I knew this day would come, and it is with a sense of both excitement and sadness. By the end of my long deployment, I will have earned the most difficult and significant achievement of my life – Surface Warfare Officer Qualification, and finally perform the mission that my ship and I have been training toward for over a year. On the other hand, I must sacrifice the time and effort I have placed into a site that has grown so much in such a short time.
As our Editor himself would agree, what makes me value Awards Circuit is the staff – all the different backgrounds and perspectives on film from all walks of life. To proudly welcome Nicole and Tiff into our family, I will be assisting Clay in integrating them into the staff top tens dating all the way back to 2000 before my departure. After that, for operational security purposes, you will not be hearing from me for a while. But I will not be gone forever! One of my shipmates advised me a long time ago not to let the Navy become my sole identity, and I will hold to that. Come late 2013/early 2014, I will be back to resuming my full staff writer duties. Read more on Oscars 2013: Will Win/Should Win (Hamer)…
Amour – Michael Haneke
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Benh Zeitlin Life of Pi – Ang Lee Lincoln – Steven Spielberg Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell
(The annual “Will Win/Should Win” of the Awards Circuit has been our most popular yet most challenging series where each writer let’s their final thoughts be known on the Oscar categories. Each writer will reveal their choices everyday leading up to the Oscar ceremony. Think you can do better? Let your final thoughts be known in the comment section or by joining our Oscar Pool. -CD)
The calendar year for most people runs January through December, but for such Oscar-obsessed people as you will find writing here at The Awards Circuit the year ends with Oscar Sunday. Everything we do at this site leads to and culminates in the big ceremony. We’ve spent countless hours going back and forth trying to figure out just where the pieces fit best into the jigsaw puzzle that the Academy Awards race has become, and I have to tell you, I have never seen a year quite like this.
(The annual “Will Win/Should Win” of the Awards Circuit has been our most popular yet most challenging series where each writer let’s their final thoughts be known on the Oscar categories. Each writer will reveal their choices everyday leading up to the Oscar ceremony. Think you can do better? Let your final thoughts be known in the comment section or by joining our Oscar Pool. -CD)
This year we don’t have the fortune of knowing exactly who will win Best Actress. We have five nominees that include two frontrunners, one possible upset and two actresses who should be honored to receive recognition for their work.
2012 went in the blink of an eye. By July of last year, I was fearful of how the year would turn out for film. At that point my top two films, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom were very good but nothing that I wanted to be in the top-tier of my annual top ten list since neither received a top-notch review from myself. September rolled around and film after film was blowing audiences, critics, and prognosticators away. There’s always a narrative a critic and blogger tries to write for the year. Is it the year of action films? Is it the year of big studios? While large studios definitely stepped up their games, it was documentaries that pushed the boundaries of storytelling and bringing enigmatic issues to the surface. I can only hope a worthy documentary manages to get their due in the future and hit the cultural zeitgeist that will “allow” Oscar to recognize.
As I unveil my personal ballot over the next few days, looking over the citations as a whole make me very proud of what filmmakers, performers, and studios are choosing to do with their narrative techniques. Of course, our beloved readership will have a different top ten, criticize choices, and scream anarchy for glowing omissions, but that’s what the Awards Circuit is about. Make your choices known not only in the comment section but also in the Awards Circuit Community Awards which are currently underway.
With the Oscar nominations being announced tomorrow morning and all other nominations revealed, it’s that time folks where we all wonder and debate who will be honored with a nomination Oscar morning.
Add another tally to the impressive amount of critics awards Zero Dark Thirty has won. The African-American Film Critics Association has named the Bigelow film the best film of 2012. However, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, proved to be the big winner taking home four prizes including Best Actress, Screenplay, Independent Film and Music. Other big winners included Ben Affleck taking Best Director and Denzel Washington winning Best Actor. Check out the rest of the winners after the jump! Read more on Zero Dark Thirty, Middle of Nowhere win big with African-American Film Critics Association…
Contrary to popularbelief, I am not a member of the Houston Film Critics Society. But you’ll be hard pressed to see me arguing with the nominations they’ve released. Lincoln leads the diverse groups of chosen films with 8 nominations, with Les Miserables and The Master behind it with 6. They also threw some love to Cloud Atlas and Judi Dench and Javier Bardem in Skyfall. Check out the nominations below for Picture and everything else after the jump!
