NSFC Gives Isabelle Huppert the Critical Triple

The National Society of Film Critics have spoken. The last important critics prizes of each season is sometimes idiocyncratic but not this year. They've gone with the the leaders in every single category (in terms of past critics prizes from all over the nation) except Best Cinematography. That award has varied from groups to groups and here it goes to Moonlight.

Most importantly they've given Isabelle Huppert the rare triple crown of film critic prizes. She'd previously won both New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. To show you how infrequently that happens a list of the previous winners of all three after the jump...

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'Winners!' Sincerely, Isabelle & Paul

Congratulations to the winners of our Elle poster contest. The posters are signed by Isabelle Huppert and Paul Verhoeven and I asked people to share a story about an early encounter with either a Huppert or Verhoeven film, though winners were drawn randomly.

Congratulates to... Joshua from Texas who writes:

It was Slant's review of that gave me, for the first time, the experience of approaching a film with a legitimate lens. It blew my mind and inspired me to become a Verhoeven devotee (I ordered a box set of all his Dutch films at a quite exorbitant price because I needed to see everything!) as well as laying the foundation for my academic interests; I study celebrity from a rhetorical perspective and wrote my first significant academic paper over Showgirls!

And Salim from Florida who writes:

My favorite Paul Verhoeven film encounter involved getting ready to go to Vegas in 2012 with my then-girlfriend to visit her family and deciding to prep her between Showgirls and Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven as a double feature at my place. Her genuinely positive response and the good we had watching the former told me she might be the one.

The posters are on their way to you!

Thanks to everyone who entered and if you didn't enter but are rooting for Huppert's Oscar nomination, cross your fingers and wish on the Oscar-nominated French stars who preceded her. 

AARP Deems Loving The Most Grownup Movie of the Year

by Daniel Crooke

As Paul Ryan and his conference of House Republicans noodle over whether to raise the national retirement age, it’s more important than ever to stand with the AARP – even in Oscar season, when they honor their annual favorites in film. You can rely upon their Movies for Grownups Awards to serve up some fresh names in the same-old stale category line-ups and this year’s idiosyncratic nominations were no different: Molly Shannon! Tilda Swinton! Stephen McKinley Henderson! The ballots have been collected, the final winners tabulated, and this year the AARP Movies for Grownups selected Loving as the Best Picture of 2016. And Character Actress Margo Martindale will host their awards ceremony!

It would be silly to blow these awards out of proportion but as Nathaniel has pointed out, it’s interesting to consider the chief commonality between the Academy and the AARP: age.

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This One's For All You Cat People...

Year in Review. Each day a new wrap up list. Today Nathaniel with a litter of cinematic felines...

 It's time for a purrfect top ten list. The following list is dedicated to your editor's beloved and much-missed furbaby, Monty who left us in August. In honor of Monty, the web's first Oscar pundit cat, here are some of the most memorable felines of this screen year on movies and television.

Sorry not sorry to all the dog people out there. Isn't that unconditional love from your pup reward enough? Must you always demand doggy time? Let we, the crazy cat ladies, have the spotlight this time!

10 BEST CINEMATIC CATS OF 16

10 Mountain Lion The Neon Demon
This menacing cameo is primo WTFery and hard to forget but surely I did forgot some other key cats. You'll fill me in in the comments about felines who might have made this list, I'm sure...

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Podcast: Critics Awards, Elle, Hacksaw Ridge, More...

This week a bifurcated podcast. In the first half Nick, Joe, and Nathaniel continue their discussion of Elle. Then Katey joins us to talk about the recent surge of critics awards. 

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 A little more on Elle, Huppert, and provocateur auteurs
13:00 Bleed For This, The Fighter, Hidden Figures
19:20 Katey joins us & Nick goes to New Zealand
23:00 Critic prizes, Critics Choice Nomination, NBR, the lack of transparency, and Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge
40:00 A bit on Hell or High Water

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments. On the next podcast: Manchester by the Sea and Reader Questions Answered! 

Critics Award Rush...