FYC: Critics Choice Best Young Performer

Last year I began a tradition to help my fellow BFCA members choose more wisely when it comes to the "Young Performer" category by sharing an eligibility list. My belief is they often choose poorly because this category gets no pre-voting discussion whatsoever and it can be difficult to even think of who is eligible. That said, you can safely expect to see Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation) and Jacob Tremblay (Room) nominated because they have leading roles in films that have been discussed. But who else should or could be nominated?

Ballots go out to the BFCA at any moment so here's a cheat sheet to help them vote. The category is UNDER 21... (but it should obviously be adjusted to 17 and under. Remember that year when the winner came from the sexually explicit Blue is the Warmest Color? That's what you get when you have a category with adults in it that is ostensibly a child star prize)

Please FYC your favorites in the comments. Give voters some options to truly consider:

ELIGIBLE "YOUNG PERFORMERS" IN 2015 FILMS
(if we've missed any key players - make sure to shout them out in the comments)

GIRLS
Oona Laurence (13) as "Leila Hope" in Southpaw
Günes Sensoy as "Lale" in Mustang
Raffey Cassidy (13) as "Athena" in Tomorrowland
Isabella Crovetti-Cramp (?) as "Young Joy" in Joy
Willow Shields (15) as "Primrose Everdeen" in Hunger Games - Mockingjay Pt 2
Elle Fanning (17) as "Niki Trumbo" in Trumbo
Hailee Steinfeld (19) as "Emily" in Pitch Perfect 2
Joey King (16) as "Phoebe" in Stonewall
Ashley Aufderheide (?) as "Faith" in Infinitely Polar Bear
Imogene Wolodarsky (?) as "Amelia" in Infinitely Polar Bear
Mackenzie Moss (?) as "Lisa (age 5)" in Steve Jobs
Ripley Sobo (?) as "Lisa (age 9)" in Steve Jobs
Perla Haney-Jardine (18) as "Lisa (age 19) in Steve Jobs

BOYS
Forrest Goodluck (17) as "Hawk" in The Revenant
Levi Miller (13) as "Peter" in Pan
Tony Revolori (19) as "Jib" in Dope
Shameik Moore (20) as "Malcom" in Dope
Russell Posner (?) as "Zach" in The D Train
Alex Henderson (?) as "Young Adonis" in Creed
RJ Cyler (20) as "Earl" in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Josh Wiggins (17) as "Justin Wincott" in Max
Pierce Gagnon (10) as "Nate" in Tomorrowland
Ty Simpkins (14) as "Gray" in Jurassic World
Nick Robinson (20) as "Zach" in Jurassic World
Luke Ryan (8) as "Douglas Cyr" in Black Mass
Jacob Lofland (19) as "Aris Jones" in Maze Runner: Scorch Trials
Kodi Smit-McPhee (19) as "Jay Cavendish" in Slow West
Abraham Attah (15) as "Agu" in Beasts of No Nation
Jacob Tremblay (9) as "Jack" in Room
Tom Holland (19) as "Young Thomas Nickerson" in In the Heart of the Sea
Milo Parker (?) as "" in Mr Holmes

WHICH YOUNG THESPIANS WOULD MAKE YOUR BALLOT?
I hope you'll FYC your favorites in the comments and give the Broadcast Film Critic voters some options to truly consider rather than making this the annual 'which young actor is most famous' list.

Podcast: The Danish Girl, Youth, Macbeth, Chi-Raq

Nathaniel, Nick, Katey, and Joe all return for the latest episode of the podcast in which we discuss four new films that definitely bear their auteur's signature for better and worse. Listen in and continue the conversation in the comments. The more the merrier.

