Open Thread: The Problem of Proliferation & Consensus
Thursday, December 26, 2013 at 11:01AM I'd love to find some beautiful extensive if not completist way to cover the annual tradition of film critics awards but I've yet to discover a feasible option. There are now 40+ critics organizations in English language countries (United States, Canada and UK/Ireland) giving out film prizes (to the same 3 films and 6 actors. sigh) and many of those 40+ groups have expanded their annual prizes to include public nomination rounds. If you wanted to cover it all this would mean roughly 60+ articles or so each year on just this one minor aspect of awardage and awardage is just one aspect of movie culture. Frankly, it's too much for The Film Experience to handle, I don't mind saying.
Lots more after the jump including the critical societies we haven't yet discussed!
I've bitched about this before but does Texas need three or four film critics groups (I mean New York, the major media hub and second only to LA when it comes to movies, makes do with only two!)? Does Nevada need as many as New York? What is the difference between the Black Film Critics Circle and the African American Film Critics Association and the difference between the Alliance of Women Journalists and the Women's Film Critics Circle? Is the explosion of critics groups over the past decade entirely due to infighting or membership rejections with people leaving or dejectedly forming new groups, like a religion splintering off into multiple warring factions? The new religion, then, ironically agreeing with the old one on the bulk of their creed (i.e. "best of the year"). Unless TFE becomes one of those blogs that just dutifully shares every press release-- which is one typical way to go but it would just depress me because then what's in it for you, the reader?-- how can we cover it all? And if we did, wouldn't we have to share even the most suspect of groups like the Golden Satellites who famously gave a Best Picture nomination to a movie they hadn't even seen before voting (The Wolf of Wall Street)? I just can't stomach doing that.
So I'd like to open the conversation up to you...
I know I've touched on it / complained about it before but I am looking for solutions since next year there might be 50 groups instead of 43. How would you like to read about it here in the future? On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you care about it? What criteria would *you* draw up if it were you having to write about each group? Is it better to just keep a score with no specific coverage at all? Or to choose a dozen worth really thinking about?
In an effort to catch up...
Groups We Have Not Yet Discussed
Links go to their official pages or an article about them if they don't have a proper one.
Utah Film Critics Association - Alert to any Utah Film Critics reading. You should probably have your own webpage to dispel misinformation. For instance Wikipedia has a page for your 2013 awards which does not connect to the Wikipedia page for your previous awards and the awards information is bogus, listing Amy Adams for the winner of Best Actress when all press reports say it was Adèle Exarchopoulus with Blanchett as runner up. But, anyway, mea culpa, I was wrong when I said last week that we wouldn't hear any new names now. Utah threw a Bill Nighy (About Time) curveball in supporting actor finally breaking the Leto soup with only a pinch of Fassbender. P.S. Is Utah the only film critics organization that doesn't give out a documentary prize?
Nevada Film Critics Society - They really liked August: Osage County which wins two prizes including. Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves moment: Meryl Streep takes her first Best Actress prize. Although giving Streep an acting prize counting as independent critical thinking is insane. I apologize for the implication.
St Louis Film Critics Association & Chicago Film Critics Assocation & Florida Film Critics Circle & Southeastern Film Critics Association - Consensus choice in every single top eight category (if you haven't been following along that's: 12 Years / McQueen / Ejiofor / Blanchett / Leto / Nyong'o / Her / 12 Years ) Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves moments: I like that St Louis has an "art house" prize (Short Term 12) because, really, film culture is different in middle America. I remember from my years in Michigan; Chicago honored Destin Cretton for Short Term 12 as "Most Promising Filmmaker" which is a neat spin on "Debut Film" because it gives you more options and is probably more accurate to how filmmaker careers get started since second films are sometimes way more impressive or actually released; Florida has no interesting wins so let's give a shout out to something film critics association are good at which is awarding local people for their efforts. Florida cites Dana Keith of the Miami Beach Cinematheque for "tireless championing of foreign, independent and alternative film in South Florida for more than 20 years." Sounds awesome!; the SEFCA gives a prize to Jeff Nichols for Mud... but I'm not sure what the prize entails. They have not updated their website in two years so the last awards listed are 2011.
Phoenix Film Critics Society - Most of their winners are pulled from the consensus pool but their top ten is a pleasant mix of Oscar prospects and key beloved indies like Mud & Short Term 12. Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves moments: They have a prize called "Overlooked Film" and they cite both The Kings of Summer and The Spectacular Now.
