Boston Loves "Manchester"

The Boston Film Critics Society formed in 1980 divvying up their first year of prizes largely between Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull and Jonathan Demme's undeappreciated Melvin & Howard. (Both auteurs would reign again with the BFCS via The Departed and Silence of the Lambs). While they don't often out on stylish limbs and aren't as invested in foreign films as they once did and were, when they return to either of those impulses it's often exciting. Our absolute favorite thing they occassional do is a weirdo but "why, yes, actually!" supporting performance pick like Toni Collette for The Hours, Juliette Lewis in Conviction or Ezra Miller in Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Here's what they chose as Best for 2016 along with several trivia notes...

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NBR Loves Manchester by the Sea

The National Board of Review, the only non-industry and non-journalist/critic group of note that passes out awards each year have announced their winners. They are notoriously secretive and hard to predict apart from three things: their eternal love for Clint Eastwood (even when no one else is loving him as with titles like Hereafter) so we knew Sully would be on their list; their recency bias (they love December releases historically more than Oscar); and their magical not-at-all suspicious divvying up of prizes to make sure each studio must purchases a table at their banquet.

Their top winner this year were Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea which won four awards and Moonlight which won two. No other film took multiple prizes though some received a prize plus a citation on one of their top five / top ten lists. Notable Oscar hopefuls that received no mentions whatsover: Jackie, Lion, Loving, Fences, Florence Foster Jenkins, Toni Erdmann and Love & Friendship.

The winners and list are after the jump...

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"American Honey" & "Moonlight" lead the Spirit Award Nominations

Nominations have been announced for the 20th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, which we generally abbreviate as "Indie Spirits" or "Spirits". American Honey and Moonlight, two idiosyncratic visions, lead with six nominations each. Moonlight, which takes the ensemble prize (but wasn't nominated for individual performances) will also presumably be hot with Oscars. The two other Oscar Best Picture contenders that did very well at the Spirits today were Jackie and Manchester by the Sea. Other People, the cancer dramedy loosely based on the directors own life, can also be very happy about its nomination showing. Other buzzy titles like Hell or High Water, 20th Century Women, and Loving had mixed success, picking up some key nods but not others despite their high profiles.

Moonlight receives six Spirit nominations... and seems likely to win a few of them.

 And here are two big reasons to celebrate -- Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic) and Isabelle Huppert (Elle) were both nominated. Oscar nominations are hardly done deals for either of those exquisite performances so any attention that can be drawn is worth celebrating. The full list with commentary after the jump (titles links go to our reviews)...

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Middleburg Finale: "Loving" & "La La Land"

Lynn Lee here stepping in for Nathaniel, on his way back to NYC, for the final day of the Middleburg Film Festival which was Sunday. As a D.C. area resident, I’ve been observing the rising profile of this local-ish film festival over the past few years with great interest.  Festival founder Sheila Johnson seems bent on making Middleburg a lower-altitude Telluride of the East, and she certainly has the Hollywood heavy-hitter connections to do it!  This year’s lineup was easily the most impressive so far in the festival’s short history; it’s as if the program was constructed specifically to highlight likely Oscar contenders.

The Lovings in the beloved Virginia.

In both that ambition and its picturesque Virginia setting, there was no more fitting film to cap the festival than Loving...

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The Gotham Nominations

Chris here. In case you missed it, the season's first precursor nominations were announced on Thursday: the Gothams! Somewhat like the New York City community's answer to the Indie Spirit Awards, the Gothams never fail to highlight some spunkier names thanks to each category being voted on by separate committees. Spotlight may have taken their big prize as well as Oscar last year, but it's the rare Gotham's win to continue on to Oscar.

The year's biggest nominee is Manchester By The Sea (which Nathaniel just reviewed) with four nominations. However, the biggest celebration is likely being had by A24: the New York-based distributor scored nominations for seven of their films, including lesser seen worthy titles like Krisha and Morris From America. This year's ceremony will also feature tributes to Amy Adams, Ethan Hawke, Arnon Milchan, and Oliver Stone.

BEST FEATURE

• Certain Women
• Everybody Wants Some!!
• Manchester By The Sea
• Moonlight
• Paterson

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