Category: Precursors
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Precursor: 42nd Los Angeles Critics Awards (2016)
The Los Angeles Film Critics have announced their winners for the best of 2016. Moonlight performed strongly with La La Land coming in second frequently. Adam Driver and Lily Gladstone received surprise citations while The Handmaiden makes a strong play in Best Foreign Language Film and Best Production Design. Award Tallies (4) Moonlight (2) The…
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Precursor: 15th DC Critics Nominations (2016)
The DC Area film Critics have announced their preliminary nominations for this year’s awards. They will announce their winners on Monday (December 5, 2016). Looking over this list, the usual suspects (Moonlight, La La Land, and Manchester by the Sea are here. There are also strong showings by Arrival, Hell or High Water and Jackie.…
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Precursor: 82nd New York Critics Awards (2016)
La La Land gets another huge shot in the arm with a Best Picture win from the New York Film Critics Circle. Moonlight also got a major boost, as did Isabelle Huppert. Zootopia is the surprising choice for Best Animated Film and gives it a boost towards the Oscars where its early release may have…
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Precursor: 22nd Broadcast Critics Nominations (2016)
The Broadcast Film Critics Association, moving ever further back into the awards season, wants to be the first live broadcast of awards of the season. In moving back, they have inadvertently made themselves slightly less relevant. With two of the year’s major Oscar players Silence (for most categories) and Rogue One (in tech categories), not…
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Precursor: 88th National Board of Review Awards (2016)
Kenneth Lonergan’s drama Manchester by the Sea picked up three prizes from the National Board of review, including Best Picture. Many of the year’s key competitors are in evidence here with some noteworthy surprises such as Hidden Figures earning the ensemble award and the here-to-fore unseen Silence placing on the list in spite of that.…
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Precursor: 21st Satellite Awards Nominations (2016)
La La Land had a tremendous day with an astounding 13 nominations. The next film down on the list was Hacksaw Ridge, which needed some measure of recognition from the precursors to remain relevant. Also helped by these nominations: Hidden Figures, a film that didn’t seem on many radars until it was pulled back to…
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Oscar Preview: Precursor Winners & Losers, Week 1
As the precursor awards continue unabated until Oscar night, I’m going to be providing a weekly update highlighting the films that have won and lost momentum through the precursor awards (and in some cases other outside influences). Our first precursor of the year, the Spirit Awards nominations, came out last week. The below commentary is…
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Precursor: 25th Annie Awards Nominations (2016)
By benefit of receiving a double nomination in a single category, Zootopia barely edges out Kubo and the Two Strings for the year’s most nominated animated feature. The two will likely be duking it out for dominance with Kubo‘s more inventive stop-motion animation sure to be a foil to the Disney juggernaut from earlier this…
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Precursor Anniversaries
This week, we start the ball rolling (and rolling fast) of Precursor Season. This year, several organizations are celebrating milestone anniversaries. Below, please find the list of precursors and their anniversary celebrations. It should also be noted that last year, I neglected to post this congratulatory posted, so I’ve included all anniversaries from last year…
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Precursor: 32nd Spirit Awards Nominations (2016)
There is a lot to take in with this set of nominees. Hell or High Water, one of the most acclaimed films of the early part of the year, misses out in the major categories, only earning nominations for Supporting Actor, Screenplay, and Editing. This pretty much assures us that it’s not nearly as much…
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Precursor: 28th PGA Documentary Nominations (2016)
Cue accusations of racism. 13th, Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed documentary isn’t nominated. Those accusations may or may not be accurate, but it seems highly suspicious that a film so acclaimed would be ignored in favor of five documentaries, only two of which are familiar outside of film critics (The Eagle Huntress, O.J.: Made in America) and…
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89th Oscars: The Precursors Are Coming!
Today begins Precursor Season. Film Independent will announce its nominations for the annual Spirit Awards, a recognition of the best indie films released in 2016. We’ll also get the Best Documentary Feature nominees from the Producers Guild of America. With these, Oscar season will have officially begun and, after Thanksgiving, will begin snowballing through December,…
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Precursor: 63rd Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards (2015)
I suppose it’s probably a good thing that these didn’t come out before the Oscars as they would have likely caused confusion, but the clear result is that The Revenant did better than most were expecting, which means it’s most likely headed for the Oscar win over Mad Max: Fury Road in both sound categories…
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Precursor: 36th Golden Raspberry Awards (2015)
A tie in the Worst Picture race is the most surprising result on this list as many of these selections were expected. Award Tallies (5) Fifty Shades of Grey (3) Fantastic Four The Awards Worst Picture TIE: Fantastic Four Fifty Shades of Grey
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Precursor: 31st Spirit Awards (2015)
Ignoring the first rule of predicting the Spirit Award winners is a bad idea since all the Oscar nominees in each category won. Award Tallies (5) Spotlight (2) Beasts of No Nation, Room The Awards Best Feature Spotlight (Wesley, Peter, Tripp, Thomas)
