In Contention: The Broadcast Film Critics Association
By Josh Spiegel
January 14, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
For those who don't know, the BFCA is a diverse group of critics, who can be found online or on TV, mostly. Among its well-known members are...well, there are few of its members who are nationally known, aside from Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz of the new At The Movies, and the less said about them, the better. Most of the names will be familiar to those who try to figure out who said what quote about what movie, as these are mostly critics who work at local TV stations or have their own Web sites, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that (I expect my check in the mail soon, BFCA!).
The BFCA's awards, called the Critics' Choice, have been going on for 14 years. For the first few years, they only announced winners, mentioning nominees for Best Picture. Also, the BFCA has had some...well, odd categories, including Best Performance by an Inanimate Object in 2000, won by Wilson the volleyball in Cast Away. No, that is not a joke. They gave an award to a volleyball.
Once more nominees were mentioned, the BFCA had a pretty good call on potential Oscar nominees, mostly because they only nominated three people or films per category until their ceremony honoring the films of 2003. The only constant throughout all 14 years is that ten movies end up being nominated for Best Picture. This year, the nominees included Changeling, Slumdog, and WALL-E. Still, despite the random ridiculous category, the BFCA doesn't have a history of nominating movies against conventional wisdom.
None of this year's nominees are too far outside the expected list of movies considered for the top prize. More important, in the past ten years, eight of their Best Picture winners have also won the Best Picture Oscar. They missed in 2004 and 2005, when their winners, Sideways and Brokeback Mountain, had to settle for nominations instead of awards. Still, Slumdog is a very strong contender for Best Picture; it may not end up with the top prize, but it's officially the sole front-runner. The only other major contenders that won more than one award were Milk and The Dark Knight, winning for Best Actor & Ensemble and Best Supporting Actor & Action Film, respectively. I know we were all hoping Milk would take Best Action, but I guess it wasn't in the cards.
The Best Director winner this year is Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog is, unsurprisingly, the big winner at the BFCA this year, as many critics have fallen head-over-heels for the rags-to-riches story, despite it being...dare I say?...a bit overrated. In the past five years, the BFCA is four for five in this category, missing only when they awarded Martin Scorsese the award for The Aviator. At least it didn't take them as long as the Oscars to give something to Scorsese; I mean, he's the greatest!
For Best Actor, as mentioned above, the winner is Sean Penn for his role as Harvey Milk in Milk. Over the past five years, the BFCA is five for five here, including a previous win for Penn in Mystic River. It's likely that Penn's very close to getting himself another Oscar, though Mickey Rourke or Frank Langella, from The Wrestler and Frost/Nixon, are close on his heels for their daring performances. And, hey, Rourke might just challenge Penn to a duel on the stage on Oscar night. That would be a night to remember!
This year's Best Supporting Actor winner is - no surprise - Heath Ledger for his performance in The Dark Knight. Can we just call this the performance of the year? Please? Still, a BFCA win is not an Oscar guarantee: the BFCA has only gotten two of the past five winners correct, though all their winners were nominated for Oscars. Among the Oscar losers are Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man and Thomas Haden Church for Sideways. Hey, they were both in Sideways and both lost Oscars. It's an Oscar conspiracy!
This year's Best Actress winner is Meryl Streep...and Anne Hathaway. Are they starring in a new all-female version of The Man With Two Heads? No, wait, it's a tie! Yes, the actresses, who won for Doubt and Rachel Getting Married, got to share the award, something that is very unlikely to happen at the Oscars. It did happen - once - about 40 years ago, when Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn tied in 1968 for Funny Girl and The Lion In Winter. So...don't bet on this happening in February.
This is even more the case because the BFCA has had many ties in the past; however, they are four for five in previous Oscar winners for Best Actress, missing last year with Julie Christie in Away From Her, though she was still a nominee. Who'd have guessed a tie, though? Of course, this is the group that gave a volleyball an award.
It's worth noting, though, that the last two BFCA ties, in 2003 and 2006, were among Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson for Gangs of New York and About Schmidt, and Amy Adams & Michelle Williams for Junebug and Brokeback Mountain. All were nominated for Oscars, but none won. Spooky.
In a relative surprise, Kate Winslet won Best Supporting Actress for her lead...I mean, supporting role in The Reader, as opposed to favored actress Penelope Cruz. Winslet is likely to end up an Oscar nominee in the same category, despite her relatively unsupporting time onscreen. However, the BFCA is just as bad at predicting winners here as in Supporting Actor, getting only two of five winners correct, missing with that aforementioned tie among other mistakes.
This year's winner for Best Writer (meaning any screenplay, original or adapted) is Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire. Beaufoy should be preparing for an Oscar nod, and may even win for Best Adapted. In the past, the BFCA has a good track record of picking Oscar nominees and winners, despite not having two categories. In the past five years, only the 2004 ceremony did not nominate both Oscar winners for writing, when In America, an Oscar nominee, won, and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King wasn't even nominated at the BFCAs, despite winning at the Oscars.
With the Golden Globes announcing their winners this week as well, the part of awards season that involves handing the shiny things out has begun. Start your Oscar pools, folks!