BSFC, LAFCA, and NYFCO winners

by Nathaniel R

"ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED" won three more prizes today

A big Critics awards day today the night before Oscar begins voting on its finalist lists for the categories that use that process (i.e. not the ones that get the most press). After the jump one of the three most important critics associations, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, plus the enduring and usually interesting Boston Society of Film Critics, and the relatively new group New York Film Critics Online (not to be confused with the biggie, NYFCC, which already announced).

Today's three critics groups had some similaries but agreed unanimously on two things: Ke Huy Quan for Best Supporting Actor and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed for Best Documentary. We're happiest of course with complete disagreements since TFE loves the spreading of wealth. Best Animated Feature and Best Supporting Actress for example, resulted in a different winner at each of these orgs. Winners and a few comments are after the jump...

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One For Them, One For Me: Noah Baumbach's "Madagascar 3" and "Frances Ha"

A new series by Christopher James

Noah Baumbach at a screening of Frances Ha

Do one for them; do one for you. If you can still do projects for yourself, you can keep your soul.

— Martin Scorsese: A Journey

Many creatives have pointedly or inadvertently taken Martin Scorsese’s career advice. One has to hit it big in order to have clout in Hollywood. Often, it takes clout to make passion projects. In this column, we want to look at the times wherein a filmmaker or actor’s career triumphs have come at a time where they’ve also had to make compromises. In some cases, people have taken the easy cash grab in order to sustain more creative endeavors. Other times, the populist “one for them” ends up being a creative triumph, loosening the talent up.

The first entry in this series belongs to Noah Baumbach, for his wonderfully chaotic 2012. In the same year he begins his partnership behind the camera with Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha (released in 2013), he secretly writes Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. Do these movies share any DNA, or is it a textbook case of “one for them (I need money), one for me (I’m an artist)”?

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