Category: Precursors

The Irishman continues to dominate the precursors, as do Marriage Story and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Most of the folk that are or have been in the conversation continue to be mentioned without any major surprises. Award Tallies (7) The Irishman (6) Marriage Story, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (4) Parasite (3) Jojo…

Nothing on this list is particularly surprising, but what is surprising is the special award to Parasite. AFI does not often give out such awards, so that makes this truly a special selection. This is also only a list of American-made films. Non-American films aren’t eligible, which could explain some exclusions. The Awards Best American…

The New York Film Critics Circle always enjoy being contrary and they often choose a mixture of popular and off-beat. That is very true this year with films like The Irishman and Uncut Gems being awarded side-by-side. When Parasite won Foreign Language Film and Quentin Tarantino won the screenplay award, it seemed likely The Irishman…

Announced over multiple days, starting on Monday, Dec. 2 and finalizing on Dec. 4, the Australian Academy Awards are a completely different operation and their winners are no less strange, but also interesting to boot. The Nightingale won the night with four prizes having gone into the second night with only one award. The King…

There are a couple of things that can be definitively said about the National Board of Review. They love Clint Eastwood and their winners seldom take home Oscars without a critic award sweep. That first statement bears out in their recognition of Kathy Bates in Supporting Actress, Paul Walter Hauser in Breakthrough Performance, and their…

Coming as a surprise to no one, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story easily took the award for Best Feature along with awards for Best Actor and Best Screenplay. This should give a boost to all of the winners going into the Oscar nominations with Adam Driver, Awkwafina, Marriage Story, and American Factory all solid contenders at…

While hardly a notable precursor, Spain’s Academy Awards, the Goya Awards, recognize the best that nation has to offer with few nominations for releases from other countries. Storming the nominations were three films that earned double-digit citations with all the rest receiving five or fewer nominees. While at War topped them all with seventeen while…

The International Press Academy is a most bizarre organization. They regularly change some dates, refuse to announce others, and generally feel like an utterly disorganized mess. A strange parallel to the far more organized Golden Globes, it’s surprising that the group is still giving out awards. When asked to provide a date for their awards,…

How the Atlanta film critics have become the first of the minor critics to announce is anyone’s guess, but here they are hot on the heels of the other early newbies the Hollywood Critics Association. Unlike the HCA, Atlanta seems to have an eye on influencing the Oscars with a lot of daring choices. Parasite…

Not exactly known for their Oscar forecasting, the AARP Movies for Grownups nominations nevertheless feature all of the major players, at least the ones eligible for their AARP card. Matter of fact, most of the older contenders are here with the exception of Ian McKellen, Willem Dafoe, and maybe a few others. There’s not a…

A couple of noteworthy/surprising things happened in this year’s Annie Awards nominations and a couple of the surprises aren’t a good sign. Let’s start with what we expected. Frozen II was sure to clean up here and Toy Story 4 was also supposed to do well and they did. How to Train Your Dragon: The…

The Hollywood Critics Association got out of the gate first among critics organizations, but their newness isn’t something that speaks to credibility. They seemed to love Quentin Tarantino’s film more than others while several titles earned strong nomination sets in spite of earlier letdowns (Waves and The Farewell for example). Still, Bombshell, which earned 9…