The Film Experience

I'd love to find some beautiful extensive if not completist way to cover the annual tradition of film critics awards but I've yet to discover a feasible option. There are now 40+ critics organizations in English language countries (United States, Canada and UK/Ireland) giving out film prizes (to the same 3 films and 6 actors. sigh) and many of those 40+ groups have expanded their annual prizes to include public nomination rounds. If you wanted to cover it all this would mean roughly 60+ articles or so each year on just this one minor aspect of awardage and awardage is just one aspect of movie culture. Frankly, it's too much for The Film Experience to handle, I don't mind saying.

Lots more after the jump including the critical societies we haven't yet discussed!

I've bitched about this before but does Texas need three or four film critics groups (I mean New York, the major media hub and second only to LA when it comes to movies, makes do with only two!)? Does Nevada need as many as New York? What is the difference between the Black Film Critics Circle and the African American Film Critics Association and the difference between the Alliance of Women Journalists and the Women's Film Critics Circle? Is the explosion of critics groups over the past decade entirely due to infighting or membership rejections with people leaving or dejectedly forming new groups, like a religion splintering off into multiple warring factions? The new religion, then, ironically agreeing with the old one on the bulk of their creed (i.e. "best of the year"). Unless TFE becomes one of those blogs that just dutifully shares every press release-- which is one typical way to go but it would just depress me because then what's in it for you, the reader?-- how can we cover it all? And if we did, wouldn't we have to share even the most suspect of groups like the Golden Satellites who famously gave a Best Picture nomination to a movie they hadn't even seen before voting (The Wolf of Wall Street)? I just can't stomach doing that.

So I'd like to open the conversation up to you...
I know I've touched on it / complained about it before but I am looking for solutions since next year there might be 50 groups instead of 43. How would you like to read about it here in the future? On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you care about it? What criteria would *you* draw up if it were you having to write about each group? Is it better to just keep a score with no specific coverage at all? Or to choose a dozen worth really thinking about?

In an effort to catch up...

Groups We Have Not Yet Discussed
Links go to their official pages or an article about them if they don't have a proper one.

Utah Film Critics Association - Alert to any Utah Film Critics reading. You should probably have your own webpage to dispel misinformation. For instance Wikipedia has a page for your 2013 awards which does not connect to the Wikipedia page for your previous awards and the awards information is bogus, listing Amy Adams for the winner of Best Actress when all press reports say it was Adèle Exarchopoulus with Blanchett as runner up. But, anyway, mea culpa, I was wrong when I said last week that we wouldn't hear any new names now. Utah threw a Bill Nighy (About Time) curveball in supporting actor finally breaking the Leto soup with only a pinch of Fassbender. P.S. Is Utah the only film critics organization that doesn't give out a documentary prize?

Nevada Film Critics Society - They really liked August: Osage County which wins two prizes including. Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves moment: Meryl Streep takes her first Best Actress prize. Although giving Streep an acting prize counting as independent critical thinking is insane. I apologize for the implication.

St Louis Film Critics Association & Chicago Film Critics Assocation & Florida Film Critics Circle & Southeastern Film Critics Association - Consensus choice in every single top eight category (if you haven't been following along that's: 12 Years / McQueen / Ejiofor / Blanchett / Leto / Nyong'o / Her / 12 Years ) Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves moments: I like that St Louis has an "art house" prize (Short Term 12) because, really, film culture is different in middle America. I remember from my years in Michigan; Chicago honored Destin Cretton for Short Term 12 as "Most Promising Filmmaker" which is a neat spin on "Debut Film" because it gives you more options and is probably more accurate to how filmmaker careers get started since second films are sometimes way more impressive or actually released; Florida has no interesting wins so let's give a shout out to something film critics association are good at which is awarding local people for their efforts. Florida cites Dana Keith of the Miami Beach Cinematheque for "tireless championing of foreign, independent and alternative film in South Florida for more than 20 years." Sounds awesome!; the SEFCA gives a prize to Jeff Nichols for Mud... but I'm not sure what the prize entails. They have not updated their website in two years so the last awards listed are 2011.

Phoenix Film Critics Society - Most of their winners are pulled from the consensus pool but their top ten is a pleasant mix of Oscar prospects and key beloved indies like Mud & Short Term 12. Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves moments: They have a prize called "Overlooked Film" and they cite both The Kings of Summer and The Spectacular Now.

Las Vegas Film Critics Society - John Goodman, who has really been making his agent a ton of money lately what with the sudden resurgence of big film key supporting roles, gets their lifetime achievement prize! Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves Moment: Emma Thompson (Saving Mr Banks) for Best Actress

Austin Film Critics Association - I love Austin. Have you ever been? Just a lovely lovely town. Frisky thinking-for-themselves Moment: Brie Larson for Best Actress, which isn't really a surprise given that Short Term 12's broke out running at SXSW.

Indiana Film Journalists Association - They used to invite me to their film festival so I have a soft spot. I like the idea of film journalists instead of film critics because really don't most people do a mix of all types of coverage now? Frisky thinking-for-themselves Moment: Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) in supporting actor -- anything non Jared Leto counts as "thinking for yourself" now ;)

Dallas Ft Worth Film Critics - this one's a real snoozer with their sole diversion from consensus being Matthew McConaughey in Best Actor for hometown set Dallas Buyers Club (and he's not that far off consensus). Curiously they have not updated their website since 2012... and not thoroughly at that since 2012 has not been added to their pulldown awards archive either. Two years behind, people!

Alliance of Women Film Journalists & Women Film Critics Circle
The Alliance, born in 2006, gives out the usual prizes and to the usual suspects at that but where they differ is they have a whole slew of dishonors hating on The Counselor and Last Vegas . I prefer the slightly older organization, the Women Film Critics Circle which started in 2004. The WFCC blog is a little hard to read -- the awards are after a series of headlines that don't seem to relate to the awards but their prizes are fairly interesting because they aren't going for strict "Best of" but instead concentrating on content and gender politics, which is a much better way to go if you want to be more distinctive and have a reason to exist. Their "Best Film About Women" is Philomena with the under-discussed Mother of George as a runner up. And I really like that they include depictions of men like this:

BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Philomena
RUNNER UP: Girls In The Band

WORST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
The Bling Ring
RUNNER UP: Machete Kills

BEST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
12 years A Slave: Chiwetel Ejiofor
RUNNER UP: Enough Said: James Gandolfini

WORST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Only God Forgives
RUNNER UP: Out Of The Furnace

I don't think we ever get anywhere in terms of dealing with sexism or advancing towards humanism if we don't realize that depictions of both genders are often problematic and unnecessarily rigid.