The best vaguely Oscar-related feature online today is Variety’s “Directors on Directors” gallery, in which notable filmmakers comment on other directors’ work that most stood out to them this year. Obviously, it’s one big back-patting session, but it’s the occasionally surprising combinations that make it interesting. It’s not hard to see why Peter Bogdanovich would be so keen on Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” or Michael Mann on “Captain Phillips,” but I wouldn’t necessarily have expected Ben Affleck to single out Nicole Holofcener’s “Enough Said.” “Her direction is void of spectacle, distraction or maudlin sentiment,” he says. “She directs with the humanist, realist sensibility of Renoir.” Also cool: Ryan Fleck on Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines,” and plenty more. [Variety]

More director-on-director love: at the Rome Film Festival, Wes Anderson gushes over “Gravity” and says he would make a 3D film. [Screen Daily]

The New York Film Critics’ Circle has set their voting date for Tuesday, December 3. [Deadline]

Tim Grierson on how Alexander Payne has cornered the market in male weepies. [Deadspin]

“The Butler” is a fictionalized take on a true story, but just how much so? Very, says historian Alex von Tunzelmann. [The Guardian]

Matthew McConaughey explains how he turned his career around. (I don’t think I’m ready for “McConaissance” to become a word. [LA Times]

Steven Hyden on the “Inside Llewyn Davis” soundtrack, and why it’s a tall order to match that of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” [Grantland]

Teenagers across America are rejoicing, for they can now see “Philomena” unaccompanied. [HitFix]

A strangely defeatist take by Robert Koehler on why festivals are overly concerned with world premieres. So, only six film festivals get good premieres? (And Venice isn’t one of them?) [Indiewire]

Good piece by Scott Foundas on the potential impact of rules changes in the foreign-language Oscar race, and the puzzling possibility of “Blue is the Warmest Color” entering next year. [Variety]