Las Vegas Film Critics Society - John Goodman, who has really been making his agent a ton of money lately what with the sudden resurgence of big film key supporting roles, gets their lifetime achievement prize! Sole frisky thinking-for-themselves Moment: Emma Thompson (Saving Mr Banks) for Best Actress
Austin Film Critics Association - I love Austin. Have you ever been? Just a lovely lovely town. Frisky thinking-for-themselves Moment: Brie Larson for Best Actress, which isn't really a surprise given that Short Term 12's broke out running at SXSW.
Indiana Film Journalists Association - They used to invite me to their film festival so I have a soft spot. I like the idea of film journalists instead of film critics because really don't most people do a mix of all types of coverage now? Frisky thinking-for-themselves Moment: Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) in supporting actor -- anything non Jared Leto counts as "thinking for yourself" now ;)
Dallas Ft Worth Film Critics - this one's a real snoozer with their sole diversion from consensus being Matthew McConaughey in Best Actor for hometown set Dallas Buyers Club (and he's not that far off consensus). Curiously they have not updated their website since 2012... and not thoroughly at that since 2012 has not been added to their pulldown awards archive either. Two years behind, people!
Alliance of Women Film Journalists & Women Film Critics Circle
The Alliance, born in 2006, gives out the usual prizes and to the usual suspects at that but where they differ is they have a whole slew of dishonors hating on The Counselor and Last Vegas . I prefer the slightly older organization, the Women Film Critics Circle which started in 2004. The WFCC blog is a little hard to read -- the awards are after a series of headlines that don't seem to relate to the awards but their prizes are fairly interesting because they aren't going for strict "Best of" but instead concentrating on content and gender politics, which is a much better way to go if you want to be more distinctive and have a reason to exist. Their "Best Film About Women" is Philomena with the under-discussed Mother of George as a runner up. And I really like that they include depictions of men like this:
BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Philomena
RUNNER UP: Girls In The Band
WORST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
The Bling Ring
RUNNER UP: Machete KillsBEST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
12 years A Slave: Chiwetel Ejiofor
RUNNER UP: Enough Said: James Gandolfini
WORST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Only God Forgives
RUNNER UP: Out Of The Furnace
I don't think we ever get anywhere in terms of dealing with sexism or advancing towards humanism if we don't realize that depictions of both genders are often problematic and unnecessarily rigid.
PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED PRECURSORS
Events Globes | Screen Actors Guild | Spirit Awards | BFCA "Critics Choice"
Festivals Sundance | Berlinale | Cannes | Venice | Toronto
Key Honors AFI | NBR | New York | Online Film Critics | Los Angeles | Boston | Gotham |
Regional Critics Detroit, African American Film Critics | Houston, Kansas, San Francisco, San Diego |
Reader Comments (42)
I like exactly the way you did this post. Since critics groups seem to just follow the prestige I like hearing about the different wins. As for the whole process next year I'd say continue with what you're doing. Pointing out whats interesting and keep a running tally of the critics groups that jump on the bandwagon so you don't have have full posts for every group of results.
The NYFCC, LAFCA, NSFC, NBR Top Ten, BAFTA, and Globes are enough for me. Any of the others just seem like a favor done to the critics' group rather than to the readers.
And those consensus percentages on the four acting categories are just depressing...
I love the idea of the Women's Film Critics Circle and I think representational awards can be really helpful but omg I was pulling my hair out reading these awards. So narrowminded! Sandra Bullock is "too panicky" in Gravity to be a good representation of women??? Also, um, I love Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years A Slave but how on earth is that a good representation of men? And for that matter, how is Bling Ring the worst female images in a movie??
As far as writing up all these awards bodies, to be honest, I don't need it for most, just because they're so similar usually. Why waste blog space on another awards body telling us that Cate Blanchett and Jared Leto were the best of the year? Maybe write up someone if they do something exciting and different, but if they don't then personally it doesn't seem worth the time.
WORST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
The Bling Ring
Um...that was the point of the movie. What a strange shout out.
I'm with Queermyntcritic in that the way you reported it here is a lovely workaround to the glut of them coming out at this time of the year. I was about to propose a spreadsheet with formulas where all you input would be movie titles and last names in a template, but realized that relatively few people like looking at spreadsheets with statistics and emerging trends. On the plus side, a well done template will do all the calculations for you and likely solidify your Oscar winners pool bets!
