In a change of plans, Sony Pictures Classics will now campaign for The Invisible Woman star Felicity Jones in the best actress -- not best supporting actress -- Oscar category, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is making significant changes to simplify its electronic voting system, which got almost as much flack last awards season as the Obamacare website is currently receiving. The changes involve reducing the number of passwords required, making the VIN number assigned to each member invisible to users and making it easier to change passwords, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

The changes, developed over the past eight months since e-voting was used by the Academy for the first time to determine winners of the 85th Oscars, come in response to gripes from members who found the online voting website, offered as an alternative to a traditional paper ballot, difficult to navigate.

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival announced on Friday that it will honor Forest Whitaker with its eighth annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film. The honor will be presented to the Oscar-winning actor on Dec. 15 at a black-tie gala dinner at the Bacara Resort & Spa in Santa Barbara.

Are indies more a part of the Oscar race than usual this year or is our definition of indies looser than it used to be? It's hard to say, but, regardless, an unusually large contingent of this year's most serious Oscar contenders received Gotham Independent Film Award nominations Thursday morning.

Among those heading to New York's Cipriani Wall Street on Dec. 2 are best picture frontrunner 12 Years a Slave; best actor frontrunners Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years), Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club) and Robert Redford (All Is Lost); best actress frontrunner Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine); and best supporting actress frontrunner Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years). These contenders, which are all backed by major distributors and marketing campaigns, will compete alongside films that are indisputably true indies -- some truly great ones, such as Gimme the Loot, Short Term 12 and Upstream Color -- but, in all likelihood, lack the profile and/or resources to hang with them for the rest of the awards season.

C'est la vie, I guess.

STORY: '12 Years A Slave' Leads Gotham Awards Nominees 

In the decade-plus that I've been covering Oscar races, I've never seen anything quite like this year, in which major awards hopefuls have been dropping like flies.

The 17th Hollywood Film Awards, the first awards show of the 2013 film awards season, took place on Monday night at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. (Full disclosure: Dick Clark Productions, which shares the same parent company as THR, has an undisclosed investment in the event.)

The recipients of the Hollywood Film Awards are determined by founder and executive director Carlos de Abreu and an advisory committee. Thanks to the disclosure of this year's recipients in the weeks leading up to the gala ceremony, every big-name honoree showed up -- among them Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julia Roberts and Harrison Ford -- and many came with famous friends -- such as Robert Downey Jr., Jane Fonda and Sean Penn -- to present them with their awards. And some arguably advanced their case for even bigger awards to come by making the most of their moment on the red carpet and at the podium in front of a huge industry crowd.

Here is a recap of some of the night's most memorable moments.

On Friday, a number of 2013 awards hopefuls went into limited release in select theaters across the country. The one getting the most attention is Fox Searchlight's 12 Years a Slave, since most pundits are projecting that film to be neck-in-neck with Warner Bros.' Gravity for the best picture Oscar, at least for the moment. But one that I would argue is equally important to check out this weekend is Lionsgate-Roadside Attractions' All Is Lost, the single best film that I saw at May's Cannes Film Festival -- even though it wasn't actually in competition, for reasons that the fest will have to figure out one of these days.

FILM REVIEW: All Is Lost

NEW YORK -- Last week, I met up here with Claire Denis, the veteran French director, to discuss her life, career and latest film, Bastards, which had just had its North American premiere at the 51st New York Film Festival, and which will be released on Wednesday in select theaters, on iTunes and on-demand.

The Weinstein Co. has released the theatrical poster for August: Osage County, John Wells' adaptation of Tracy Letts' Tony- and Pulitzer-winning play, which premiered at September's Toronto International Film Festival and will be released nationwide on Christmas Day. Regardless of what one thinks about the film, which elicited a variety of reactions in Toronto, one has to acknowledge that its poster is visually cool and strategically smart.

For their work on David O. Russell's forthcoming American Hustle, costume designer Michael Wilkinson and production designer Judy Becker will receive this year's Hollywood Costume Design Award and Hollywood Production Design Award, respectively, at the 17th annual Hollywood Film Awards, the first awards show of the 2013 season, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The honors will be presented at a gala ceremony on Oct. 21 at the Beverly Hilton.

While America's elected leaders continue to squabble over whether or not to reopen the government and/or raise the debt ceiling, they are neglecting a host of real socio-political issues that have major implications for our nation's future. Among them: widening income and education inequality, questionable foreign policy tactics, crackdowns on abortion rights and providers, intelligence gathering and leaks and the list the goes on. Thankfully, though, these topics are being tackled at the movies in the form of documentaries.

For their hit song "Atlas" on the soundtrack to the film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the multi-platinum and multiple Grammy-winning band Coldplay -- composed of Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Will Champion and Jonny Buckland -- will receive this year's Hollywood Song Award at the 17th annual Hollywood Film Awards, the first awards show of the 2013 season, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Martin will accept on behalf of the group and perform the song at the gala ceremony on Oct. 21 at the Beverly Hilton.