Critics Choice Award Winners

The Broadcast Film Critics chose 12 Years a Slave tonight, but rewarded quite a few other movies as well, since they split a few categories into comedy this year, like the Golden Globes:

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  • Best Action Movie: Lone Survivor
  • Best Original Screenplay: Her
  • Best Actor in a Comedy: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
  • Best Actress in a Comedy: Amy Adams, American Hustle
  • Best Comedy: American Hustle
  • Best Actor in an Action Movie: Mark Wahlberg, Lone Survivor
  • Best Actress in an Action Movie: Sandra Bullock, Gravity
  • Best Ensemble: American Hustle
  • Best Foreign Language Film: Blue is the Warmest Color
  • Best Animated Film: Frozen
  • Best Documentary: 20 Feet From Stardom
  • Best Young Actor/Actress: Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color
  • Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
  • Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
  • Best Score: Gravity
  • Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Song: "Let it Go," Frozen
  • Best Sci-Fi/Horror Movie: Gravity
  • Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
  • Best Art Direction: The Great Gatsby
  • Best Costumes: The Great Gatsby
  • Best Hair & Makeup: American Hustle
  • Best Visual Effects: Gravity
  • Best Cinematography: Gravity
  • Best Film Editing: Gravity
  • Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
  • Best Film: 12 Years a Slave

Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations

Expected: 

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  • American Hustle and Gravity lead the pack, nominated for ten each, while 12 Years a Slave is right behind them with 9 (it slightly underperformed by missing a cinematography nod, but landed all the key nominations needed to win Picture). This is clearly a three way race for the top prize. 
  • Cate Blanchett remains the frontrunner in Actress, but since Amy Adams made the cut, I think she can seriously give her a run for her money, because she's now the only non-winner in that category. 
  • Actor is wide open, but I'm thinking it's between Leo and McConaughey for the win, with Ejiofor a spoiler.

Snubs:

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  • Tom Hanks and Paul Greengrass out for Actor and Director, replaced by Christian Bale and Alexander Payne, while Barkhad Abdi still gets in for Captain Phillips. Booo. Captain Phillips deserved those nominations, both Hanks and Greengrass did incredible jobs. 
  • Emma Thompson out for Amy Adams and not Meryl Streep (she can still get nominated for apparently anything). 
  • That cinematography miss for 12 Years. What were they thinking? Sean Bobbit had some of the most amazing shots of the year, next to only Gravity.
  • Saving Mr. Banks only gets a single nomination for Score. Not so upset about that one. 
  • Hyped documentaries Stories We Tell and Blackfish not nominated for Best Documentary.
  • Pacific Rim snubbed in Visual Effects.

Surprises: 

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  • American Hustle becomes David O. Russell's second movie in a row to land all four acting nods, which is a truly impressive feat. He's now directed his actors to 11 Oscar nominations in his last three movies.
  • Dallas Buyers Club way over performs by getting into makeup, screenplay, picture and editing, which tells us it may have been a top five nominee.
  • Jonah Hill gets into supporting actor despite no other precursors!
  • The entire makeup category, which nominated Jackass and The Lone Ranger (also nominated in visual effects). I mean, seriously?
  • That song, "Alone, Yet Not Alone," from a movie no one on this planet has ever heard of. It's a very, very suspicious nomination, because the co-composer of this thing is apparently an Academy governor and former chief of the music branch. After last year's debacle resulting in only two nominees from some really worthy candidates, this is just more evidence that the Academy needs to burn down this entire branch and rebuild it from the ground up. It's ridiculous and the most embarrassing nominee of the morning.
  • I predicted all nine nominees for Best Picture this year! (That's the first time that's ever happened).

