• Off the Carpet picked out the likeliest runners in a highly malleable Best Supporting Actress race.

• We checked in on the Best Animated Feature race, where it seems we may be looking at a three-nominee field after all.

• Away from the awards beat, the week’s big news was the casting of Tom Hardy in Christopher Nolan’s next Batman venture.

• The Academy formally revealed the list of 65 contenders for Best Foreign Language Film.

• This was just one topic of conversation in this week’s busy episode of Oscar Talk, which saw Kris and Anne joined by Guy and indieWIRE’s Peter Knegt.

• As our coverage of the London Film Festival kicked off, this week’s Long Shot column pondered the fate of fest opener “Never Let Me Go,” and other prestigious awards-season misses.

• Tech Support took a return visit to this year’s Best Cinematography race.

• Julian Schnabel’s critically panned “Miral” completed its awards-season flameout as The Weinstein Company booted it into 2011.

• We were given an exclusive insight into the casting of potential Best Supporting Actor player Sam Rockwell in “Conviction.”

• Kris was wowed by Jim Carrey’s work in the long-postponed “I Love You, Phillip Morris.”

• After “Blue Valentine” controversially received the rating last week, this week’s list rounded up some of the most notable NC-17 films of the past two decades.

• Life Without Oscar continued its examination of what was acceptable in the 80s.

• “The Social Network” held the top spot at the box-office, with “Secretariat” inspiring innumerable “slow out the gate” puns.

• And finally, at least one Oscar race got properly under way as the Academy announced the eight films longlisted for the Best Doumentary Short award.

[Photo: Moviebuzzers.com]

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• OFF THE CARPET: Heading into the home stretch
• WEEKLY WRAP: Nomination week
• Five things I learned from the Golden Globes
• THE LONG SHOT: A new year wishlist