(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 Writers Guild of America will be announcing their winners tomorrow, Sunday, February 17. All season long there have been many instances, which I’m just as guilty of, where we doubt Argo’s chances in an awards show. The BFCA and Golden Globes seemed expected. The Producers Guild of America was cool. The SAG Ensemble win was jaw-dropping. The Directors Guild of America was a fine achievement and something that should have happened anyway. For me, the BAFTA win was very telling since Argo never seemed like it would appeal to an overseas group like BAFTA when films like LesMiserables and Life of Pi were nominated alongside it.
ChrisTerrio’s script is beloved among critics and audiences however, of all the seven nominations that Argo has received with the Academy Awards, the Adapted Screenplay category is clearly a three-horse race with Tony Kushner (Lincoln) and David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook). Please note the WGA is not an indicator of Best Picture like PGA, DGA, and SAG. This is citing the screenplay and the screenplay alone. If that was the case, masterpieces like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) would have had more a shot for a Motion Picture mention. Read more on 2013 Writers Guild of America Preview…
Woody Allen made history when “Midnight In Paris” earned the filmmaker his third Oscar and 15th nomination for screenwriting last year.
Whether viewed as a consolation prize for a well-regarded film that has no chance of winning Best Picture, or a sign that a film in the discussion for the Academy’s highest honor has broad and far-reaching support, the Writing categories – Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay are not always that easy to predict. A case could be made that more adventurous films land in the Academy’s screenplay categories, but with regard to the Original Screenplay category, only five films (Thelma & Louise, The Usual Suspects, Almost Famous, Talk To Her, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) have won the Oscar since 1990 without landing a Best Picture nomination. Three Best Picture nominees are competing in this category and it would seem that for the other two nominees, being featured in the clips package will be as close as they get to scoring a win this year.
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.
San Francisco Film Critics Circle has named The Master the best film of 2012, along with bestowing Joaquin Phoenix their Best Actor prize. Zero Dark Thirty also did well, winning prizes for Kathryn Bigelow in director and Mark Boal in screenplay. I have to say, as a San Francisco native, I was pleased to see the hometown critics pick ParaNorman as the Best Animated Feature. Check out the rest of the winners after the jump!
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!
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!
Wes Anderson’s follow-up destination this year’s visit to Moonrise Kingdom will be a star-studded stay at The Grand Budapest Hotel. The newest addition to the growing nebula of Anderson’s cast is Oscar-Nominee Saoirse Ronan as the female lead. Ronan joins the veterans of the quirky school of Wes, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, as well as fellow rookies eager to collaborate with the auteur, Jude Law and Ralph Fiennes.
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”…
‘Moonrise Kingdom’ is hitting Blu-Ray shelves in time for Oscar…
Since film aficionados are always looking for something to watch, we decided to round up some Blu-ray and DVD releases for you to seek out. Some of these titles are already out, some will be out soon – the one thing that can be said for sure is that this is quite the eclectic bunch. Read more on The Blu Circuit…
Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, the witty-comedy that has received some of the best reviews of the year so far, now has a release date on Blu-Ray/DVD and and On-Demand. The film will be released on Blu-Ray/DVD October 16, 2012. By releasing the DVD in the middle of October, its positive reviews it received will possibility reignite the passion and excitement it received in early 2012.
The film is one of the favorites in the Original Screenplay category and a dark horse in Best Picture and Director for Wes Anderson. With a nice transition and placement for Academy members, the film has can realign itself to be a Best Picture hopeful.
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?
The second half of the year is upon us. The race is about to heat up with big Oscar hopefuls coming down the pike. Our John Foote will be in attendance at the Toronto International Film Festival and many films will be unveiling themselves to critics alike. There is a very unclear yet still feasible shape to the race looking from ten thousand feet.
There are internet jitters building for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. With the trailers released and now the film being pushed up to September, it looks as though we may be in store for a master class in filmmaking. Phoenix also looks to be a lead contender for his first Oscar after delivering in his previous nominated works, Gladiator (2000) and Walk the Line (2005). Phoenix does have tough competition ahead of him including what looks to be a critical darling-type performance coming from John Hawkes in Ben Lewin’s The Sessions. Early word is very positive for the film and the turns by Hawkes along with co-stars Helen Hunt and William H. Macy. Since Hawkes’ initial nomination two years ago for Winter’s Bone, he hasn’t shown any signs of letting up. He was arguably left off last year in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and will be seen later this year in Julia Dyer’s The Playroom and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. There seems to be a tremendous following and support for him in his current state. Speaking of Spielberg, we’re still awaiting some type of marketing material for his upcoming Lincoln biopic. No poster or trailer has been released with very few stills leaked online. One starts to think if it will even be ready in time.
While I was pretty mixed on Wes Anderson’s new film ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ (seen in my review here), it seems that both critics and audiences aren’t. The former has heaped some of the best reviews in a long time for an Anderson flick, and the box office has been record-breaking actually, according to Deadlinehere. After the jump I’ll get into just what was so special about its limited release box office numbers, but suffice to say that this will start up some Oscar talk just like it did for Wood Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’ last year. There’s a big difference in quality (Allen’s movie was one of my 10 favorites of 2011, while Anderson’s is simply decent), but the comparison will certainly now be made. See below for more…
Few filmmakers are as easily identifiable as Wes Anderson in terms of knowing their work when you see it. For some, he’s a constantly quirky delight, while for other’s his films are a struggle to sit through. I find myself usually somewhere in the middle, and that’s again where I find myself with his latest flick ‘Moonrise Kingdom’. As visually stimulating as anything he’s done, but as indifferently plotted, this is a perfect example of how Anderson the director and Anderson the writer (or co-writer, to be more precise) are pretty much two different people. For all the obvious care that he puts in behind the lens, he seems to just be writing for the sake of it, not really caring what the movie is going to actually be about, so long as it looks good. This is the core of my issues with Anderson. Now, he’s got a surprisingly compelling young love story at the center, but not enough time is spent there, leaving us instead with an A list supporting cast with too little to do, even if they all turn in good performances. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward are both rather great and the film is at its best when they’re on the screen. Sadly, that’s not as often as it should be. Still this might be Anderson’s easiest film to digest in quite some time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns into a surprisingly big hit and makes a play for a Best Picture nomination. I wouldn’t necessarily support it, but I can see it happening if a perfect storm of sorts occurs.