Final Oscar Nomination Predictions: Best Director & Best Picture

Best Director

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  • Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
  • Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips
  • Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
  • David O. Russell, American Hustle
  • Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

You know, it's probably not a good idea to go with the exact same five DGA nominees, because the Oscar lineup here is almost always 3/5 or 4//5 with DGA. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out who to leave out in this category.  Cuaron, McQueen and Russell are locked. The other two are shakier, but Captain Phillips has been one of the absolute strongest contenders in every single guild, plus BAFTA, and the director's branch likes Greengrass, having given him a lone director nomination once before, for United 93. And Scorsese? Well, he's Scorsese. Yes, the movie was bold, brash, and probably turned off a lot of Academy voters, but again, they admire that kind of vision in the directors branch and often reward bold turns. Spike Jonze would be the most likely alternate here, and he could replace either of those two I suppose. Other longshots might be the Coens or Alexander Payne. But, I think I'm just going to stick with the DGA five- I wouldn't be surprised if Jonze got in though.

Best Picture

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  • 12 Years a Slave
  • American Hustle
  • Captain Phillips
  • Dallas Buyers Club*
  • Gravity
  • Her*
  • Nebraska
  • Philomena*
  • The Wolf of Wall Street

Ok, here we go. In Best Picture, I really feel that five movies are guaranteed, and if we still had just five nominees there's no doubt they'd be the contenders. Those are 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, Captain Phillips, American Hustle and Nebraska. As we get down to 9, it's tougher, but I think Wolf of Wall Street showed enough strength in the guilds and has enough passion to get in (even if some people hate it, passion matters more, because to get into Best Picture under this new system, what you need more than anything is #1 votes. If a movie is loved by some and hated by others, it will probably get in thanks to those people who loved it and put at #1 on their ballot). 

In seventh, I think it's probably Dallas Buyers Club, which surprisingly had a very strong guild showing, which means industry voters loved that movie too. And then it gets rough for those last two slots. Under the preferential ballot system, it's nearly mathematically impossible to get to ten, so for the last two years we've had nine nominees- I'm just assuming that's going to happen again. Saving Mr. Banks did fairly well in guild nominations and that's a very Oscar-baity, nice, corporate friendly movie that plays well with old people, but then again so is Philomena- it's kind of a tossup there, but I'm guessing Philomena...and for the last slot I'm going to go with Her. This was a movie beloved by critics and did place in PGA- it seems like a film that has a lot of passion behind it, although I still wonder if that passion is mostly with actual critics and not necessarily voters. But I'm going to say it makes it anyway. 

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The other movies with an equal chance of getting into one of those last three slots are probably Blue Jasmine and Inside Llewyn Davis. I hung onto Llewyn Davis for quite a while because there IS a significant and historical precedent for Coen Brothers films making it into Best Picture (even A Serious Man did it a few years ago) but this one was so completely rejected by all the guilds that I just don't see it sneaking in any more. It'd have to be on passion alone, which is possible, but I'm placing my money on Her instead.

Final Oscar Predictions: Lead Actor & Actress

Best Actor

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  • Bruce Dern, Nebraska
  • Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street*
  • Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
  • Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips
  • Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Toughest category of all. I think these are the guys who will make it in though. Leo is the wild card, but the hype and buzz surrounding Wolf was so loud in the window of the voting period, and there is a lot of passion and admiration for the performance in certain circles, so I do think he edges out Robert Redford, who was not nominated at SAG or BAFTA. He could honestly still make it in on respect, but I'm going to predict Leo gets it. And the rest of the guys I think are safe, but if they really, really loved American Hustle, Christian Bale could sneak in here somewhere (he was nominated at every other major precursor), I just don't know who he'd replace. It's even possible that he's the one who takes Redford's slot and not Leo. Or he could knock out any one of the other five. It's the most competitive category by far.

Best Actress

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  • Amy Adams, American Hustle*
  • Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
  • Sandra Bullock, Gravity
  • Judi Dench, Philomena
  • Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks

Basically the one call I'm making here is to say Amy Adams will push out Meryl Streep. It's a risky call to make, but I think the American Hustle love peaked at the right time and will carry her through. The rest are safe, maybe Emma Thompson was a bit vulnerable, but I doubt it. This is probably the lineup.

