November. It's a Wrap

Tough month. I'm crawling towards the finish line of 2012 wondering if maybe the Mayans weren't right after all? 2012 has been a fine year for cinema but a tough one for me personally. Now, my true year doesn't technically end until February 22nd, 2013 OSCAR NIGHT after which I can move on to 2013 but for now I'm just relieved that 2012, the calendar year, is almost over. But enough negativity! EXCELSIOR.

In case you missed them here are ten highlights from the month that was.

Golden Globe Musical Snubs It's not true that they always love musicals - they've ignored great ones
Chloe Moretz is Ruining My Life! The ubiquitous teen will star with LaPfeiffer...again! 
Is Skyfall's Oscar Buzz Real? Or just really convincing hype. Oscar doesn't much like 007 
Honicutt Enema iPhones must hate movies or something

Remember Moonrise a plea to AMPAS voters. Forget what feels IMPORTANT. Consider the likely longevity of this whimsical bittersweet film about lonely adolescence
Podcast Nick, Joe, Katey and I talk Lincoln and Skyfall 
The Masters of my Eyeballs on true oddities: Holy Motors and The Master 
First Look at August Osage County. A house! A synopsis.

Most Discussed: Our Kind of Voting. Naming favorites in divisive Oscar races of yore
Most Eyeballs: I Dreamed a Dream That the Film Version of Les Miz Would be Awesome ...it came true.

WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS?

Nicole & The Noise

Last week, I started prepping the 2012 "film bitch" awards pages and while staring at the rough draft of the acting awards which will be posted the week before the Oscar nominations, I kept thinking "something is wrong here." I slept on it. The next morning I realized with complete horrror that I had left Nicole Kidman off of my rough draft nominee list for The Paperboy. I, a self-described Kidmaniac, had forgotten "Charlotte Bless." If *I*  was able to forget Nicole, how could I rage at the non-adventurous critics and staid Oscar voters a month and a half from now when they presumably forget her in their year-end polling.

The Thanksgiving to Christmas movie season is filled with "Best of" Noise: big glitzy openings, highbrow movies, lists everywhere you look, forum discussions, critics org announcement. They're all reflecting "Oscar Buzz" whether or not they mean to. Oscar buzz is noisy and the noise can, paradoxically, drown out actual conversations and thoughtful consideration of who might qualify for the word "best"... not who is in the best movie or who is most likely to be nominated. It's understandable human error. Fact: it's easier to remember names you hear every day than names you don't. 

This past week while staring hard at the Supporting Actress Chart  (since revived), I kept staring at Nicole Kidman's photo and cursing the world that this amazing actress's about-face work as a trashy convict-loving beautician wasn't more firmly entrenched in the discussion.

Then a miracle occured...

Click to read more ...

Awards Calendar: Precursor Madness Begins in 3... 2... 1...

Which film will lord over NYC film critics this year?You've probably heard by now that the city-by-city / guild-by-guild precursor madness begin next week. Golden Globe ballots went out to members yesterday and The New York Film Critics Circle will be the first to announce winners on Monday, December 3rd. I'm having breakfast with a director during their announcement -- priorities! -- but we'll be sure to discuss that day.

The rush to "first!" means that Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is right on the wire of "will voters see it or not see it before voting?" Apparently it's now locked and screening (my December 1st screening was cancelled and I have not -- as of yet -- been re-invited though our BFCA balloting begins on December 3rd)

IMPORTANT DATES / GROUPS TO WATCH
12/3 -New York Film Critics Circle 
⅓ of the Holy Trinity of critics groups. Founded in 1935!!! Last year's winner: The Artist
12/5 -National Board of Review
In recent years they've finally cried uncle about "first!" and conceded. Last year's winner: Hugo
12/7 -Los Angeles Film Critics Association
⅓ of the Holy Trinity of Critics Prizes founded in 1975. Last year's winner: The Descendants
12/9 -New York Film Critics Online
This upstart group began handing out prizes in 2003. Last year's winner: The Artist
12/9 - Boston Society of Film Critics
Announcing since 1980. They were once among the most iconoclastic of groups but in the past decade have, like nearly all critics groups, begun to merely choose their favorite from the handful of true Oscar hopefuls. Last year's winner: The Artist
12/11 Broadcast Film Critics Association "Critics Choice" Nominations
Announcing since. Full disclosure: I am a voting member.
12/12 Screen Actors Guild Awards Nominations
A very big pre-Oscar deal... since 1995. Their unique system of choosing nominees -- a different randomly-selected nominating pool each year from their vast membership --  should technically be capable of delivering bigger surprises now and then. We'll see... Last year's winner: the cast of The Help
12/13 Golden Globe Nominations
Woot!
1/8 Directors Guild Award Nominations (Feature Films)
Before Oscar started monkeying with their Best Picture rules this was the single most predictive award as to which films would be nominated for Best Picture. Voting annually since 1948. Last year's winner: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist.
TBA - Chicago Film Critics
Annoyingly they announce nominees and then wait for the winners, upsetting the traditional critics prize routine. Last year's eventual winner: The Tree of Life
TBA - Online Film Critics Society
Annoyingly they announce nominees and then wait for the winners, upsetting the traditional critics prize routine.  Last year's eventual winner: The Tree of Life
TBA - National Society of Film Critics
⅓ of the Holy Trinity of Critics Prizes, founded in 1966, though they've been losing plentiful media steam over the years... partially due to the explosion of ridiculous critics groups -- does every city really need their own when regional prizes for smaller film markets would make much more cumulative sense ? -- and their late in the game announcement.

