Art Director's Guild Nominations

The Art Director's Guild can give us a taste of what's to come for Oscar but that's the reductive way of looking at it. By having multiple categories they give us a much better sense of what these craftsmen thought of the work done in any given film year... or at least told us which screeners they caught up with. Instead of 5 annual nominees like the Oscars, they have 15. Or in this year's case 16 titles (there was a tie in "period film").

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS won a surprise Academy nomination for Production Design (without an ADG nomination). Might CAFE SOCIETY (which *has* an ADG nomination) make the Oscar list despite a current low profile?

Which will go on to Oscar? (I'll have to rethink our chart which has four films which didn't score with the ADG in the top ten though one of them, The Handmaiden, still feels possible as a nomination since foreign films don't generally show up at guild awards before their Oscar nods) Oscar eventual lineup is remarkably similar from year to year in terms of how it pulls from the ADG nominations. For example, here is this decade thus far: 

2015: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 1 each from their contemporary and fantasy selections
2014: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 2 film from fantasy, none from contemporary. They filled the remaining spot with a film ADG had not selected (Mr Turner)
2013: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 1 each from their contemporary and fantasy selections
2012: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 2 from fantasy, none from contemporary.
2011: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 1 from fantasy, none from contemporary, and 2 films the ADG had not selected (Midnight in Paris & War Horse)
2010: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 3 from fantasy, none from contemporary.

The safest bet is that they'll do the same as usual this year with a 3,1,1 split for ADG's Period, Fantasy, and Contemporary fields. All the nominations are after the jump...

Click to read more ...

FYC: Lily Gladstone, Supporting Actress

by John Guerin

I could not have predicted that in a movie starring Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, and Michelle Williams, a performance by relative newcomer Lily Gladstone would leave me the most affected. The best short film of 2016 is the third act of Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, in which Jamie (Gladstone), a solitary Montana rancher, falls for Beth, an out-of-town lawyer (Stewart), who is stuck teaching an educational law night class four-hours away from her home in Livingston. Stewart, unsurprisingly, adds another formidable performance to her collection of direct yet remote modern women, but the revelation here is Gladstone, who contributes a sensational breakthrough performance that deserves The Academy’s attention...

Click to read more ...

AARP Deems Loving The Most Grownup Movie of the Year

by Daniel Crooke

As Paul Ryan and his conference of House Republicans noodle over whether to raise the national retirement age, it’s more important than ever to stand with the AARP – even in Oscar season, when they honor their annual favorites in film. You can rely upon their Movies for Grownups Awards to serve up some fresh names in the same-old stale category line-ups and this year’s idiosyncratic nominations were no different: Molly Shannon! Tilda Swinton! Stephen McKinley Henderson! The ballots have been collected, the final winners tabulated, and this year the AARP Movies for Grownups selected Loving as the Best Picture of 2016. And Character Actress Margo Martindale will host their awards ceremony!

It would be silly to blow these awards out of proportion but as Nathaniel has pointed out, it’s interesting to consider the chief commonality between the Academy and the AARP: age.

Click to read more ...

ICYMI Year in Review

We'll finish up our Year in Review lists with Nathaniel's Top Ten List (and with it the daily Film Bitch Award Nominations in all Oscar-like and beyond categories) in the next couple of days but until then, please catch up with all the lists we've already made celebrating this amazing film year while the Academy starts filling out their ballots (today's the day). 

Surely you missed one of these lists or forgot to share your favorite on social media (hint hint *shameless* plug plug)

Movie Cats of the Year 
From The Legend of Tarzan's nuzzling pride on to Isabelle Huppert's pussies.

Grief and Letting Go 
Kubo and the Two Strings, Manchester by the Sea and more dealt with losing parents...

Click to read more ...

What's your favorite Jane Wyman?

It's Jane Wyman's Centennial.  The actress was born on this day in Missouri in 1917 as Sara Jane Mayfield.

Like many major stars her legacy rests on a period that's only about a decade long -- in Wyman's case the mid 40s through the 50s, or more specifically the Best Picture winner The Lost Weekend (1945) through the Douglas Sirk classic All that Heaven Allows (1955) a period in which she specialized in childlike women and their inverse young widows-- but her career was long, stretching from bit parts in the early 30s through TV stardom in the 80s.

Her greatest hits and Oscar triumphs after the jump. Which is your favorite?

Click to read more ...