Washington Area Film Critics Nominations 2015

Posted on December 6, 2015 at 9:10 am

The 2015 WAFCA nominees for the best we saw on screens this year:

Best Film:
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Sicario
Spotlight

Best Director:
Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Todd Haynes (Carol)
Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant)
George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Ridley Scott (The Martian)

Best Actor:
Matt Damon (The Martian)
Johnny Depp (Black Mass)
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs)
Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl)

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett (Carol)
Brie Larson (Room)
Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)
Sarah Silverman (I Smile Back)
Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Best Supporting Actor:
Paul Dano (Love & Mercy)
Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation)
Tom Hardy (The Revenant)
Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies)
Sylvester Stallone (Creed)

Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight)
Rooney Mara (Carol)
Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)
Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs)

Best Acting Ensemble:
The Big Short
The Hateful Eight
Spotlight
Steve Jobs
Straight Outta Compton

Best Youth Performance:
Abraham Attah (Beasts of No Nation)
Raffey Cassidy (Tomorrowland)
Oona Laurence (Southpaw)
Güneş Şensoy (Mustang)
Jacob Tremblay (Room)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Nick Hornby (Brooklyn)
Phyllis Nagy (Carol)
Drew Goddard (The Martian)
Emma Donoghue (Room)
Aaron Sorkin (Steve Jobs)

Best Original Screenplay:
Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen (Bridge of Spies)
Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley (Original Story by Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen) (Inside Out)
Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer (Spotlight)
Amy Schumer (Trainwreck)

Best Animated Feature:
Anomalisa
The Good Dinosaur
Inside Out
The Peanuts Movie
Shaun the Sheep Movie

Best Documentary:
Amy
Best of Enemies
Cartel Land
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
The Look of Silence

Best Foreign Language Film:
The Assassin
Goodnight Mommy
Mustang
The Second Mother
Son of Saul

Best Production Design:
François Séguin, Set Decorators: Jennifer Oman and Louise Tremblay (Brooklyn)
Judy Becker, Set Decorator: Heather Loeffler (Carol)
Dante Ferretti, Set Decorator: Francesca Loschiavo-Ferretti (Cinderella)
Thomas Sanders, Set Decorators: Jeffrey Melvin and Shane Vieau (Crimson Peak)
olin Gibson, Set Decorator: Lisa Thompson (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Best Cinematography:
Yves Bélanger, CSC (Brooklyn)
Ed Lachman, ASC (Carol)
John Seale, ASC, ACS (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC (The Revenant)
Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (Sicario)

Best Editing:
Margaret Sixel (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Pietro Scalia, ACE (The Martian)
Stephen Mirrione, ACE (The Revenant)
Joe Walker, ACE (Sicario)
Elliott Graham, ACE (Steve Jobs)

Best Original Score:
Michael Brook (Brooklyn)
Carter Burwell (Carol)
Ennio Morricone (The Hateful Eight)
Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Jóhann Jóhannsson (Sicario)

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Awards

Edward Norton Speaks Out About Oscar Campaigns

Posted on August 11, 2015 at 8:00 am

Awards are big money, a huge influence on ticket-buyers. And that means studios spend big money to try to get them. Three-time Oscar nominee Edward Norton spoke out about the abuses of the system in an Indiewire interview.

Not to sound cynical about it, but once a film gets channeled by the industry into that death grip of marketing via the springboard of the awards season, it’s this repetitive grind of promoting something that runs essentially from the end of the New York Film Festival to the end of February. Who wants to spend that much time talking about anything?… n some sense the industry is like the Mexican myth of the snake that eats its own tail. I think the awards season has become this thing that has metastasized. I think something unholy has happened: The Academy is a group of people who make films — six or 7,000 people who are the core of the industry. That’s a thing completely unto itself. Past that, every single thing that transpires between November and February is awards created by bodies of critics, whether it’s the Hollywood Foreign Press with the Golden Globes, the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle or the L.A. one. Critics Choice. It goes on and on. Unfortunately, the reality of what’s happened is that what started off on an almost academic and critical-slash-journalist footing has — more than people want to acknowledge — become a game of monetization.

I like his recommendation: Anyone paying for an ad campaign to promote awards consideration should be disqualified.

