The 2007 Critics Choice Award nominees from the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Due respect but no comment. Wait, here’s one: If the BFCA finds the courage to not give their Best Supporting Actress award to Amy Ryan but to I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett instead, they’ll be at least partially redeemed in my eyes.
Not that the BFCA needs to care one iota about my judgments in this matter. I’m just saying that the Amy Ryan thing has become a slight issue (critics groups falling over like synchronized bowling pins, one after another), and the BFCA has a real chance to show that it’s about more than just shameless kowtowing.
A password-accessible, members-only page inside the Broadcast Film Critics Association website says that the following films will be junketed during the 2007 Toronto Film Festival — Gavin Hood‘s Rendition (New Line), David Cronenberg‘s Eastern Promises (Focus Features),Sean Penn‘s Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage), Tony Gilroy‘s Michael Clayton (Warner Bros.), Andrew Dominik‘s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Warner Bros.), Neil Jordan‘s The Brave One (Warner Bros.), Shekhar Kapur‘s Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Universal), Robin Swicord‘s The Jane Austen Book Club (Sony Classics) and Kenneth Branagh‘s Sleuth (ditto).
The stupid Broadcast Film Critics site doesn’t even have last night’s winners posted, much less photos. (They’ve still got last year’s winners posted…shmucks.) Plus last night’s show won’t even be aired on E! until 1.20.07, which is derelict by the immediate cyber standards of early 2007.
I had a chance to grab a dinner last night in Venice with Fox news guy Bill McCuddy, and it was a full-out pleasure to kick back and ignore the BFCA Critics Choice Awards shebaggle going on at the Santa Monica Civic, about a mile north of Hal’s. Is the BFCA breathing the same pollen as the Hollywood Foreign Press? Or the Oscars, even? (Consider this Oscarwatch.com comparison.) Do they even have the same kind of lungs?
If either is the case, or simply if the wind continues to blow in the direction it now seems to be blowing, then The Departed, Babel, Borat and, most importantly, Little Miss Sunshine may end up with most of the Golden Globes glory on Monday night.
It wasn’t a matter of how many Critics Choice Awards Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed won last night — it was what kind of wins. Dreamgirls and Little Miss Sunshine took four trophies each, but Sunshine‘s were more substantial (or they seemed so to me) — Best Original Screenplay and an acting ensemble award (important) along with two minor performance awards (for Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin). Dreamgirls took two significant acting awards — Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy for Best Supporting Actress and Actor — plus best song and soundtrack wins. Due respect, but these last two don’t matter a whole lot. The soundtrack award is especially what-the-fuckish. The Departed, by contrast, ended up with the two biggest and meatiest awards — Best Picture and Best Director (Martin Scorsese).
I’m not saying that the BFCA wins are HFPA or Oscar bellwethers, but if they are…
This is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, so I may as well just say it: if Sunshine or Borat take the Best Comedy-Musical Golden Globe Award, people are going to be saying that Dreamgirls is really on the ropes. Obviously the Academy and the HFPA are separate equations — they have their own filters and standards, and choose what they damn well prefer. And to hear it from some who’ve been around a few years (a certain New York-based columnist, for one), a portion of the HFPA membership is thought to harbor certain attitudes regarding African-American culture, so a Dreamgirls turndown, if it happens, will be, at the very least, tainted by this suspicion.
I’m not supposed to say this, and I don’t want to say this because Dreamgirls has a lot of enjoyment and punch and pizazz. I have no major beef with it except for my view that it doesn’t really flow and seep in, but it’ll be Huge News if the Golden Globes go for LMS or Borat in the comedy-drama category. It’ll be Holy Shit time …the big brassy presumptive front-runner tackled and brought down behind its own line of scrimmage. David Poland has been a good hard-charging linebacker, but…
Then again, a prominent Oscar strategist who’s not on the Dreamgirls team thinks it’ll win on Monday night. And maybe it will. If this happens, fine. It’s best not to say anything more, but it’s going to be a helluva dramatic moment either way.
My own prediction is that the Best Picture Oscar is going to be won by either The Departed or Little Miss Sunshine or Babel. I think Dreamgirls, for all the spunk and flash, is almost certainly out of the running because it doesn’t have that emotional schwing. Nobody in it falls in or out of love in a way that makes you hurt for them, nobody tragically or bravely dies, it doesn’t make you cry. It doesn’t even titillate with sex. And if I turn out to be wrong, cool…whatever.