Via Kris Tapley over at HitFix/In Contention, he took a look at the ballot for the Writers Guild of America upcoming awards and took note of several omissions that include Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Michael Haneke’s Amour. He counted fifteen in total.
Tarantino has never been a member of the WGA but has found success with his other films Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Pulp Fiction (1994). Tapley has explanations for many of the contenders that won’t be getting a boost from the WGA. I encourage you to take a look. The nominations for the Writers Guild Awards will be announced on January 3, the day Oscar ballots are due. The list of films DISQUALIFIED are listed below and after the jump. Read more on Writers Guild of America Disqualifies Several Films for their Awards!…
The prestigious American Film Institute has released their top 10 films and television programs for 2012. The American Film Institute’s annual awards are selected by scholars, film and television artists, critics and AFI Trustees. This year’s juries were chaired by producers and AFI Board of Trustees Vice Chairs Tom Pollock for movies and Rich Frank for TV. The awards luncheon will be held on Jany 11.
AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR ARGO BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD THE DARK KNIGHT RISES DJANGO UNCHAINED LES MISÉRABLES LIFE OF PI LINCOLN MOONRISE KINGDOM SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK ZERO DARK THIRTY
It’s an awards bonanza here at the Awards Circuit today, with the latest entry coming courtesy of the International Press Academy. The Satellite Awards, which cover 31 film and TV categories, were announced today with Les Miserables leading the pack with 10 nominations. The awards will be presented at a dinner Dec. 16 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City.
Motion Picture Argo Warner Bros. Silver Linings Playbook The Weinstein Co. Beasts Of The Southern Wild Fox Searchlight Pictures Les Misérables Universal Skyfall Columbia Pictures Moonrise Kingdom Focus Features The Sessions Fox Searchlight Pictures Lincoln Dreamworks/Touchstone Life Of Pi Twentieth Century Fox Zero Dark Thirty Columbia Pictures Read more on Satellite Awards nominations announced, ‘Les Miserables’ leads with 10…
Tis the season for critics groups to begin announcing their “Best of 2012″ lists and one of the earliest announcements come from the Sight and Sound critics. Comprised of about 100 international critics, it’s one of the more influential voting bodies, and this year their top spot went to Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. Other Oscar contenders such as Amour (#3), Beasts of the Southern Wild (#5, tie) and Moonrise Kingdom (#7) made the list as well. Check out the full list after the jump!
Now that the Presidential election and race for the White House is thankfully behind us (at least for another 4 years that is), even more speculation and analysis can be applied to the race for Oscars and mainly Best Picture! We’re at a critical juncture, in my opinion, as only a very small amount of contenders have yet to be seen, so there’s an almost complete portrait of the year to gaze at. I’ve been looking at it pretty hard lately, and from this angle, it appears that Ben Affleck’s film ‘Argo’ is still sitting in the pole position for Best Picture. There’s no shortage of challengers, but outside of the unseen ones like ‘Les Miserables’, ‘Promised Land’, and ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, the main films hoping to unseat Ben’s flick all have a long road ahead, and likely only ‘Lincoln’ stands a shot at taking the title from those already in release. There’s also films like ‘Hitchcock’, ‘Life of Pi’, and ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ that aren’t yet out but have been seen by a decent number of Oscar pundits, and none of them feel like winners to me either. Yes, I’m a big ‘Argo’ fan, but first and foremost I’m an Oscar prognosticator, so this is just my take on how things are shaping up. The race can and likely will change, but right now this is how it looks to me.
