Toys, battle angels and photoreal lions dominate the VES Awards

by Nathaniel R

Alita Battle Angel, The Lion King and Toy Story 4 led the pack at the annual Visual Effects Society nominations though Toy Story 4 is not one of the finalists for the Visual Effects Oscar. (Inexplicably the Oscar finals had to make room for Cats which received zero nominations from the VES.) Sadly the VES completely ignored Ad Astra which was an unfortunate miss for the Oscar finalist list and suffers a further indignity here. What's a beautiful well reviewed sci-fi drama gotta do to get some respect? 

The nominations and a few comments are after the jump...

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Still more prizes...

Why were critics so uncritical of Toy Story 4's retreading?

Yes, people are still giving out prizes. We don’t say this facetiously since we haven’t even given out ours yet (still cramming in screenings!) but both the Team Experience Awards (voted on by our whole team sans me -- they don’t let me vote!) and the Film Bitch Awards (yours truly's own long-running prizes) are coming in the next week or two. But until the guild awards start en masse this week (whilst Academy members vote on the Oscar nominations) here are the five latest industry or critics groups to announce. We only wish that there were more variety since Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, Adam Driver, Brad Pitt, Apollo 11, and Toy Story 4 continually to dominate their categories with stampede like force. The only category where the groups disagreed en masse (this week at least) was Best Actress; Ronan, Nyong'o, Zellweger, and Johansson all picked up another prize. And Best Supporting Actress was dominated by Florence Pugh in this week's roundup which is a bit different than earlier in the critics awards season where it was always Dern vs Lopez. 

The latest prizes after the jump...

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Once Upon a Time ... in more critics prizes!

by Nathaniel R

Pint sized big talent Julia Butters and Quentin Tarantino both won prizes recently for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

In the latest round up of critics prizes we have critics from the SouthEastern US, Las Vegas, Boston (online) and one of the two (or is it three now?) female critics organizations called "Women's Film Critic's Circle". Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Parasite pick up several more prizes as do Portrait of a Lady on Fire and... Harriet? 

Tomorrow one of the historically coolest and most discerning critics groups is naming their winners (Boston Society of Film Critics -- don't fail us!) but until that potentially exciting announcement here are the latest four associations to announce. The winners and a few comments are after the jump...

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32 films competing for nominations in Best Animated Feature

by Nathaniel R

Frozen 2 is clearly hoping to be the first animated franchise to win the Animated Feature category twice.

The Oscar race is officially on for Best Animated Feature. 32 films are planning to compete, which is easily a record as there are usually closer to 22 or so, so we'll definitely have 5 nominees again this year. But the question is which. We've divvied the 32 films up into types to make this easier to process...

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Review Catch-Up

by Nathaniel R

A confession: After an alarm mishap I accidentally slept right through my Lion King critics screening earlier in the week. Upon waking I was angry with myself because there is no way I wanted to actually pay to see photorealistic animals singing. After perusing the early reviews both pro and con, I became convinced that the sleep was no accident but a divine intervention from the cinematic gods. My new stance is that I can wait for the screener to arrive during awards season... as no movie has ever struck me (from afar) as less necessary than this one. In truth I don't even love the 1994 picture (as Disney renaissance movies go, it's low on my personal list). Anyway, on to movies we have caught up with recently that we either haven't reviewed or talked at length about on the podcast...

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