Alliance of Woman Film Journalists Awards

Posted on January 10, 2012 at 10:28 am

More awards are rolling in as we get ready for the big three — this week’s Critics Choice Movie Awards this Thursday night on VH1 (Twitter hashtag #ccma), the Golden Globes on Sunday, and of course the Oscars coming next month on February 26. I’m honored to be a member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists and very proud of this year’s honorees. “The Artist” continues to build momentum for the top award but the unusual number of tie votes shows that in many of the categories, the competition is very tough. I love the AWFJ’s categories like “best animated female character” and “most egregious love interest.” Be sure to read through to the end!

Best Film:

The Artist

Best Director:

Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist

Best Screenplay, Original:

Midnight in Paris – Woody Allen

Best Screenplay, Adapted: (TIE)

The Descendants – Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

Moneyball – Steven Zallian and Aaron Sorkin

Best Documentary:

Buck

Best Animated Film:

Rango

Best Actress:

Viola Davis as Abileen in The Help

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: (TIE)

Janet McTeer as Hubert Page in Albert Nobb and Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson in The Help

Best Actor:

Michael Fassbender as Brandon Sullivan in Shame

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:

Christopher Plummer as Hal Fields in Beginners

Best Ensemble Cast:

Bridesmaids

Best Editing:

Hugo – Thelma Schoonmaker

Best Cinematography:

The Tree of Life – Emmanuel Lubezki

Best Film Music Or Score: (TIE)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Original Score

Hanna – The Chemical Brothers, Original Score

Best Non-English-Language Film:

A Separation – Ashgar Farhadi, Iran

EDA FEMALE FOCUS AWARDS

Best Woman Director:

Lynne Ramsey – We Need To Talk About Kevin

Best Woman Screenwriter:

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo – Bridesmaids

Kick Ass Award For Best Female Action Star: (TIE)

Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Saoirse Ronan as Hanna in Hanna

Best Animated Female:

Isla Fisher as Beans in Rango

Best Breakthrough Performance:

Elizabeth Olsen as Martha in Martha Marcy May Marlene

Female Icon Award:

Glenn Close as Albert Nobbs in Albert Nobbs

Actress Defying Age and Ageism:

Helen Mirren as Rachel Singer in The Debt

This Year’s Outstanding Achievement By A Woman In The Film Industry:

Jessica Chastain for performances in four highly acclaimed films

AWFJ Award For Humanitarian Activism:

Angelina Jolie for UN work and making In The Land of Blood and Honey to raise awareness about genocide.

EDA SPECIAL MENTION AWARDS

AWFJ Hall Of Shame Award:

The Hollywood Reporter for failing to invite any women to join the Directors Roundtable

Actress Most in Need Of A New Agent:

All actresses in New Year’s Eve

Movie You Wanted To Love But Just Couldn‘t:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Unforgettable Moment Award:

The Artist – The sound of the glass clinking on the table.

Best Depiction Of Nudity, Sexuality, or Seduction: (TIE)

Melancholia – Justine in the moonlight and Shame – Opening sequence on the subway train.

Sequel Or Remake That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award:

The Hangover Part II

Most Egregious Love Interest Age Difference Award: (TIE)

Albert Nobbs – Glenn Close (64) and Mia Wasilkowska (22)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I – Bella (18) and Edward (Over 100)

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists is very grateful to our 2011 sponsors for their ongoing support of the EDA Awards and our organization.

Related Tags:

