'La La Land' Dominates Critics Choice Movie Awards

Damien Chazelle's escapist musical ruled the night with eight wins, including Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay. Manchester by the Sea and Jackie pulled down three apiece while Moonlight, Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge and Deadpool (you heard me) each snagged a pair.

It seems that while regional critics groups are ready, willing and able to get behind art house indies like Manchester and Moonlight, they're just don't have enough broad appeal to triumph with a larger group like the BFCA... or the Academy?

Check out the full list of movie winners after the cut.

'Manchester', 'Moonlight' and 'La La Land' Lead Early Critics Awards

It has begun. Awards season is "officially" underway after what has been a busy seven days of early -- and I mean ridiculously, unnecessarily early -- precursor citations. The main takeaway: In a studio year as lack-lustre as 2016 was, it looks like critically acclaimed indies will be leading the race, namely Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea and Damien Chazelle's La La Land, while some sneak-peek twitter reactions to Scorsese's recently screened Silence paint it as a major last-minute lurker that could crash the party.

The National Board of Review got the ball rolling last Tuesday, handing Manchester four prizes including Best Film, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. Moonlight trailed with a pair of wins for Jenkins' direction and Naomie Harris' incredible performance.

The New York Film Critics Circle followed up two days after with three prizes apiece for both Manchester and Moonlight, but at the eleventh hour voted in favour of La La Land as Best Film (not an unprecedented move for that group).

That same day, La La Land went on to dominate the Critics Choice nominations with 12. Again, Moonlight had a prominent showing with 10, Manchester with 7 (Full list of nominees will appear at the end of the post with some quick takes).

The LA Film Critics Association rounded out the week by naming Moonlight the best of the year just this afternoon. The film also won Best Director, Supporting Actor and Cinematography. La La Land only earned a single prize from the west coast crew (for music), but was runner-up in five other categories, making it the most represented title in the group's day of announcements. Hmmm... were they afraid giving it multiple wins would smack of homerim?

Critics Choice winners

I can't bring myself to live-blog something that's as big a joke as the Critics Choice Awards (a few tweets will suffice), but it's worth remembering that -- like the Academy -- they're a large group with mainstream-leaning tastes. True, that stems mostly from the fact that they actively try to predict the Oscars, but nevertheless the winners they choose can be telling.

Officially, the biggest winner of the night was Mad Max: Fury Road, taking a slew of craft prizes in what the BFCA clearly thinks will be a sweep of those categories on Oscar night. I think the Academy won't be nearly so one-sided, but a number of those awards would be very much deserved, especially the Best Director gong for George Miller.

But it was ultimately Spotlight that walked away with Best Picture. Unsurprising, given this group's prognosticative tendancies, that they would dutifully follow the buzz of the moment. But as we saw last year, the PGA can change that buzz in a heartbeat. Next Saturday will be the acid test.

Here are the winners in the movie categories.

Critics Choice Max out nominations (as usual), plus thoughts on Carol

Mad Max: Fury Road led with 11 nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Movie Awards. We know that the BFCA is prone to merely following the buzz and trying to predict the Oscars based on the most current developments of the season, so I'm still unsure of the chances George Miller's nutso action opus really has with the Academy.

The Revenant, The Martian, and Carol (which I finally saw) were close behind with nine apiece.

Todd Haynes' romantic drama -- elegantly adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt by Phyllis Nagy -- is an exquisite work of art. Haynes is a master sensualist, using image, music and sound to stimulate all our senses (not just the aural/visual ones). Edward Lachman's compositions are gorgeous and narratively astute, while Carter Burwell's score speaks volumes for characters whose true thoughts and feelings are rarely spoken.

Indeed, the emotion of the piece is powerful but never overstated, thanks largely to a quartet of superb performances. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara forge a special chemistry as the two romantic leads, while Sarah Paulson and Kyle Chandler bring thoughtful, empathetic perspectives to two very different types of jilted lovers.

Much Academy attention is deserved (particularly for director and screenplay, the latter of which it inexplicably missed both with the Critics Choice and the Globes), but unless more people get to set eyes on it, it may lose much needed buzz. Harvey, I know you think you're clever trying to keep this concealed until Oscar nominations before whisking the curtain away (et voila!), but you need to get it on more screens, pronto.

But back to the Critics Choice. Check out the long, unsurprising list of nominees, with some additional comments.