And so the most prestigious film festival in the world comes to an end, with the “awards season” taking a vague shape right behind it. Cannes, usually to its credit, has almost always been far outside of Oscar’s wheelhouse, opting for indie and world cinema superstars over Hollywood royalty that make the cinema snobs raise their pinkies in solidarity. However, recently the spotlight has increased on the festival in recent years as more and more of their darlings have been getting some love from the Academy as well. Earlier this year we saw no less than five films from Cannes receive Oscar nominations, including opener Midnight in Paris, Palme d’Or champ The Tree of Life and eventual Best Picture winner The Artist. Going back further sees Oscar nominees from the likes of Biutiful, Inglourious Basterds, The White Ribbon and Waltz with Bashir. Read more on Predicting the 2012 Cannes Film Festival Winners…
And the reign of The Avengers may finally come to an end during – of all times – Memorial Day weekend. The film itself isn’t exactly a notable release, but then again, giant killers usually do not appear as such in the movie business. I am of course referring to…
…Men in Black3, which marks now two more films than I expected this series to go. This installment finds the ever-sassy Agent J going back in time to stop a murder plot against his straight-laced partner K by teaming up with his younger (still straight-laced) self in 1969. But then…if K was killed in 1969 by Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords, wouldn’t all of his future actions have been erased as well? Meaning that he never would have recruited J into MIB, meaning that he still would have been an NYPD officer, meaning…ah best not think of these things. Time travel plots always have more holes in them than Swiss cheese. Besides, the critics have given this a slightly warmer reception than its stupid predecessor, calling it a clever and even somewhat touching romp with an impressive mimicry of the TLJ persona by Josh Brolin. Despite a sluggish midnight showing, Men in Black3 has rebounded with an impressive $18 million gross on Friday and should be able to actually dethrone The Avengers with $54-59 million by the end of the three-day weekend. Read more on Weekend Openings (May 25-28)…
Wes Anderson’s newest film “Moonrise Kingdom,” which opens in theaters today is currently hitting large with critics who have seen it so far. The film currently sits with high 96& fresh rate on Rotten Tomatoes. Wes Anderson has been, for the most part, a blip on the Academy’s radar with his unique and quirky takes on film. In 2002 he was nominated along with co-writer Owen Wilson for penning the hit, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). Since then, Anderson has tried to show versatility with films like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and The Darjeeling Limited (2007). With Anderson’s Oscar nominated animated work, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), which is arguably his best work to date, signs of breaking through to the mainstream seemed to be coming to fruition.
Reviews for Moonrise Kingdom thus far have praised the fresh comic elements with many saying it’s his best work to date. With a May 25th release, if the studio is looking to make a push in categories like Original Screenplay and Best Picture, an early and well publicized campaign will be needed all season long.
Will Anderson find himself in contention this year? Too early to tell but things might be looking up. After the jump, look at some of the things critics have been saying with the trailer as well. The film stars newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward along with stars Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel. Read more on “Moonrise Kingdom” opens to very positive reviews!…
This year’s Opening Night Film at the Cannes Film Festival was Wes Anderson’s new movie ‘Moonrise Kingdom’. I’m not a huge fan of his, but I’m intrigued about this flick. So far, the early word from the fest has been somewhat expected…this is Wes Anderson doing exactly what Wes Anderson specializes in. Criticwire has a piece here that collects the immediate reactions to the film, and those who have seen it seem to all thing about the same of it. After the jump I’ll share some of those quick responses that Matt Singer kindly compiled in his article, but for now we now seem to more or less know what we’re getting with ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ when it opens in theaters stateside next week…
The arrival of The Avengers signals the start of the Summer blockbuster season. The Summer is the greediest season for film when you consider that it delivers the most expensive films made, typically generates the most money at the box office (six of the ten highest grossing films from 2011 came out in this stretch), and for some reason is commonly considered four months long (May-August) – as opposed to the regular three month season length. And while we might not see too many awards-worthy movies in that stretch, we will certainly have our fill of entertainment.
When looking at the movies coming out in the next few months, one thing is certain: this is going to be one hell of a Summer at the movies! From super-hero driven films like the aforementioned Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises (the epic conclusion to the Nolan/Caped Crusader film trilogy), to sci/fi features that include Total Recall and Prometheus, to uproarious comedies like The Dictator, Hysteria, and To Rome with Love, the summer seems poised to deliver on all fronts.
San Francisco Film Critics Circle has named The Master the best film of 2012, along with bestowing Joaquin Phoenix their Best Actor prize. Zero Dark Thirty also did well, winning prizes for Kathryn Bigelow in director and Mark Boal in screenplay. I have to say, as a San Francisco native, I was pleased to see the hometown critics pick ParaNorman as the Best Animated Feature. Check out the rest of the winners after the jump!
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 