Depending on what's easier, I would also suggest a weekly round-up for other awards. Decide on the big ones that deserve their own column and everything else gets designated for minor blurbs on a specific day of the week.
I'm with TB on the WFCC. Reminds me of reading feminist criticism of Agnes Varda films #missingthepoint
@Bia--Try reading the rest of them....it's the worst.
I think there are so many groups because there are so many people who want to belong to a group so they can think someone is listening to them. The sad part is that, as you point out, they have little new to add to the conversation, just a Kermie scream of "Look at me! I'm important too!"
The percentages are what they are. There can only be one winner and these are the front runners. Would be interesting to see who is coming in second and third and a breakdown of the percentages of votes cast, i.e. Blancette 35%, Thompson 24%, Dench 15%, Larson 15% Streep 5%, Bullock 2%, Others 4%........its only depressing if Blancette were getting 69% of top votes with no one else coming close.
I like what you did here, touching on some of the fringe groups. Living in the Show Me state, I can tell you that the Art House prize is important because it puts the name of a film that would be lucky to even be shown (it never showed close to where I am located and we are one of the wealthiest cites in the US per capita.....they are trying to get an art house theater off the ground, but time will tell) and this way, discerning viewers will at least hear the name, hopefully look it up at the theater (or phone and ask about it) and if not, catch it on DVD. I really like the last group talking about gender representation.
I think even women film critics, although not in the WFCC and AFWFJ, make fun of those categories all the time. That Breslin-Mulroney nod for worst couple is just not only awful because it's a spoiler but that never at any point in the play has that storyline been portrayed as anything but sexually predatory.
But back to the precursors, why oh why is Jared Leto the consensus pick?
I do not get the great love for nyong'o ... I think I had read too much hype and expected muchmore from her.
The Wyatt Award from the SEFCA is given to a film that "captures the spirit of the South." Junebug won the very first year that prize was ever given, so it's fine by me!
Except for NY and LA, a weekly round-up is just fine, and I like the idea os the percentages, too.
If we divide the groups in three tiers and give them points according to their importance, we may have the notion of a critics prizes race from week to week.
I generally like the way you do it. The only thing I would suggest is dumping all these awards/noms into a single webpage, but I believe In Contention already does that, so you'd be wasting effort even at that. A handful of posts about the biggest/most interesting is good enough. And the Satellites may have been interesting 5 years ago, but they've lost any shred of credibility they may have had.
It gets to a point--earlier each year--where I just stop reading about these critics awards. The frontrunners are seldom the *actual* best films/performances of the year (although this year's consensus winners are all pretty good) so there's really no point in subjecting myself to the din.
I'm with Evan and Cal Roth. Only Kansas City (because of its history), SF, and Boston feel like legit second-tier prizes. Maybe DC. The three big ones are clearly NY, LA, and NFCC. The rest are a blur.
Henry -- except apart from director where McQueen and Cuaron keep trading off the statistics aren't really all that close... which just shows how dangerous that much consensus is. I like all four of these performances a lot but I guess i'm of the opinion if your opinion is never different than the consensus maybe you don't need to be writing about movies. LOL. ;)
"Although giving Streep an acting prize counting as independent critical thinking is insane"
Wow! Is that your Christmas spirt? ;)
Honestly, the proliferation of these organizations is almost a joke. As far as I'm concerned, I couldn't care less, especially since they have been unable to award Léa Syedoux.
It all becomes white noise after a while. I'd rather just read about the big awards Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globes (they're not really major but have been built into something), NY Critics Circle and a few more. Although by the time most of them come along any of the old time mystery has been squeezed out of the process.
To answer your question, I don't really care for individual critics prizes because there are ust too many of them, so I think it's nice that you update weekly or so notifying what shape the race is taking and how the consensus is being built and shifted.
Thank you so much for caring, Nathaniel!
We already have InContention writing every awards body up, and I don't click on those stories very often, unless the headline mentions some major deviation.
So I don't need or expect TFE to cover these places any more than you already do. There are better conversations going on in this place than to have critics awards articles pushing them off the front page.