Nominating films from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to The Imposter, the British Independent Film Awards cast a wide net with their nominations announced this morning. The aforementioned Best Exotic manage to nab 5 nods including Best British Independent Film, and acting notices for Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Tom Wilkinson. Also showing up in acting races are Elle Fanning for Ginger and Rosa and Oscar queen Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady (which also picked up a screenplay nomination. The Foreign Language race might prove to be the most interesting with films like Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amour, and Rust and Bone battling it out to take the crown. View the full list of nominees after the jump!
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers announced today the nominees for the Gotham Independent Film Awards. Moonrise Kingdom and The Master picked up nominations for Best Feature, along with The Loneliest Planet, Jack Black starring Bernie and Ava DuVernay’s well-regarded Middle of Nowhere. Other Oscar hopefuls were among the nominees including Silver Linings Playbook in Best Ensemble and Beasts of the Southern Wild, which picked up 2 nominations in Breakthrough Director and Actor. In addition to the regular awards actress Marion Cotillard, actor/writer Matt Damon, director David O. Russell and producer Jeff Skoll are to receive award tributes.See the full list after the jump! Read more on 2012 Gotham Independent Film Awards nominees led by “Beasts” and “Moonrise”…
I can count on one hand the amount of times in my life when I’ve left a cinema buzzing from what I’d just watched; exhilarated by the cinematic journey that had unfolded before me and once more head-over-heels in love with those too often insignificant things we call movies. Laurence Anyways had that effect on me today.
If I Killed My Mother was the eye-opening semi-autobiographical debut, and Heartbeats was the difficult sophomore effort born on a whim but executed with distinguished clarity, then Laurence Anyways is Xavier Dolan’s true work of art. Although his first two movies showed vast quantities of talent and untapped potential, this really is Dolan’s most complete, daring, ambitious and ultimately satisfying film yet.
Attempting to keep a pulse on the season has presented some challenges as of late for the 2013 Oscars and its predictions. It can be argued that we don’t have a front runner in any category despite some films having strong showings at festivals.
Best Picture has presented real challenges. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln finally had its trailer début and all I could think about was War Horse (2011). The film didn’t scream high quality and I still believe Spielberg and the film aren’t rewarded unless it stands next to Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Schindler’s List (1993). The film doesn’t look to be of that caliber. I’ve dropped Spielberg from the Directing predictions for now until some praising reviews come. A “secret” screening in New Jersey suggested that the film is good, not great.
Because this year has looked like a question mark thus far, I’ve been saying to some of my colleagues, we could be in store for something unprecedented. This would be something like Michael Haneke’s Amour winning Best Picture, becoming the first foreign language film ever or Silver Linings Playbook, first dramedy to win the top award since Shakespeare in Love (1998). I’m not ready to go there yet though. I don’t know how the Academy will respond to Amour, a film all too real in this stage of their average 62-year aged life. Perhaps Oscar will listen to the critics for the first time in a while. This could work well for something like Ben Affleck’s Argo or Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, two films that could be critics’ darlings throughout the season. What if our Best Picture winner has already been released? Read more on Oscar Circuit: “If I Had a Magic Lamp…”…
Most years, at least a few films from the first half of the year manage to get the attention of the Academy in one way or another. The end result is usually a few Best Picture contenders (even if they’re in the minority overall), but this year there seems to be a dearth of real contenders for the top prize. This is not to say that one can’t cross their fingers for some love for ‘The Cabin in the Woods’, expect that a film like ‘John Carter’ could wind up with some technical citations, or look towards any number of indie films to make a surprise leap into the Oscar race with some precursor love, but at the moment there doesn’t seem to be a lot on Oscar’s plate from January through the end of June. That’s not to say that there aren’t possibilities out there, and I’ve actually collected 10 potential contenders that pretty much represent the best first half hopes of 2012 and listed them in alphabetical order. These aren’t necessarily the ones I’d like to see in play, just the ones realistically under any sort of consideration. Most will wind up excluded from many, if not all, categories, but some of these will score nods for sure. The question is just where. By my count, there are 3 legitimate Best Picture contenders in the group, but none of them is anywhere close to a lock (in fact, I’m actually only predicting one of them to get nominated in my own predictions). Time will tell though, so all we can do right now is ponder the potential possibilities…and ponder we shall! Let’s get started, shall well?
