Friday critics’ roundup: Boyhood, Nightcrawler, and Birdman advance

criticsroundup 19.12.14

Another week is nearly over, which means that there is another bunch of critics awards to report on. Leading the pack still is Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, which continues to be trailed by Birdman. Amongst these is a few surprises, mostly in the form of Nightcrawler‘s quick ascension from TIFF play to underdog, the lack of The Imitation Game (although that was always going to be a bigger play with the industry, not critics) and Mommy, which I still see as the Foreign Language frontrunner despite its lack of a Golden Globe nomination and critics wins (Interested to see how that pans out for it), and some more love for the excellent Snowpiercer. 

Full lists from Phoenix, San Diego, Austin, St. Louis, Indiana, Kansas, and San Francisco.

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Going for gold: Final pre-Golden Globes Oscar predictions

oscar predictions december 11

SAG nominations today, Golden Globes nominations tomorrow. This is me (kidding). The Globes are famously hard to predict but wonderfully entertaining, loving to throw crazily left-field and celebrity oriented nominations in there, hence my lack of predicting. Instead of trying to spitball the nominations that are going to be known in a number of hours, I’ve decided that right now is the perfect time to take a look at the state of the Oscar race (which has, so far, been pretty much devoid of large shake-ups, which is why I haven’t done this in so long), with my predictions for most categories (barring Sound Mixing, Score, Song, Visual Effects, Makeup, Animated Short, Live Action Short, and Documentary Short) under the cut. Rather than ramble on for much too long here, which is beside the point, I know you’re all more interested in the predictions, lets jump right in, shall we? I hope tomorrow morning isn’t filled with too much frustration (actually, the only event that would make me frustrated is Tatiana Maslany not getting nominated, but that’s for another post), and stay tuned for SAG and Golden Globe nominations discussion!

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Boyhood tops Los Angeles, New York Online, and Boston, Richard Linklater named Best Director of 2014

Richard Linklater’s Boyhood.

By this point I feel as though I’m repeating myself (this is shaping up to be a slow year so far), so apologies, but overnight Boyhood took out the top prizes at three more critics awards – Los Angeles, New York Online, and Boston. At this point, Richard Linklater’s 12 year epic still has the upper hand, very much so. It’s going to take a lot to dismantle this one, which has long cemented itself in the public consciousness. On Thursday I’ll have my updated predictions, just before the Golden Globe nominations on Friday. The full lists of the winners follow. Continue reading “Boyhood tops Los Angeles, New York Online, and Boston, Richard Linklater named Best Director of 2014”