BEST PICTURE
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Sicario
Spotlight
Happy for Sicario, which is slowly growing into the year's most underrated film with every critics group that passes it over. Sad for Inside Out, which seems to be falling by the wayside.

Boyhood Expectedly Wins Big at Critics Choice Awards

Boyhood took home lots of hardware yet again at the BFCA Critics Choice Movie Awards. This group tends to reflect the consensus opinions as to how the Academy will vote at this point in the season, plus they're a large group, so their winner selections aren't without some significance. That said, there's still plenty of wiggle room for some underdog contender to make a move between now and February 22nd.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, for instance, won the Best Comedy prizes both at the Globes and last night, despite being beaten out again in the screenplay and actor categories by Birdman. Does this suggest that Anderson's film is more loved overall than Inarritu's?

And then there are the specialty film categories. The BFCA honoured The LEGO Movie, Force Majeure, and Life Itself in the Best Animated, Foreign, and Documentary categories respectively, probably because all of them were the presumed frontrunners (or at least co-frontrunners) for the Oscar win... until all three of them got snubbed by the Academy! At least these races are still somewhat interesting at a stage of the season when most races start ossifying.

You can read some of my passing thoughts after the cut.

Critics' Choice nominations cover all their bases, as usual

The Broadcast Film Critics Association don't hold a lot of sway in terms of convincing guilds or Academy members what to vote for in January, but they do give a pretty accurate snapshot of where all the contenders stand at this early point in the season. Since many categories have six nominees, there are rarely any egregious snubs, and even if there are it can hardly derail a campaign.

It seems that Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Boyhood are the most popular with this group, picking up 13, 11, and 8 nominations respectively. It'll be interesting to see how closely this correlates to the Academy's response.

All the nominees (including those dubious genre categories) after the cut, with my usual brief commentaries:

Critics Choice Awards

So the critics choice awards have been announced, and as usual, they're up to their old anticipatory ways, opting for whichever titles (at this point in the race at least) appear to be the leading contenders in their respective categories. I was astonished at just how many winners I was guessing right mere seconds before they were called, but with a group this predictable that's hardly a significant feat.

One category I was happy to guess wrong was Supporting Actress. It did not go the way of Golden Globe victor Jennifer Lawrence, but instead went to the only contender in that field who I think should even be uttered in the same breath as the word "Oscar", the lovely Lupita Nyong'o. She gave a beautiful speech to boot. It may be down to the SAG Award to break the tie.

In addition to Nyong'o, the film picked up Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture, but Gravity ruled the trophy tally with seven wins, although two of them were for dubious genre categories Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie ("Sci-fi" my ass) and Best Actress in an Action-Movie (which Sandra delightfully poked holes in during her acceptance speech by thanking the likes of Jackie Chan and Sylvester Stallone for teaching her everything she knows -- heehee!).

One more random thought... I can totally see Dallas Buyers Club winning it's semi-surprising Best Makeup nomination. Besides my own bias in thinking that the work in the film is really quite good, it struck me that every time McConaughey and (especially) Leto take the stage this season -- and they may do so again at SAG -- viewers will get to see just how different they look in real life. Plus it's the lone Best Picture nominee in a category where its only competition are two critically dismissed movies that are really not in the Academy's wheelhouse. How many of them saw Bad Grandpa or The Lone Ranger?

Anyway, check out all the Critics Choice winners (and my rambling commentaries) after the cut.

BFCA nominees

The BFCA's ridiculously overstuffed state of nominees for the Critics Choice Awards have been released, and honestly, there's not much to comment on. This group has always eschewed any kind of unique identity in favour of simply trying to forecast the Oscars, and their selections fall perfectly in line with the general consensus as of this point (with a lot of six-nominee lineups just to make sure they don't get one wrong).

For what it's worth, full list of nominations (including the always-questionable genre categories) after the cut.

Critics Choice Awards

It never rains. It pours. The very day that Oscar nominations drop, the BFCA decide to hold their own shindig. The winner was Ben Affleck's Argo, taking Best Picture and Director, but nothing else. A fine choice, but clearly the BFCA did not see coming this morning's surprise Oscar snub for Affleck in Best Director, otherwise they would totally have jumped ship and gone for Lincoln. This is a group that seems intent on anticipating the Academy Awards year in and year out, and had their voting taken place later after the Oscar nods, I think it would have spelled a different story.

