NYFCC Loves Legos, Nuns, and Boyhood

The NYFCC (New York Film Critics Circle), one half of the two crucial critics prizes for each film year (the other half being the LAFCA who announce soon) gathered this morning for prize time. Their annual game of combative rounds winnowing their choice down to one (usually) in their categories resulted in big wins for Boyhood and really important gets for two key actors.

PICTURE Boyhood
It could well be a steamroller with critics groups. Unless Selma and Birdman get scrappy
DIRECTOR Richard Linklater, Boyhood
We can safely call him locked up for his first Oscar nomination in this category after two nominations for writing
SCREENPLAY The Grand Budapest Hotel
This is the only category that Wes Anderson has ever had real luck in with awards bodies. Can Budapest find a way to slip into the Best Picture Oscar field and change that?

ACTRESS Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant & Two Days, One Night
An enormously important get for Cotillard who has found it a real struggle to connect with awards bodies since her Oscar win for what ironically is an arguably lesser performance than the ones she's been trotting out regularly lately
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
So pleased that this grounded affecting performance has garnered such praise this year. It's a real treat coming from an actress that hasn't been overused overpraised much in her career.

ACTOR Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner
Another enormous "must have" for the preliminary rounds. Spall is up against a super tight Best Actor field and every mention counts towards keeping his name out there. They really should have released this movie earlier. I struggle to understand Sony Pictures Classics preference for late December which often kills "small" films with too little too late push
SUPPORTING ACTOR J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Looks likely  march to the Oscar with no problem. Which is sad for Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher) and Edward Norton (Birdman) who are both still waiting and both so worthy this year

CINEMATOGRAPHY Darius Khondji, The Immigrant
So underappreciated
ANIMATED FILM The LEGO Movie
Unsurprising and I expect all the flyover state critics prizes to go the same way. The real question as precursor season heats up is which littler film gets some mentions.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM Ida
If Ida dominates this field in the precursors might we see it pop up in one or two additional Oscar categories? Wouldn't that be neat?
DOCUMENTARY Citizenfour
A possible steamroller for the non-fiction prizes
FIRST FEATURE Jennifer Kent, The Babadook
Don't miss our interview with this hot new talent. I told her we were wondering about her future and she said "I'm wondering about my future, too!"

10 Questions I had while staring at that pic of Jake Gyllenhaal

Manuel here voicing the various queries I had upon staring at this new pic from Jake Gyllenhaal’s upcoming Antoine Fuqua directed flick, Southpaw.

1. Did the Prince of Persia get on a shredding regimen?
2. Is Jake the new Christian Bale in terms of weight loss/gain yo-yoing?
3. A troubled teenager, a paranoid reporter, a gay cowboy, an easily scared interviewee, a James Baldwin connoissieur, and now a jacked middleweight champion; is there anything Jake can’t do?
4. Is Jake still this ripped? Will he look like this as he makes his Broadway debut?
   Related: do you think the Gyllenhaal siblings made it a point to be on Broadway at the same time?
5. Between Prisoners, Enemy, Nightcrawler and now Southpaw, will we need to come up with a portmanteau for his resurgence? Jakeaissance? Gyllenhawakening?
6. Where are his co-stars Naomie Harris and Rachel McAdams?
7. Related: why does IMDb’s “star meter” (also: what is IMDb’s star meter?) rank McAdams higher than Gyllenhaal in the Southpaw credits?
8. Will Fuqua’s Southpaw follows the likes of The Fighter, The Wrestler, Ali, Million Dollar Baby, Rocky and Raging Bull at the Oscars and nab Jake a nomination? Weinstein is behind the pic so Oscar is bound to factor into the conversation to some extent.
9. Is this Jake’s version of stealth campaigning, showcasing his range after picking up an Indie Spirit nom for Nightcrawler?
10. And of course, I can’t not leave you with this question from Glenn:

Would you rather Jake Gyllenhaal in NIGHTCRAWLER or SOUTHPAW? I'm actually not sure I know my own answer.

— Glenn Dunks (@glenndunks) November 30, 2014

I honestly would stick with Jarhead Jake, but I’m curious where everyone else lies: do you like Gyllenhaal’s latest look? I can’t be the only Gyllenhaalic in the room so, do you have any answers for my questions above?

ICYMI November Is A Wrap

We hope you had a lovely holiday and that at some point this weekend you found time to give thanks for all the goodies this movie year has brought you this year. The most important film event in the last half of November was the death of entertainment giant Mike Nichols, who we celebrated with both a tribute to his collaboration with Meryl Streep and a group effort highlighting individual idiosyncratic favorite performances from his high-quality actor-friendly filmography.

Here are a few more highlights from November, you may have missed if you're just joining or rejoining us..

Laura Dern. photographed by Carolyn Cole

• Nathaniel sat down with the essential Laura Dern, one of the world's best screen actors, to talk Wild, psychotic women, and what the hell happened to her role in The Master
• Aca-yes, please. Margaret took a look at the Pitch Perfect 2 trailer
• We talked Spirit Award Nominees
• 'Quick Impressions', a new series celebrating the working actor, like "voice matching" Sean Patrick Doyle, debuted and we're glad you seem to like it
• Nathaniel suggested ensembles SAG ought to look at and interviewed the fine Australian actor Jason Clarke from one of them.
• Amir shared the top Box Office Hits of 2014 that were not franchises
• And the Podcast returned with The Theory of Everything and an AFI wrap-up

More highlights from early November here...

