41st Annie Award Nominations

Tim here, with a quick bit of news: the International Animated Film Society has announced the nominees for the 41st Annie Awards. Unsurprisingly, it's heavily tilted towards big studio fare, with Despicable Me 2 dominating the list with eleven nominations, Monsters University and Frozen with ten nominations apiece, and The Croods just a breath behind with nine.

In the short categories (Best Animated Special Production, Best Animated Short), three of the films on the Oscar bake-off list made the Annies' cut: British TV special "Room on the Broom", the Canadian "Gloria Victoria", and Disney's tech-heavy new Mickey short, "Get a Horse!"

The full list of nominees is here. For now, I'll leave you with the nominations for Voice Acting, entirely men aside from Wiig. (The corresponding TV category is 100% male)

• Paul Giamatti as the voice of Chet - Turbo  
• Terry Crews as the voice of Earl – Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2  
• Kristen Wiig as the voice of Lucy – Despicable Me 2
• Steve Carell as the voice of Gru – Despicable Me 2  
• Pierre Coffin as the voice of Minions - Despicable Me 2
• Billy Crystal as the voice of Mike – Monsters University 
• Josh Gad as the voice of Olaf - Frozen

And the seven films in contention for Best Animated Feature:

• The Croods
• Despicable Me 2
• Ernest & Celestine
• Frozen
• A Letter to Momo
• Monsters University
• The Wind Rises

We can probably expect Oscar's list to consist of some combination of four or five of these.

Blue Days... To Come

1 Day until... Today Blue Caprice competes for two Gotham Film Awards 
1 Day until... NYFCC, the oldest film critics organization (not to be confused with NYFCO, a much newer upstart) kicks off critics prize season and we get our first clue as to whether Cate Blanchett's Blue Jasmine is a steamroller (Dec 3rd)
2 Days until... NBR announces kicking off the not-critics-but-we-also-give-prizes prize season (Dec 4th)
5 Days until... Blue is the Warmest Color wins (?) the European Film Awards (Dec 7th)
6 Days until... Adele Exarchopoulus wins Best Actress at LAFCA for Blue is the Warmest Color. What? They always go foreign at LAFCA in that category (Dec 8th)
10 Days until... The Golden Globes make like Blue Balls... but how Blue? Nominations for Blue Jasmine are a given but Warmest Color could win nods, too. (Dec 12th)

All of this  might make our Oscar Chart Updates - currently in progress look instantly out of date

41 Days until... Cate wins the Golden Globe (Jan 12th)
45 Days until... until Blue Jasmine is nominated for [HOW MANY?] Oscars and Cate wins the Best Actress "Critics Choice" Awards (Jan 16th) 
47 Days until... Cate Blanchett wins SAG (Jan 18th) 
50 Days until... until Blue Jasmine hits DVD/Blu-Ray (Jan 21st)
60 Days until... Blue is the Warmest Color wins [HOW MANY?] César nominations in Paris (Jan 31st) 
89 Days until... all three Blue titles compete for Spirit Awards in Santa Monica (March 1st)
90 Days until... Cate Blanchett wins her second Oscar (March 2nd) 

Team FYC: Keith Stanfield, Best Supporting Actor

In this series Film Experience contributors sound off (individually) on their favorite fringe awards contenders. Here's Matthew Eng on Keith Stanfield from "Short Term 12" (who was recently Spirit nominated)

Chief among the achievements of Destin Cretton’s Short Term 12 is an early, two-minute scene in which Keith Stanfield’s Marcus, a sullen, soft-voiced, 18-year-old intake on the verge of being released from the film’s titular foster care facility, shares a self-penned rap with Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), one of the center’s supervisors. What unfolds remains, still, the single most heartbreaking moment I’ve seen onscreen this year, as Marcus launches into an unforgiving tirade against the abusive mother who raised him, that soon transitions into a harrowing lament about the unwavering, angering pain of being born into a broken life.