I find the percentages interesting, in part because I hadn't noticed Nyongo and Ejiofior building as much as I had Leto (who never seems to lose) and Blanchett (because every awards she doesn't win is mentioned in the In Contention headline.) But even putting those percentages together is probably more work than is needed (although we know you love your stats. :))
I'm with Evan - the groups he mentioned are the ones I follow, and you get a little more variety from most of those, anyway.
I appreciate that you summarize the big critics awards, and I really like how you highlighted the 'frisky thinking for themselves' awards in this post. That seems a great way to cover all of the smaller critics awards, only covering them if they get creative. Thanks for all the work you do!
How you did it is fine. Maybe spill a little more ink on those
a) with more professional online work (aka, update their websites)
b) with more adventurous taste (no rubber stamping)
I agree with Evan
I really don't get the lupita love,sure she really sells her major scenes which there are too few of but we know nothing about her at all and learn nil during our small time with her plus i never bought the loss when solomon leaves,i was expecting to be blown away and was not,can that happen do u think Nat,Blanchett had better be the 2nd coming!!!!
Nathaniel -- the effort you put into this blog is truly amazing and outstanding and always a daily pleasure.
The hyped up award season is making me nauseous though. Half the movies awarded "prizes" just opened in theaters in the last few weeks so its really hard to keep up. And some like A:OC don't even open in Boston until January!
Also, aren't some of these critics' groups double-, triple-, or quadruple counting? For example, say you live in Austin, review movies for a local tv station, have a blog, and may write for the Austin paper, you could be included in 4 groups?! Or am I missing something? Or does it matter?
Pam -- that's definitely true. Technically i am eligible for 5 grouns (NYFCC, NYFCO, OFCS, BFCA and GALECA) but only belong to the latter 2. I'm sure many other people are in the same boat. So, yes, too many groups. Not enough critical thinking. and as we're witnessing on twitter this week, critics are NOT enamored of critics who do not fall in line... if you gave Wolf of Wall Street a thumbs down they are out for blood. Which sort of kills the point of criticism, I think but that's just me. If that's all you want you might as well stick to "like" buttons on facebook.
mark- I am not sure we're really supposed to know much more about Patsey as what is shown in the film. She is a cog in the system. She is not considered a person but a piece of property in this system. That's the tragedy of the slave is that their is rendered invisible. If anything the film breaks from its pretty disciplined narrative of being through Solomon's eyes to show Patsey's experience (finding piece in making the dolls, her rape, etc.). To me the film could've easily stuck to Solomon's story but there actually contains a lot of feminist subtext from one of the least reported experiences, the slave woman, when you consider how much time is paid to Patsey, Eliza, and Mistress. They're 3 distinctly different characters and experiences.
"i never bought the loss when solomon leaves.." ????????
That is actually a very underplayed moment given that Solomon almost feels shamed that he can be brought back while everybody he has met is still stuck there.
Love that you're only giving these groups their due for their more adventurous picks! More of that, please!
TBH if those four above ended up as our eventual winners, I wouldn't even be mad. Best group of acting winners since 2007, Y/Y?
"I love Austin. Have you ever been? Just a lovely lovely town."
Hahhaha I'm sure you're being serious but for some reason that line killed me; entertaining way of doing this. But no, I agree with every one else. Stick to the major critics groups. Covering everything is not your style and never has been and I like you more for it.
Can we take a minute to think about when Mo'Nique was sweeping the critics awards? I'm pretty sure she literally only lost one or two out of all of them (and they chose Anna Kendrick instead - WHY?). Deserved, but damn. Her percentage was near 100% :P
"i never bought the loss when solomon leaves.."
That's a shame because I felt like it was handled in such an understated way, but it worked perfectly and I completely understood her loss and feelings.
I just want to know the membership for some of these awards bodies. Can the Phoenix or Las Vegas film markets support enough film writing to provide an entire body of awards givers, or is it just anybody from those areas who wants to be on board and feel important?
Think I could get on the St Louis one for impersonating STL native Marsha Mason on the internet? Can't hurt to try.
The critics may be right about Blanchett and Leto, but I'm guessing either Ejiofor or Nyong'o will miss out. Either of those categories feel like a late surge could take it. I'd love to see Adams give Blanchett a run fo her money but at this point she's hoping for the fifth slot, so that seems unlikely. Who is even competing with Leto? It seems like he's winning without contest at this point. (Maybe Gandolfini love if he gets in?)
