Critics Choice Preview

The next big announcement is going to come from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, or BFCA, or Critics Choice awards. They are the largest voting body of critics -around 300.  They are also filled with folks of “dubious achievements,” and more Oscar bloggers than they probably should have. That makes their tastes somewhat mainstream but also a bit in keeping with the kinds of waves of popularity that sometimes take hold online but fail to move the needle in the industry at all.

Their tastes can sometimes match up with Oscar but the really important thing to know about them this year is that their live show is going to take place the same day of Oscar nominations. It will also be positionedafter the Golden Globe awards, unlike last year.   What happens at the Globes could maybe be altered somewhat by what happens at the BFCAs – their ratings were up last year, though they lost major points for cutting away during Tony Kushner’s win.  If their show sacrifices important moments like that to make it more MTV-esque it will lose credibility and influence quickly.  The Globes would never do such a thing.

The Critics Choice nominations will be announced bright and early Monday morning first as breaking news on KTLA, a local network here in Los Angeles, around 8:45am, before hitting the web shortly thereafter.

Last year, their top ten had all Best Picture nominees save Amour:

Winner: Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
The Master
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

The year before they were one of the few groups to nominate Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close AND War Horse for Best Picture, with all nine again:

2011: The Artist
The Descendants
Drive
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

The year before they had 9 out 10 – putting in, as many did, The Town instead of The Blind Side. Mercifully, they gave their Best Picture prize to the rightful winner that year, The Social Network.

2010: The Social Network
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The King’s Speech
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

And the year before they had to live down the “strong showing” of Nine — sometimes it is as though they vote in anticipation of what Oscar might do, rather than what they think is best:

2009: The Hurt Locker
Avatar
An Education
Inglourious Basterds
Invictus
Nine
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Before that, Oscar’s Best Picture was down to five so it mattered less.

Care to leave your predictions for the Critics Choice nominees?

My prediction is this: 12 Years a Slave, Her and American Hustle will lead. They will lean more towards American Hustle as it is totally their kind of movie. I’m also going to guess that they will give American Hustle the win. But the Academy will go for 12 Years a Slave.

Best Picture
12 Years a Slave
Gravity
American Hustle
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
Wolf of Wall Street
Her
Captain Phillips
Fruitvale Station
Saving Mr. Banks OR Blue is the Warmest Colour

One other prediction:

Adele Exarchopoulos will get nominated for Actress, Lea Seydoux for Supporting. This is a group that will go for this film bigger than other groups, being that it is representative of “the internet.” And “the internet” this year loves that movie, that actress and Spike Jonze’s Her. So expect to see a lot of love thrown that way.