Look into my eyes so you know what it’s like
To live a life not knowing what a normal life’s like”

It's unshakable, shattering stuff, further enhanced by the beautifully-felt efforts of Stanfield, who wrote the rap himself and whose striking, breakout turn remains one of the year's most egregiously undersung performances. It’s easy to imagine all the ways in which the “Young Actor Playing a Troubled Youth in a Social Drama”-model could potentially go wrong: sometimes, steadfast commitment to the “troubled” aspect threatens to render the character one-note; other times, it’s as if the performer has chosen to play the shameless summoner of unmitigated audience sympathy, rather than an actual character. Instead of falling into either of these traps, Stanfield commits whole-heartedly to unveiling each and every complicated layer of Marcus without ever seeming bent on becoming something akin to the underdog worth rooting for. Stanfield is brilliant at navigating and detailing the character’s rocky emotional landscape and prickly persona, whether he’s snapping at Rami Malek’s “new guy” Nate over a dim comment about “underprivileged kids,” rushing to hostile extremes with Kevin Rodriguez’s antagonistic Luis, or allowing his lanky frame to buckle under the weight of suppressed emotional anguish during an impromptu haircut. Marcus’ surly toughness, deep-concealed heartache, and quiet introversion may be his foremost traits, but it’s to Stanfield’s credit that we also get to glimpse a softer, breezier, and funnier side of Marcus, as when he playfully converses with his housemates or cheekily exposes two counselors’ semi-secret relationship via rap.

That Cretton ultimately leads Marcus to something of a narrative dead-end is an unfortunate outcome, albeit one that in no way diminishes the impact of Stanfield’s concentrated and compelling work throughout Short Term 12. He fully and frequently grounds the movie, rooting it in remarkable truthfulness and bold emotionality, helping us locate the beautiful, gently-beating heart that sits firmly at its center.

Previously on Team FYC

Podcast: Spirited Spirit Discussion

In this week's episode,  Nick channels that THR Hollywood Actress Roundtable (previously live-blogged) and Nathaniel, Katey, and Joe join in but eventually it comes around to this week's topic: Spirit Award nominations.

We haven't seen all the films but the best thing about the Spirit Awards is advocacy for smaller titles you might not be familiar with. Are they shirking that privilege and responsibility with the focus on so many future Oscar nominees in the last few years? The discussion includes but is not limited to: Inside Llewyn Davis, Afternoon Delight, Mud, Upstream Color, Frances Ha, Fruitvale Station, All is Lost, Computer Chess, Short Term 12, Blue Caprice, and Spring Breakers.

You can listen at the bottom of the post or download it on iTunes. Join in the conversation in the comments.

Spirit Awards Nomination Chat

Box Office: Hollywood Queen Beats Disney Princess

Amir here, bringing you Thanksgiving weekend’s box office report.

It’s a testament to the popularity and success of The Hunger Games series that Frozen, in its own right a breaker of multiple records this weekend, could not displace it as the number one film. Catching Fire has banked almost $300m in just ten days, leaving virtually no doubt that it will trump Iron Man 3 as the best selling film of the year. One can only imagine how much a Katniss vs. Tony Stark mash-up film would sell, though I struggle to think of any way in which Jennifer Lawrence is not superior to Robert Downey Jr. at the moment. Frozen, meanwhile, is now firmly positioned as the frontrunner for the animated film Oscar, what with positive reviews, strong word of mouth and incredible sales that guarantee every voter will be tempted to pop this screener in.

BOX OFFICE
01 THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE $74.5 (cum. $296.5) Review
02 FROZEN $66.7 *expanded* (cum. $93)
Review | Like Wicked? | Snow Queen History | Jonathan Groff Interview
03 THOR: THE DARK WORLD $11.1 (cum. $186.7) Review  
04 THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY  $8.4 (cum. $63.4) Discussion 
05 HOMEFRONT $6.9 *new* (cum. $9.7)
06 DELIVERY MAN $6.9 (cum. $19.4)
07 THE BOOK THIEF $4.8 *expanded* (cum. $7.8)
08 BLACK NATIVITY $3.8 *new* (cum. $5)
09 PHILOMENA $3.7 *expanded*  (cum. $4.7)
10 LAST VEGAS $2.7 (cum. $58.7)

None of the other new films fared even remotely as well as Frozen. You can now put Homefront in your DVD box of indistinguishable Jason Statham flicks right next to Chaos, Safe, The Mechanic and your pre-ordered copy of Heat. Black Nativity has roughly the same per screen average, and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom proved that audiences are not hungry to see yet another generic political biopic, especially one so generic that the title literally spells out Name: Dull Greatest Hits Version of Life Events Ending in Triumph. Without a doubt the biggest flop of the weekend was Spike Lee’s Oldboy remake though. I have no desire to see it, mostly because I adore the Korean original, but I can’t help but feel a bit excited about Lee’s misfortune with this one. Yes, yes, I’m petty. Look down on me all you want! But after a series of “incidents” such as this and this, I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels gleeful schadenfreude.

I’ve had a great weekend so far. I didn’t have to leave the house but I caught up with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, The Grandmaster, The Dirties, At Berkeley and Viola, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm, I can recommend them all. What did you watch this weekend?