DC Critics Love Movies About Movies... And Dogs

This year marked the 10th anniversary for the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association. What a mouthful their name is. Henceforth WAFCA which omits the DC part but they like it that way.  In their very first year they picked an odd duck for Best Picture by way of the Stiff With Prestige Adaptation Road to Perdition but since then they've hewed much closer to Oscar, only giving two top prizes to films that weren't eventually Best Picture nominees or winners (Eternal Sunshine and United 93). This year they went crazy for movies about movies... with dogs.

DC Film Critics are Dog People. The Artist and Hugo win big.

Let me be clear... In no way does my happy photoshopping imply that President Obama is a member of WAFCA though the Obamas are dog friendly. It's just me thinking 'bout DC and the movies.

Here are the WAFCA prizes...

Film The Artist
Director Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Actress Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Actor George Clooney, The Descendants
Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer, The Help
Supporting Actor Albert Brooks, Drive

Acting Ensemble Bridesmaids
Adapted Screenplay Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash  The Descendants
Original Screenplay Will Reiser for 50/50
Animated Feature Rango
Documentary Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams 

"Skeletor" is a real healer in Original Screenplay winner 50/50

Foreign Language Film Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In
Art Direction Dante Ferretti and Francesca LoSchiavo for Hugo 
Cinemagotraphy Emmanuel Lubeszki for The Tree of Life
Score Ludovic Bource for The Artist  

The Artist and Hugo are certainly starting the awards season off well. Given that they both opened for the Thanksgiving Holiday does this mean next Thanksgiving we'll see an even larger clusterfuck than this year's insanity?

How long do you think it'll be before one of the critics groups gives the Supporting Actress prize to one or all of the Bridesmaids? Monty didn't totally go for Bridesmaids but then he's not a dog person... er, cat. 

Which Annie Nominee Has Your Vote For Animated Feature?

The New York Film Critics Circle recently opted out of honoring a best animated feature (and unless I'm mistaken it was an afterthought win for Rango at the NBR since it wasn't in the first wave of articles). Will awards bodies lose their keys to this category since realizing Cars 2 was a lemon? If you stop to think about it for more than two seconds it's decidedly ungenerous at best and horribly offensive at worst. It sheds an unflattering light on the initiable embrace of the animated ghetto categories, suggesting they were only created to honor Pixar to begin with. Which is... rather shameful if you ask me. If the only reason you created a category was to honor Pixar, you shouldn't have created a category. Nobody gives out prizes for "Best Paramount Pictures Release of the Year", you know? Nobody gives out prizes for "Best Weinstein Co. Release of The Year" ["The Academy does!" cried the anonymous heckler. *rimshot*]

What? Rango wasn't good enough for a badge of honor?

So, even if this wasn't the single greatest year for animated film, if you're going to honor the medium, honor the medium. If you change your rules every year who will respect you? (That's a general warning to wishy washy committees, The Golden Satellites, and to the Oscar board of directors themselves who are weirdly starting to act like all their imitators these past few years by second guessing themselves constantly).

But, since the Annie Awards have been honoring animated work for 38 years -- long before Oscar or the critics groups ever thought to honor it --  they'll continute to do just that. They've selected ten "Best Picture" nominees for their 39th annual awards. And even if they felt the need to include Cars 2 to get there, at least they didn't cancel their ceremony when they realized it wasn't revving anyone's engines. I promise to brake break with the car puns no. So sorry!

Annie Awards Best Animated Feature Nominees

• A Cat in Paris - Folimage
• The Adventures of Tintin - Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall
• Arrugas (Wrinkles) - Perro Verde Films, SL
• Arthur Christmas - Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animation
• Cars 2 - Pixar
• Chico & Rita - Chico & Rita Distribution Limited
• Kung Fu Panda 2 - Dreamworks Animation
• Puss in Boost - Dreamworks Animation
• Rango - Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present a Blind Wink/GK Films Production
• Rio - Blue Sky Studios

And even if he isn't nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor, Gary Oldman could still win an Annie Award. He's up for best voice acting as "Lord Shen" from Kung Fu Panda 2.

Find this... 'panda'... and bring him to me.
FIND this 'Panda'. And bring him to me.
FIND THIS PANDA AND BRING HIM TO ME!!!"

A complete list of their nominations is after the jump if you'd like to dig deeper. (I was sad that this year they didn't include the info as to which animated characters the individual animators are being honored for designing or animating. If I recall correctly they used to specify which characters, just as in the voice acting honors.)

Click to read more ...

War Horse Premiere. Oscar Updates Soon.

Just a quick note that tonight -- er, last night -- was a big night. It was the World Premiere of War Horse here in NYC. After I sleep on it, I'll finish updating the Oscar charts for the week. The red carpet was long but, as you know, most of the War Horse cast are relative newcomers.

