Hello, Awards Circuit devotees! I hope you’ve all recovered from last Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, because the fun is far from over. Following the pivotal show, you’ll see we’ve released some correlating articles, including Anna Belickis’ “Best Dressed List” and Joey Magidson’s post-ceremony reflection piece on whether Argo was always the big winner. As much as it pains us, our job demands we report everything…including the list of winners from the Razzies, a dumb awards show where all things supernatural were taken to the slaughter.
Years from now when I think back on 2012 and what it had to offer, I’m sure the cinematic landscape that was presented will surely stick out as many directors and filmmakers pushed the thematic narrative with breathtaking visuals, stupendous performances, and uniquely driven story structures. One thing that will be near the top was the daunting task the Academy, pundits, and even myself, had in narrowing down the Lead Actor race to five simple slots.
There were debates going back and forth about who deserved a spot, who was miscategorized, and who was given the light of a day for consideration. The Academy did an admirable job and when push comes to shove, these five performances that are nominated are all worthy of citation and acceptable as a Best Actor winner.
Alan Arkin – Argo Oscar Scene: “Argo fuck yourself”
Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook Oscar Scene: “When life reaches out with a woman like this it’s a sin if you don’t reach back, I’m telling you its a sin if you don’t reach back!”
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master Oscar Scene: Lancaster Dodd processing Freddie Quell
Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln Oscar Scene: Thaddeus Stevens facing off with Mary Todd Lincoln
Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained Oscar Scene: Dr. King Shultz introducing himself to Django
There may be no category as up in the air this time around as Best Supporting Actor. Very few people are confident about their picks, and this is certainly as wide open as any the category has seen in years. It’s also noteworthy for featuring five nominees who are each prior winners, including one actor seeking his third Oscar. At least a three horse race, Best Supporting Actor may very well come down to who actually gave the best performance of the group. There are 100% other factors to consider, but with this tight a contest, it’s conceivable that voters actually took quality into account. The gentlemen nominated all are favorite sons to one degree or another, so lets dive in and take a look at them, shall we?
“I am a star. I’m a star, I’m a star, I’m a star. I am a big, bright, shining star. That’s right.”
With this ending pep talk, Dirk Diggler reclaims his rightful place in the limelight as Paul Thomas Anderson burgeons onto the scene as a formidable filmmaking talent. Since Boogie Nightstook critics and viewers by surprise and effectively cemented itself as his breakout film, Anderson has trickled out a handful of films, all of which he’s written and directed. A self-taught student of the art, he’s come into his own as a modern American auteur in the vein of Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles before him. Taking pride in generating a truly original narrative (all of his six films are based on his original screenplays with the exception of the loose adaptation that drives There Will Be Blood), Anderson is of the lesser-populated writer-director breed in the species of film-helmers in Hollywood. Read more on Writer’s Block: Paul Thomas Anderson…
Supporting Actress has proven to be one of the best categories recently for the Academy Awards. For every year there was a clear front runner (Spencer, Monique, Hudson), there was another year when we had no idea who was winning (Leo, Swinton, Weisz, Cruz). Although after a few award shows, it’s clear that this year’s race is shaping up to be one of those “Frontrunner wins everything” years, there’s still an interesting slate of nominees and narratives to discuss.
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.
The Online Film Critics Society has announced the nominations for their 16th annual year end acknowledgements. The OFCS is comprised of a large group of critics whose work appears primarily online (nearly 200 members). Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master was the most nominated film by the group with eight nods. You can visit their site here, and check out the full slate of nominees after the jump.
When the nominees for the Academy Award for Best Actor are announced next month, it will mark the end to a hard fought battle, and this is a fact, one of the boldest and most creative performances of the last twenty years could very well be on the outside looking in. The snub of Joaquin Phoenix by the Screen Actors Guild for his galvanizing performance in The Master was truly startling because one would hope actors would recognize the risk he took in that piece of acting, the boldness of the execution of what he attempted, and the genius in making it work. Phoenix walked a fine line between great acting and great overacting, never stepping into the latter, always managing to remain solid. Read more on On the Possible Snub of Joaquin Phoenix…
After what looked like the beginning of a Zero Dark Thirty sweep with the critics, we see another critics group opting for something else. The Kansas City Film Critics Circle has named Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master the best film of 2012. However, they selected a director other than PTA as best in show, and instead went for Life of Pi’s Ang Lee. Have a look at the complete list of winners after the jump.
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!
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!
BEST PICTURE
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Lincoln
The Master
Zero Dark Thirty
BEST DIRECTOR
Ben Affleck, Argo
Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
There’s the infamous Watergate scandal; sports followers still get a kick out of Crygate; and Antennagate briefly plagued Apple’s release of the iPhone 4. Well, here’s a new one for you: Trailergate. It’s completely made-up and involves no impeachable offenses or villainous superstar athletes, so bear with me while I set this up.
The stars have aligned for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. They announced their nominations for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards. For the first time, their nominees don’t seem as blatant for trying to have the biggest stars in Hollywood join together for a dinner party. Of course, there are some glaring omissions from a few categories but many of the films and performances cited were for the most part, respectable.
