"La La Land" leads the Critics Choice Nominations
Thursday, December 1, 2016 at 11:36AM
NATHANIEL R in Action, Arrival, BFCA, Hacksaw Ridge, La La Land, Moonlight, Oscars (16), Viggo Mortensen, critics awards, precursor awards

The BFCA has spoken and as per usual the results are a mix of beautiful support of outstanding motion pictures and a few pockets of embarrassment! Under the beautiful support umbrella we find three terrific pictures leading the nominations with 12 for La La Land and 10 each for Arrival and Moonlight. Under the pockets of embarrassment portion of our programming in what universe is Captain Fantastic a "comedy" (Viggo Mortensen, who gives one of the year's best dramatic performances is nominated as best comedy actor but  not as best actor. What a world).

The BFCA's special categories, which aren't as well defined as the Globes, usually carry with them lots of weird and empty-headed calls. How, for instance, do you have 6 nominees for most categories but only 4 for Best Actress in an Action picture and only nominate supporting actresses for that prize and leave out two leading women who really carried their films with aplomb: Mary Elizabeth Winstead in 10 Cloverfield Lane and Blake Lively in The Shallows. Why even have these categories if you're not going to do them justice? 

All the nominations (film & tv) with comments are after the jump...

FILM AWARDS

La La Land was nominated in every basically eligibile category but for Hair & Makeup.

BEST PICTURE

Good news for all these pictures, particularly Lion, Loving and Fences all of which NBR ignored

Promoting the LOVING actors as a set on the campaign trail is certainly paying off.

BEST ACTOR

No Viggo, no peace! Grrrr. This is good news for these other men though. The trick will be who gets in within SAG's smaller lineup and Globes expanded one. Let us shed a tear for Chris Pine who is great in Hell or High Water but doesn't seem to be winning any awards traction at all.

BEST ACTRESS 

Meryl Streep got the axe in the competitive field. These are obviously 6 of your top 7 including Meryl as we just discussed yesterday. But Meryl's campaign is just heating up now so she could still manage her 20th nomination. We'll see.

Can Dev Patel manage his first Oscar nomination?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 

Given how diffuse the buzz on this category has been this may well be a telling lineup. Interesting that Michael Shannon made it despite the movie being ignored everywhere else but for Score and that both of Hell or High Water's men are accounted for. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

The expected predicted Oscar lineup -- plus Janelle Monáe... which is interesting because Octavia Spencer has the most Oscar friendly role, we'd argue, from the Hidden Figures cast.

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS 

Every year I try to help my fellow voters in this category with an eligiblity list and they always fail me! No Royalty Hightower? ARGH. I guess The Fits wasn't seen by this very mainstream group. But otherwise this is a pretty good lineup, though not personally how I would have voted.

They have my vote. An entire cast doing their best work ever and doing it together? Beautiful.

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

Fun group though Fences and Manchester by the Sea are semi-odd inclusions since most of their appeal is in duet form rather than the true ensemble format. Pity voters don't get more creative here. Why not, say, The Witch or The Lobster you know?

BEST DIRECTOR

Seven nominees. Covering their bases. This is good news for Mackenzie in particular who has a lower profile than his competitors and Gibson, too, who is hoping for a true comeback. Competitive year for Best Director! And this list doesn't even include Scorsese and Eastwood both of whom we know Oscar loves and Pablo Larraín who I think has to be considered a threat for Oscar given that two very very fine movies of his are opening back to back (Jackie and Neruda) and both are likely headed for nominations in Best Picture and Best Foreign Film respectively 

Can The Lobster manage an Oscar nomination for Screenplay? Cross your fingers... or paws... or hooves... or flippers

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Yay for The Lobster!

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

"WINNER" -- WORST CATEGORY! Their recency bias is showing. This is an extremely weak sauce lineup when so many better screenplays were eligible. Love & Friendship, The Handmaiden, and Elle all run circles around half of this lineup's players in terms of the writing. Ugh.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Good lineup but Oscar won't feel the same. Only one of these men has previously been nominated for the Oscar (Seamus McGarvey) and Oscar's cinematography branch likes their familiar names so expect at least one additional Oscar "name" like a Deakins (Hail Caesar), or a Richardson (Live By Night), or a Prieto (Silence / Passengers), or whatnot to break up this fresh talent party. 

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Pretty soon it feels like Stuart Craig will have as many nominations for designing just the Potterverse as Meryl Streep has for acting. Would not be surprised if this exact lineup transfers to Oscar, give or take Silence or something flouncy like Florence Foster Jenkins (which does have fun production design).

BEST EDITING

Solid Oscar hopefuls all.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Where is ___________ ? Pleased that one contemporary picture made it (La La Land) but was hoping for a friskier lineup overall.

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Um... where is Captain America Civil War?

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Hmmm. Trolls AND Finding Dory? Oscar will shake this up a bit, we expect with an additional foreign effort.

 

BEST ACTION MOVIE

No 10 Cloverfield Lane? Would've liked to see The Shallows here, too.

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE

This is their superhero category.

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE

I just do not understand when they have less than six nominees. It's impossible that only those four were mentioned on ballots because MY ballot included two that aren't listed: Winstead in 10 Cloverfield Lane and Lively in The Shallows both of whom carried their entire movies. Instead they cut the number of nominees and only went with supporting actresses. 

I'll never understand this group's voting and wish it were more transparent how you end up with empty categories (this has happened with other categories over the years too where fewer than six were nominated) 

BEST COMEDY

How is Love & Friendship not here when it is a better movie than literally every single one of these nominees and also hilarious?

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY

Captain Fantastic  is NOT a comedy. Come on now. How did anyone vote for Viggo here let alone dozens of people?

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

Yay, Kate McKinnon.

BEST SCI-FI/HORROR MOVIE

Decent list. I was going to grab pitchforks and torches if The Witch wasn't here. 

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM 

Best category obviously. Nothing but gems, give or take Julieta which may not be top-notch Almodóvar but it's still good. It remains sad that South Korea didn't risk submitting The Handmaiden to represent them for the Oscar. It could have made one of the craziest and best nominees in recent history in the category. The rest of these pictures are Oscar eligible for Foreign Film and all seem likely to make at least the finalist list. 

BEST SONG

Now half of these will be stuck in my head.

BEST SCORE

Yummy list! We cannot hope that Oscars will be as pleasant to the ears since the music branch is notoriously conservative and prefers to keep it in house. Of these composers only Jóhannsson is familiar to Oscar voters.

 

The 22nd annual awards Critics Choice gala will be broadcast from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica on A&E on Sunday, December 11 at 8PM ET/ 5PM PT.  T.J. Miller will return as the show’s host. The BFCA will now be joined by their sister operation the BTCJA so the awards will also honor television that night. Those nominations were previously announced.

They are...

 

 

TELEVISION NOMINATIONS

BEST COMEDY SERIES

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

BEST GUEST PERFORMER IN A COMEDY SERIES

BEST ANIMATED SERIES

BEST REALITY COMPETITION SERIES

BEST STRUCTURED REALITY SERIES 

BEST UNSTRUCTURED REALITY SERIES

 BEST TALK SHOW 

BEST REALITY SHOW HOST

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

BEST DRAMA SERIES

BEST GUEST PERFORMER IN A DRAMA SERIES

BEST MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION OR LIMITED SERIES 

BEST ACTOR IN A MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION OR LIMITED SERIES 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION OR LIMITED SERIES

BEST ACTRESS IN A MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION OR LIMITED SERIES 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION OR LIMITED SERIES 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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