And most of them took to the stage to introduce the film. It was particularly exciting to see Emily Watson looking great and Tom Hiddleston being ridiculously sexy in what I think was a velvet suit (?). Steven Spielberg apologized that he didn't bring the horse "Joey" on to the stage to introduce the movie but joked that it would not be fair since several horses played the role.  The audience was filled with luminaries as well. Spotted: Phyllicia Rashad, Tyler Perry, Celia Weston, Stephen Daldry (adorably huggy with David Kross who he directed in The Reader and who appears in War Horse), Stephen Lang, Cathy Moriarty and many more but the names or faces are escaping me since there was free liquor. What?

Yesterday it was The Iron Lady. Today War Horse. Tomorrow, it's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo... though as you may have heard online today that one is under strict tetchy embargo. So we'll just pretend I'm not seeing it yet, okay? In short: It must be December. So many movies. So little time to write about them but I'll get to everything as soon as I can! Thanks for your patience.

What did you see this weekend? 

Parties: "The Help" Are Singing a Happy Tune

This year I've had the pleasure of attending a few celebratory events for movies. At these luncheons or cocktail parties the filmmakers mingle with media types and Academy members. The most recent was a lunch for The Help held at Desmond's which is quite rectangular like a railroad apartment albeit one with very high ceilings. This gave the event a distinct bottleneck frenzy feel once Oscar buzzing actresses Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer were making the rounds... or in this case walking the aisle. Conversation became next to impossible. After a quick exchange with Octavia (in very high spirits) we both did a double take of mutual fandom; the hilarious Anna Deavere Smith (Nurse Jackie, Rachel Getting Married) was squeezing past us saying a string of goodbyes. By the time I was face to face with Viola Davis, utterly gorgeous and much younger looking in person, she was ending a conversation with a time-hogging reporter in which she was trying to work her way around and straight out of a Meryl Streep as Competition' question. (Viola's take: It belittles the work to view it like that.) I was flustered and not uttering coherent sentences when it was my turn for "hello".

Octavia & Viola speaking to the crowd © Nathaniel Rogers

The highlight of the event found Viola and Octavia and the art direction team addressing the crowd (which included André Leon Talley of Vogue fame - a fan of the movie. who knew?!). There was an awkward moment of silence as they lined up as if on stage. Octavia Spencer broke the tension quipping "We've prepared a song for you" and started humming to tune them which sent Viola into peals of laughter. Then they were off, talking about the expectations placed on them, their nerves about the movie -- you never know if people will end up appreciating your work -- and their eventual joy at being a part of the phenomenon, which one executive called "the gift that keeps on giving". (The Help is still in theaters after 17 weeks and the 11th highest grossing film of the year). 

Viola: What we ultimately saw was something that made us so proud. It's something unlike anything else that's out there. [Pause] Just in the hues of the people! [Crowd laughter]
Octavia: [Posing] And the size!

There were two other very funny bits.

First, a guest asked them how they stopped themselves from killing Bryce Dallas Howard on set. "Well, we did beat the crap out of her one night," Viola said, with mock seriousness to more big laughs. But they quickly launched into a heartfelt discussion of how sweet she is in real life and they thought it would be hard to hate her onscreen. Second, another guest dared asked about the negative response from some pockets of the African American community. There was a beat of silence before Viola stepped to the side with a deadpan "Octavia..." handing her the hot potato question. The two actresses are born entertainers off screen as well. Ultimately they said they were proud that the movie had sparked so much discussion and that discussion was important.

As it turns out the Production Designer Mark Ricker and Set Decorator Rena DeAngelo of The Help were seated directly opposite me at lunch and fun to chat with. Rena had done the pilot for Mad Men (I restrained from freaking out about this reveal but damn). To my amusement, they revealed that they knew their way around online Oscar charts (hey, they brought it up, not me!). As a moviegoer you don't often think about the experience of movie crews leaving one set for another but it was  interesting to hear their relief at how much period fun and color they could bring to The Help after all the time spent with grey sterile interiors for You Don't Know Jack. I told them my favorite set was Celia Foote's (Jessica Chastain) house. They stripped that house bare to decorate it for Celia's tastes and said that Jessica was constantly downing soy milkshakes (she's a vegan) to gain curves for the role.

Ms. Chastain was not in attendance but when the waiters came round to ask if we had any dietary restrictions, I spared a thought for Jessica's soy milk and Celia's limited oeuvre in the kitchen.

Related: The Help review | Best Picture | Visual Oscar Categories | Best Supporting Actress | Best Actress

Moët BIFA Awards Spread the Movie Wealth

The Stars gathered this evening in London for the Moët British Independent Film Awards which was ruled by one particular Tyrannosaur and also afforded Michael Fassbender his second best actor prize (following the Venice Volpi Cup) for Shame. He needs to keep nabbing these to stay in play for a very competitive Oscar race.

photo via @shamefilm

Photos and a list of winners after the jump.

Click to read more ...