tarantino was an earnest, hard-core, straight-on filmmaker in the Michael Haneke mode. But he’s all about “attitude”, flip humor, irony and references to ’70s movies, and to pour blood on top of that? Doesn’t feel right in this climate.

It seems provincial and small-minded to say this, given the much larger ramifications, but I think Newtown has probably hurt Django a lot.

Right now, I’m told, it’s Tarantino vs. David O. Russell vs. Tom Hooper for the fifth Best Directing Oscar nomination. This assumes that Steven Spielberg, Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Ang Lee are locks…but are they? I think QT is out right now and that the divided reaction to Les Miz speaks for itself, and that the five finalists are Spielberg, Russell, Affleck, Bigelow and Lee.

90% of the clips in this mashup are from disposable, disreputable ADD/CG films with the usual emphasis on shouts, wallows, emotional explosions and “kapow!” impact cutting. No explortion of themes, thoughts, social current, echoes. 2012 was a much more nourishing year than is indicated here. I’ll wager than the editor, genrocks, is youngish, geeky, hyper-ish.

Cheers and thumbs-up to the Indiana Film Journalists Association for handing its Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay awards to Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly‘s Safety Not Guaranteed — a fairly novel and highly agreeable little indie. I know that sounds a little patronizing but I don’t mean to indicate that. I never riffed on it much, but I saw it…what, last summer? 80% appproval.

On the other hand…whoa! The IFJA giving their Best Director prize to Quentin Tarantino for an undisciplined and absurdly overlong wank like Django Unchained? I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous. A few more calls like this and their credibility will be in jeopardy.

Jessica Chastain took the Best Actress prize for Zero Dark Thirty, and Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for Les Miserables.

Silver Linings Playbook‘s Bradley Cooper and Lincoln‘s Daniel Day Lewis tied for Best Actor. Lincoln‘s Tommy Lee Jones won Best Supporting Actor.

David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook won big at Sunday night’s 17th annual Satellite Awards presentation in Beverly Hills, snagging awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Russell), Best Actor (Bradley Cooper), Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence) and Best Editing (Jay Cassidy).

I think it’s asking too much of Glenn Kenny to pen some kind of dismissal or condemnation piece every time Russell’s film wins an award. SLP hating is a pro bono thing, after all, and Kenny has a job to hold down, bills to pay. He needs to divvy up the responsibility with at least one other Silver Linings Sourpuss, or better yet two.

Les Miserables‘ Anne Hathaway was named Best Supporting Actress and Skyfall‘s Javier Bardem nabbed the Best Supporting Actor award. Mark Boal won Best Original Screenplay for Zero Dark Thirty and David Magee‘s adaptation of Life of Pi was named Best Adapted Screenplay.

Junketeers gathered this morning at Manhattan’s Ritz-Carlton hotel for a Django Unchained press conference. The stars were director-writer Quentin Tarantino + Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, Walton Goggins and Jonah Hill. The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Scott Foundas moderated.

For whatever idiotic reason the sound file conversion is way too problematic. It should be a simple process but it’s not. My fault entirely. I lack the patience. Next time.

From HE correspondent Clayton Loulan: “Tarantino made no promises about releasing a longer cut of the film” — WHAT? — “and said he fully stood behind this cut and wanted the film to play around the world before making any decisions that might change the story.

“QT spoke of Sidney Poitier as a ‘father-figure’ who had to remind him ‘you can’t be afraid of your own movie,’ as he weighed the idea of shooting some of the scenes with slaves in other countries such as the West Indies of Brazil, because he was troubled by the idea of asking hundreds of American actors to walk around through the mud, in chains.

“Waltz gave the least canned answer of the morning in response to a question regarding if there was any hesitation about working with Tarantino so soon after Inglorious Basterds. “There was no reunification, and there was no working again,” said Waltz. “[There] was just another mushroom of the fungus that was growing subcutaneously in me, all the time.”

“The conference ended, in an unlikely fashion, with everyone singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Sam Jackson, Jonah Hill, Jamie Foxx and Don Johnson. They were all brought cake that nobody touched, until the junketeers wondered aloud if they could take it home with them.”

Loulan warning: “There are a few spoilers in the recording and it does begin in the middle of a response from DiCaprio.” Wells interjection: If you can hear it.

As far as I can foresee we’re looking at 16 possible Oscar-calibre films due in 2013. I can predict one thing for sure: between his lead roles in Saving Mr. Banks and Captain Phillips Tom Hanks is looking at an almost certain Best Actor nomination. The only other guarantee is that Lee Daniels’ The Butler will be a fiasco, but you knew assumed that going in.

In the order of likely quality, the probable picks of 2013:

(1) John Wells‘ August: Osage County;

(2) Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska;

(3) Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity;

(4) George Clooney‘s Monuments Men (a.k.a., cousin of The Train);

(5) Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips;

(6) Martin Scorsese‘s Wolf of Wall Street;

(7) Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day;

(8) Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis;

(9) Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher;

(10) John Lee Hancock‘s Saving Mr. Banks;

(11) Ridley Scott‘s The Counselor;

(12) Spike Jonze‘s Her;

(13) Spike Lee‘s Oldboy;

(14) Luc Besson‘s Malavita;

(15) Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave;

(16) Baz Luhrman‘s The Great Gatsby (which might have issues).

If you want to be liberal about it there is also Terrence Malick‘s two ventures — the film formerly known as Lawless plus Knight of Cups (neither of which might not be released until 2014 or 2015…you know Malick).

One could also include Ben Stiller‘s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Nicholas Winding Refn‘s Only God Forgives, Ron Howard‘s Rush and David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars. (Thanks to HE readers bfm and Jeremy Baril.)

Not to mention Neill Blomkamp‘s Elysium, Joseph Kosinski‘s Oblivion, Robert Schwentke‘s R.I.P.D., Steven Spielberg‘s Robopocalypse, Sam Raimi‘s Oz: The Great and Powerful, Ruben Fleischer‘s The Gangster Squad, Guillermo del Toro‘s Pacific Rim and David Fincher‘s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Captain Nemo.

The critics, columnists and commentators who’ve trashed the 48 frames-per-second (i.e., HFR) presentation of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey should be ashamed of themselves. They are simply about blocking the doorway, and to me that’s reprehensible. For me, 48 fps greatly lessened the agony of sitting through Peter Jackson‘s 166-minute-long film because the added detail is at least something to sink into in the absence of the usual basics that make a film enjoyable.

The naysayers know this and they still put the process down because it’s new. They want to bathe in familiar bathwater. That’s really the only reason.

Okay, they have two reasons. One, 48 fps doesn’t look like the cinema they’ve known all their lives. And two, it’s too vivid and detailed and video-like, and therefore not filmy or painterly enough. But for inherently empty and intentionally synthetic tentpole films — lame, insipid, FX-driven, comic-book-based — 48 fps is a Godsend. Empty crap is far more tolerable when you can at least delight in the clarity and the specificity. 48 fps is needless, I feel, when it comes to any kind of quality-level fare, but it’s exactly what the doctor ordered when it comes to movies that are torture to sit through.

And in throwing out the bathwater of 48 fps, the naysayers are also throwing out the baby of HFR cinema by any calibration. This is their greatest sin. Because everyone will be cool with HFR at 30 frames per second (the frame rate used by Todd AO in the mid ’50s), and it will work with any film of any mood, focus or attitude. If everyone is saying “no” to 48 fps, which I strongly disagree with, let’s at least talk about 30 fps. It’s a significantly better thing than 24 fps (smoother, more fluid, less pan blur), and yet it looks cinematic.