Robert Redford may not be eligible for any awards at Cannes this year where his new film, All Is Lost premiered to strong response out of competition on Wednesday night, but if the reaction on the Croisette was any indication, he could be headed for the Oscars. The film, in which Redford is the only actor playing a man stranded at sea when his sailboat springs a huge leak, is a tour de force for the star and it won a 9-minute standing ovation at its debut tonight. Even the return of the rain that has plagued this festival could not put a damper on the mood of the filmmakers, Universal International (releasing overseas) and Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions (releasing domestically on October 18th). It is clearly an awards season play, not only for Redford in a role unlike any he has played but also Oscar nominated writer/director J.C. Chandor (Margin Call) who proves his first film was no fluke and shows a remarkable ability to pull off this one-man show with real filmmaking skill.Most reviews that came in after the afternoon press screening were very upbeat, making it even more of a head-scratcher as to why this film wasn’t put in competition. Redford certainly would have given the top notch list of Best Actor contenders at this year’s Cannes a real run for their money. At 76 years old he took on a hard, very grueling physical role with virtually no dialogue and pulled it off big time.

The network and its sister outlets MSNBC and the Weather Channel will focus Tuesday on coverage of today’s massive twister that cut a huge swath of destruction near Oklahoma City. Along with live coverage from devastated Moore, Okla., on NBC’s Today and MSNBC’s morning programs, the broadcast network will air a one-hour special hosted by Brian Williams live from the scene at 8 PM ET (delayed in other time zones). That will pre-empt a recap show of The Voice featuring the top 10 performances; a new live episode of the singing competition will air as scheduled in the 9 PM hour. Meanwhile, the Williams-anchored NBC Nightly News is slated to run in its regular half-hour starting at 6:30 PM and is not expected to be expanded. Today’s Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, Natalie Morales and Willie Geist also will report from Moore, as will Lester Holt, Ann Curry, Kate Snow and others. MSNBC anchors reporting live from suburban OKC will include Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Chris Jansing and Thomas Roberts.

2013 Oscars
                    “Argo to win it all.” This has been the Oscar pundit thesis statement ever since Ben Affleck was left off the Best Director list and promptly blew over the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe Awards in a whirlwind weekend of Oscar analysis. Every award Argo has gathered since that weekend last month has added to the confirmation bias. Affleck and his film established themselves as the storyline of the 2012 Academy Awards.
But what about the several months leading up to the nominations? Remember when Les Miserables  jumped ahead with a rapturous New York premiere? Remember when The Master exploded into the race with a series of secret screenings set up by Paul Thomas Anderson himself? Remember when Lincoln was predestined to win Best Picture, because War Horse lost last year? The storyline of 2012 isn’t Argo; it’s confusion.
And in keeping with that storyline, Movieline presents the “What The What?!” Oscars, a list of out-there-but-plausible winners in the hopes for a less predictable and more exciting show. All of my picks below go against the Argo storyline, as if it wasn’t coming at all. Just like in the film, Argo was a red herring all along.
If all goes according to confusion, here’s what could happen:
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
“What The What?!” pick: Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook
Based on previous ceremonies, this is potentially the first award of the night, and what better way to start off the night than ruining everyone’s ballots? An Anne Hathaway win has been too obvious, and when something is too obvious, voters tend to look for a way out. The same rule has been slowly killing Lincoln all season, which doesn’t play into Sally Field’s favor. The next choice would be Amy Adams in The Master, but here’s where we’ve got the Weinstein factor: somewhere in the season, Harvey looked at his prospects and picked the easy Silver Linings Playbook over the bold Master. Jacki Weaver’s nomination was baffling to begin with, and that same campaign leads to a win.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
“What The What?!” pick: Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
This category has been swirling around the dependably exceptional Hoffman all season.  Christoph Waltz is picking up some late backlash with people commenting that what he does in Django is identical to what he won for in Inglourious Basterds. Tommy Lee Jones didn’t win a lot of support with a grouchy turn at the Golden Globes, not enough Academy voters bought Robert De Niro’s Katie Couric cry-fest, and Alan Arkin’s performance is not all that different from his turn in Little Miss Sunshine. Hoffman’s steadiness wins the day.
BEST ACTRESS
“What The What?!” pick: Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Just like Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain, Watts is on her second Academy Award nomination. Lawrence has a natural cockiness that charms the Internet crowd, but fmakes her a difficult Oscar campaigner. Chastain was similar to Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker, delivering a revelatory, powerhouse performance that’s overshadowed by the film itself (I’m curious if Bigelow will ever direct someone to an Oscar). The storyline behind Emmanuelle Riva is that she’ll turn 86 on Oscar Sunday, but old and accomplished does not guarantee anyone an Oscar. (Six years ago, they overlooked freaking Peter O’Toole, so there’s the love shown for the emeritus crowd.). Watts is someone current, who the voters seem to love, and wins based on a familiar role in a tear-jerker film.

