Category: Precursors
-
Oscar Preview: Precursor Winners & Losers, Week 2
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). A large handful of prominent critics groups announced their awards this week, with another slew to come out…
-
Precursor: 13th New York Online Critics Awards (2014)
Another win for Boyhood and a first-time appearance by Eddie Redmayne. The film also got some love from their top ten list, which also includes the also heretofore unrecognized The Imitation Game. Award Tallies (3) Birdman, Boyhood (2) Two Days, One Night The Awards Best Picture Boyhood
-
Precursor: 40th Los Angeles Critics Awards (2014)
The Los Angeles critics made some idiosyncratic choice, though stayed in line with other critics groups. Patricia Arquette suddenly gets promoted to lead for Boyhood. Award Tallies (4) Boyhood (2) The Grand Budapest Hotel, Ida The Awards Best Picture Boyhood (RU: The Grand Budapest Hotel)
-
Precursor: 35th Boston Critics Awards (2014)
Richard Linklater’s 12-year project continues to roll through precursor season. Is it building up to be a big winner or will it fall like so many other critics’ favorites in recent years? Not much is new from this list, though the previously-invulnerable The Lego Movie was finally beaten, though it isn’t necessarily the kind of…
-
Precursor: 13th DC Critics Nominations (2014)
Not too many shocking selections from the DC critics. Many of the films we expected critics to love (Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Whiplash) are here as are some films (Gone Girl and Selma that some thought might be fading or not getting enough attention from critics so far. They announce their winners…
-
Precursor: 3rd Boston Online Critics Awards (2014)
In three critic group announcements, we’ve had three wildly different sets of results, including Best Director winners, Best Actor winners and a whole slate of other differences. This wide-open year is getting quite interesting. Kudos to Boston’s online critics for recognizing the brilliant Snowpiercer. Award Tallies (4) Birdman (2) Calvary, Snowpiercer, Two Days, One Night…
-
Precursor: 57th Grammy Nominations (2014)
The Grammy nominations are sometimes idiosyncratic. They are always poor predictors. The Grammy deadlines typically mean that several prior-year films make it into the mix, with this year being no exception. Completely disregard the Compilation Soundtrack category as none of them are Oscar eligible (this year or last). Toss out three-fifths of the soundtrack category…
-
Precursor: 86th National Board of Review Awards (2014)
The National Board of Review take a bizarre turn into new territory with their selection of The Most Violent Year as Best Film of 2014. The indie hadn’t been making much of an impact in early prognostication, but suddenly bursts into the competition with the most awards this year from NBR. Selma is left out…
-
Precursor: 26th PGA Documentary Nominations (2014)
Notably absent from this list are documentaries with heavy political commentary. That won’t help many of these translate to Oscar nominations. Of these, Life Itself, Particle Fever and Virunga are the most likely to jump onto the Oscar ballot. The Nominations Best Documentary The Green Prince Life Itself Merchants of Doubt Particle Fever Virunga Producers…
-
Precursor: 23rd Annie Awards Nominations (2014)
There are two notable results here. One in that The Boxtrolls topped the nomination count over what would have been the standard DreamWorks topper How to Train Your Dragon 2 (though, if you look at history, Laika does really well with the Annie Awards). Two, The Lego Movie only secured 6 nominations, fifth-most for the…
-
Precursor: 80th New York Critics Awards (2014)
Birdman, a quintessentially New York film was completely ignored as the New York Film Critics Circle announced their winners for the best of the year. Boyhood picked up three prizes, taking Best Picture, Director and Supporting Actress (Patricia Arquette). The Immigrant was the only other film to secure more than one award, winning for Best…
-
Precursor: 19th Satellite Nominations (2014)
The first broad-audience precursor out of the gate is the International Press Academy and their Satellite Awards. Founded 19 years ago, the group has put forth some of the most eclectic choices and has been one of the worst barometers of Oscar recognition. Their early deadline has pretty much doomed films like Unbroken, which wasn’t…
-
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). There was only one item this week, the Spirit Awards Nominations. The group has become more consistent in…
-
87th Oscars: Precursor Season Has Begun
This past week, The Film Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced. The Spirit Awards are, in essence, the beginning and end of Precursor Season. They are the first group to announce anything and they are the last group to announce prior to the Oscars (the night before specifically). For the next three months, we’ll be…
-
Precursor: 30th Spirit Awards Nominations (2014)
As expected, three of the four films with the biggest tallies this year are prime contenders for the Oscars. Birdman topped all others and nabbed nominations in all the expected categories except screenplay. Boyhood did the same, also missing out on screenplay while Selma showed where it could be strongest. Nightcrawler also performed surprisingly well…
