One Category at a Time: Actress

For those of us who absorb movies and writing thereof on a year-round basis, one of the defining stories of 2015 has to be how many of the year's best pictures were female-centric stories. It's fitting then, that in a (sadly) uncharacteristic role reversal, the category of Best Actress is far more competitive than that of Best Actor, which is comparatively lackluster. But even with a wealth of quality (which mirrors my own personal ballot quite closely), there's one name that has emerged as the bona fide frontrunner.

My Award Nominations: Actress

No dearth of quality options to choose from, as the women's category was way more competitive than the men's for a change of pace. So competitive, in fact, that a couple of legit contenders saw their campaigns sneakily shuffled to the supporting category for lack of room in this one. You'll see no such fraudulence from me, but it forced me to make some heartbreaking omissions. My Best Actress selections are:

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.

Review - Cinderella

Traditionalists can be forgiven for continually scoffing at Walt Disney Pictures for their current habit of repurposing their most beloved animated classics into money-sponging live-action productions. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland have already fallen victim to the artistically dubious Mirror Mirror, Maleficent and Tim Burton's unspeakable 2010 eyesore, with plans afoot for everything from Beauty and the Beast to Dumbo to Winnie the Pooh.
This year's episode of 'remake musical chairs' is none other than Cinderella.

Purists' initial reaction may be to cringe and look away, but with the right tone in the right directorial hands (in this case, the aptly theatrical Kenneth Branagh), who's to say that these relics can't be improved, even if only mildly?

While Walt's 1950 hit about the woebegone dreamer with the glass slippers may be remembered as a classic, it's sometimes misremembered as 'good' classic.
Truth is, it simply does not hold up to modern scrutiny, proving to be more Tom & Jerry cartoon than cinematic achievement, and only peripherally about its titular maiden. If any of Disney's dusty animated properties was due for a refurbishing,
it was this one.

Early Oscar Predictions: The Actresses

The annual complaint about Best Actress being a less competitive field than that of their male counterparts is perhaps more believable at this early predictive stage when scoping out potential contenders – It's no less false, it's just that the great, underrated female performances of the year haven't even been seen yet. Still, you don't have to look far to find a whole bunch of leading ladies that show a lot of promise for their upcoming films.

Review - How to Train Your Dragon 2

It's usually hard to get excited about the film franchises of DreamWorks Animation. In order to cling to the pop culture zeitgeist on which so many of them depend, the studio churns out sequels and spinoffs with a rapidity and middling quality that might be better suited to television! One could therefore be forgiven for being pessimistic on the prospects of a sequel to How to Train Your Dragon, a critically acclaimed box office hit that spun the quaint morality tale of how an oddball viking named Hiccup (Jay Burachel) managed to capture and bond with the most unlikely of pets: a wild dragon he named Toothless.

I quite enjoyed that film when it was released back in 2010, and my affection for it has only grown since then. Obviously, my hopes weren't too high for its inevitable follow-up, but this is one sequel for which DreamWorks deserved the benefit of the doubt. How to Train Your Dragon 2 truly delivers, and with fiery confidence to boot. Not only is it the studio's most thrilling adventure to date, but also its most thematically robust and elegantly handled as well.

The story picks up five years after the events of the first Dragon, in which time the once dragon-fearing highland village of Berk has become a more harmonious place where Vikings and dragons happily coexist. Hiccup's father Stoick (Gerard Butler) is intent on preparing his son to eventually succeed him as clan chieftain, but the soul-searching Hiccup naturally has his doubts. He'd rather devote his time to flying around on Toothless, mapping out new lands, outfitted with a tricked-out steampunk wing-suit that allows him to literally glide alongside his winged companion.

"The world is round, people!"

On this International Women's Day, it feels like the most appropriate time to tip my cap to the best part of Cate Blanchett's Best Actress acceptance speech:

"...and perhaps those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the center are 'niche' experiences; They are not. Audiences want to see them, and in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people!"

You tell 'em, Cate!

My seasonal coverage concludes tomorrow with my top ten highlights and pet peeves.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 3: The show

Properly reviewing an Oscar ceremony can be tedious business, so I'm not gonna do it. Not properly, at least. The whole never quite amounts to the sum of its parts (although the Condon/Mark production from 2009 comes awfully close), so it's easiest just to look back and assess those parts at face value. Let's take a look at some moments that stood out (for me anyway) at the 86th Academy Awards

After last year's show hosted by Seth McFarlane came under such harsh critical fire, the pressure was on returning producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to atone. They made all the safest possible choices, and it started with the selection of Ellen Degeneres to return as host after her first kick at the can seven years ago.

Ellen assures viewers around the world, "We're fine. Thank you for your prayers" in regards to the rain.

BAFTA winners do little to clarify Oscar race

With the Winter Olympics pushing the Oscar voting window back a couple of weeks, all eyes this were on the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs) to indicate any late-breaking momentum for this contender or that during this crucial final phase of the season. However, it seems that the Brits are about as indecisive as American awards groups have been this year, as they too ended up splitting their decision between the leading runners in the race.

In eerily similar fashion to the way the Golden Globes went down, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave managed to claim the Best Film prize at the BAFTAs, but only after it had been nearly shut out all night long. Losing categories in which it is believed to be the Oscar favourite (Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay) must have been cause for excruciating nervousness, but then it reared its head at the last minute with a victory for lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (in the absence of Oscar frontrunner Matthew McConaughey) and ultimately Best Picture.

But Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity led the total trophy haul with six, including Best British Film. Ironically, many would argue that the actual Best Film winner 12 Years a Slave is more British than the Mexican director's U.S.-financed space adventure. Keeping its own Oscar fires stoked with three wins was David O. Russell's American Hustle.

Check out the winners below for more commentary on individual categories, and how the winners here might affect the Oscar outcome.

One Category at a Time: Actress

All of the acting categories seem more or less set in stone at this point in the season, but none more so than Best Actress, which features a career-best performance from a previous Oscar winner who is all but assured of winning her second. It's somewhat a shame that this race is such a done deal, considering how exciting it could have been. Think about it: Four previous Oscar winners and a beloved five-time nominee hungry for her first win, among whom three Best Picture nominees are represented... sounds on paper like it should be a nail-biter, but instead it's one of the biggest locks in the top categories. But we can really bellyache so much when the winning performance is this good? I don't think so.

My Award nominations: Actress

Let's hear it for the ladies! This year boasted a wealth of outstanding performances, and even though the race for the Oscar is foregone, in any other year we could have had a real tight race due to the glut of quality acting. Behold the five Actresses I feel are the best of the best this year:

SAG winners

So the Screen Actors Guild has had their say, and for the most part, they were in lock step with the beat the season has set so far.

All the expected actors followed up on their BFCA wins two days ago, with the only category of some dispute being supporting actress. Lupita Nyongo's win tonight over chief competition Jennifer Lawrence (who won just last year) seems to have effectively settled that question though.

Golden Globes live blog

The Golden Globes are starting in about 15 minutes, and I'll be updating with my commentary on developments as they happen.

7:50 Got my port poured and ready to go. Let's end these inane red carpet interviews and get the show rolling.

8:00 And we're off!

Gravity and Her win with LA critics

In a deadlocked voting slog that yielded three ties, the LA Film Critics Association finally finished announcing their year-end superlatives, and the conjoint winners of their Best Picture prize are Gravity and Her.

Gravity also nabbed honours for Directing, Cinematography, and Editing (all of them very possible Oscar victories too). Her only managed to win one additional award for Production Design, but was runner-up for Music, Director, and Screenplay.

Speaking of Screenplay, that's my favourite pick of the day, going to Before Midnight, which I'll be rooting for all year long in this category. Another selection that delights me is Ernest & Celestine for Animated Feature. Even though its English translation has not yet been released, the warm and whimsical story of a bear and mouse forming an unlikely friendship still won me over in its native French tongue. Besides, we wouldn't want The Wind Rises hogging all the critics awards, would we?

The other two ties of the came in the Acting races, with Best Supporting Actor going between Jared Leto and James Franco, and Best Actress going between Cate Blanchett and Adele Exarchopoulos.

Full list of winners below.

NY Critcs surprise with American Hustle

Even in a year as strong as this one, the New York Film Critics Circle managed to make a Best Picture selection that has many pundits baffled: David O. Russell's American Hustle, whose reviews from recent press screenings have been mixed. Obviously, we won't be in a position to assess the NYFCC's decision in until we get to see the film itself in a little less than a month, but it certainly wasn't what many people expected to see triumph here. It also won for Screenplay and Supporting Actress Jennifer Lawrence.

Picking up big acting wins were Robert Redford of All Is Lost (a movie that continues to piss me off in its coy reluctance to open wide), and Cate Blanchett of Blue Jasmine (this just might be the first of a long list of awards leading up to an eventual Oscar win). Dallas Buyers Club's Jared Leto nabbed Supporting Actor while Steve McQueen took Best Director for 12 Years a Slave.

One final note, I'm super thrilled to see Sarah Polley claim the prize for Best Non-Fiction Film for her brilliant Stories We Tell, and hope it translates into an Oscar nod.

Full list of winners below:

Review - Blue Jasmine

Boasting an acrid, career-best star turn from Cate Blanchett, Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine is perfect late summer counter-programming for the discerning film goer; a cynically witted character study that proposes it's not the tragedies and crises (be they self-imposed or fateful) that define our lives, but our ability to put the past behind us and move on.

Jasmine (Blanchett) used to thrive on the vain luxury of her Manhattan high life. Constantly indulged by her wealthy businessman husband (Alec Baldwin), she blissfully turned a blind eye to his crooked dealings and extramarital affairs. We are reminded of this part of her life via frequent flashbacks, but presently, all the extravagant dining and dancing and diamonds and drinks have completely vanished from Jasmine's world. Well, except for the drinks.

Early Oscar predictions - Part 2

My early predictions continue with Best Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Adapted Screenplay. Next week I'll start looking at some of the visual craft categories.

Best Supporting Actor

Always hard to get a read on the supporting categories because a lot of contenders stem from large ensembles out of which it's hard to detect the standout without seeing the film. The Monuments Men, for instance, boasts a starry cast, but who (if any) will get the most attention. I'm taking a chance on John Goodman (also starring in Inside Llewyn Davis this year) given his career trajectory of late; featured in the last two Best Picture winners, among several other awards films... how long can it be before his first career nomination? And for which film will it be?

You could make a similar case for Michael Fassbender, who probably came close to his first nomination for Steve McQueen's Shame. He's teaming again with McQueen for Twelve Years a Salve. Perhaps an American period drama is more to the Academy's liking?