Here’s a rundown of all the BFCA winners. MCN’s Laura Rooney did the posting last night…good fast work
Speaking of critical effusion augmented by kneepads, the 12th annual Critics Choice Awards, organized and promoted by the Broadcast Film Critics Organization, is handing its awards out tonight in a ceremony at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium. E! will air the show on 1.20.07. I guess I’ll post the winners sometime tonight, but if the BFCA-ers were to suddenly disappear off the face of the earth, I would weep and grieve, yes…but I would wake up the next morning and get on with my life.
The Broadcast Film Critics nominations have covered all the bases — too many, as usual, as far as the ten Best Picture noms are concerned. (Why not twelve? why not fifteen? Spread it around.) But their choices are tasteful and well-considered, for the most part. Seven nominations each for Babel (but no Best Director nom for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu), The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine and Dreamgirls… plus both a Best Picture and a Best Foreign Film nomination for Letters From Iwo Jima. What, they couldn’t decide? I guess they’re just trying to up the odds of Clint coming away with a prize.
Two Best Actor noms for Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed, Blood Diamond) either means a cancel -out factor (most likely) or that Leo has a shot at actually taking one from The Last King of Scotland‘s Forrest Whitaker.
There is, of course, one bizarre omisssion in the Best Foreign Language Film category: Florian Von Henckel Donnermarck‘s The Lives of Others . I can’t quite say this German-language film is “better” than Pan’s Labyrinth or Volver, my other two favorites in this exceptionally bountiful category, but it unquestionably delivers more, I feel, in the way of a symphonic, rock-your-world dramatic payoff. Either the BFCA nominators didn’t see it (inexcusable) or they’re playing political games for the sake of political gain.
This hypothesis seems not only credible but persuasive in light of the BFCA having included Mel Gibson‘s Apocalypto as one of its Best Foreign Film nominees. What is that…a sop to Disney along with a chance that they can get Gibson to attend the awards ceremony?
Of all the Best Young Actor nominees, Little Miss Sunshine‘s Paul Dano gives the deepest, funniest andmost expressive performance. This guy, for me, is easily as affecting and on-target as Alan Arkin and Steve Carell are in their Sunshine roles.
Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho and birthday boy Roger Durling hosted a “hail, hail, the gang’s all here” dinner last night at La Marmotte, the top-rated French restaurant that’s been operating since the ’90s. Happy birthday, Roger, and thanks for a joyous (i.e., frequently hilarious) evening.
Those “les plats principaux” prices are…interesting? Quote from our table: “These Marmotte guys do not fuck around.” Hat tip to La Marmotte owner Mark Reggiannini.
(Bottom row, l. to r.) Daniel Launspach, me, Durling, Miramax vp publicity Julie Fontaine.
Friendly note to La Marmotte waiters when asked to snap group portraits: Call out “one, two, three…cheese!” before snapping. If you don’t do that everyone has to assume the freeze-smile position. I’m like Frank Sinatra was when making a movie — best (i.e. freshest and most alive) in the first take, and then the energy drops with successive takes.
Those who contend that Jeffrey is a three-syllable name…I’ve dealt with these people all my life:
I’m very sorry about the death of David Crosby, 81, but he enjoyed one of the most amazing, up-and-down-and-back-up-again runs of any legendary rock star-slash-troubadour-slash-crazy man. I loved his truth-telling with all my heart. Sail on, brother.
“Triple grade-A doc…the antithesis of a kiss-ass, ‘what a great artist’ tribute, but at the same time a profoundly moving warts-and-all reflection piece…hugely emotional, meditative, BALDLY PAINFULLY NAKEDLY HONEST…God! There’s a special spiritual current that seeps out when an old guy admits to each and every failing of his life without the slightest attempt to rationalize or minimize…’I was a shit, I was an asshole, how is it that I’m still alive?,’ etc. Straight, no chaser.
“And this isn’t because I’m partial to boomer nostalgia flicks or because so many are being shown here, or because I grew up with the Byrds (12-string twangly-jangly), JoniMitchell, Crosby, StillsandNash and thatwholelonglyrical–frazzledhistory. It’s about the tough stuff and the hard rain…about addiction and rage and all but destroying your life, and then coming back semi-clean and semi-restored, but without any sentimentality or gooey bullshit.