So Affleck and company can take this as a bittersweet consolation prize, I guess. The four acting triumvirates were the same that critics have been lining up behind all season: Day-Lewis, Chastain, Hoffman, and Hathaway. But I don't know if all of these will match up with Oscar.

Winners after the cut:

Critics Choice nominees

EARLIER: Standby for the Broadcast Film Critics Association's nominees, which should be dropped imminently. The BFCA has traditionally fancied itself more of an Oscar predictor than a group with its own opinion (although they hedge their bets by including six nominees in most categories), but with so many categories casting an ever widening net, it's hard to tell what their collective opinion is anyway.

UPDATE: And her they are. True to form, the BFCA has made sure to line up behind all the presumed Oscar frontrunners, with Lincoln leading the way with 13 nods. The full list of nominees after the jump, along with some trifling commentaries on some super superfluous categories.

Best Picture
"Argo"
"Beasts of the Southern Wild"
"Django Unchained"
"Les Misérables"
"Life of Pi"
"Lincoln"
"The Master"
"Moonrise Kingdom"
"Silver Linings Playbook"
"Zero Dark Thirty"

BFCA winners

And so the Broadcast Film Critics have weighed in with their Oscar-predictive picks, solidifying The Artist as the frontrunner we all knew it was.

Two of the Acting categories will likely continue a pattern all the way to the Academy Awards. I refer of course to Christopher Plummer who is en route to finally claim that Lifetime Achievement Oscar they tried to set him up for with The Last Station two years ago, and Viola Davis who rocked her acceptance speech and will likely do the same at the Globes and SAG Awards. But I feel Best Supporting Actress and Best Actor might have some shakeups along the way.

Action Film: Drive Great movie with some action scenes, but NOT an action movie.
Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners On his way to an Oscar.
Acting Ensemble: The Help
Animated Feature: Rango On it's way to an Oscar.
Comedy: Bridesmaids
Foreign Film: A Separation Easy call, but I still don't know about Oscar.
Young Actor or Actress: Thomas Horn, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
May be the only award this film wins all year.
Documentary: George Harrison: Living in a Material World
Adapted Screenplay: Moneyball Nice choice.
Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris
Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Actress: Viola Davis, The Help Her year? Me thinks so. Nailed her speech.
Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants Damn. Was kinda hoping for Pitt.
Picture: The Artist Quelle surprise.

And the rest:

Cinematography: (tie) War Horse, The Tree of Life
Original Song: "Life's a Happy Song", The Muppets
Costume Design: The Artist
Art Direction: Hugo
Film Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Sound: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Score: The Artist
Makeup: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

As always, the BFCA is trying real hard to predict the Oscars in these craft categories. I think they're barking up the wrong tree with Potter winning Sound, but the rest seem like very plausible winners on Oscar night.

Critics' Choice noms

The BFCA weighed in with their usual slate of Oscar-predictive nominees. All the top Oscar contenders are there, although they've given a lot more support to Nicolas Winding Refn's awesome Drive than I expect AMPAS to, clocking in with seven nominations (every one of them deserved, except perhaps that dubious "Action Movie" classification).

Best Picture
"The Artist"
"The Descendants"
"Drive"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
"The Help"
"Hugo"
"Midnight in Paris"
"Moneyball"
"The Tree of Life"
"War Horse"

Social Network wins Critics' Choice!

The BFCA, in their usual Oscar-guessing ways, followed the script of the season pretty much to the letter, handing The Social Network Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay (and also Score)!

Inception also cleaned up five craft awards (plus Best Action Film) while The Fighter nabbed three acting categories (Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Ensemble).

Best Picture: The Social Network Woohoo!
Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Cinematography: Inception
Best Art Diretion: Inception
Best Visual Effects: Inception
Best Sound: Inception
Best Film Editing: Inception
Best Makeup: Alice in Wonderland Dammit! Dammit!
Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland Dammit!
Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Original Screenplay: The King's Speech
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Best Comedy: Easy A (nifty)
Best Documentary: Waiting for Superman
Best Foreign Language Film: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Best Action Movie: Inception
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter (surprise, surprise)
Best Ensemble: The Fighter
Best Young Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Best Original Score: The Social Network
Best Original Song: "If I Rise", 127 Hours

BFCA nominations

In typical fashion, the Critics' Choice Awards nominees match what early perception indicates will be nominated for the Oscars. Not sure why that happens EVERY YEAR.

Anyway, Black Swan leads the group with 12 nominations. Check them out after the jump.