‘Selma’ Wins Big at the AAFCA Awards & NAACP Image Award Nominations

Margaret here with a look at the nominees for the 2014 NAACP Image Awards, as well as the winners of the African American Film Critics Association year-end prizes.

It continues to be a good season for Selma, which racked up eight Image Award nominations-- especially impressive when you consider that there are only seven categories. (Six of its nominations are for acting.) Period drama Belle and James Brown biopic Get On Up both received five nominations each, and the music industry romantic drama Beyond the Lights earned three.

The AAFCA announced their awards, naming Selma best picture alongside nine other outstanding films. The AAFCA Top Ten Films of 2014 are as follows in order of distinction: 

• SELMA
• THE IMITATION GAME
• THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
• BIRDMAN
• BELLE
• TOP FIVE
• UNBROKEN
• DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
• GET ON UP
• BLACK OR WHITE

A complete list of AAFCA winners, and Image nominees (some interesting stuff - now with double the Viola Davis!)  after the jump...

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Gotham Nominees: Boyhood vs. Birdman vs. Budapest

The Gotham Awards juried nominations have recently surplanted the ancient NBR as the first real awards nomination/wins of the film year. That it happens in October is more than a little crazy, but what'cha gonna do? The New York centric film prizes, think of it as the Spirit Awards's East Coast Cousin albeit with far fewer prizes will be held on December 1st. Since they only have six categories and four separate juries (composed of critics and programmers), multiple nods aren't as easy to come by as they are at other shows but a handful of films managed it: Boyhood, Birdman, Dear White People, Nightcrawler, and Under the Skin.

BEST FEATURE 

• BIRDMAN
• BOYHOOD
• GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
• LOVE IS STRANGE
• UNDER THE SKIN

Very happy to see the intensely moving Love is Strange, in constant danger of being undervalued, show up. Especially since it didn't show up anywhere else. 199 films were eligible for these honors.

BEST ACTRESS (they don't have lead or supporting designations)

Big year for GUGU with Belle as breakthrough and a nom for Beyond the Lights

• PATRICIA ARQUETTE, Boyhood
• SCARLETT JOHANSSON, Under the Skin
• GUGU MBATHA-RAW, Beyond the Lights
• JULIANNE MOORE, Still Alice
• MIA WASIKOWSKA, Tracks

Given that Still Alice is only getting a qualifying Oscar run and there's no proof that it will even play in NYC by the end of the year (LA is the only required theatrical run) I think it's weird to nominate Julianne Moore at the Gothams, however excellent she is in the picture. I wonder what criteria they use for eligibility?

BEST ACTOR (they don't have lead or supporting designations)

• BILL HADER, The Skeleton Twins
• ETHAN HAWKE, Boyhood
• OSCAR ISAAC, A Most Violent Year
• MICHAEL KEATON, Birdman
• MILES TELLER, Whiplash

Interesting to see Oscar Isaac show up but not Jessica Chastain when the same nominating committee chose for both categories. 

BREAKTHROUGH ACTOR OR ACTRESS

• RIZ AHMED, Nightcrawler
• MACON BLAIR, Blue Ruin
• ELLAR COLTRANE, Boyhood
• JOEY KING, Wish I Was Here
• JENNY SLATE, Obvious Child
• TESSA THOMPSON, Dear White People

Slightly odd choices by the breakthrough committee. I love Boyhood and Nightcrawler but it seems weird to single out Coltrane or Ahmed from either, not only because they aren't the MVPs but because their performances just aren't at the same accomplished level as their co-stars. 

BREAKTHROUGH DIRECTOR

• ANA LILY AMIRPOUR, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
• JAMES WARD BYRKIT, Coherence
• DAN GILROY, Nightcrawler
• ELIZA HITTMAN, It Felt Like Love
• JUSTIN SIMIEN, Dear White People

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• ACTRESS
• CITIZENFOUR
• LIFE ITSELF
• MANAKAMANA
• POINT AND SHOOT 

I haven't yet seen Life Itself (I know I know) but I increasingly suspect, based on everything I've read about it, that hero worship is really getting in the way. It's not that I don't appreciate Ebert's work or that I don't understand the need to honor him for a special life in this very specialized field. But as with Oscars view of documentary, sometimes subject matter trumps execution in terms of awardage. Critics complain when that happens. Except when it happens to a movie about a film critic ;) I reserve the right to change my mind and consider it very worthy if I see it but I just wanted to point out that this is always a real danger in awardage for all groups, not just Oscar, the effect of subject matter trumping execution. 