“For me David Crosby: Remember My Name has EASILY been the most emotional experience of the festival thus far. Not to mention [Crowe’s] best creative effort since Almost Famous.”
Crowe: “SO HAPPY you were there, thrilled at your reaction. How amazing that Crosby got up there [after the screening] and shared his total shock at what we’d put into the movie. Such a real moment. He was emotionally devastated up there for a good three minutes — I don’t know if you could see that. Felt like the audience wrapped their arms around him at that point, and then he was okay. Amazing.”
From Steve Pond’s Wrap review: “As much as the film celebrates Crosby’s creativity and gazes unflinchingly at his failings, it also functions as a valedictory, almostarequiemofsorts. Think of it as the film version of the final albums made by Leonard Cohen and David Bowie, who made wrenching final statements that they likely knew would be their last.”
I felt a bit surprised this morning when I watched this Lincoln clip. Surprised because I don't remember it....blank. Honestly? I don't remember a single line or stand-out moment from Daniel Day Lewis's Oscar-winning performance. I know that DDL won, of course, and that his Lincoln voice sounded like Matthew Modine on his deathbed. But not much else. Okay, I remember a scene or two with Tommy Lee Jones.
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The org’s top nominees are The Biggest Little Farm, Apollo 11 (an HE fave) and Peter Jackson‘s They Shall Not Grow Old (ditto). I’m a loyal and respectful BFCA member, but ignoring A.J. Eaton and Cameron Crowe‘s David Crosby: Remember My Name is, no offense, deranged. The film is mystical, mythical, uplifting and brazenly honest — it restoreth your soul. And it doesn’t matter if Crosby didn’t get along with Scott Feinberg two or three months ago. Please…a non-issue.
HE’s list of the finest and most award-deserving 2019 documentaries, 14 in all and in this order:
(1) David Crosby Remember My Name, (2) Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Review (except for the fantasy fake-out interviews), (3) Madds Bruger‘s Cold Case Hammarskjold, (4) Asif Kapadia’s Diego Maradona, (5) Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, (6) Untouchable, (7) Mike Wallace Is Here, (8) Alexandre O. Philippe‘s Memory: The Origins of Alien, (9) Apollo 11, (10) Dan Reed‘s Leaving Neverland, (11) Peter Jackson‘s They Shall Not Grow Old, (12) Matt Tyrnauer‘s Where’s My Roy Cohn?, (13) Ken Burns‘ Country Music and (14) The Edge of Democracy.
Peter Farrelly‘s Green Book has won the Producer’s Guild of America’s Daryl F. Zanuck award. Remember when I urged everyone to vote for Green Book as a royal fuck-you gesture to the p.c. haters? Well, that’s what happened tonight….yes! “Hate begats hate,” etc. GreenBook and Roma are now neck-and-neck for the Best Picture Oscar. (Right?) I think it’s also very safe to say that A Star Is Born is now finished as a Best Picture contender — no wins from the PGA, Golden Globes or the BFCA, over and out. It’s been a good night for Hollywood Elsewhere.
I just turned in my 2019 Critics Choice Awards ballot. The winners will be revealed at the big CC awards show on Sunday, 1.13, inside Barker Hangar. My main criteria was to (a) vote for serious true-quality contenders and not necessarily the hive favorites, and (b) to not vote for A Star Is Born in any category. I’ve omitted four or five of the minor categories.
BEST PICTURE
Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
The Favourite
First Man
Green Book
If Beale Street Could Talk
Mary Poppins Returns
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice
JW PICK: Roma
BEST ACTOR
Christian Bale – Vice
Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born
Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate
Ryan Gosling – First Man
Ethan Hawke – First Reformed
Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen – Green Book
JW PICKWillem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate / Serious conflict — I wanted to vote for either First Reformed‘s Ethan Hawke or Vice‘s Christian Bale, but Dafoe’s Van Gogh slipped into my consciousness a couple of days ago and has hung in there.
BEST ACTRESS
Yalitza Aparicio – Roma
Emily Blunt – Mary Poppins Returns
Glenn Close – The Wife
Toni Collette – Hereditary
Olivia Colman – The Favourite
Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me?
JW PICK: Glenn Close, The Wife / serious conflict here — my actual favorite is Melissa McCarthy but I’m also a Close supporter from way back. Plus a Close win at the CC awards will bolster her Oscar chances and thus lessen the odds favoring Lady Gaga.