by Nathaniel R
Last night the Critics Choice Awards were held and broadcast on the CW. They copied and pasted many of the winners from the Golden Globes, though not quite all. To their credit, though, the repeat acting winners mostly seemed to understand this (a stark change from years past where you'd hear the same speech at every show) and didn't copy and paste their own speeches. There were also a few differences in attendance that varied things up (most noticeably Cate Blanchett who didn't attend the Globes; she won at both). But it was a dull night, overall, if you weren't in the room. We've gone before of course but it's been a few years and it does feel different if you're inside the room. Especially if you manage to get a seat at a fun table.
For the low energy, maybe we should blame the absence of awesome cheerleader Jamie Lee Curtis whose enthusiasm was very much missed since Everything Everywhere All At Once kept winning awards (it took five in total, the most prizes for anything) The winners and a few more comments after the jump...
FILM CATEGORIES
The Daniels win Best Director
PICTURE Everything Everywhere All At Once
DIRECTOR Daniels, Everything Everywhere All At Once
ACTRESS Cate Blanchett, TÁR
ACTOR Brendan Fraser, The Whale
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
SUPPORTING ACTOR Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All At Once
YOUNG ACTOR Gabriel Labelle, The Fabelmans
ACTING ENSEMBLE Glass Onion
Since the CCA prides themselves on predicting the Oscar wins (sigh), we know what they think the frontrunners are. The Globes care less about "predicting" but if you take the two shows and mush them together, it's Banshees of Inisherin (which won nothing at the CCAs! ouch) vs Everything Everywhere All At Once vs The Fabelmans on Oscar night).
The best speech from these (mostly) televised wins belonged to Daniel Kwan in Best Director who told a funny story about his mother encouraging him to go to film school.
Cate Blanchett appeared to be over it, upon her win. She mentioned all the great performances in the room and also the performances of Andrea Riseborough (currently getting a big Oscar-voting timed push from her peers with Q&As moderated by Kate Winslet and Amy Adams), Tang Wei, and Penelope Cruz. Her conclusion was a desire to see an end to televised awards pitting actors against each other.
Love Cate and understand that it's all subjective and there is no true "best". But we can't agree. Imagine what the cultural landscape would be like if box office and streaming algorithms were the only barometer of popularity? END TIMES. You think things are dumbed down now? Just wait until serious craft, great acting, and thematic elements are no longer valued enough to have whole conversations and shows and a "season" built around celebrating them!
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Everything Everywhere All at Once
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Women Talking
CINEMATOGRAPHY Top Gun Maverick
PRODUCTION DESIGN Babylon
EDITING Everything Everywhere All At Once
COSTUME DESIGN Black Panther Wakanda Forever
HAIR AND MAKEUP Elvis
VISUAL EFFECTS Avatar The Way of Water
COMEDY Glass Onion
ANIMATED FEATURE Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM RRR
SONG "Naatu Naatu" RRR
SCORE TÁR
The thing about the craft categories at the CCAs is it's the one area where they don't totally care about the Oscars when voting, since some things win that aren't even eligible at the big show like RRR in foreign film and TAR in Score (it's not just this year where that's happened). But we think that's probably less about not wanting to predict the Oscars and more about just not caring as much about the "lesser*: categories and demoting them to off-air status, like the Emmys do with their craft categories.
* we have never thought about these categories as "lesser" which is why Oscar will always be the greatest award show. For 90ish years the Academy has understood this though they're understanding of the importance of all film crafts to the movies we love has been threatened this past decade as they've worried about ratings.
TV CATEGORIES
Niecy Nash-Betts always saw herself as a dramatic actress. But the industry said "Comedy"
DRAMA SERIES Better Call Saul
ACTRESS, DRAMA Zendaya, Euphoria
ACTOR, DRAMA Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA Jennifer Coolidge, White Lotus
SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA Giancarlo Esposito, Better Call Saul
COMEDY SERIES Abbott Elementary
ACTRESS, COMEDY Jean Smart, Hacks
ACTOR, COMEDY Jeremy Allen White, The Bear
SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY Sheryl Lee Ralph, Abbott Elementary
SUPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY Henry Winkler, Barry
LIMITED SERIES The Dropout
ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES Amanda Seyfried, The Dropout
ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES/MOVIE Daniel Radcliffe, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
SUPPORTING ACTRESS, LIMITED SERIES/MOVIE Niecy Nash-Betts, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
SUPPORTING ACTOR, LIMITED SERIES/MOVIE Paul Walter Hauser, Black Bird
FOREIGN-LANGUAGE SERIES Pachinko
ANIMATED SERIES Harley Quinn
TALK SHOW Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
COMEDY SPECIAL Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special
The best famous-person speech of the night belonged to Niecy Nash-Betts who told a wonderfully instructive and self-deprecating story about her desire to be a great dramatic actress while everyone wanted her to stay in the comedy box. Bob Odenkirk was even more modest claiming his work was all elbow grease and the true talent was all around him, just making him look good in the center.
Liz Meriwether's speech was one funny quip after another after another
And finally the most hilarious speech of the night went to the Executive Producer and Showrunner of The Dropout, Liz Meriwether. In her joyful acceptance speech, every other line generated big laughs whether she was talking about her personal life or zinging her "ridiculously hot parents". She also managed to make fun of the show's food options "I think I'm going to throw up... just breadsticks!", sing the praises of Amanda Seyfrieds work in... Mean Girls, and best of all added "...and thank you to Mike White for not being nominated in this category"
Before we go a final round of applause to Ben Stiller for the funny "presenter banter written by A.I." bit. As for other presenters, Seth Rogen skewering the Critics Choice Awards for being on the CW was... a choice. A drunk choice probably!
If you watched the show, what was your favourite moment?