THE BIGGIES

1/10 OSCAR NOMINATION MORNING!
aka Nathaniel's Christmas... and it's coming so early this year.
1/10 Critics Choice Awards 
1/13 Golden Globe Awards
1/27 SAG Awards
2/24 OSCAR NIGHT
aka Nathaniel's New Years Eve

Which groups do you care most about? Which film, if any, do you think will dominate this year? Or are you hoping, as I am, that it'll be a free for all. It's been so long since different groups had wildly different opinions! Oh how we long for critics groups to do their jobs in an entertaining thoughtful way and actually challenge each other with "no, this!" lobs. 

SAG Award for Best Cast: Predictions & Wish List

Amir here, to write about one of my favourite awards of the season: the SAG award for "Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture". I say "favourite" because, in principle, I love the notion of awarding actors who work together as a group to make a film tick. In my ideal world, the best cast award is more about collective achievements than multiple individual ones but over the years, SAG’s top award has sadly become synonymous with Best Picture. Genuine ensemble pieces have often been ignored in favour of Oscar’s best picture frontrunners or films with the highest number of nominees in other SAG categories. Yet, despite my disappointment, I can’t stop obsessing over this award or detach myself.

Who will follow the cast of The Help to a SAG cast win?

This year is bound to be a similar affair, with the three frontrunning Oscar films all poised to win SAG nods in this category. Nonetheless, let’s look at what will get nominated and what should. 

Les Misérables
I have yet to see Les Misérables, but the rapturous response from this week’s screenings (Nathaniel was at the first one) suggests that we will collectively forgive Hooper for stealing The Social Network’s thunder once we finally lay eyes on his newest film. (Though, I'll still begrudge The King’s Speech for winning the SAG "cast" award two years ago. Two great performances and one default “supporting wife” nominee don't merit a best cast prize, especially in the presence of The Kids Are Alright and The Fighter.)

More hopefuls after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Visual Effects Finalists: Superheroes Rule, Subtlety Drools

Yesterday the finalists for Oscar's Visual Effects prize were announced. In the end there will be five nominees but for the next month ten films can dream of winning the nomination before the great culling on January 10th, 2013. Once again we see a preference for computer generated imagery with only Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises as obvious examples of films which tried mightily to rely on in-camera practical effects and stunt work. At a recent "Evening With Christopher Nolan" here in NYC (more soon) Nolan revealed his preference for in camera work with computers relegated to touch up work. 

Did you know that that infamous collapsing football field that led into the seige of Gotham was actually, in part, a collapsing football field (!) and not a figment of a computer artists imagination!? 

Snubs: Generally speaking you can expect the more subtle fx work to be shut out each and every year. This is why Skyfall probably won't be nominated in the end. But my eyes were instantly drawn to the absence of Looper which is a shame, since it's most effectsy sequences, like that finale in the cornfield, were weirdly hypnotic and even the tiny touches like the frequent telekinetics were unfussy and unshowy but totally served the film. Plus, it's a good film which is more than can often be said about nominees in this category. It's also strange, at least in a multi-year context, to see The Impossible miss the finals when Hereafter's less impressive tsunami (in a less impressive film at that) went on to actually be nominated. More traditionally nominatable CG heavy movies shown the door were Battleship, Men in Black III, and Dark Shadows.

Which 50% of the films still standing will prevail? 

still hanging. I hate this film more and more in retrospect.

• The Amazing Spider-Man
• The Avengers
• Cloud Atlas
• The Dark Knight Rises
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• John Carter
• Life of Pi
• Prometheus
• Skyfall
• Snow White and the Huntsman

Your guess work in the comments, please.