As we all wait patiently for the first proper, moving glimpse of Hugh Jackman and co in The Wolverine (the trailer’s coming soon, we’re told), the film’s Twitter account has put out a new picture of the hairy hero.

The tweet itself reads, “The past is always behind you, but the memories still remain,” which seems both fitting and unusual for Logan, since he’s traditionally cursed with something of a dodgy noggin on that front.Still, The Wolverine finds him looking to escape his demons in Japan, and instead running afoul of a whole heap of new trouble. As director James Mangold told Empire exclusively last month, “We pick up Logan in a very isolated state, full of self-loathing. He is sought out by a young Asian woman for reasons he doesn’t fully understand, who is asking him to follow her to Japan where he is meant to reconnect with someone from his past.””And what you’ll come to find is that this is someone he spent prison-time with in Nagasaki. And the legacy of that experience – effectively Logan saved him – is that this man is on his deathbed, and is looking to give him a gift, to thank him for the life he’s had.

“But this gift draws Logan into a very complex and very unexpected world within both contemporary Japan and, to some extent, the feudal history of Japan.”You can read more here and in the current Empire, which resides in newsagents for another week and in digi-space on the iPad. The Wolverine is out on July 26.

The burning question for this year’s Academy Awards has changed.
It had been “How can ‘Argo’ win best picture without a director nomination for Ben Affleck?”; now it’s “Where did all that early Oscar support for ‘Lincoln’ come from  –  and how much of it is left?”
As Affleck and “Argo” march from one honor to the next  –  sweeping key prizes at the Critics’ Choice Awards, Golden Globes, Producers Guild, Screen Actors Guild and, as of Saturday, the Directors Guild  –  Steven Spielberg and “Lincoln” have increasingly taken on the slackjawed sorrow of those thunderstruck congressmen on the losing side of the 13th Amendment.
“It’s been an incredible year for movies,” Spielberg said at the DGAs as he was presented with his nominees medallion, before the night’s results were announced. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t occasionally wish it was a less incredible year.”
Of course, supporters of other films still cling to their cases for best picture. “Silver Linings Playbook” is an edgy yet heartwarming pic seemingly in the Academy’s sweet spot, and it remains the first in three decades with nominations in four acting categories. “Zero Dark Thirty,” a darling of critics groups, is finally seeing the controversy surrounding its depiction of torture diminish, and “Life of Pi” will forever seem the quiet storm to be reckoned with.
The Academy could still go its own way  –  with the 12 nominations for “Lincoln,” the most of any film, it kind of already has, and at minimum, the film is likely to come away with multiple individual honors. Academy voting on the Oscars doesn’t begin until Friday and lasts until Feb. 19. 
But with balloteers in Hollywood’s guild power centers indicating their support is elsewhere (admittedly, this includes people from the TV world), “Lincoln” and its fellow rivals to “Argo” essentially need a heap of votes from filmmaking’s below-the-liners: cinematographers, editors, hairstylists and others.
Having more overall noms than “Argo” is consoling to the “Lincoln” team, but at this point a best-picture victory for any other film would be a stunner. Yet “Argo” has changed the conversation. It’s like an NCAA men’s basketball team that staggered during the regular season but is running the table during March Madness, led by a coach with the magic touch. Valvano, meet Affleck.
But I lied: There’s still a burning question about “Argo”: not how many Oscars the film may win but how few.
However big a force it has become in the best picture competish, “Argo” is still faced with tough challenges in every other Oscar category. Even should Academy voters crown it with the final award of the night Feb. 24, “Argo” could end up with the fewest victories of any Oscar champion in quite some time.
For example, “Argo” will get shut out of at least 17 out of 24 categories, including that pesky director one, making Affleck the seventh director to win at the DGAs without winning at the Oscars.
That leaves, in addition to best picture, the following possibilities: supporting actor (Alan Arkin), adapted screenplay (Chris Terrio), film editing (William Goldenberg), original score (Alexandre Desplat), sound editing (Erik Aadahl, Ethan Van der Ryn) and sound mixing (John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, Jose Antonio Garcia).
Arkin is in a powerhouse category in which he’s vying against Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones and Christoph Waltz. Terrio has to top the scripts from “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Life of Pi,” “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”
Then there’s the quartet of below-the-line awards. The best picture momentum for “Argo” could provide lift in these categories, but it hardly seems assured that the film will win all four, especially in this widely acknowledged rich year of film in which there might be sentiment to try to spread the wealth.
So where does that leave us? “Argo” could go seven for seven. Or, it could find a place on this list of best picture winners:
• Last to win four Oscars: “The Departed” (2006)
• Last to win three Oscars: “Crash” (2005)
• Last to win two Oscars: “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952)
• Last to win one Oscar: “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935)
Just think about this scenario for the night, even if only for wicked amusement. One film wins an Oscar here, another wins another there, and suddenly in the final moments of the ceremony, “Argo” is looking for the biggest Oscar  –  and its first.