New York ♥︎s Moonlight & La La Land

The New York Film Critics Circle was founded way back in 1935 when the Oscars were just 8 years old themselves. In their first year they agreed but disagreed with the NYFCC choosing The Informer and Oscar following suit with a Best Picture nomination for that but the eventual prize to Mutiny on the Bounty. Not much has really changed since. The NYFCC aesthetics aren't anti-Oscar but they're just as likely to go slightly left of field with a more challenging option as their #1 as they are to pre-stamp a future winner. 

Here's what they chose this year...

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"La La Land" leads the Critics Choice Nominations

The BFCA has spoken and as per usual the results are a mix of beautiful support of outstanding motion pictures and a few pockets of embarrassment! Under the beautiful support umbrella we find three terrific pictures leading the nominations with 12 for La La Land and 10 each for Arrival and Moonlight. Under the pockets of embarrassment portion of our programming in what universe is Captain Fantastic a "comedy" (Viggo Mortensen, who gives one of the year's best dramatic performances is nominated as best comedy actor but  not as best actor. What a world).

The BFCA's special categories, which aren't as well defined as the Globes, usually carry with them lots of weird and empty-headed calls. How, for instance, do you have 6 nominees for most categories but only 4 for Best Actress in an Action picture and only nominate supporting actresses for that prize and leave out two leading women who really carried their films with aplomb: Mary Elizabeth Winstead in 10 Cloverfield Lane and Blake Lively in The Shallows. Why even have these categories if you're not going to do them justice? 

All the nominations (film & tv) with comments are after the jump...

FILM AWARDS

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Baby, It's Cold Outside

What will be the first movie you watch to celebrate the month of December?

November. It's a Wrap

November's most fun exercize was a ranking of the "1 and done" actors and actresses who've won Oscars in their only competition, and updating the Oscar charts for 2016, too. The key awards events were the Indie Spirits which Moonlight and American Honey led with six nominations apiece and the Gothams which went big for Moonlight and also loved all over Isabelle Huppert. Here are 16 key posts from the month in case you missed any of them.

8 Favorites
• Best Young Performers - which child stars and teen actors deserve kudos? 
• Happy Anniversary to the Pfeiffer-Kelleys - a couple for 23 years now 
• Tree of Life Revisited - with a live orchestra no less 
• Noirvember: Kiss Me Deadly - a "thriller of tomorrow" that still packs a punch 
• "Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again" -Judy & Barbra's classic duet 
• The Furniture: Hell or High Water - I always see the movie in new ways after these columns
• Noirvember: Bound The Wachowski's debut 
• We Give Thanks For...- Team Experience gave thanks for this film year.

8 Most Discussed
• Current Oscar Charts - the four acting categories. Volatile or set?
• It's Not Supposed to Happen This Way - we're in mourning about our country
• Oscar-Less Actress Wonders - which 5 do you love most?
• Yes No Maybe So: Silence - the trailer for Scorsese's latest
• Actress Roundtable - thoughts on the magazine cover
• Meryl Streep and the Cecil B DeMilles - Golden Globe history
• Fences: His & Hers - Denzel and Viola are both sensational
• Posterized: Ang Lee - How many of his films have you seen?

COMING IN DECEMBER
La La Land, Jackie, Fences, Kirk Douglas Centennial, and The Year in Review party begins. Any requests?

Why Amy Adams May Have to Sit This Oscar Year Out...

The news of Amy Adams winning the NBR delighted many and also stirred up the usual "The Film Experience hates her!" complaints in the commentary. We do not. Being frustrated by an actor's ubiquity and dullness at one particular annual event is not the same as hating them or their work. Amy Adams is a very fine actress. She has given many delightful performances, two of which would have even made non-controversial Oscar wins had she managed to actually nab the statue (Junebug or The Fighter).

Amy Adams (5), Albert Finney (5), and Glenn Close (6) are the living actors with the most Oscar nominations who have never won.

And it's true that she's quite amazing in Arrival, serving as the audience vessel to in two simultaneous and important ways that the movie couldn't succeed without: she's awestruck by what she's watching (she's our eyes and surely our facial expressions in the dark); apart from that awe she's emotionally and intellectually engaged with the events in order to grapple with them and suss out meaning which is what the audience is always doing when they're watching grand films that demands that they pay attention with both their heart and their mind.

But for all of that I don't think she's making the Oscar lineup and here's why...

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