 Broadway is boomtown! Or at least it will be when the nominations for the 2013 Tony Awards are announced on Tuesday. The Tonys, for the uninformed, is theater’s version of the Oscar, honoring the best of the Broadway season, as well as highlighting regional theater and honorary members in the community. We here at the Awards Circuit love to do predictions, so I looked into my crystal ball to see whose name we might hear come Tuesday. Check them out after the jump! Read more on 2013 Tony Award Nominations Predictions…
 I have read all the books in ‘The Mortal Instruments‘ series, doodled production design ideas, and even drafted different scripts with the hopes of the movies turning out as epically beautiful as the written words of Cassandra Clare, but after watching the trailer, I find my heart has dropped a bit. Being a fan who has written Ms. Clare letters and inquired about the adaptation of her books into film, I feel she sold out much too soon. So different from the book are the looks and feels of certain characters, which jarred my viewing experience, I’m not floored by the effects but, rather, annoyed with how cheesy it is turning out to be. Read more on Of the Upcoming Mortals and Cities…
Read more on Of the Upcoming Mortals and Cities…
 The day is finally here. All the predictions, prognosticating, bitching, and moaning has led to this. The Academy Awards begins at 8:00 pm Eastern time tonight with the Red Carpet beginning at 7:00 pm. However, here we have a day full of great festivities for you to enjoy.
- First, if you haven’t done so yet, join our Oscar Pool via Fun Office Pools. Your picks are due by 7:00 pm tonight.
- You can check out our CHART page to see what the writers and I are each thinking Oscar might go for. If you missed our series of “WILL WIN/SHOULD WIN” – you can go back and check those out too.
- We have our LIVE podcast that begins at 5:00 pm ET via Blog Talk Radio. We’ll be taking your calls, talking last-minute jitters, and trying to calm Mark Johnson down. I’ll also be announcing the winner of Academy Idol Season 6!!!! If you want to call in and chat with us: (347) 237-5231
- Our LIVE BLOG, will begin at 7:00 pm ET right here, for all of you to chat with us and fellow Oscar lovers about the red carpet and the winners as they are announced.
I’d like to thank you all for a great year of movie talk and look forward to discussing more with you for the 2014 ceremony. Year-In-Advance Predictions will be up on Tuesday with new articles and series to quickly follow. So don’t go away when the Oscars are over. We are talking Oscars, movies, and television all year long! ACCA 1999, our readership awards that go back in time to fix Oscars’ mistakes, will begin in early March.
I appreciate all of you that continuing to come back to read the site daily. If you feel compelled and generous to do so, running a big operation like this can be quite costly on minimal outside remedies like advertisements which we barely get. I’d ask all of our readers to contribute anything they can via the Donation tab on top or to by clicking here. Any contribution will help us continue to make The Awards Circuit bigger and better for 2013-2014 awards season! Thank you in advanced for your generosity. Read more on Happy Oscar Day! – A Day Full of Excitement…
 I’ve often said that my favorite awards show each year usually winds up being the Independent Spirit Awards. Part of that has to do with how the nominees often reflect my tastes more so than many other awards, but also I just really enjoy how unpredictable they can be. It’s not a total love affair though, as there’s an odd commercialism that’s at play and runs counter to the supposed indie spirit of it all. Filmmaker Vincent Pereira actually commented on a Facebook post I did stating that I was finishing this piece and his thoughts on the show only reminded me more about the sort of false independence on display. Still, any show that once upon a time gave Kevin Smith an award can’t be all bad in my book. As is always the case right before the Oscars, I’m here to preview the Spirit Awards. My predictions are usually way off, though this year I may actually do better here than with the Academy Awards…go figure. Anyway, I know you all are mostly interested in this piece for the predictions, so I’ll shut up and get right to it. Enjoy this spin off of the Will Win/Should Win series focused on the Spirit Awards!
Read more on Previewing the Independent Spirit Awards!…
 The Producers Guild of America will announce their winner tomorrow. Speaking with Staff Writer Mark Johnson yesterday, he affectionately told me that this weekend will probably just confuse us even more. I’m scared to agree.
With ten nominees:
- Argo
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Django Unchained
- Les Miserables
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
- Moonrise Kingdom
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Skyfall
- Zero Dark Thirty
Read more on Producers Guild of America Predictions…
 The Screen Actors Guild will unveil their winners this Sunday night simultaneously on TBS and TNT. As a very good indicator for what can happen at the Oscars, all eyes will be on the actors to see what and who they crown. As a group, the SAG mania can be overtly misleading. In 2003, the Best Actor race was down to then three-time nominee Sean Penn for Mystic River and first-time nominee Bill Murray for Lost in Translation. Both gentlemen had won their Golden Globe categories respectively before being trumped over at the Screen Actors Guild Awards by pop culture tornado of Johnny Depp who had just received his first Oscar and SAG nominations for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. If anything Depp winning just proved that Murray would surely lose because any votes going to a comedy performance will be split between the two. Penn emerged victorious on Oscar night.