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Rififi" (1955)

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A really terrific French movie from the 1950's is on blu-ray today. One of the greatest heist movies of all time from director Jules Dassin, it's about a gang of criminals who commit the almost impossible task of robbing one of the most secure jewelry stores in Paris. The look and feel of this movie is perfect, it's all smoky atmosphere and 50's jazz cafes in Paris- and the actual heist sequence is one of the most famous of all time. Definitely look for this, it's suspenseful, exciting, dark and completely modern in tone.

Original 1955 Trailer (it's dubbed but the movie's in French):

Cinema Audio Society Nominees

The sound editors guild is the last one to report in before the Oscar noms:

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Motions Picture- Live Action

  • Captain Phillips
  • Gravity
  • Inside Llewyn Davis
  • Iron Man 3
  • Lone Survivor

This usually matches 3/5 or 4/5 with the Academy's sound branch, so I'd say Iron Man's at least out there, but there's no real telling what might replace it. Could be Rush, 12 Years a Slave, even American Hustle. But the other four look like likely nominees to me.

Final Oscar Predictions: Supporting Actor & Actress

It's time to shore up my Oscar predictions for good, with the nominees set to be announced bright and early (5:30am PT) Thursday morning. I'll start today with the supporting acting categories, then lead ones tomorrow, followed by director, picture, and several extra categories on Wednesday. But, with all the critics awards and now Golden Globes in, here's what I think is going to happen:

Supporting Actor

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  • Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
  • Daniel Bruhl, Rush*
  • Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
  • Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
  • Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

This seems to be the lineup that most would now expect, given the critical awards and number of major precursor nods. Although I do think there's room for a couple of surprises, which the Oscar nominations usually hold in store somewhere. Right now I think Jonah Hill could have an outside shot at replacing Daniel Bruhl, due to all the heat on Wolf of Wall Street that took place during the voting period, or even Will Forte if the voters really fell for Nebraska. But Bruhl would be the most vulnerable nominee on this list- I think everyone else is safe at this point.

Supporting Actress

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  • Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
  • Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
  • Julia Roberts, August: Osage County*
  • June Squibb, Nebraska
  • Oprah Winfrey, The Butler*

This group is slightly shakier, as Lawrence and Nyong'o are still the ones who seem most safe, with June Squibb in third. But I'm iffy on Roberts and Oprah, even though both scored SAG and BAFTA noms. It depends on how deep the love for those movies are within the Academy, which is questionable at the moment. To me, Oprah is the one most likely to be replaced, and if she is it would probably be for either Sally Hawkins in Blue Jasmine (who landed Globe and BAFTA nods) or even Jennifer Garner in Dallas Buyers Club, a movie that is absolutely beloved by the guilds, and whose voters may have checked off all three actors from the film. The Oscars have produced occasional out of nowhere nominees in the past- I even think Octavia Spencer from Fruitvale Station (a Harvey Weinstein-backed movie) is still a slight possibility. But these are the safe predictions for now.

Denver Critics Like 'Gravity'; North Carolina Chooses '12 Years'

Two more regional groups. First up, the Denver Film Critics:

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  • Picture: Gravity
  • Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
  • Actor: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
  • Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
  • Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
  • Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
  • Animated Film: Frozen
  • Sci-Fi/Horror Film: Gravity
  • Comedy: This is the End
  • Original Screenplay: American Hustle
  • Adapted Screenplay: The Wolf of Wall Street
  • Documentary: The Act of Killing
  • Song: "Let it Go," Frozen
  • Score: Gravity
  • Foreign-Language Film: The Grandmaster

Here are North Carolina's winners:

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  • Picture: 12 Years a Slave
  • Documentary: Stories We Tell
  • Animated Film: Monsters University
  • Foreign-Language Film: The Hunt
  • Director: Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
  • Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
  • Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
  • Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
  • Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
  • Original Screenplay: Inside Llewyn Davis
  • Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
  • Tar Heel Award: The Way, Way Back