Awards

Women Journalist Film Awards

Posted on December 13, 2009 at 7:54 pm

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has announced its awards for 2009:
With sincerest appreciation of all the great work that’s been done in film this year, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists is pleased to announce the winners of the 2009 EDA Awards for the best and worst of the year. The AWFJ, like the LA Film Critics, selected Kathryn Bigelow as best director for “The Hurt Locker,” and named it the best film as well. AWFJ also selected “winners” in categories like “sexist pig” (“The Ugly Truth”), biggest age disparity between leading man and lady (40 years in “Whatever Works”), and actress most in need of a new agent (Hilary Swank, whose film “Amelia” was selected as “film you most wanted to love but couldn’t”). The momentum continues to build in for supporting actor Christoph Waltz and supporting actress Mo’Nique, giving them a virtual shut-out so far. If the Broadcast Film Critics select them, too, they will be hard to beat for the Oscars.
Best Film:
The Hurt Locker
Best Animated Film:
Up
Best Director:
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
Best Screenplay, Original:
(500) Days of Summer – Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber
Best Screenplay, Adapted
Up In The Air – Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner
Best Documentary
The Cove
Best Actress
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Best Actress In Supporting Role
Monique – Precious
Best Actor
Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Christopher Waltz – Inglorious Basterds
Best Ensemble Cast
The Hurt Locker
Best Editing
Sally Menke – Inglorious Basterds
Most Beautiful Film
Bright Star
Best Non-English-Language Film
Summer Hours
EDA FEMALE FOCUS AWARDS
Best Woman Director
Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
Best Woman Screenwriter
Jane Campion – Bright Star
Best Animated Female
Coraline in Coraline
Best Breakthrough Performance
Carey Mulligan – An Education
Women’s Image Award
Kathryn Bigelow
Perseverance Award
Agnes Varda
Actress Defying Age and Ageism
Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia and It’s Complicated
Sexist Pig Award
Robert Luketic for The Ugly Truth
This Year’s Outstanding Achievement By A Woman In The Film Industry
Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker
Lifetime Achievement Award
Agnes Varda
AWFJ Award For Humanitarian Activism
Rebecca Cammisa for Which Way Home
EDA SPECIAL MENTION AWARDS
AWFJ Hall Of Shame Award
Robert Luketic – The Ugly Truth
Actress Most in Need Of A New Agent
Hilary Swank
Movie You Wanted To Love But Just Couldn’t
Amelia
Unforgettable Moment Award (Tie)
Inglorious Basterds – Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent) burns down the theater
Precious – Mary (Mo’Nique) admits the abuse
Best Depiction Of Nudity, Sexuality, or Seduction (Tie)
An Education – Carey Mulligan and Peter Saarsgard
It’s Complicated – – Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin
Sequel That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award
Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
The Remake That Shouldn’t Have Been Made Award
Land of the Lost
Cultural Crossover Award
District 9
Bravest Performance Award
Mo’Nique in Precious
Most Egregious Age Difference Between The Leading Man and The Love Interest Award
Whatever Works – Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood (40 years difference)
To make sure you see the best of 2009, check out all the nominees.

Related Tags:

Awards

Wait, Women Go to Movies?

Posted on November 19, 2009 at 8:00 am

MaryAnn Johanson has a great piece in her series on the website of the Association of Women Film Journalists in response to the Hollywood conventional wisdom that movies need to be directed at boys and men to make money. Noting that the advance sales for “New Moon” are ahead of “Transformers” at this stage, she says:

If the boys can be targeted by Hollywood with movies that pander to their basest instincts — toys! explosions! Megan Fox! — then I suppose we must see it as a sign of progress that girl audiences are getting the same treatment: sighing! moon eyes! Robert Pattinson!

And speaking of Megan Fox, Johanson skewers Lynn Hirschberg’s profile in the New York Times Magazine.

Later, noting that the TV in the hotel room was on and tuned to some girly reality show about wedding dresses or somesuch, and that Fox said she watches these things because she doesn’t understand them and is trying to figure them out, Hirschberg characterizes Fox thusly:

Fox said this as if she were contemplating an alien species.

Because, you see, reality shows about wedding dresses represent the actual actuality of all women, and a woman who doesn’t comprehend why anyone would collapse into fits of tears over a wedding dress must be an alien. Because no real women would need to study such a reality show, as Fox indicates she does — a real woman would just understand.

I like to read Johanson’s summary of the way women are portrayed in current releases. Here’s what she had to say last week:

OPENING THIS WEEK. Women are there to be rescued in 2012, whether it’s the Mona Lisa or Amanda Peet as John Cusack’s ex-wife, who does literally nothing but scream for two and a half hours while the world ends around her. Good riddance to this world. Women — or females, at least — are all but absent from Fantastic Mr. Fox, except Meryl Streep as the alternately scolding and praising wife to the titular character; the male animals are the ones who get to have all the adventure and all the fun, and they’re the ones who get to learn things about themselves and grow as people. And forget Pirate Radio: the boat HQ of the illegal broadcaster is boys only — well, there’s one girl present, to cook, but she’s a lesbian, so she doesn’t really count.

