Awards Roundup: NY Film Critics, Gothams, And Oscar’s Documentary Shortlist Get The Season Rolling So Who’s On Top Now?

Awards Roundup: NY Film Critics, Gothams, And Oscar’s Documentary Shortlist Get The Season Rolling So Who’s On Top Now?

The actual “awards” part of the awards season is finally off and running with first  results out of the East Coast with today’s New York Film Critics choices and last night’s Gotham Awards.  And the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences even got into the act narrowing the intense Best Documentary competition from 151 entries to a “shortlist” of 15 finalists earlier today. Stuff is happening.

With NYFCC going whole hog for David O. Russell’s American Hustle (Best Picture, Screenplay, Supporting Actress) and Gotham unexpectedly crowning The Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis over heavy favorite 12 Years A Slave it is an early indication, or even confirmation, that this could turn out to be an extremely unpredictable year, one with no front runner.  The fact that the powerful critical favorite 12 Years , an early favorite to sweep the critics awards and use that to begin its march to Oscar (it leads most pundit polls), was shut out at the Gothams and only took Best Director for Steve McQueen at the NYFCC perhaps means this year won’t turn into a repeat of 2010 when The Social Network completely swept the numerous critics groups Best Picture honors (and even the Globes) only to be upended by The King’s Speech when the Producers Guild turned the race and King’s Speech became the industry favorite all the way to the Oscars.  I think dominance among the critics is important for a picture like 12 Years. That kind of awards pedigree could force reluctant Academy voters ( and I know of a few resisting it because they fear it’s too brutal) to see the film and give it a shot. A lack of that kind of consensus could just bust this race wide open and turn it into a free-for-all.   Of course there are many, many more of these groups to go and 12 Years could still dominate but the initial picture is cloudy. It’s an extremely competitive year and likely to continue to be if today’s results are any indication.

As for Hustle’s triumph at the NYFCC, it’s a bit unexpected but completely deserving. Sony Pictures , which releases the film on December 13, has had a very good run with the NY Critics Circle winning Best Pic in 2010 with The Social Network and again last year with Zero Dark Thirty only to be stopped cold at the Oscars. Will Hustle be able to ride this early wave for the studio  further? Time will tell. With more Academy friendly-type films like Saving Mr. Banks, Gravity, Nebraska, Philomena  and others going unmentioned there are plenty of places for Oscar vo ters to drift including the wild card of Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street  which was a last minute screenng for NYFCC.

As for the NYFCC acting choices I could see all of them repeating at the Dolby Theatre on March 2nd. And they are all first-timers at the NYFCC. Interestingly Best Actor Robert Redford (All Is Lost) had only one previous dance with this group as an actor by coming in 3rd for Downhill Racer in 1969.  He also placed 3rd as Director for Ordinary People in 1980 ( but went on to win the Oscar for that).  Best Actress Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) previously had only been a runner up at NYFCC  for her supporting work in I’m Not There.  Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Lawrence (Hustle) was last year’s runner-up for Lead Actress but went on to win the Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook.   Best Supporting Actor Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)  is a newcomer to the awards game but I expect he will rack up a lot of trophies on the way to the Oscars.

Tomorrow the National Board Of Review reveals their choices before the West Coast gets a shot this weekend when the LA Film Critics vote.  By the way the NBR , an odd group made up mostly of “film enthusiasts”  , got an inordinate amount of attention simply because they always went first, but now the NYFCC has taken back that thunder so we’ll see what happens with their announcement tomorrow. It’s a long season and there is an endless parade of awards to look forward to, folks.

As for the other big awards news of the day, the Academy’s Documentary branch narrowed their unweildy list of 151 entries to 15 shortlisted finalists. Usually there is a lot of controversy about omissions but I don’t think too many people will get worked up about what was left out. But there were some films from high profile doc directors left out in the cold including the latest from Errol Morris (The Unknown Known) and Alex Gibney’s Wikileaks doc, We Steal Secrets although  the prolific Gibney is represented by his The Armstrong Lie making it a good day for Sony Pictures Classics which also distributes another shortlister, Tim’s Vermeer which is directed by Teller of Penn and Teller.  Other high profile films to make the list include Radius/TWC’s well-regarded and successful music doc, Twenty Feet From Stardom and Sarah Polley’s very personal Stories We Tell. It will all be narrowed to five when the Oscar nominations are announced on January 16th.  There were a lot of complaints within the branch that I heard about the current rules  letting everyone vote on all 151 films, an impossible task for most. I am told by one former Governor who had trouble seeing everything that they came up with a blog where members were encouraged to watch at least 15 different films and then make recommendations to others about those that are worth seeing.  Hmmmm.  Sounds like more change is needed since the initial id ea of this rule change was to reduce, not increase the workload for diligent doc branch voters.

Deadline.com