James Franco in 'Oz the Great and Powerful' (Photo: Walt Disney Pictures)

There is a very simple litmus test to know if your child can comfortably handle "Oz the Great and Powerful": were they afraid of "The Wizard of Oz?" If not, take them to the new Disney movie because it is less scary than the 1939 original.

I first saw that movie on TV when I was 8 -- I was both terrified and unable to look away, and then it wasn't on TV for another year. My daughter watched it at 6 and, then, thanks to the wonders of the DVD revolution, she watched it on an endless loop, dulling the edges of the scary bits.

Six is a little young to watch either "Oz." I would hold out for 8 or 9, with a parent's hand on call for the airborne baboons and Wicked Witch.

Photo: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImageToday at New York celebrity lunch spot Michael's, "Les Misérables" director Tom Hooper arrived minutes before 1 p.m. sure that he was not going to get nominated. He knew DGA president Taylor Hackford was supposed to call all five nominees before the 1 p.m. announcement, and Hooper had yet to hear from him. (By the way, Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell didn't get the call; Steven Spielberg, Kathryn Bigelow, Ang Lee, and Ben Affleck did.)

Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

I have been a member of the New York Film Critics Circle since I was pregnant with my first child, who accompanied me and the rest of the family to last night's awards dinner at Crimson on 21^st and Broadway in Manhattan. He's now a junior in high school and looks down on me from a height approaching six feet. That's just to say that I've seen a lot of these untelevised dinners, even hosted a couple, and what struck me last night at the intimate affair for something like 300 guests was two major distinct camps: that representing "Lincoln" and that representing "Zero Dark Thirty." An uneasy truce exists between the two -- the hip and controversial capturing history on the fly versus old-school Hollywood describing the well-documented past -- as the awards red-carpet season opened last night.

Photo: Lionsgate

It was a year of hits and misses. Jennifer Lawrence broke out as Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games," and followed up with awards bait in "Silver Linings Playbook." Meryl Streep underwhelmed in "Hope Springs." Michelle Williams charmed and alarmed in "Take This Waltz" -- and nobody went to see it. Kathryn Bigelow knocked another movie out of the park with "Zero Dark Thirty." Channeling the New Year's spirit, let's look ahead at five female-forward films of 2013:

Photo: Sony Picture Classics

Spoiler alert: This is not how the Academy Awards will look. The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) voted Saturday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in Manhattan and impressively threw its support behind "Amour," Austrian director Michael Haneke, and star Emmanuelle Riva for best picture, director, and actress. Never going to happen at the Oscars, but expect "Amour" to snatch the best foreign-language Oscar from the more cuddly "The Intouchables."

Photo: Universal PicturesAs the romantic revolutionary Marius, who woos Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and enthralls Eponine (Samantha Barks), Tony Award winner Eddie Redmayne stands out in an outstanding, SAG-nominated ensemble cast. The freckle-faced "My Week with Marilyn" star, 31, sings sweetly and cries heartbreakingly as a young man who falls in love at first sight. The British-born actor is the movie's breakout male star, a fact that wasn't lost on his co-star Barks: "I think the world of Eddie. He's such an approachable, lovely man, and getting to die in his arms was an absolute joy. I didn't know he sang, and all of a sudden this angelic voice comes out. His control over his falsetto and upper vocal range floored me."