On the indie side, things aren’t much better. Women in Trouble does feature an ensemble cast of terrific actresses, but it’s all in service of writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez’s fantasies about what women are really like (hint: it frequently involved lingerie). The Messenger, a drama about the soldiers who notify families that their loved one has been killed overseas, does at least feature Samantha Morton in a powerful and unexpected role as a new widow.

MaryAnn Johanson

Posted on May 6, 2009 at 8:00 am

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has an excellent website that this week includes a very thoughtful essay by MaryAnn Johanson about the week in media.

It’s mostly a testosterone fest at the multiplex this weekend, with “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” slashing its way into theaters and sure to be a huge hit. Girls who like boys will appreciate all the Hugh Jackman beefcake on display, of course, but girls who want to see stories about girls will be disappointed…though the film does feature Lynn Collins in a smallish role as the woman Logan (aka Wolverine) loved and lost. I was astonished by her Portia in 2004’s big-screen “Merchant of Venice,” and continue to hope that she will one day headline her own film, instead of playing second fiddle to the boys.

You might think that “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” would feature some kick-ass women — perhaps one or two who’d actually kick Matthew McConaughey’s ass for being such a meatheaded manwhore — but no: they’re all simpering crybabies to a one, overemotional dunderheads simply incapable of not falling in love with him after 10 seconds of the blatant propositioning that he thinks is seductive and flirtatious. If McConaughey’s playboy had gone through as many women as we’re supposed to accept he has, he should have run into one or
two who were as rapacious and as uninterested in any kind of relationship beyond a sexual one as he is. But doncha know, all women feel exactly the same way about love and sex!

The only female of any prominence this weekend is the teenaged alien Mala of the animated “Battle for Terra.” Voiced by Evan Rachel Wood, she is spunky and adventurous and actually gets to save her world. Of course, she’s a cartoon, but I guess we can’t have everything.

I loved the quote Johanson found from one of my favorite actresses, Juliet Stevenson (Kiera Knightly’s mother in Bend It Like Beckham and the grief-struck widow in Truly Madly Deeply), from an interview in The Telegraph. She speaks about the difficulties of finding a role as a mature actress in a world looking for babes.

“It is intensely frustrating.” There is a jagged edge to the famously honeyed larynx. “The longer you live, the more interesting life gets, and yet many of the parts involve carrying trays and putting lamb chops down in front of the leading man.”

Related Tags:

Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Women Critics on Superhero Movies

Posted on July 5, 2008 at 6:00 pm

The members of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists speak out on superhero movies. Are they just for boys?
MaryAnn Johanson, who’s carved her critic’s niche by taking superhero movies seriously, provides an introduction:
“Comic books and comic book movies ain’t just for boys anymore-if they ever were. The latest slew of superhero flicks, which began to come of age with 2000’s “X-Men,” have gotten increasingly sophisticated and now focus equally on the existential dramas of their heroes and the mythic arcs of their typically tragic stories as they do on slam-bang action…Today we’re seeing fantasy drama with an accent on the drama. Superhero movies are not longer lighthearted comedies dressed up in capes-as in 1978’s “Superman”-or expressions of over-the-top outrageousness-as in Jack Nicholson’s Joker in 1989’s “Batman,” for example. Even “Hancock,” which was marketed as a comedy, turns out to be more intensely dramatic than it is funny.
Lexi Feinberg comments, “I’d say they’re mythic. Adam Sandler movies represent the dumbing down of audiences much more than “Spider-Man” or “Batman”.”
The critics overwhelmingly chose “Iron Man” as the best recent superhero movie and hope for better superhero movies featuring women. The survey quotes my comment about Elektra and Catwoman: “they were made by people who don’t understand women, comics or movies.”