Coming in December:
It's campaign season so expect lots of coverage of the hunt for Oscar nominations, our team's FYCs, precursor madness with the Globes "Critics Choice" and SAG, and celebrity interviews. We'll also kick off the Year in Review festivities and the Film Bitch Awards -- your favorite party, yes? (say yes) -- and talk Christmas releases from Annie to Selma. December also means that we'll reach the end of "A Year with Kate" as Anne-Marie hits Love Affair.  

Box Office: Thanksgiving games

Tim here with your box office report for the holiday weekend. And a soft weekend it was, with the two new wide releases - Penguins of Madagascar and Horrible Bosses 2 - both face-planting (the former marking yet another underperformance DreamWorks Animation can't afford right now), and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay 1.0 making a huge amount of money that's still sufficiently less huge than its predecessors that it feels kind of underwhelming. Which is a bizarre thing to say about a movie making a huge sum of money by any standard you could possibly come up with, but such is the bigotry of high expectations. The saggy box office of 2014 continues its relentless march of mediocrity.

While the Hunger Games hold steady in the #1 slot, and almost certain to do it again next week, the most exciting story is about a different game altogether: The Imitation Game, which opened to $482,000 for the three-day weekend at 4 locations. This gives it a mindblowing per-screen average of $120,500, the second-best of the 2014 after The Grand Budapest Hotel in March.

THE TOP DOZEN (Fri-Sun)
01 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1 $56.9 (cum. $225.7) Michael's Review
02 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR $25.8 NEW Tim's Review
03 BIG HERO 6 $18.8 (cum. $167.2) Tim's Review / Nathaniel's Take
04 INTERSTELLAR $15.8 (cum $147.1) Michael's Review / The Podcast
05 HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 $15.7 NEW
06 DUMB & DUMBER TO $38.3 (cum $72.2)
07 THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING $5.1 (cum. $9.6) Nathaniel's Review
08 GONE GIRL $2.5 (cum. $160.8) The Podcast /  Jason's Review
09 BIRDMAN $1.9 (cum. $17.2) The Podcast / Nathaniel's Review
10 ST. VINCENT $1.8 (cum. $39.3) Michael's Review
11 BEYOND THE LIGHTS $1.6 (cum. $12.8)
12 FURY $1.6 (cum. $81.9) Michael's Review

PLATFORM / LIMITED
excluding wide openers losing theaters
01 FOXCATCHER $1.0 72 locations (cum. $2.1) Nathaniel's Review / Michael's Review
02 WHIPLASH $.50 179 locations (cum. $4.0) The Podcast / Michael's Review
03 THE IMITATION GAME $.48 4 locations NEW The Podcast / Meet the Contenders
04 ROSEWATER $.36 216 locations (cum. $2.6)

It was a solid weekend overall for the Oscar hopefuls - The Theory of Everything's wide-release expansion more than doubled its whole take in limited release in just three days, while Foxcatcher, still rolling out, had the highest per-screen average of any film to make more than a million for the weekend. Nothing to set the world on fire, but solid performances for the adult-skewing titles. And much the same can be said for the sturdy if not awe-inspiring $27,000 made by The Babadook during its first three days in release at three theaters - and while it has a legitimate shot at precisely no Oscars whatsoever, it's still a top-shelf scary movie that everybody with even a slight affection for horror cinema owes themselves to see at the first opportunity.

What did you see this weekend? Does anyone else think this impressive start augurs well for The Imitation Game with audiences and the Academy?

Interview: Jennifer Kent on Her "Babadook" Breakthrough and What She Learned From "Dogville"

It's been a banner year for female directors. Two female directors have continually been in the Best Director Oscar discussion, they continue to make inroads in indie cinema (see the Spirit Award first feature and first screenplay citations!) and in many countries outside of the US. And that's not all. The year's most impressive debut stint behind the camera arguably belongs to Jennifer Kent (pictured left) whose controlled, creepy, beautifully designed and acted Australian horror film The Babadook has been winning raves. After a stint on Direct TV it's just hit US theaters, albeit only three of them. May it expand swiftly to unsettle every city.

When I spoke with Ms. Kent over the phone we were experiencing and ungainly time-lag and accidentally talking over one another. A time-lag also happened when I watched her movie the first time; its unique slow build had me more frightened after the movie finished than while I was watching it. It sticks. The tag line is true

You can't get rid of the Babadook.

I mention that I'm pre-ordering the Babadook book as I'm telling this story about how the movie continues to haunt me. "Then you'd better not," she says laughing as we begin our conversation about debut filmmaking, snobber towards horror films, what she learned from Lars von Trier, and the miracles of Essie Davis' lead performance.

NATHANIEL: Have you had a lot of weird reactions to the film?

JENNIFER KENT: Yeah, I have. I’ve had the gamut of reactions from people seeking a roller coaster ride with jolts and scares. They've been like  'Ripped off. This isn’t a horror film!' to people like yourself. What’s most surprising to me is -- more than a  couple of people have said ‘I really didn’t like but I saw it again.' Why would you see it again?  And then changing their minds about it. [More...]

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