Podcast: Critics Awards, Elle, Hacksaw Ridge, More...

This week a bifurcated podcast. In the first half Nick, Joe, and Nathaniel continue their discussion of Elle. Then Katey joins us to talk about the recent surge of critics awards. 

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 A little more on Elle, Huppert, and provocateur auteurs
13:00 Bleed For This, The Fighter, Hidden Figures
19:20 Katey joins us & Nick goes to New Zealand
23:00 Critic prizes, Critics Choice Nomination, NBR, the lack of transparency, and Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge
40:00 A bit on Hell or High Water

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments. On the next podcast: Manchester by the Sea and Reader Questions Answered! 

Critics Award Rush...

Why Amy Adams May Have to Sit This Oscar Year Out...

The news of Amy Adams winning the NBR delighted many and also stirred up the usual "The Film Experience hates her!" complaints in the commentary. We do not. Being frustrated by an actor's ubiquity and dullness at one particular annual event is not the same as hating them or their work. Amy Adams is a very fine actress. She has given many delightful performances, two of which would have even made non-controversial Oscar wins had she managed to actually nab the statue (Junebug or The Fighter).

Amy Adams (5), Albert Finney (5), and Glenn Close (6) are the living actors with the most Oscar nominations who have never won.

And it's true that she's quite amazing in Arrival, serving as the audience vessel to in two simultaneous and important ways that the movie couldn't succeed without: she's awestruck by what she's watching (she's our eyes and surely our facial expressions in the dark); apart from that awe she's emotionally and intellectually engaged with the events in order to grapple with them and suss out meaning which is what the audience is always doing when they're watching grand films that demands that they pay attention with both their heart and their mind.

But for all of that I don't think she's making the Oscar lineup and here's why...

Click to read more ...

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...

Click to read more ...

NBR takes Fury Road... but to where?

The National Board of Review used to be the unofficial kick off to awards season / best of year honors but though it's still early, the race for "first" got so ridiculous that we've crept into November of late. They lost that distinction but they're still doing their thing super early in December. The first day of it. Welcome to month twelve!

THEY LOOKED AT ME. THEY LOOKED AT ME.

This year they named George Miller's feminist action epic Mad Max Fury Road as the year's best and we salute them since we love it so and it's peak spectacle filmmaking. But Furiosa will be pissed to hear that they mostly ignored the other big female driven films this year.

Let's investigate after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Mark Your Calendars!

With the Gotham Awards coming tonight, it's time to look at the awards season calendar. Here's a handy prep list. Dates in italics are not official just right around when it happened last year. Dates in bold are nomination dates or televised ceremonies.

Are you ready? Can you ever be?

DECEMBER 2015
 

1st (ish) Oscar's Documentary Finalist List announced
1st National Board of Review Awards
2nd New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) Awards
6th Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC) Awards
7th Golden Globe nomination ballots due
9th SAG NOMINATIONS
10th GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS
13th Toronto Film Critics Awards
14th BFCA "CRITICS CHOICE" NOMINATIONS
18th (ish) Oscar's Foreign Language Finalist List announced
20th FiLM BiTCH AWARDS begin. That's ours... (I know I know. we'll try to trim the running time this year.)
30th Oscar nomination ballots go out to AMPAS

JANUARY 2016

5th PGA & ADG Nominations
5th NBR Gala
6th ASC Cinematography Nominations
7th SAG nomination ballots due
8th Oscar nomination ballots due
8th BAFTA Nominations
10th GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS (73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards on NBC)
10th Visual Effects Society "Bake-Off" presentation for the Oscar finalists
12th DGA Nominations
13th FiLM BiTCH AWARDS Nominations Wrap-Up
14th OSCAR NOMINATIONS - Rejoice!
17th CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS (Annual BFCA Awards on A&E)
21st  Sundance Film Festival Begins
23rd PGA Gala
29th SAG ballots due
30th SAG AWARDS (22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on TNT/TBS)
31st Art Directors Guild Gala

FEBRUARY 2016

6th DGA Gala
12th Oscar ballots out to AMPAS
14th BAFTA AWARDS and American Society of Cinematographer's Gala
17th (ish) 18th Annual Costume Designers Guild Gala
23rd Oscar Ballots due
27th Film Independent Spirit Awards
28th OSCAR NIGHT! (aka Hollywood's High Holy Night aka The 88th Annual Academy Awards)

MARCH & APRIL 2016

It all starts again for a new film year!