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln leads the tally with seven nominations including Best Picture and Director. Daniel Day-Lewis nabbed his seventh nomination along co-stars Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones. Lincoln remains a definite favorite to win in nearly every category. To some surprise, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained was able to grab five nominations including a double Supporting Actor citation for Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz. Tarantino was also nominated Best Director and Screenplay. Missing in the director’s field, Tom Hooper for the dynamite musical Les Miserables, which did grab four nominations in total. Read more on Analysis of the Golden Globe Nominations…
The SAG bells rang today but they rang for many surprising and jaw-dropping exclusions. As going on record stating this is the most competitive Oscar race I’ve covered in years. Not one category seems assured with their lineups and we got many curveballs thrown at us this morning.
In Best Supporting Actress, Amy Adams was left off for performance in The Master, a turn many of cited wasn’t in the same league as co-stars Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Sally Field in Lincoln, Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables, and Helen Hunt in The Sessions, all made their appearances as expected. With Maggie Smith announcing she wasn’t going to be campaigning, she still managed to pull in four nominations for herself including her performance in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Nicole Kidman jumped back into the race for a film that was pulverized by critics. While her role in The Paperboy is quite extraordinary, the film that surrounds her doesn’t do any favors. Older members of the Academy might find it difficult to get passed some of the more controversial scenes. Also missing big here was Ann Dowd from Compliance, something that really needed a boost from the acting branch. Many pundits have speculated on the possibility of Samantha Barks finding wiggle room into the race along side co-star Hathaway for Les Miserables. That notion may have just been put to bed. Read more on SAG Nomination Analysis – What Does It All Mean?…
Washington Film Critics have announced their winners after just announcing their nominees a day ago. Zero Dark Thirty emerged victorious along with director Kathryn Bigelow.
Washington Film Critics have announced their winners after just announcing their nominees a day ago. Zero Dark Thirty emerged victorious along with director Kathryn Bigelow.
Read the Press Release and check out the full list of winners down below:
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.
As the awards season is underway, multiple scenarios are playing out in my mind suggesting what can occur for the remainder of the year. Films like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Zero Dark Thirty are still sight unseen with Django Unchained and Promised Land about to get their first set of eyes. Last week Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables debuted a full-length trailer featuring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne, and Amanda Seyfried all showing some singing skills. Supporting Actress frontrunner Anne Hathaway was shown singing “I Dreamed a Dream” for the third time in the Universal Pictures marketing, which leads me to my point of the Oscar Circuit.
The trailer for Les Miserables didn’t do the film any favors. The clunky production design, unnecessary wide-angles, and even the live singing on set didn’t seem as great as I’d thought it’d be. In this latest round of Oscar Predictions, I’ve decided to back from Tom Hooper’s film a little bit. Where momentum and prestige is on the side of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Ben Affleck’s Argo, big stage musicals transferred to film aren’t always safe bets. What makes this notion of the film failing to impress even more compelling is Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. If Anne Hathaway were to fall out of the Supporting Actress race, who could win the award in her absence? There are arguably three slots taken in Supporting Actress with Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), and Helen Hunt (The Sessions). If it’s between those three for the win, Adams will be on her fourth nomination with the other two ladies having Oscars already. Field herself would be 3 for 3 for Oscar nominations, something hard to envision happening. Hunt has had a hard time post-Oscar win and isn’t as beloved as her competitors. This could all work out for the young Amy Adams. Read more on Oscar Circuit – “Master” of Networking?…
The AC Team comes together this week to try and decipher many question marks about the season. We also celebrate our 25th episode. Thanks for listening all these months. Here’s the 25 more! The agenda for today’s episode is listed below:
Anyone who’s seen Joaquin Phoenix in ‘I’m Still Here’ should know that this is a man who’s not afraid to be different or unpopular. While his incredible work in ‘The Master’ has him at the top of most people’s Oscar predictions (including mine), it’s worth remembering that he’s not exactly tailor-made for the campaign circuit. Well, whether we were trying to forget about that or pretend that Phoenix is now a completely different sort of person, we got a strong reminder of that recently with his sure to be controversial comments while doing an interview with Elvis Mitchell. You can see interview here at Interview Magazine. I still think he’s going to get nominated, but there’s a chance that he just kissed the win goodbye, depending on what Harvey Weinstein has to say about things.
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”…
Is this her first precursor award on the road to an Oscar? Amy Adams will be given the Hollywood Film Awards Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.
Supporting Actress has proven to be one of the best categories recently for the Academy Awards. For every year there was a clear front runner (Spencer, Monique, Hudson), there was another year when we had no idea who was winning (Leo, Swinton, Weisz, Cruz). Although after a few award shows, it’s clear that this year’s race is shaping up to be one of those “Frontrunner wins everything” years, there’s still an interesting slate of nominees and narratives to discuss.
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!
Contrary to 
2012 CHICAGO FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION NOMINEES
The stars have aligned for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. They announced their nominations for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards. For the first time, their nominees don’t seem as blatant for trying to have the biggest stars in Hollywood join together for a dinner party. Of course, there are some glaring omissions from a few categories but many of the films and performances cited were for the most part, respectable.
The SAG bells rang today but they rang for many surprising and jaw-dropping exclusions. As going on record stating this is the most competitive Oscar race I’ve covered in years. Not one category seems assured with their lineups and we got many curveballs thrown at us this morning.
