"The Favourite" Leads the Critics Choice Nominations

by Nathaniel R

me giving my fellow BFCA members the side-eye for some of their choices

Yorgos Lanthimos' pitch black comedy The Favourite led the Critic's Choice Nominations with a staggering 14 nods. Black Panther wasn't far behind with 12. The morning's biggest (and best) surprise is surely the resurgence of First Man, which had been struggling with precursors but has a very healthy 10 nominations with the BFCA. One wonders if it can rocket to a Best Picture nomination despite its box office troubles? In other very good news Toni Collette is nominated (though we aren't surprised in this case) and the foreign film list is aces. Well done.

Not that it's all good news but we're starting with the positives.

In the television categories (which are worth a read because they're quite different than the Globe nominations) Escape at Dannemora, The Americans, and The Assassination of Gianna Versace led all shows with 5 nominations a piece.  The complete list of nominees is after the jump along with a few comments...

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Please welcome, the Latino Entertainment Journalists Association

Though TFE has bemoaned the need for every little city in the world to have their own critics organizations (sometimes two!) rather than merely joining preexisting organizations, we don't feel the same way when it comes to representation and diversity. We were actually shocked to realize that there wasn't already an organization for Latino entertainment journalists. Clayton Davis of Awards Circuit fame saw the gap and founded The Latino Entertanment Journalists Association and will serve as its first president. Additional founding board members are Toni Gonzales (Freelance), Niki Cruz (AM NY), and Kiko Martinez (Remezcla). This new Association will announce their first film awards on January 20th, 2019...

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FYC Young Performer Award 2018

by Nathaniel R

Evan Rosado was just one of a handful of truly incredible child performances this year in "We the Animals"

Each year one of our award traditions here at The Film Experience is to help fellow BFCA members choose more wisely when it comes to the "Young Performer" category at the Critics Choice Movie Awards. We do this with a not-so-simple eligibility list. You see, our ballots don't come with lists of eligible choices so it's up to each member to think up a list and since the category gets no media coverage it's hard to think up choices on the spot so sometimes the nominations are quite lazy (You had a high profile child or teen role in a big studio film? You're nominated!). For instance this year, voters would be practically insane to skip Zain Al Rafee in Capernaum (only one of the best child performances ever) but given that that's within a foreign film hopeful that has yet to open in theaters (December 14th), voters ARE likely to be insane and skip him.

It takes a bit of research for the teen/young adult performances to see who is actually eligible. Given that we're apt to miss a couple of names, so do let us know if you don't see your favorite. The BFCA voting is about to begin so here are those cheat sheets to help them vote along with some trivia notes...

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"Shape of Water" way way out front at the Critics Choice Awards

by Nathaniel R

As always, full disclosure: I am a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association. So this award announcement is always filled with anxiety for me because I want to be heard. We all want to be heard. Nevertheless most of the longer shots I rallied for didn't make it, he said, pushing away a single tear. The Shape of Water led with 14 nominations... and it was so far out front it nearly doubled the nominations afforded to its nearest rivals (a clump of them jammed together with 8 nominations each:  Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird, Dunkirk, and The Post).

As ever I'm disappointed that the nominations double so heavily as "general Oscar pundit predictiveness" but here they are in their fullness with very immediate and perhaps too impulsive commentary after the jump.

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Critics Choice Documentary Winners

by Nathaniel R

"Jane," now in theaters, took the top prize at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards

Perhaps if I'm too stay in the BFCA (home to the "Critic's Choice Awards") I should run for actual office within them. Why? Well, change from within. I literally never understand their decisions like awards ceremonies where there are no rules as to how large a category is or isn't. They have this same problem in their main movie awards to a small degree but their documentary competition is even more unruly/nonsensical. These awards, held last night in Brooklyn, had (pause for shuddering) 16 nominees for Best Documentary Feature but 10 nominees for Best Director and only 6 nominees for Debut Documentary and so on and so on. No rhyme or reason! 

But herewith, this year's winners (links go to reviews if we've covered them). All of the feature film winners are on Oscar's long list (previously shared):

Documentary: JANE
Director: [tie] Frederick Wiseman for EX-LIBRIS and Evgeny Afineevsky for CRIES FROM SYRIA
First Documentary: KEDI
Political Documentary: ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL
Sports Documentary: ICARUS
Music Documentary: CLIVE DAVIS: THE SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES
Most Innovative: [tie] LAST MEN IN ALEPPO and DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME 
Best Song: "Jump" from STEP 
Limited Series: THE VIETNAM WAR on PBS
Ongoing Series: AMERICAN MASTERS on PBS

There was also a non-competitive category called "Most Compelling Living Subject of a Documentary" and the following people/creatures were honored: The cats of KEDI, Al Gore for AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL, Etty for ONE OF US, Dolores Huerta for DOLORES, Gigi Lazzarato for THIS IS EVERYTHING: GIGI GORGEOUS, and The Sung family for ABACUS

Related:
Oscar Prediction Documentary Chart
Glenn's series "Doc Corner"