Welcome to Oscar Talk.

In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

The first awards show of the season has declared nominations as the Gotham Independent Spirit Awards have announced. We discuss.

“Flight” closed out the New York Film Festival last weekend and we finally have the chance to discuss it on the podcast. I like it a bit more than Anne but we both agree it’s not necessarily an Oscar slam dunk.

One film that is unequivocally an Oscar slam dunk, though, is Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” which popped up as a “secret” screening at NYFF and which we both found striking and, ultimately, surprising.

Another week, another category as we move on into the extremely lacking Best Supporting Actress field.

And finally, reader questions. We address queries regarding the potential for overkill in Oscar marketing and perceptions of screenwriting vis a vis movie musicals.

Have a listen to the new podcast below. If the file cuts off for you at any time, try the back-up download link at the bottom of this post. You to subscribe to Oscar Talk via iTunes here. And as always, if you have a question you’d like us to address on a future podcast, send it to OscarTalk@HitFix.com.

“Here I Come” courtesy of Stuart Park.