In Contention: The Broadcast Film Critics Association

By Josh Spiegel

January 14, 2009

To be fair, it is a better actor than Jessica Alba.

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The Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) handed out their awards on Thursday in the first nationally televised ceremony of the season and Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner, coming out with awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writer, Best Composer, and Best Young Actor. If you are not already on the Slumdog train, jump on now, as an Oscar sweep may be in the cards.

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.




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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!


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