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Awards

Critics Choice Television Awards 2015

Posted on May 31, 2015 at 10:28 pm

WINNERS OF THE 2015 CRITICS’ CHOICE TELEVISION AWARDS

· Best Drama Series: The Americans (FX)

· Best Actor in a Drama Series: Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul (AMC)

· Best Actress in a Drama Series: Taraji P. Henson, Empire (FOX)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GedtHF5Qc_o

· Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul (AMC)

· Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Lorraine Toussaint, Orange Is the New Black (Netflix)

· Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series: Sam Elliott, Justified (FX)

· Best Comedy Series: Silicon Valley (HBO)

· Best Actor in a Comedy Series: Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent (Amazon)

· Best Actress in a Comedy Series: Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)

· Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: T.J. Miller, Silicon Valley (HBO)

· Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: Allison Janney, Mom (CBS)

· Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series: Bradley Whitford, Transparent (Amazon)

· Best Movie Made for Television: Bessie (HBO)

· Best Limited Series: Olive Kitteridge (HBO)

· Best Actor in a Movie or Limited Series: David Oyelowo, Nightingale (HBO)

· Best Actress in a Movie or Limited Series: Frances McDormand, Olive Kitteridge (HBO)

· Best Supporting Actor in a Movie or Limited Series: Bill Murray, Olive Kitteridge (HBO)

· Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Limited Series: Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Freak Show (FX)

· Best Reality Series: Shark Tank (ABC)

· Best Reality Competition Series: Face Off (Syfy)

· Best Reality Series Host: Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance (FOX)

· Best Talk Show: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)

· Best Animated Series: Archer (FX)

· Critics’ Choice LOUIS XIII Genius Award: Seth MacFarlane

· Most Exciting New Series: American Crime Story (FX), Aquarius (NBC), Blindspot (NBC), Minority Report (FOX), The Muppets (ABC), Scream Queens (FOX), Supergirl (CBS) and UnREAL (Lifetime)

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Awards Television

SAG Awards 2015

Posted on January 26, 2015 at 9:00 am

The Screen Actors Guild awards for television and movies in 2014 are in and it looks like Patricia Arquette, Julianne Moore, and J.K. Simmons are in line to bring home Oscars on February 22. The tough one to call right now is Best Actor, down to the wire between Eddie Redmayne and Michael Keaton.

The winners are:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role: Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role: Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role: J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture: “Birdman”

TELEVISION PROGRAMS

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries: Mark Ruffalo, “The Normal Heart”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries: Frances McDormand, “Olive Kitteridge”

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series: Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series: Viola Davis, “How to Get Away with Murder”

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series: William H. Macy, “Shameless”

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series: Uzo Aduba, “Orange Is the New Black”

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series: “Downton Abbey”

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series: “Orange Is the New Black”

STUNT AWARDS

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture: “Unbroken”

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series: “Game of Thrones”

Screen Actors Guild 51st Annual Life Achievement Award: Debbie Reynolds

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Actors Awards

Critics Choice Awards 2015

Posted on January 16, 2015 at 9:45 am

Sweetest moment of the Critics Choice Awards last night: when Emily Blunt was accepting her award for Best Actress in an Action/Sci-Fi Movie, her husband John Krasinski ran out from backstage, where he was waiting to present an award, to give her a congratulatory kiss. I also loved her comment that it was good to be in an action movie where she was not a damsel in distress. Other highlights included the special awards to “MVP” Jessica Chastain, for her work in four films in 2014, and to Kevin Costner and Ron Howard for their body of work. Chastain spoke movingly of the need for more diversity in filmmaking. Coster’s speech was a touching tribute to the unsung heroes of the film work, the crew who make it possible. And Ron Howard was inspiring in his fearless engagement with changing technologies and distribution systems.

The most satisfying part was that on the same day that the Oscars snubbed some of my most-loved films, performers, and directors of 2014, the Broadcast Film Critics came through. “The LEGO Movie” won best animated film and “Life Itself” won best documentary. It was wonderful to be back in the historic Hollywood Palladium and we were thrilled to be on the wonderful A and E Channel for the first time. They took great care of us.

But the best part was enjoying the dazzling event, surrounded by glamorous stars, with my daughter, Rachel, a costume designer who works in Hollywood. Here we are in our vintage gowns and furs.

BEST PICTURE
Boyhood

BEST ACTOR
Michael Keaton, Birdman

BEST ACTRESS
Julianne Moore, Still Alice

BEST DIRECTOR
Richard Linklater, Boyhood

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
Birdman

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Gone Girl

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Birdman

BEST COMEDY
The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Jenny Slate, Obvious Child

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Michael Keaton, Birdman

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

BEST SONG
“Glory,” Common/John Legend, Selma

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Lego Movie

BEST ACTION MOVIE
Guardians of the Galaxy

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE
Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Ellar Coltrane, Boyhood

BEST SCI FI/HORROR MOVIE
Interstellar

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Life Itself

BEST CINEMATOGRAPY
Birdman, Emmanuel Lubezki

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

BEST EDITING
Birdman, Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione

BEST ART DIRECTION
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Adam Stockhausen/Production Designer, Anna Pinnock/Set Decorator

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Milena Canonero

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP
Guardians of the Galaxy

BEST SCORE
Antonio Sanchez, Birdman

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Force Majeure (Sweden)

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Awards