Last year, Oscar-winner George Clooney had started building momentum and seemed nearly assured to win his second Oscar for Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. Clooney had won the Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards but on the night of the SAG awards, he lost to Jean Dujardin in the eventual Best Picture winner, The Artist. Those last three weeks of the season catapulted Dujardin to the forefront and the little-known French actor beat out megastars Clooney and Brad Pitt. I can’t help but think Daniel Day-Lewis could suffer the same fate on Sunday. Read more on Screen Actors Guild Awards Preview…
**UPDATE: Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Ed Helms To Announce Golden Globe Nominations**
The Hollywood Foreign Press Academy will present their nominees tomorrow for 70th annual Golden Globe Awards hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. As the star-studded affair where Hollywood drinks, laughs, and wins awards together, the nominees are good catapults in kick-starting a campaign for a film or performer. What’s interesting is SAG has already presented their nominees which makes tomorrow’s announcement anti-climatic.
I expect to see many nominations for films like Lincoln and Les Miserables. British films and performers will get their time to shine which helps films like Anna Karenina and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Unfortunately since they LOVE their stars, little unknowns like Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry, and Ann Dowd might all be given the shaft tomorrow but that’s to be expected.
The full predictions are down below but you can see the rankings of all the films in contention on the Golden Globe Predictions page. It’s been a busy week here folks. Read more on Golden Globe Predictions – A Final Guess…
 Final SAG Predictions have been updated. Go to the page under the menu bar, OTHER AWARD SHOWS.
Here are general thoughts before you go and check them out.
- As tomorrow brings a lot of clarity, it can also shake things up considerably. I am PRAYING for a tie in Best Actor so the top six contenders can all have their moments. I suspect Hugh Jackman might miss in favor of NBR winner Bradley Cooper. I feel John Hawkes can also be in serious danger of missing but I remember SAG coming to his rescue for Winter’s Bone and he wasn’t even a “name” yet.
Read more on Screen Actors Guild Award Predictions and Preview…
 Tomorrow the prestigious National Board of Review will unveil their slate of films and performances they consider the best of 2012. After yesterday’s long and sort of surprising announcement of the New York Film Critics, all eyes are on this group. The National Board of Review are known to kick-start campaigns for films pundits and critics aren’t taking serious during the early weeks of awards season.
Last year, the group rewarded Hugo as Best Picture along with Martin Scorsese being cited for his direction. The film reaped the benefits and took the lion’s share of awards during the season and ended winning a total of five Oscars when everything was said and done, just as many as Oscar’s Best Picture winner The Artist. The group was also successful in naming Best Supporting Actor winner Christopher Plummer for his turn as the newly gay father in Beginners. The group has been known to have favorites among their awards every year. Oscar-winner Clint Eastwood has won Best Actor (Gran Torino) and Best Director (Invictus) from the organization and has also been cited for a special achievement for Million Dollar Baby and a Career Achievement Award. Oscar-winner George Clooney has won three Best Actor titles since 2007 for Michael Clayton (2007), Up in the Air (2009), and The Descendants (2011). Perhaps that love will translate to his producing credit on Ben Affleck’s Argo this year. Read more on National Board of Review Preview and Predictions…
 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…
Categories: Article Tags: Amour, Beyond the Hills, Cannes Film Festival, Cosmopolis, Denis Lavant, Emmanuelle Riva, Holy Motors, Killing Them Softly, Lawless, Like Someone in Love, Moonrise Kingdom, Mud, Nanni Moretti, On the Road, Palme d'Or, predictions, Reality, Rust &Bone, The Hunt, The Paperboy, Thomas Vinterberg
 The Oscars are far behind and in front of us. As we start rattling our minds around awards season prospects like “Lincoln,” “The Great Gatsby,” and “The Hobbit,” MTV is gearing up to announce their nominees for the 2012 MTV Movie Awards on May 1. Read more on MTV Movie Awards – Fiction or Rubbish?…
Read more on MTV Movie Awards – Fiction or Rubbish?…
 There’s probably no awards show I like more year in and year out than the Independent Spirit Awards. It’s quirky as can be and tends to honor films the Academy wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole. As always, there’s some crossover with Oscar, but no more than usual (though ‘The Artist’ did as well here as indie favorites ‘Drive’ and ‘Take Shelter’, so make of that what you will). As for how the ceremony might go, I admit to not always being the greatest with these predictions, but I always take a crack at it. This year is as hard a one to decipher as ever, but that’s not going to stop me from doing my best to give you a complete look at the potential wins, upsets, and everything in between, since…well, it’s my job and all. Anyway, enough of me waxing poetic on my love of the Spirit Awards, since that’s not what you want to read. You want a real preview of the show, so it’s time for that. Let’s go ahead now and take a look at how the Spirit Awards might turn out on Saturday night, starting right off with the big categories!
