Gigantic news today for those of us who professionally handicap 2012 Oscar nominees and winners. An 800-pound gorilla just entered the room.

Its name is Hitchcock. Not long ago, we interviewed UCLA film prof Howard Suber about his visit to the downtown LA set of that movie, on the last day of filming. Per THR awards watcher Scott Feinberg, here is just one of the many ways Fox Searchlight’s decision to move up release to Thanksgiving could impact this fall’s film awards season:

While the best actor race is already extremely crowded, which may make Anthony Hopkins’ path bumpy, the road to a best actress nom for 2006 winner Helen Mirren, who I’m told goes toe-to-toe with Hopkins in this film, looks a lot clearer. Indeed, that category is so thin this year… that studios at recent fests were clamoring with each other over any film featuring even a so-so leading performance from a female.

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At 2:30 p.m. last Thursday, writer-director Sacha Gervasi called up Howard Suber to invite his former UCLA professor and current students to visit the set of Hitchcock that same night. For the production’s final day of shooting, the setting was a downtown LA theater gussied up to look like the 1960 location of Psycho’s New York City premiere.

“In the UCLA Film and Television Producers Program, which I chaired, we have 300-400 hotshots from the industry in to speak every year, so there’s enormous interchange about what’s going on today in the business,” Suber (pictured) tells FishbowlLA. “But, curiously, this is the first set visit of a class that I recall in 30 or 40 years. Seeing the students’ excitement, I wrote the chair afterwards that we should try to arrange set visits much more regularly.”

Gervasi, who scripted Steven Spielberg’s 2004 drama The Terminal and directed the great 2008 documentary about heavy metal band Anvil, took Suber’s class a decade ago. Students came and went from the set all night through to 2:00 a.m. wrap, getting to meet Anthony Hopkins as well as watch him interact on set with co-stars Helen Mirren and Toni Collette.

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If UCLA professor emeritus Howard Suber one day finds himself sitting in a chair in his dying old age, muttering about a traumatic, formative turning point, his golden whispered word could well be “research.”

As detailed in Brian Kellow‘s October 27 biography of revered film critic Pauline Kael, the famed journalist was guilty of stealing Suber’s groundbreaking Orson Welles research for a two-part 1971 New Yorker article “Raising Kane.” Suber cooperated with the author and is now commenting in the media for the first time about this resurrected scandal, via a Brent Lang bylined article today on TheWrap:

“I take no satisfaction in the story coming out,” Suber said. “I was depressed over the weekend, despite getting included in the New York Times and New Yorker reviews, because it did stir up a lot of painful memories…”

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