Thoughts on this season's BAFTA nominations

La La Land was the not unexpected leader for the BAFTA nominations. Slightly less known ahead of time was what film would threaten its leader status and that is arguably more surprising: divisive Nocturnal Animals tied for second place with the not very divisive Arrival with nine nominations each.

The film suffering the most this morning from lack of BAFTA love is surely Loving, which had the advantage of a popular new homegrown star Ruth Negga but missed in all categories but for "Rising Star" for Ruth Negga. The nominations in all categories after the jump...

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NSFC Gives Isabelle Huppert the Critical Triple

The National Society of Film Critics have spoken. The last important critics prizes of each season is sometimes idiocyncratic but not this year. They've gone with the the leaders in every single category (in terms of past critics prizes from all over the nation) except Best Cinematography. That award has varied from groups to groups and here it goes to Moonlight.

Most importantly they've given Isabelle Huppert the rare triple crown of film critic prizes. She'd previously won both New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. To show you how infrequently that happens a list of the previous winners of all three after the jump...

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An Interview with the Founder of the Seattle Film Critics Society

Please welcome Brian Zitzelman, our newest contributor. He's a member of the newly formed Seattle Film Critics Society and for his first post he's interviewing the founder of that society Michael Ward. A little inside peak for you. - Editor

Michael Ward of "Should I See It"by Brian Zitzelman

Beyond being a genuinely kind, smart man, Michael Ward has done what few have; he's created a film critic's society. The Seattle Film Critics Society to be exact.  

Despite being home to a near month-long film festival, a multitude of cinemas devoted to older movies and generally being pretty comfortably snobby about the arts, the city of Seattle hasn't had a proper Film Society for over a decade. Mr. Ward changed that with months and months of work dealing with studio reps here and cavalcades of other oddities. In between tallying the final votes and writing sensationally for his own site Should I See It, I spoke to Mike about the joys, troubles and curveballs of what it takes to develop something that’s usually an established institution in other parts of the country. 

BRIAN ZITZELMAN: Let me start with the obvious question; How happy are you to have this first year of the Seattle Film Critics Society behind you?

MICHAEL WARD: Well, it feels premature to say that we have a full year under our belts. We are still working with a team to complete the infrastructure but I am comfortable in saying that lots of people have put in lots of time to make this a reality. We are planning on voting in a Board of Directors in February 2017, and at that point, more than two years of hard work will definitely have paid off. 

Moonlight took 6 prizes including Best Picture at the first official Seattle Film Critics Society awards

Can you walk us through the whole concept? I think most people assume every major metropolitan city has its own film critics circle, especially those with a history of the arts like Seattle. 

While this iteration of a Seattle Film Critics Society is new, there was an organization that existed from 2001-2004. Unfortunately, when they disbanded it was an ugly dissolution, and people are still reeling from how that all apparently went down.  But you're absolutely right Brian, most major cities have a film critics society or organization which most people typically only hear about during awards season...  

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Art Director's Guild Nominations

The Art Director's Guild can give us a taste of what's to come for Oscar but that's the reductive way of looking at it. By having multiple categories they give us a much better sense of what these craftsmen thought of the work done in any given film year... or at least told us which screeners they caught up with. Instead of 5 annual nominees like the Oscars, they have 15. Or in this year's case 16 titles (there was a tie in "period film").

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS won a surprise Academy nomination for Production Design (without an ADG nomination). Might CAFE SOCIETY (which *has* an ADG nomination) make the Oscar list despite a current low profile?

Which will go on to Oscar? (I'll have to rethink our chart which has four films which didn't score with the ADG in the top ten though one of them, The Handmaiden, still feels possible as a nomination since foreign films don't generally show up at guild awards before their Oscar nods) Oscar eventual lineup is remarkably similar from year to year in terms of how it pulls from the ADG nominations. For example, here is this decade thus far: 

2015: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 1 each from their contemporary and fantasy selections
2014: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 2 film from fantasy, none from contemporary. They filled the remaining spot with a film ADG had not selected (Mr Turner)
2013: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 1 each from their contemporary and fantasy selections
2012: Oscar chose 3 from ADG's period pieces, 2 from fantasy, none from contemporary.
2011: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 1 from fantasy, none from contemporary, and 2 films the ADG had not selected (Midnight in Paris & War Horse)
2010: Oscar chose 2 from ADG's period pieces, 3 from fantasy, none from contemporary.

The safest bet is that they'll do the same as usual this year with a 3,1,1 split for ADG's Period, Fantasy, and Contemporary fields. All the nominations are after the jump...

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Catching up w/ Critics Prizes: Chicago, London, Kansas City, and SEFCA

Another week another big round of critics prizes. As previously noted we only cover about 16 groups (for sanity purposes) so here were a fourth of them as announced these past few days.

CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION

Chicago's association was first established in 1988 with a Best Picture prize for Mississippi Burning of all things. This year they liked The Handmaiden so much that it even broke into their Best Picture nomination, a rarity for the group. The last foreign language film to do so with Chicago was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon back in 2000. It won three prizes, just shy of what Manchester by the Sea managed...

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