“La La Land” and “Moonlight” Lead Golden Globe Nominations

As they always do, the Globes threw us some curveballs. Nocturnal Animals surprised in a number of categories (Supporting Actor, Screenplay and Director) in a way I don’t think it will repeat with future awards. Hacksaw Ridge and Hell or High Water showed their continued strength, with the former getting both a Picture and a Director nomination. 

Deadpool, Florence Foster Jenkins and 20th Century Women were all helped by the Musical or Comedy categories (which I predict will swing in La La Land‘s direction) paving the way for a battle between Manchester By The Sea and Moonlight in the Drama categories. 

With two of the presumed big names (Annette Bening and Emma Stone) over in Best Actress Comedy or Musical, that left two slots open in the Drama categories. Both Portman and Huppert showed up, as did Amy Adams, Ruth Negga and Jessica Chastain. Two of those ladies won’t repeat as we near closer to SAG and Oscar, but who will it be? 

The Globes will air on Sunday January 8th, hosted by Jimmy Fallon on ABC.

See the full list of nominations below.

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Broadcast Film Critics Go Wild For “La La Land”

It was clear that the Broadcast Film Critics loved La La Land; they gave it the most nominations of any film with 12, and ended up winning eight including the top prizes: Picture and Director while picking up a lot of the below the line prizes in Editing, Production Design and Cinematography. Many have predicted La La Land will sweep in a similar fashion at the Oscars. And while it’s true the Broadcast critics don’t vote on the Oscars, they are more predictive and align more accurately with the Oscars than any other precursor group, including the Globes and even Screen Actors Guild (sometimes).

Where La La Land missed out, however, was in Best Actress which surprisingly went to Natalie Portman. After suffering from missed citations from recent critics groups, Portman roared back into the race and Jackie picked up additional awards in Costumes and Hair & Makeup. Only two actresses in the past 6 years that have won this award missed out on winning the Oscar; though many were quick to declare this a cakewalk for Emma Stone, it’s clear Best Actress is still a two woman race. 

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The other two frontrunners, Moonlight and Manchester By The Sea, had their moments as well. Mahershala Ali won yet another trophy for Supporting Actor with the cast winning the group’s ensemble prize. Casey Affleck beat out his biggest competition in Denzel Washington for Best Actor, while Kenneth Lonergan tied in Original Screenplay with Damien Chazelle’s screenplay for La La Land. After winning some notices with the critics, Michelle Williams lost Supporting Actress to Viola Davis, who has begun what I suspect will be a clean sweep of the televised awards. Look out for her next conquest: the Golden Globes (nominations are announced tomorrow). 

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Read the full list of (film) winners below.

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Beyoncé Dominates The Grammys With 9 Nominations, Chance the Rapper Makes History

Consensus was that Beyoncé was going to clean up very well with the Grammy nominations this morning, and that consensus was right. Lemonade received an astounding 9 nominations throughout the Pop, Rap and even the Rock categories. That kind of broad support is the kind you want heading into the race, especially if you want an Album of the Year award. After coming close with her brilliant self-titled release, she might just get it with Lemonade which is her biggest, boldest work yet. She is now the most nominated woman in Grammy history. Continue reading →

“Manchester By The Sea” is By Far the Year’s Most Frustratingly Overrated Film

For months I’ve been hearing nonstop talk about Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea, which seemed to be the only film out of Sundance that could, at the time, find any coverage outside of Nate Parker’s Birth Of A Nation. As the year has gone on, Manchester has chugged along and slowly been building steam as one of the three Oscar heavyweights. It was named Best Picture by the National Board of Review, with lead actor Casey Affleck winning Best Actor honors from both the Gotham Independent Awards and New York Film Critic’s circle.

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New York Critics Name “La La Land” Best Pic, Spread the Wealth Between”Moonlight” and “Manchester By The Sea”

The New York Film Critics announced their slate of winners today, the first of the critics groups and organizations that announce awards ahead of groups like the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild. And while they don’t hold the influence guilds like SAG do (seeing as they are members of the Academy and not just critics), they can be important to many Oscar hopefuls in jump starting a campaign or adding fuel to one’s tank.

The big story here is that Manchester By The Sea and Moonlight went head to head with one another, each earning three awards while the group went and named La La Land as the year’s Best Film. As three of the highest rated films of the year, that’s not exactly a surprise; it may just come down to these three films when all is said and done.

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National Board of Review Names “Manchester By The Sea” Best Film, Barry Jenkins Best Director

After winning big at last night’s Gotham Awards, Moonlight picked up two more wins with the National Board of Review for director Barry Jenkins and Naomie Harris’ supporting performance.

The big winner here was Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea, which won big in the Best Film, Actor, Original Screenplay and Breakthrough Performance (Male) categories. Other winners include Jeff Bridges from Hell or High Water in Supporting Actor (which remains an extremely wide-open race) and Amy Adams for her outstanding performance in Arrival. With the Actress race so extremely competitive, any sort of precursor award helps those contenders who are on the bubble for those fourth and fifth slots (Adams, Ruth Negga, Isabelle Huppert, Taraji P. Henson and Meryl Streep).

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Hidden Figures, which opens in limited release Christmas Day, grabbed the Best Ensemble Award, Kubo and the Two Strings won in Animated Feature and the largely unseen Silence won an Adapted Screenplay award.

The NBR is known for their sometimes out of left field choices; they’re famous for choosing to vote for what they like rather than consensus favorites. And while many of the films/performances they choose to honor do go on to at the very least be nominated for the Oscars, they don’t have the accuracy in being “predictive” that other non-industry groups like the Broadcast Film Critics do. So take these wins with a grain of salt as we start reading the tea leaves and hearing from more groups this weekend.

Read the full list of winners below.

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Watch the New, Powerful “Fences” Trailer

We’re still about a month away from the premiere of Denzel Washington’s Fences, but Paramount isn’t wasting any time getting the film out in front of people.

After a splashy premiere at the AFI fest and several industry screenings, Fences has moved up into the Oscar race in a big way.With so much of the Academy comprising of actors, Fences should have no problem raking in a bunch of nominations. The only question now is just how big will Fences be? And can it win Washington a Best Actor Oscar, making it his third trophy?

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“Moonlight” leads Independent Spirit Award Nominations

Moonlight and American Honey were the leaders of the Independent Spirit Award nominations with a total of 6 nods each. Manchester By The Sea trailed behind with 5 while Jackie raked in 4.

Moonlight missed out in categories such as Best Supporting Male (Mahershala Ali, Andre Holland, or any of the actors who played Chiron) and Best Supporting Female (Naomie Harris and Janelle Monáe). The entire cast, however, is being recognized with the Robert Altman Award, which will also honor director/writer Barry Jenkins. The cast’s inclusion in this award bars them from being nominated in the separate acting categories.

Best Actress features four of the five presumed frontrunners for the Oscars, with only Emma Stone being absent (La La Land is probably not eligible here). This is probably Natalie Portman’s to lose, while Huppert has a nice boost to land her first ever career nomination.

Best Actor, on the other hand, features only one of the frontrunners; Casey Affleck will most likely be taking this one. Machester‘s Lucas Hedges and Other People‘s Molly Shannon got a nice boost to their campaigns with notices in the Supporting categories.

Take a look at the full list of nominations below.

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