42 minutes 
00:01 NBR & NYFCC debrief
05:40 The Danish Girl
16:28 Macbeth's feeling of inevitability...or is it monotony?
22:56 Paolo Sorrentino's Youth, a bit of The Great Beauty and a lot of Jane Fonda
33:00 Spike Lee's new urgent joint Chi-Raq
39:45 Joe's new job & Nick's sudden activity

Further Reading for Context:
Nick's Danish Girl tweet
Nathaniel's Category Fraud Screed
Decider
Nick's "Favorites" Countdown
NBR & NYFCC

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. 

Youth, Danish Girl, Macbeth

Beauty vs Beast: Everything's Coming Up Con

Jason from MNPP here with our weekly battle of the good-to-bad guys called "Beauty vs Beast" -- today I'm taking us deep inside all of the shades of gray in between. This past weekend marked the 25th anniversary of Stephen Frears' first US film, the electric noir The Grifters, which came out in limited release on December 5th, 1990. It is a very good movie! If you haven't seen it in awhile, you should. It was nominated for four Oscars -- Frears was nominated for Director, writer Donald Westlake got a Best Adapted nod, and the final two nominations went to the two lovely, too awful ladies making muck out of John Cusack's poor-sap-life...

PREVIOUSLY We're really loving on the year 1990 this month - last week it was Misery's turn, and with a swing of the sledgehammer Annie Wilkes took Paul Sheldon down for the count again, walking off with just over 3/4s of the vote. James Caan had his cheerleaders though (besides myself, even) - here's what brookesboy says:

"Kathy is so entertaining in this, but Annie is torturing some poor dude who does not deserve it one lil bit. And I don't know anyone who isn't fully delighted when Paul cracks her skull with that brass pig. Annie gets the bronze--where it counts; Paul gets the gold."

OFCS Falls For Category Fraud

The Online Film Critics Society have released their annual nominations. They're the oldest of the many critics group which sprung up with "online" in the title back in the days when there was more of a clear line between print and web. This year unfortunately they've signed up for Category Fraud endorsing both Alicia Vikander and Rooney Mara's "supporting" campaigns so it's difficult to take them seriously. If we can't defeat the spreading cancer of category fraud this year with so much attention paid to how ridiculous it is to call protagonists in their own films "supporting" -- even among groups who aren't generally eager to "predict" Oscars with their nominations (and OFCS has been blessedly free of that curse in the past) -- than perhaps the war will never be won. It's all so very discouraging because it makes the honors feel cheap and gamed as opposed to fairly won.

the war on drugs will never be won. perhaps the war on category fraud is just as eternal

As such it's difficult to find joy in happy results like Cynthia Nixon nominated for James White (despite a very low profile and only $52,000 in ticket sales to date) and Sicario, which we'd feared would be forgotten coming on strong. In fact Denis Villeneuve's drug war thriller led the nominations alongside Carol. The complete OFCS nominations are at their site if you're interested.

UPDATE: I have heard from a few members of the OFCS expressing their displeasure with the results and/or this post. Like the BFCA (of which I am a member) there were internal discussions about this before they voted. (Full disclosure: at least two of our own contributors are members of the OFCS). There are people within the organization who are against category fraud but voting within all awards bodies is a matter of math and majority rules.  I don't really expect BFCA to self-correct on this next week when the nominations come out but it's good that there's at least been a discussion for once. Internally the BFCA has suggested to members that Rooney Mara should be considered a lead, despite what the campaign says, but they are still free to vote as they will. We'll see.

Grammy's Film/TV Related Categories

The Grammy Awards were announced today with Kendrick Lamar (11 nominations), Taylor Swift and The Weeknd (7 nominations each) leading the nominee pack. But here at The Film Experience we're only really concerned with the visual categories.

I'm not including Grammy's Spoken Word category as I am sometimes prone to do because there aren't actors involved this year beyond Amy Poehler who is nominated for the audiobook of her "Yes Please" memoir. But don't get too excited about her nomination. The brilliant Poehler seems to be a statue repellent; she's not anywhere close to an EGOT since she's never even won a damn Emmy despite years of TV brilliance.

Here are the nominees in the film/tv related categories...

Click to read more ...