5 Ways to Recap the Critics' Choice Awards

By George Rose

January 15, 2018

Sirius Black is somewhere in there.

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The Golden Globes kicked off the award shows in respectable fashion a week ago with everyone wearing black but now we are officially in full swing of the celebratory season. The Globes cast a wide net by awarding comedy and drama as separate categories, and many of the other second-rate award shows do the same. There are even third-rate shows like the Critic’s Choice Awards (CCA’s) where some of the big stars don’t even show up because they don’t want to waste any of their good speech material on a back-alley award. Whether comedy or drama, second or third-rate, the only thing that matters is Oscar. Marvel beats DC, women currently dominate over men (I mean… everyone is equal!) and movies are better than TV. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. This is “Box Office Prophets” not “Movies and TV are as Equal as Men and Women Prophets,” so I don’t have to treat TV fairly if I don’t want to.

With that being said, Big Little Lies, The Handmaiden’s Tale and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel continue to hog the TV remote and that’s great for them. Everyone tell TV how pretty they are. Ok, good, moving on to movies. The Globes cast the wide net that ends up giving recognition to about ten films, actors and actresses, and supporting players. There’s a lot and, really, it’s just meant to give a broad idea of what films we should start watching out for. We learned the best Oscar bet at the moment is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (four Globe wins), while The Shape of Water and Lady Bird are proving to be its biggest threats (two Globes each). Besides those three films, anything is anyone’s guess at the moment.

Though Oscars are too hard to predict as far out as the Globes and the real mid-level awards shows worth watching have “Guild” in the name (Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild Association, Writer’s Guild, etc.), there are still some small ones that matter along the way. Well, they don’t really matter but they’re super fun, and they help heighten the tension between now and the Hollywood Super Bowl. While there’s no “Guild” in the CCA’s it is the first one to come after after the Globes and shake things up. As the Guild-less bastard of the awards bunch that appears on a network for awkward teenagers (The CW), I imagine many of you don’t watch this particular award show. For you, my friends, here are 5 Ways to Recap the CCA’s.




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#1) THE (SAME) SHAPE OF VICTORY

Winning a Golden Globe doesn’t count for much, not because it’s a meaningless award but because it’s the first to be handed out. Nothing is set in stone and one early win doesn’t mean much. It’s the late-victories and multi-wins that matter. It’s too early to talk about dark horses so for now we’ll focus on the few that are the first to claim double victories with a Globe and CCA:

Score (Shape of Water), Foreign Language (In the Fade), Animated (Coco), Supporting Actress (Allison Janney in I, Tonya), Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards), Director (Guillermo del Toro for Shape of Water), Actor - Comedy (James Franco in Disaster Artist), Actor (Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour), and Actress (Frances McDormand in Three Billboards).

So here’s the things about awards season: while you can easily differentiate movies from TV (unless you’re talking about Best TV Movie or Limited Series, but I digress), it’s not always easy differentiating between comedy and drama. The Globes lump comedy and musicals together, and put drama in its own corner. The CCA’s don’t differentiate between the two. Instead, they have a category for Best Picture but then also Best Action Movie, Best Comedy Movie, and Best Sci-Fi or Horror Movie. This would all be well and good if these categories were treated like a math problem with simple rules in place to help ensure everything makes sense.


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