In the grand scheme of film criticism and the notion that groundbreaking directors can be born right out of their first feature, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild is a perfect blend of emotional rapture and glorious narrative. The film tells the story of young Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis), a girl living among her father (Dwight Henry) and neighbors following a natural disaster that may or may not be Hurricane Katrina. Hushpuppy faces the deteriorating environment that threatens her very existence and everyone she loves.
Zeitlin’s direction is controlled and spot-on as he operates the film with a heavy hand of love. His interpretation of a world that belongs to an eight-year-old girl is accurately and effectively moving. Zeitlin casts a spell and digs his way into your soul with his creation of some of the most beautiful characters of the year. The film, reminiscent of an older, more mature version of Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, encapsulates many of the qualities that makes films really extraordinary. Zeitlin’s vision is paramount and while he allows the imagery to become a secondary character, a tactic many director can only dream of, his artistic abilities haven’t even been fully realized…yet. Read more on Beasts of the Southern Wild (***½)…
Beasts of the Southern Wild has slowly but surely been working its way into critics’ hearts (and Oscar charts). After winning the Camera d’Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury award at Sundance, Beasts has made quite an impression, leading many to search for creator Benh Zeitlin’s other works. Thanks to the good people at Slate, you can now see Glory at Sea, a short film that served as the forefather for Benh Zeitlin’s critically acclaimed film. The short deals with the aftermath of that flood, and a community’s Orpheus-like efforts to keep alive its old traditions and loved ones. Much Like Beasts it concerns a southern Delta community endangered by a flood and focuses on a young girl who also serves as the film’s narrator. Check it out after the jump!
It’s the first of the month. Not only that, it’s the first day of the second half of the year. Anybody else feel like that was fast? Yet, here we are.
It’s time to start getting serious, Oscar-wise. Not many things have come out, and not many films are looking like Best Picture nominees from the first half. Some will argue The Avengers with a $600 million dollar bank is in talks. Some think the little indie-film Moonrise Kingdom from Wes Anderson could be our “Little Miss Sunshine” of the year. In limited release, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild has opened and received one of the best word-of-mouth reviews of the year. Is that a contender for the big prize? I’d say it is.
I’m ready to start getting down and dirty with these predictions.
Hello everyone! I am officially back to bring you the weekly recap on all that went down at The Awards Circuit. I would like to thank Robert Hamer for doing a tremendous job taking over the reins for two weeks during my deep entrenchment in the Los Angeles Film Festival. Speaking of Los Angeles’ most prestigious movie festival, we began the week with my final diary entry (*sobs*) as well as my personal festival awards, highlighting the best at LAFF. Despite Beasts of the Southern Wild being a truly remarkable piece of filmmaking, I had to give my top prize to Rolando Colla’s uncomfortably realistic Summer Games. This film, that most recently won “Best Film” at the Swiss Film Prize (Switzerland’s version of the Oscars®), has been received rather antagonistically by many American critics, so I guess I’m in the minority of stateside film critics that absolutely loved this cinematic gem to pieces — go figure! I am crossing my fingers that this Swiss entry for last year’s “Best Foreign Language Film” will be released in the U.S. so our readers and my fellow colleagues can watch and react to it. Read more on Circuit Round-Up (Week Ending 7/1)…
Add another tally to the impressive amount of critics awards Zero Dark Thirty has won. The African-American Film Critics Association has named the Bigelow film the best film of 2012. However, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere, proved to be the big winner taking home four prizes including Best Actress, Screenplay, Independent Film and Music. Other big winners included Ben Affleck taking Best Director and Denzel Washington winning Best Actor. Check out the rest of the winners after the jump!
Contrary to 
Via Kris Tapley over at 