Links: Monty, Misty, Michael, More...

Gurus of Gold The new charts. Yes, I need to update the Oscar charts. I'll get started tomorrow!
The Black Maria for his 94th birthday - "Montgomery Clift: The Lost Poet of Omaha"
Serpentine Magazine Pretty Boys & Pathos: The Men of Classic Hollywood
To Be Continued Keith Uhlich on the single takes in American Horror Story, Birdman and Gone Girl
Guardian Scarlett Johansson to star in a live action remake of animated classic Ghost in the Shell 
In Contention let's give Michael Keaton the Oscar

LAFCA will honor Gena Rowlands with their career achievement award this January
CHUD has very mixed feelings on The Book of Life but h-a-t-e-s the soundtrack
The Wrap Actress Misty Upham (Frozen River, August: Osage County) found dead. Initial reports suggest suicide but...
Juliette Lewis (and others who knew her) don't fully believe it and are demanding an investigation
Words & Film thinks St. Vincent is being misrepresented with that dismissive "weepie" brush. But what's wrong with a weepie? 
Deadline Black and White with Kevin Costner & Octavia Spencer to get an Oscar qualifying run
Zap 2 It has a cool feature on three of the freak in American Horror Story: Freakshow 
NPR on Dear White People 

Just 4 Fun
Pointer Pointer another perfect internet time waster
Vulture Anne Rice, Amazon Reviewer 

New Posters (Now With Less Floating Heads)

Manuel here to whet everyone's appetites with some recently released posters.

Fall movie season can sometimes feel much more thrilling for the way it builds anticipation than for what it actually delivers. Every year we can count on plenty of films to entertain, amaze, and awe us, but I'd wager that that number is usually lower than the number of films you were looking forward to. This is partly a math game and partly an acknowledgement of how PR and marketing savvy distributors (both big and small) have become. 

Take, for example these new posters for, respectively, Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children (as divisive after its premiere in Toronto as the film's trailer proved here), Justin Simien's Sundance sensation Dear White People, and Jon Stewart's first feature film Rosewater. I have to admit I love these posters not only because they aren't full of floating heads or beautifully lit silhouettes, but because they manage to signal the film's sensibility. Arguably, this is what we expect from movie posters, but it's not often we get artistic posters like these that embrace the expressiveness of the medium without resorting to distractingly obvious photoshop.

Men, Women and Children clearly works overtime to let you know that it is a Reitman joint what with the imagery evoking that opening credit sequence from Juno and placing Jennifer Garner front and center; yet it also (if a bit bluntly with that tagline) lets you know what the film's core problematic is, something the poster needs to do when the title itself, unless you know the source material, gives you little to no information. How many people do you think are reading The Film Experience on their phones in this poster? 

But if Reitman's poster goes for both quirky and serious, Dear White People openly goes for laughs in a way that is keenly attuned to the racial politics of the film, with Tyler James Williams' character's equally exasperated yet sardonically knowing look letting you know precisely where the film's humor lies. (You can actually read more about the poster's design over at Vulture; turns out a fan of the film went ahead and created this design only to find it becoming the film's official poster when he sent to Simien who loved it!).

The stark color scheme, the off-center image of Gael (covering up his entrancing eyes! the horror!), the prominence of that ever ubiquitous "Based on a True Story" tagline -- or is it more a disclaimer? a promise?; the poster is clearly wanting to associate "Jon Stewart" with something other than the comedic satire he's known for, going instead for a bleak poster that nevertheless bleeds into a hopeful light in the right hand corner. I particularly love the single bullet hole above the S.

What recent posters have nabbed your attention? Has any of them already secured a spot on your movie poster wall? If you could design a poster for one of your all-time favorite films, which one would it be? 

Sundance: 'Dear White People' Aims To Provoke

 Our Sundance Film Festival coverage continues with Michael Cusumano on breakthrough talent winner "Dear White People"  

At the fictional Ivy League University of Westchester Samantha White (Tessa Thompson) hosts a radio show called ‘Dear White People’ in which she delivers a series of confrontational, button-pushing edicts directed at the school’s majority white population. For example:

Dear White People, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has been raised to two. Sorry, your weed man Tyrone doesn’t count.” 

It’s sharp material, and Justin Simien’s Dear White People would have done well to apply the same biting insight to the rest of the film. [more...]

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