Read more on Previewing the Spirit Awards…
 An annual tradition at The Awards Circuit, I humbly present to you my picks for who/what Will Win as well as who/what Should Win at the Oscars. Before I get into it though, a few quick thoughts. After it being such a wide open season in terms of what films and performances could wind up Academy Award nominees and then winners, we’ve come now to a situation where things are both the same and different. Very few categories are locked up, but there’s a general consensus about how almost every category will wind up going. I find that rather fascinating. So much could go one way or the other, but most prognosticators (myself included, as you’ll see below) are leaning in the same direction. The main questions still to be answered are just how well ‘The Artist’ and ‘Hugo’ will do. Could the former pull off the elusive sweep? We’re going to find out in a few days, but for now, here’s my yearly contribution to our Will Win/Should Win series!
Read more on Oscar 2012 Will Win/Should Win Selections (Magidson)…
 The screenplay categories have a strong correlation with past Best Picture winners. In the past few years, “Slumdog Millionaire,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “The Departed” have all won the Adapted Screenplay race that translated to a Best Picture statue. Other winners such as “The Social Network,” “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” and “Brokeback Mountain” have lost Best Picture to an Original work. 2004 was the only year that a triumph occurred here that didn’t align with Oscar. Funny enough it was Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” which triumphed over Clint Eastwood’s winner “Million Dollar Baby.” With this year’s Best Picture race likely going to Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist” whoever wins in this category will likely be considered a “consolation” prize. Three out of the five films (The Descendants, Hugo, Moneyball), are nominated for Best Picture. ”Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” had a strong showing on nomination morning when many considered the film dead in the water. Lastly, “The Ides of March” pulled in a last minute mention, likely riding the coattails of George Clooney acting work in “The Descendants,” and made a well-deserved showing.
Let’s break down the nominees:
Read more on Oscar Circuit: Adapted Screenplay…
Categories: Editor, Oscar Circuit Tags: Alexander Payne, Beau Willimon, Editor, George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Hugo, Jim Rash, John Logan, Moneyball, Nat Faxon, Oscar Circuit, predictions, Stan Chervin, Steven Zaillian, The Descendants, The Ides of March, tinker tailor soldier spy
 Probably the most important precursor of them all, the Directors Guild of America announces their nominees tomorrow. With the field of Best Picture anywhere between five and ten, the names called tomorrow morning will be essential to making the final cut in both Motion Picture and Director. Last year, the group chose Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David Fincher (The Social Network), David O. Russell (The Fighter), Christopher Nolan (Inception), and eventual DGA and Oscar Winner for Director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech). Four out of the five men were nominated with Christopher Nolan, yet again, missing out at a nomination. Will this year be more telling?
Read more on Directors Guild of America Preview & Predictions…
Categories: Article, Editor Tags: Article, Directors Guild of America, Editor, Hugo, Martin Scorsese, Michel Hazanavicius, Midnight in Paris, predictions, Steven Spielberg, Tate Taylor, the artist, The Help, war horse, Woody Allen
 While many notable contenders are ineligible for a citation from the Writers Guild of America, many films that are not in serious contention will likely show up as the group unveils their picks tomorrow. Below are the predicted nominees. Include yours in the comment section.
Best Original Screenplay
- “Bridesmaids”
- “50/50″
- “Midnight in Paris”
- “A Separation”
- “Win Win”
Alternate: Contagion, Super 8, Warrior
Best Adapted Screenplay
- “The Descendants”
- “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
- “The Help”
- “Hugo”
- “Moneyball”
Alternate: The Ides of March, Jane Eyre, The Muppets
Read more on Writers Guild of America Predictions…
 Short and sweet:
- The Artist
- Bridesmaids
- The Descendants
- Drive
- Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2
- The Help
- Hugo
- Midnight in Paris
- Moneyball
- War Horse
“Bridesmaids” is a curve ball but I think it’s making some ground. My one alternate is “The Tree of Life” but I don’t think enough votes will make it through. Same goes for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” which is tanking little by little.