One of the later critics group I like is Toronto. Like San Diego with their supporting ladies and Los Angeles with their leading ladies, Toronto seems to have particular taste in their leading man of late. They picked Denis Lavant last year, Nicolas Cage for The Bad Lieutenant a few years back, and Borat a few years before that. They went with Oscar Issacs this year, along with Inside Llewyn Davis for best film.
I think you answered your question in your synopsis. The reason so many new critics awards are popping up is because members of exisiting ones have left because they were unhappy or were booted out. So what do these people do? Yep - create a new organisation to hand out awards. And when these new bodies hand out awards that some members are unhappy with ... they too will either walk out or get booted out.... and of course, they will set up their own critics awards body and so on and so on.
I think only New York and LA should be allowed to have more than one critics awards - but how does one 'regulate' them? Keeping track of over 40 American critics societies and then the dozens of international ones is too much for even the most passionate film awards fan.
There should be a cap - but then we get into a political minefield.
Heck - Australia has just changed their annual AFI - now AACTA - awards by scrapping their 'Members Prize' (a special category for all non-industry members to keep them from voting for Best Film) and replacing them with SEVEN International awards .... which this year's nominees are identical to the Golden Globes nominations with the exception of The Great Gatsby which scored Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Edgerton).
Are these awards any more relevant to the Nevada Critics or Utah ones?
This is an interesting topic and will be interesting to see how many more awards bodies pop up in the future.
Eventually even the most enthusiastic award follower will give up on them.
I can see those 4 nominated for Oscar, but I don't think they're all winning... Blanchett? sure. Leto? very likely. Ejiofor and Nyongo? I'm guessing only one of them, or neither.
What you have done with this post is great, Highlighting only the differences.
It really bothers me that every group picks the same winners. I wonder how many movies they watch. These people must watch few films.
My suggestion: every time a new press release shows up from a critics association handing out awards, we draw a name of an actress from a hat and talk about her instead: "The Southwestern Group of Critics who Play God of War and Plan Vacations to Ko Phi Phi just announced their picks! I drew Catherine DeNeuve from the hat! French legend, Oscar nominee and vampire lesbian lover of Susan Sarandon! Discuss!!"
Actressexuality > pointless critics awards any day of the week! I mean, vampire lesbian lovers versus Jared Leto's upteenth critical mention, is this even up for debate?
Carmen -- i love it. maybe we should name you "director of programming"
I think those are the likely eventual winners aside from Ejiofor. He has a shot but I honestly have no idea between him, Dern, Redford, and perhaps McConaughey still has a small chance (doubtful tho).
Cate is locked, and deservedly so in my opinion (and I'm not even a Cate fan).
Lupita had some competition with Oprah, but with her missing out at the Globes I think that sealed her fate with a nomination but not winning. Surprisingly (to me at least) I've seen quite a few predictions for JLaw to win the SAG and Golden Globe and I really hope that doesn't happen. She literally just won (undeservedly) last freaking year. Not only is this nomination gonna make her the youngest to achieve three nominations, she doesn't need two Oscars, especially not so soon after just winning her first. Lupita definitely deserves it more anyway.
And Jared Leto, Idk I haven't seen DBC and I have no idea about any one in that category really. And with the consensus on Jared I'm bored with it already anyway. I'm usually bored with Supporting Actor though, to be honest. :p God, nothing will be worse than supporting actor last year.
I don't know about you, but I do think that the explosion of Internet around that period had a hand in this madness (free publicity) that has become a rather vicious cycle. I remember in 2001 we only had a few prominents Oscar sites, and now they are a dime in a dozen. I can hardly keep up anymore (especially since I am no longer a student with too much free time on my hands).
Back to the question: I always like to divide the critics group into two main splinters: Those that arrived before the 2000s and those after, and tier them accordingly by prestige, with the upstarts at the very bottom (I always wonder how long they can last amidst all this sound and fury). I pay particular attention to the big three (LA, NY and NSFC), as well as those with established history (e.g. Boston, Chicago and Kansas City); they are often the trendsetters, and worthy of discussion. You can just present the winners of the rest without further commentary.
Yeah, the criteria for "worst/best female/male image" seems kind of messed up. The Bling Ring, however deviant and shallow its female characters may have been, had agency. I have no idea how that is supposed to be worst than the dozens of movies pandering to the male gaze or doing little to empower or empathize with its women (cough Wolf of Wall Street).
worse*, ugh