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Last night's new Doctor Who episode, The Girl Who Lived, marked the debut of guest star Maisie Williams as Ashildr. The Girl Who Lived was the first entry of a two-part episode, with the actress returning for next week's The Woman Who Lived, airing Saturday, October 24 on BBC and BBC America. Today, BBC revealed two new trailers for The Woman Who Lived, featuring Maisie Williams and series star Peter Capaldi.

The Woman Who Lived is set in 1651 England, where the deadly Highwayman 'The Knightmare' and his sidekick stalk the dark streets of London. But when they find loot that's not of this world, they come face to face with The Doctor. Who is the Knightmare in league with? And can the Doctor avoid the hangman's noose and protect Earth from a devilish betrayal? Rufus Hound and Todd Kramer also guest star in next week's new episode.

The previous episode, The...

Over the course of each awards season, I’m privileged to cross paths with hundreds of fascinating people who work in the film industry. A small percentage are known the world over, but the rest have names and faces which wouldn’t necessarily mean anything even to people in their own communities, despite the fact that they play, in many ways, an equal or greater role in shaping the world of film. Last awards season, I decided that it would be a worthy and worthwhile pursuit to periodically highlight a few of their stories as part of an effort to take visitors to this site behind-the-scenes of the awards season and introduce them to some of its most influential and colorful characters.

Today, I’m pleased to introduce the first installment of the series that will do that, “A Day in the Life,” and its first subject, veteran publicist Carol Marshall...

Dear Readers,

Tonight brings an end to the 2010-2011 awards season, which has easily been the most exciting, exhausting, and gratifying of the 10 that I’ve covered.

It led me to the Tribeca Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival… to the Gotham Independent Film Awards, the Critics Choice Movie Awards, and the Golden Globe Awards… to moderate Q&As that sandwiched me between some awe-inspiring duos (from Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek to Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale to Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis); and to interview roughly 50 remarkable talents (spanning the spectrum from Claire Bloom to Janet Jackson to Justin Timberlake to the Coen brothers to Aaron Sorkin). None of this, however, would have been possible without the kindness and support of a lot of other people.

Like Oscar winners, Oscar bloggers would be terribly remiss...

After yesterday’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival Directors Panel, I had the opportunity to chat in the Lobero Theatre’s green room for about 15 minutes with one of the six panelists, Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”). The 38-year-old TV-turned-film director was the surprise winner of the DGA Award last month, and — based on that prize’s long history of correlating with the best director Oscar — it seems likely that he will be taking the stage at the Kodak Theatre in three weeks, as well. Still, even the biggest of film buffs know relatively little about him, so I set out to learn as much as I could during our brief time together.

Over the course of our conversation, we discussed…

his early moviegoing experiences/directorial inspirations (“Ironically, I got my film education from television”) his early work/lessons learned as a TV director for the BBC, for which...

Prior to Friday night’s presentation of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Virtuoso Award, I had the opportunity to chat in the Lobero Theatre’s green room for about 30 minutes with the only one of the five honorees whom I had not previously interviewed at length, John Hawkes.

Hawkes, 51, is a veteran character actor who has been receiving the highest acclaim of his 25-year career — including SAG and Oscar nominations for best supporting actor — for his performance as “Teardrop,” Jennifer Lawrence’s menacing, meth-addicted uncle, in Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone.” Over the course of our time together, he and I discussed his work on that film (and the somewhat jarring impact that its success has had on his life and career), as well as the long road leading up to it.

He’s someone who you may recognize from any number of productions from the past...