Read more on Producers Guild of America Predictions…
 The Screen Actors Guild will be announcing their nominees tomorrow at 9pm ET on TNT by Judy Greer (The Descendants, Two & a Half Men) and Regina King (Ray). Does that mean Greer doesn’t get in for her scene stealing work in the film? Perhaps.
Read more on SAG Awards Preview & Predictions…
 My very own organization, the Broadcast Film Critics Association will be revealing their picks for the best in 2011. They have a very great track record with in correlating with what Oscar thinks but with a wide open race in various categories this year, anything can happen. Here are the predictions.
Read more on Broadcast Film Critics Preview & Predictions…
Will "The Tree of Life" capitalize on a win from the LAFCA?
Los Angeles will be announcing their winners for year 2011 in just under 12 to 15 hours or so. This will complete the “tri-fecta” that is the LAFCA, New York Film Critics, and the National Board of Review. Hopefully we’ll have some cool, out-of-the-box choices tomorrow but one can dream. Include your predictions in the comment section.
Read more on Los Angeles Film Critics Predictions…
Frances O'Connor in Steven Spielberg's "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence"
The American Film Institute will be unveiling their top ten films of 2011 tomorrow and I couldn’t be more excited. This particular group doesn’t have a huge impact on the race like it should but they do often present some eclectic choices. Last year they named every Best Picture nominee except for Oscar Best Picture Winner “The King’s Speech.” Go figure.
In 2002, the group started citing the best performances of the year along with their top ten lists which was very enjoyable but the group has not done since. 2002, one hell of a year for acting in general had the likes of Russell Crowe, Halle Berry, and Denzel Washington, all of which were nominated by the AFI. Also cited was the incredible works by Billy Bob Thornton in The Coen Brothers classic, “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Brian Cox in the controversial “L.I.E.,” and Frances O’Connor who was the heart and soul of Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.” The group has shied away from that type of awards recognition and is simply sticking with the normal set of ten. This year we should have a different range of films from the group.
Read more on American Film Institute (AFI) Preview & Predictions…
Categories: Article, Editor Tags: American Film Institute, arthur christmas, Article, Drive, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Midnight in Paris, Precursors, predictions, Rango, Shame, Take Shelter, The Adventures Of Tintin, the artist, The Descendants, The Help, The Ides of March, The Tree of Life, tinker tailor soldier spy, war horse
I think they are fine not being first…
The oldest film critics’ organization in existence, the National Board of Review began in 1909 as an act of defiance when then-New York City Mayor George B. McClellan revoked all licenses associated with the exhibition, distribution, and presentation of moving pictures in the city. The organization published its first film review in 1909 and became rather influential in the 1930s and 1940s where movies would seek the approval brand from the Board itself. As the years of passed, the Board have honored the best in film each year, culminating in pronouncement of the National Board of Review Honorees, generally announced in the first days of December and presented in a gala event to the Board’s recipients in the first week of January.
As the oldest film critics organization, they have traditionally been the first voice in the Oscar season, much more influential in decades gone by. Now, in a landscape and frankly, a sports season of sorts, populated by 30-40 regional critics groups awarding movie prizes which, in turn, amplify, stagnate, or suppress the momentum of a film’s chances going forward in the Oscar season, the National Board of Review are the Iowa caucus of our nation’s Presidential Election Primary season.
Read more on National Board of Review History and Preview…
And now it begins…
Originating in 1935, the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) have been a noteworthy player in the precursor Oscar season. When reviewing their own website, they may seem to espouse a belief that their selections matter more than other critics’ groups, citing quotes from John Ford and John Huston indicating that awards from the NYFCC are “the greatest honor that anyone in my profession can receive” (Huston) and “it means more to me than any honor” (Ford). They even identify themselves as “prize harbingers”.
So are they? As part of an ongoing series this Oscar season, we will be looking at many of the more influential critics organizations and checking their track record in recent years to determine how accurate, how influential, and how the statistics shake out in terms of how can truly be known as “harbingers” or “kingmakers” during the Oscar season.
Read more on New York Film Critics Circle History and Preview…
 As the Oscar Predictions are being updated this weekend, I thought an updated Golden Globe Prediction would be in order. Even though I thoroughly believe The Artist will be a huge Oscar player, the Golden Globes haven’t chosen the Oscar winner in the past few years. With that said, HFPA will likely go with something like War Horse or J. Edgar. They’ve gone with either consensus or just plain ole’ doing their own thing (The Social Network, Atonement, Babel, The Aviator). Include your own predictions in the comment section or discuss on the FORUM.
Read more on Golden Globe Predictions – “They never get it right anyway”…
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